February 1, 2005
Report & Analysis · Other Poll Releases
ATHENS, GA – Georgians favor parole for most inmates, provided that they have shown good behavior and do not present a threat to the general public upon release, according to the latest Peach State Poll. A majority of Georgians (54 percent) disagree that people convicted of crimes should serve the entirety of their sentence. A similar majority (57 percent) believe that the parole system helps restore prisoners to a useful place in society. Eighty percent of the public believes that parole should be granted to inmates who have demonstrated that they have changed their ways.
The Peach State Poll is a quarterly survey of public opinion conducted by the University of Georgia’s Carl Vinson Institute of Government.
Conversely, Georgians generally disagree with the idea of using parole as a means to ease the costs of housing inmates (54 percent) or to help relieve overcrowding in state prisons (64 percent).
Other Peach State Poll results:
* Almost as many Georgians believe that the purpose of the state’s prison system should be to punish (33 percent) as believe it should be to reform inmates (37 percent). Those who identify themselves as politically liberal are the most likely to express the view that state prisons should work to reform inmates (48 percent).
* When it comes to nonviolent offenders, 81 percent of the public believe that these inmates should be eligible for parole prior to serving their entire sentence.
* The general public is aware that inmates convicted of violent crimes on average only serve a portion of the sentence they receive, although the public underestimates the percent of sentence actually served. The public’s average guess was 45 percent of sentence served, whereas the actual percent is about 17 points higher.
These data were taken from a Peach State Poll survey conducted between October 15 and October 23, 2004. The poll included 807 telephone interviews of randomly selected adults in Georgia. For a sample of this size, the margin of error at the 95 percent confidence level is +/-3.5 percent.
