Posts Tagged: parole
News
A pair of Nov. 3 ballot measures seeks to confer voting rights on two wildly disparate groups of Californians — prisoners and teenagers. Prop. 17 would amend the state constitution to restore voting rights to prison inmates who have completed their sentences. Prop. 18, another constitutional amendment, would allow 17-year-olds to vote in primary and special elections if they become 18 by the next general election.
News
Former state and federal prisoners, including those on parole, would have the right to vote in California, under a constitutional amendment approved by an Assembly committee. The measure, ACA 6, was approved Wednesday by the Democrat-controlled Assembly Elections and Redistricting Committee in a 6-1 vote. The final decision will be made by voters.
News
New legislation to overhaul California’s youth criminal justice system includes a key provision that bars life-without-parole sentences for juvenile offenders. Currently, the United States is the only country in the world to impose life-without-parole sentences on minors. Throughout the past decade, the U.S. Supreme Court has handed down decisions that have begun to reverse the trend.
Opinion
OPINION: Proposition 57’s 50 percent good time credit should be applied retroactively to all incarcerated people, including lifers who committed violent crimes. Contrary to popular fears, releasing reformed lifers may be the best thing we can do to reduce violent crime.
News
Gov. Jerry Brown has a lot riding on the November ballot. Voters will decide on his Proposition 57, which Brown says would let nonviolent inmates become eligible for parole sooner, create “good behavior” credits for state prisoners and let judges decide whether to try a juvenile as an adult. With California’s prisons crowded and facing a court-imposed population cap, and thousands of inmates housed outside the state, Brown says his measure makes sense.
Opinion
OPINION: Jerry Brown’s push for sentencing reform is the latest great example of Brown doing what most experts and practitioners know to be the right thing—and the willingness of an aging and experienced governor to learn from and correct his mistakes.
News
Gov. Jerry Brown and a number of church and law enforcement leaders said Wednesday they are launching a November ballot initiative that would ease parole restrictions on nonviolent prison inmates and provide incentives for prisoners to work toward an earlier release.
News
Gov. Brown has signed into a law a measure allowing prison inmates who were minors at the time they committed their crimes to apply for resentencing and early release at least 15 years into their sentence.
News
Under the law, minors are treated differently than adults.
A diverse group of voters casting their ballots. (Photo: SeventyFour, via Shutterstock)
