California’s crime rate began its historic plunge in the early 1990s and has continued ever since, with the exception of a few small spikes, including during the COVID-19 pandemic. But it took more than a decade for legislation to reflect the trend.
Lawmakers continued to pass fear-driven crime laws until 2011, based on common misconceptions the crime is higher than in the past. As federal courts threatened to free him from an unconstitutional and cruel prison system, California embarked on a decade of criminal justice reform as lawmakers and voters overturned some of the harshest punishments imposed over the previous half century.
Now the crime and punishment debate has changed again. Republican politicians generally want to end the reform era and return to tougher sentencing. Democrats are divided between continued reform and retrenchment.
That’s the background to the heated debate over state Senate Bill 94, a worthy proposal by Senator Dave Cortese (D-San José) to review the sentences for several hundred elderly California prisoners who were sent to prison for life without parole before June 5, 1990. pre-reformation era.
Life without parole, absent in California until 1978 and rarely used for more than a decade after, became the standard after 1990s ballot measures made sentences mandatory for some crimes.
More recently, reform laws have resulted in some sentencing discretion for judges.
SB 94 follows the wise path of recent laws and US Supreme Court decisions that allow parole hearings for most people sentenced to life without parole for crimes they committed as juveniles.
But it is controversial, because it applies to people who commit crimes as adults, who, unlike their younger peers, cannot blame their criminal actions on their undeveloped brains or lack of mature judgment. It’s important to note, though, that most would-be offenders commit crimes in their late teens or early 20s.
The law will not immediately anger or release one of them. It will create a multistep process that will allow them to make a case for resentencing, but only after they have spent at least 25 years in prison. Serial killers, cop killers and sex offenders are ineligible.
For others, the judge will hear the request and has full discretion to deny it. If a parole hearing is granted and the Parole Board hearing finds the offender eligible for parole — because he has provided evidence of remorse and rehabilitation during his decades in prison — the governor can still deny release.
Most eligible offenders are now in their 60s and 70s, past the prime age for violent crimes. For many, more than half a century has passed between the crime and the right to request a sentence.
Pragmatism and a measured sense of justice, rather than sympathy, are the reasons for this bill. Perhaps some Californians would feel sorry for the killer, regardless of the decades he’s been locked up. But there is a diminishing value in continuing to imprison people for violent acts committed long ago when they were young and foolish.
There are ongoing costs for housing, feeding, clothing and medical care for parents in prison. And there is value to society in limiting the number of decades to be punished for even the most heinous acts after sufficient evidence is provided that there is little risk that parole will endanger the public.
Still, in our system even the most rational sentencing reform takes a backseat to partisan politics. Republicans and Democrats are vying for control of Congress, and the battle over criminal justice measures is being fought with an eye on several up-and-coming House races, as each side uses fear of crime to get voters to the polls.
That’s part of what’s at stake in the fight over whether to repeal Proposition 47, which made theft and certain drug crimes indictable as felonies in an era of hard-hitting crime. And this is part of SB 94.
The bill will fail if it does not pass the Assembly by Friday. It would be a shame to allow safe and cost-saving reforms like this to die in partisan warfare.
