Most people that are convicted of a crime, are at some point during their incarceration, eligible for parole. No doubt, those that are incarcerated, care deeply about how they fare at a parole hearing, as this involves directly their ability to secure some degree of freedom, even if such comes with the confining structure of parole conditions. One would think then, as part of any individual being incarcerated that there would be at some point, after their conviction, so fully disclosed to them, more than once, what behavior does or what behavior does not help them in regards to having a better opportunity of being successfully paroled; for when an individual has an avenue to future freedom, it is invaluable for them to know the rules of that road; and of which, this is also beneficial to society, in the sense of having more of those previously incarcerated that are thereby better prepared to re-enter society as a good member of it.
Again, parole hearings are very important for not just the person so up for parole, but also for society, because when a given individual is incarcerated, the object of the exercise as prisons were original envisioned, is to try to rehabilitate the prisoner; rather than seeing a prisoner as someone that deserves some sort of perpetual and thorough punishment. This means, that prisoners should not only be provided with the opportunity to learn a given trade, or to attend some sort of educational classes, but that they also need the opportunity to reset their thoughts and thereby their actions so as to be in better conformance to what a responsible citizen so represents.
Most of those that make up the prison population are not those that come from a privileged place, for those types of individuals are always the exception, and never the rule. Rather, it is those that have been forsaken, abused, dismissed, and have typically suffered through having lived in an enclave of poverty which has offered them little or no positive role models, as well as a poor educational system that have pre-conditioned a significant number of those people to fail, in addition to having left them with characteristically not having the necessary accouterments that would enable them to achieve orthodox success.
The bottom line is that in America in regards to the percentage and the amount of its own citizens that are incarcerated, it leads the pack by a lengthy margin vis-à-vis other western nations in this dubious category, and of which, it is better late, then never, to help correct that which needs correcting. The one thing that prison provides for those that are in it, is plenty of time, as well as an organized structure -- that would seem to represent then an appropriate time to help those that have taken a wrong turn, to right themselves.
When the parole boards that provide to those so incarcerated a fair process of what the pathway consists of so as to successfully be paroled and are consistent and just in their judgments, along with those institutions that do the incarcerating actually demonstrating some sort of vested interest in seeing that prisoners are given a fair chance to become rehabilitated, and, in addition the prisoners applying themselves in doing their own part to become something of positive worth to society -- then we so find that when these things are combined, that this in total, is what represents merciful justice.