Out lawyer Leo Dunn recently took the reins of the Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole with an aim to improve conditions for inmates and parolees with mental-health issues. A fourth of the state prison population has mental health issues, he said.
Dunn previously spent more than 15 years with the state Department of Agriculture and taught classes on LGBT legal issues at Widener University Commonwealth Law School near Harrisburg. He married his husband in New York in 2011, the first summer it was legal in the state. The two have been together 21 years.
“My big thing is trying to get our agents trained and focus on special populations in areas where we can have an impact in decreasing recidivism,” said Dunn, who became probation and parole board chairman March 16 after serving in various agency capacities since 2004.
Internal research shows offenders with mental-health issues under supervision of specialized parole agents had the rates of them returning to prison reduced by 10-12 percent, Dunn said.
“In this world, that’s huge,” he said, adding 22,000 correctional officers have been trained in mental-health first aid, which helps them recognize signs of a mental-health crisis and deescalate the situation. Agents who were specially trained to deal with sex offenders saw an 8-10 percent decrease in the rates of returning to prison.
“If we want to keep reducing recidivism rates, we need to keep doing these specialized approaches,” Dunn said.
In a 40-minute PGN interview, Dunn also talked about addressing the needs of LGBT people who interact with the criminal justice system.
He said the Department of Corrections has 116 self-identified transgender and intersex inmates and 1,900 who have self-identified as gay or bisexual. The parole board does not track these numbers in its own system partly because it doesn’t have a funded statistical infrastructure like Corrections and partly as a privacy issue for parolees.
“We pay attention to the Department of Corrections numbers,” Dunn said. “When we see large populations we say, OK, can we address the needs of these people with our current policies or do we need something different?”
PGN: Could there be specially trained parole agents to help transgender people with reentry, like there are for people with mental-health issues?
LD: I think it’s something we need to learn more about. I know the Department of Corrections, especially under the Prison Rape Elimination Act, has tried to get the staff better educated and working more with its transgender population. The Department of Corrections made its first transfers of transgender inmates to prisons that align with their gender identity. That started in January. I also pay attention to the recommendations in the Center for American Progress report, called Unjust, on LGBT people in the criminal-justice system. We can’t go back and re-sentence someone. That’s not our job. But if we get them to the point where they can get paroled, we can get them linked up to support systems in the community.
PGN: How does the parole process work?
LD: I interact directly with inmates, though I don’t go out to prisons as much anymore. Normally we do video conferences. Myself and a hearing examiner [and sometimes others] vote to parole individuals. Then the board will ask for a home plan. The field agent will investigate the home or apartment and talk to the person living with the former offender so they know the regulations and how it will impact their life. Everyone is asked if they’re in a relationship or not. That allows the agent to know who that other person is and pay attention to make sure no domestic violence is going on.
PGN: Does the probation and parole board have policies in place to prevent discrimination against LGBT people?
LD: We’re supervising 42,000 parolees. I’ve not yet had any parolee come to me to report discrimination because of LGBT status. If we go to our code of conduct, the first thing it requires is for all employees to perform duties with “integrity and impartiality.” Agency officials can’t treat someone differently or demean them based on several categories including sexual orientation.
PGN: But not gender identity?
LD: I certainly would consider it. Even though it doesn’t specifically go into how to interact with the [whole] LGBT community, I think it’s very clear that no discrimination will be tolerated. I don’t think the code of conduct has been updated in the last 10 years. It’s probably time to do that and bring the language up to modern standards. Anyone within the agency can initiate the consideration of a procedure change. The governor has executive orders on nondiscrimination and we do follow those, which is why sometimes we don’t specifically update our policies.
PGN: Did you ever have issues in your career because of your sexual orientation?
LD: At my previous job in agriculture, very much so. The agriculture community was not the most accepting of someone who was openly gay. On the other hand, I was respected for my knowledge. They just didn’t want to hear about anything I did after work. I was lucky to have come from a family that ended up being very inclusive. When I came out to my mother, she spent 45 minutes going down a list of all the gay and lesbian family members and friends we have. Coming from a supportive background, I do feel the need to help other people.
PGN: How do LGBT former offenders get connected to LGBT resources?
LD: We have had parole agents hook clients up with LGBT centers and other community organizations that could help them with reentry from an LGBT perspective. The board and I can also write notes to staff asking them to link people to LGBT resources. Depending on how we word it, it could be a requirement. While interviewing a young bisexual man to determine his parole status, I came out to him and said, “It’s OK that you’re bisexual. You’ve got to be who you are.” I wanted to let him know he was not in an unfriendly environment here.