Charles Lane has this post at the WaPo's "Post Partisan" blog, titled "How Jaycee Lee Dugard's Tormentor Got Out."

How did [Jaycee's] alleged tormentor, Phillip Garrido, get out of prison in 1988, after only about 11 years of a 50-year federal sentence for a previous abduction?

The answer is in some ways as chilling as the question. Basically, there was no corruption; no major bureaucratic malfunction. The federal parole authorities who let him go were following standard procedure of the time. In fact, according to officials with whom I spoke, Garrido's 11-year stretch for a 1976 kidnaping and rape was relatively harsh in those days.

As we debate changes in sentencing policy, we must never forget how disastrously lax our system became in the 60s and 70s.  That was the thrust of my talk to the National Association of Sentencing Commissions last month, "Remembering, Hopefully Not Repeating, Past Errors in Sentencing Policy." In some aspects things went too far in the other direction and need to be pruned back judiciously, but we must never go back to the way we were.