California’s get-out-of-jail-free card could put children at risk of horrible violence
Prison reform advocate warns that 50-year-old eligibility age is dangerous loophole for sex offenders
In the quiet halls of certain parole hearings across the country, a dangerous experiment is unfolding. It is an experiment that is rooted in the proven research that most people – even violent offenders – age out of crime. But as recent, chilling cases across the country prove, age is not a cure for evil. For example, California’s elderly parole law has become a threat to public safety and will set the smart on crime justice movement back.
I have worked on major criminal justice and public safety reforms across the country. I worked extensively on the “First Step Act,” and was in the Oval Office with President Donald Trump when it was signed. I spent my first career as a criminal trial lawyer, representing many people accused of violent and gang crimes.
I also spent time in prison for causing a nonfatal drunken-driving accident, and have been on parole myself. As someone who has devoted much of my advocacy life to second-chance hiring, reentry and making the streets safer through smart on crime policy, California’s sex offender safety valve is the wrong answer.
California has become the test case for a law rooted in science but wrongly applied. Under California Penal Code section 3055, nearly any inmate who is 50 years of age or older and has served at least 20 continuous years is eligible for an elderly parole hearing. The problem with this law is that it includes individuals who raped and kidnapped children. These laws are framed – and often applied – as compassionate release for the infirm, but they are morphing into a parachute for serial child predators which must be stopped.