Victims Oppose California’s Elderly Parole Program

My colleague Becky Morgan shared a good item this week on statistics about the number of elderly inmates, with growth of needy inmates increasing the burden on state prisons.

Another perspective on the issue comes this week via the San Jose Mercury News, reporting on California’s Elderly Parole Program:

The Elderly Parole Program was instituted by a federal three-judge panel after a 2013 class-action lawsuit successfully argued that conditions in California’s overcrowded prisons, including poor health care, amounted to cruel and unusual punishment. As a result, the court ordered California to reduce its inmate population. The Elderly Parole Program and a realignment program to move nonviolent convicted felons back to county jails are among the solutions. The Elderly Parole Program will be in effect at least until California meets its prison population targets.

 

In Sacramento, prosecutors and victims rights groups have been working to prevent this temporary program from becoming state law. They scored a small victory last week when, after a call from this newspaper, state Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, gutted Senate Bill 1310, which he introduced last month. The original bill would not only make the Elderly Parole Program state law, but it would also lower the eligibility age to 50 and the time in prison to 15 years.

 

The withdrawal was unexpected and came with little explanation. Leno said in a statement Thursday that the bill would be used as a place holder for “other criminal justice reforms” and that “the bill will not deal with the issue of elder parole.”

The article reports that since the Elderly Parole Program began in February 2014, more than 1,000 inmates have had parole hearings, with 371 granted parole, 89 deemed “not ready,” and 781 denied release.  In the article, the reality of the hearings is seen through the eyes of one victim, who faced the trauma of attending a parole hearing to argue that the man who sexually assaulted her and others some 30 years ago, should serve his full sentence or die in prison — 141 years.

No easy answers here.  For more read, “California’s Elderly Parole Program Forcing Victims to Face Attackers Decades Later.”