Legislation aimed at giving more elderly prisoners a chance of early parole has failed to meet its original objective.
The measure is Senate Bill 224 by Sen. Carol Liu, D-Glendale.
AMENDED
The bill instead was amended to make the current Elderly Parole Program law, which gives prisoners 60 years or older who have served 25 years or more of their current sentence an earlier chance to parole.
Before the amendment, SB 224 would have allowed prisoners 50 years and older who have served 15 years or longer on their current sentence an early chance to parole.
The major costs for SB 224, prior to its amendment, would have taken more than $5 million from the General Fund for parole suitability hearings, according to the Appropriations Committee.
FISCAL IMPACT
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) identified provisions in SB 224 that would have a sizeable fiscal impact on the Board of Parole Hearings (BPH).
According to the committee, more than 4,700 parole hearings were scheduled in 2014 at a budgeted cost of “approximately $4 million for costs associated with transcripts and inmate counsel for those hearings.”
ADDITIONAL COST
The committee based the average cost of a hearing at $850. Additional costs, according to the committee, would go in part to hiring BPH staff, commissioners, clinical forensic psychologists and custody staff.
“For every 50 inmates released to parole, first-year net cost savings could range from a minimum of $300,000 to over $1.5 million,” according to committee research.
OVERCROWDING
The current Elderly Parole Program came in response to prison overcrowding. In Coleman v. Brown, a federal court issued an order requiring the state to “implement an Elderly Parole Program so that prisoners who are 60 years of age or older and who have been incarcerated at least 25 years on their current sentence will be referred to the Board of Parole Hearings (BPH) to determine suitability for parole.”
Those interested in this bill may contact their state Assembly and Senate members at assembly.ca.gov/assemblymembers and senate.ca.gov/senators.
