By Alabama Public Radio
Montgomery, AL – The Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles says it wants to ease its rules on victim notification. Those notification laws require the board to contact some crime victims and inform them of relevant upcoming parole hearings. Alabama law requires the state parole board to conduct "due diligence'' in finding crime victims even if an inmate has served several years before their first parole hearing. But many times, those crime victims move away without notice. Sometimes they even die. In a recent case, it took the parole board two years to find victims of a man who took over a school in Tuscaloosa in 1988. Victims groups, the parole board staff and the Alabama Sentencing Commission will meet October 18th to discuss ways to amend the rules.