Early release program for aging inmates helps clear out California prisons, but at what cost?

Joe Nelson has this Oct. 21 article in the San Bernardino Sun, now mirrored without the paywall at the East Bay Times.

Thirty years ago, before he was sentenced for repeatedly raping his 14-year-old niece in Moreno Valley, Cody Klemp told a probation officer that if he was ever released from custody he would kill the girl for reporting him.

It seemed like he would never get that opportunity when a judge sentenced him to 170 years in prison.

Now, however, Klemp awaits a parole hearing Thursday, Oct. 24, that could free him under a program designed to reduce California’s prison population and slash medical costs by releasing aging, often infirm inmates. The Elderly Parole Program offers parole hearings for those at least 50 years old who have served 20 continuous years of incarceration — even murderers and violent sex offenders.

Klemp’s status page on the California prison department site indicates he was denied parole for five years. But the Board of Parole Hearings has the authority to move that date up any time it feels like it. They are supposed to consider the victims in such decisions, but I have not yet seen any indication that they actually do.

And yes, you read that right. The California Legislature actually defined “elderly” as over 50.

Back to the article:

The Elderly Parole Program was created in 2014 under a court order stemming from a class-action lawsuit. It prompted California’s prison system to establish new policies and programs to thin out its bulging population and reduce bed capacity. The program also was intended to ease the cost and burden of aging prisoners straining the prison health care system.

According to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, more than 27,500 inmates in the prison system are at least 50 years old.

In its infancy, the program established that inmates 60 years of age who served 25 years of continuous incarceration were eligible for early release. In 2018, the Legislature codified the program into law and it was incorporated into the state Penal Code. In 2021, the law was amended, dropping the age qualifying a prisoner for early release from 60 to 50 and reducing the length of required continuous incarceration from 25 to 20 years.

But not all prisoners qualify for early release under the program when they turn 50. Excluded are those sentenced to death or life without the possibility of parole, those sentenced under California’s three-strikes law as a second- or third-striker and those convicted of first-degree murder of a peace officer. However, these offenders do qualify for early release once they turn 60 and have served 25 years of continuous incarceration.

The so-called elderly parole statute is unconstitutional, in my opinion, in cases where it overrides a sentencing formula set by an initiative passed by the voters. The exclusions listed above cover some of those cases, but not all of them. We have a case pending regarding the similar youth offender parole statute. Back to the article:

Even among those who offer some support for the Elderly Parole Program, they draw the line at including violent sex offenders.

Kamaria Henry, managing deputy district attorney for the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office, believes such offenders should not qualify for the program, contending the extensive rehabilitation required for them is lacking in the carceral system.

Proving that sex offenders have been truly rehabilitated and no longer pose a threat to society would require a “monumental feat” given their high recidivism rates, said Henry, who has been fighting to block Klemp’s release.

“For extremely violent people who prey on children, we have to do everything we possibly can to make sure they don’t victimize when they are released,” she said. “They are a very different category. There’s no way that we should consider releasing them.”

*        *       *

Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer ensures that a prosecutor from his office attends every parole hearing to fight against the early release of inmates.

“Governor Gavin Newsom and the California Legislature should not be able to wave a magic wand and declare that some of our state’s most horrific murderers, rapists and child molesters should be let out the front door of California’s prisons after often spending just a fraction of the sentence handed down by a Superior Court judge,” Spitzer said.

“I refuse to accept a reality in which the heinousness of the crime no longer matters, and the victims no longer matter.”

San Diego County District Attorney Summer Stephan called [two-time murderer Walter] Lewis a “cold-hearted killer,” and said her office wrote to Gov. Newsom discouraging his release, saying he lacked remorse for his crimes. Nonetheless, the parole board granted Lewis’ release.

Stephan said she is working with crime victims to assemble a survivor group to explain the impact the elderly parole law has on crime victims. “Victims also have constitutional rights, not just the accused,” she said.

*        *       *

Klemp’s victim said, for her, panic set in when she first learned he was eligible for early release last year.

“I was having multiple panic attacks. I couldn’t sleep. I was having nightmares like he was coming to get me,” she said. “I could hear his voice. I was waking up screaming, feeling like he was sexually abusing me again. It was horrible.”

[BPH Executive Officer] Shaffer said she understands the fear factor victims have at the thought of their assailants being released back into society. But she also believes most of those released are likely to never reoffend and will rebuild their lives.

Ms. Shaffer “understands,” she says, but then she brushes it off, assuring us that most of the rapists and murderers her board releases will not rape and murder again.

There are two answers to that. First, “most” isn’t good enough. Second, victims of crime deserve the peace of mind they were promised when the people who committed these horrible crimes were sentenced. After all, the perpetrators chose to commit the crimes; the victims did not choose to be victimized.