:confused: I wonder if anyone knows anything about the mandatory sentences in Iowa. Ron says the guys there at Anamosa seem to be getting paroled right after their mandatory is up. That is still two years away for us, but I am just curious. Does anybody know how this goes? He says it is largely because of the overcrowding of the prisons. I know they are very overcrowded but does anybody KNOW anything? Thanx for reading!!!! ~Jan:confused:

Hey Jan. It's me. If a person is sentenced to mandatory time, they have to serve the mandatory sentence before they are eligible for release. I'll use Justin for example. He was sentenced to 10yrs mandatory 85%, which means he'd have to serve 8.5 yrs before he could be released. However, a new law went into effect as of July 1st, that a person that has served 70% of their time is eligible for parole or work release. So Justin needs to serve 7 years before he's eligible for parole. Fortunately that's only a little over a year away. WOOHOO! Does that help? I'll answer as many questions as I can.

Tana