Why are inmates released by the Board, rather than serving their entire sentences?
In Georgia, the Judge sets the maximum term of confinement, and the Parole Board determines the minimum time to serve. The Board was created for the purpose of providing a non-judicial review of inmate cases, to minimize sentencing disparities, to consider rehabilitative efforts by the inmate, and to select those inmates, after careful review, most likely to succeed on parole.In Georgia, as in other states, limited resources, increased incarceration rates, and lengthy sentences, has meant limited prison bed space. No system can accommodate the steady influx of full-term sentences. Without paroles from prison, overcrowding would result in Federal court intervention with mass releases and no state control over when or which inmates are released.
