Second Chances Don't Mean Second Crimes.
Our vision is to create a parole system in California that is consistent, fair, and rooted in equal opportunity. Our mission is to ensure that people who were under 26 at the time of their crime and sentenced to life without parole have the same opportunity for review as their peers with comparable crimes and equally long sentences.
We believe in public safety, fiscal responsibility, and the human capacity to change. By fixing a gap in the law, we can keep communities safe, save taxpayer dollars, and promote a criminal justice system that values rehabilitation.
Fast Facts
Parole eligibility laws are inconsistent, the solution already exists.
Someone under 18 can no longer be sentenced to life without parole. Those who committed a crime when they were 18–25 years old and were given a 100-year sentence are now eligible for parole after serving a minimum of 25 years.
The gap → the same age groups sentenced to life without parole are excluded completely unless a prosecutor or the governor takes a special interest in re-examining their sentence.
The Solution → Expand the existing structure that is successfully being applied to de-facto life sentences to include the small subset of individuals currently excluded.
Parole is not guaranteed.
California’s parole board is one of the strictest in the country. Only about 14% of people eligible for parole are granted release – and only if they can prove maturity, rehabilitation and genuine remorse, and that they no longer pose a danger to society.
People change.
Brain science shows that judgment and impulse control aren’t fully developed until around age 25. When given the opportunity, many people grow and mature into entirely different individuals than they were at 18, 20, or 25.
Second chances don’t mean second crimes.
People released through the parole process after serving decades almost never reoffend. The reoffense rate is around 2.5%, compared to nearly 40% overall.
Numerous California Supreme Court Justices and Appellate Courts have questioned the constitutionality of applying a life without parole sentence on youth between the ages of 18 through 25
They have called upon the State Legislature to correct the Youth Offender Parole law to include 18-to-25-year olds sentenced to life without possibility of parole.
Applying the law evenly is not just fair, it’s smart.
California spends more than $130,000 a year per person to keep people incarcerated long after they’ve taken accountability, shown sincere remorse and no longer pose a threat to society. That is money we could use for schools, healthcare, or keeping communities safe.
Two people who commit the same crime can receive different sentences.
“Special Circumstances” laws are sometimes misapplied by prosecutors, such as when using these laws for cases where the evidence doesn’t clearly support them or applying them based on misunderstood motives.
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These laws allow courts to give much harsher punishments for certain crimes as a result of specific actions or facts about how the crime was committed.
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This means, one person may be sentenced to life without parole while another person who committed the same crime in a neighboring county is charged without the special circumstances and could go before the parole board after 25 years.
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Ex: Equating being present at a robbery, where a person was unaware that a death occurred, the same as having committed the murder.
Not everyone would qualify.
The most extreme cases – like mass shootings, clearly established torture, sexual violence, or the murder of law enforcement – are excluded from a second chance.
People who were sentenced to life without parole and later released are making our communities better.
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94% volunteer regularly
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84% financially assist others
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90% work full or part-time
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70% have stepped into a healthy adult role in the life of a young person
77-86% of individuals sentenced to life without parole for crimes committed when they were 18-25 are people of color
SB 672 helps address sentencing disparities that disproportionately harm Black, Brown, and Indigenous youth.