Massachusetts. Parole Board

The Board of Parole for the State Prison and the Massachusetts Reformatory and the Board of Parole for the Reformatory for Women were established in 1913, serving jointly as an Advisory Board of Pardons. They were succeeded by a single Board of Parole in 1916 and the Parole Board in 1937, in each case serving also as an Advisory Board of Pardons.

St 1913, c 829 established the Board of Parole for the State Prison and the Massachusetts Reformatory, and the Board of Parole for the Reformatory for Women. The combined boards constituted an Advisory Board of Pardons (to the governor). St 1916, c 241, which replaced The Board of Prison Commissioners with the Massachusetts Bureau of Prisons, replaced the existing boards of parole with a single Board of Parole, also acting as an Advisory Board of Pardons (see also St 1917, c 266). St 1919, c 350, s 85 reconstituted the Board of Parole in the new Dept. of Correction.

St 1937, c 399 replaced the Board of Parole with a Parole Board, which, explicitly per St 1939, c 451, s 52, also continued as the Advisory Board of Pardons. It functions are currently described in MGLA c 127.