Washington state's prison chief resigns amid controversy
The head of Washington state’s prison system has resigned amid a political controversy over a computer coding error that has caused thousands of inmates to be mistakenly released early since 2002.
Dan Pacholke stepped down from his post as secretary of the Department of Corrections on Saturday.
In a resignation letter to Governor Jay Inslee on Saturday, the top corrections official defended his three-month tenure at the department but apologized for the error.
“It is my hope that with this resignation, the politicians who would use this tragic event for their political purposes will have satisfied their need for blood,” Pacholke said, adding that “the shaming and blaming needs to end.”
In December, state officials said that as many as 3,200 inmates may have been freed early from prisons over 13 years because of errors in calculating sentences.
The mistakes began after the state’s Supreme Court ruled that the Department of Corrections must apply "good time" credits earned in county jails to state sentences.
Corrections officials are now trying to locate the ex-offenders who were released too early, and state authorities will ensure the ex-offenders will "fulfill their sentences as required by law," the governor said in December.
State corrections authorities learned of the problem in 2012 but failed to fix it.
So far, two deaths have been blamed on inmates freed by mistake. One prisoner was arrested on suspicion of first-degree murder over an attempted robbery 12 days after he was released. Another one was charged with homicide in November last year.
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