Second Chances Resource Library

This is a fact sheet on New Mexico Senate Bill 247 which would ban life without parole for juveniles and create early parole for those serving long adult sentences for crimes committed as children.

In an effort to empirically explore and identify potential areas of reform that might exist in the Oregon Board of Parole and Post-Prison Supervision (the Board) release process hearings and decision-making process, the Criminal Justice Reform Clinic at Lewis & Clark Law School (CJRC) launched a project funded by Arnold Ventures in November of 2020. This project aimed to understand how incarcerated potential parolees (petitioners) and parolees in the community are impacted by the Board’s process using a large-scale mixed method (qualitative and quantitative) research study. Moreover, the purpose of the study is also to examine how the Board’s decisions and processes may be related to certain outcomes (e.g., initial release and supervision failure). Where possible, special attention is given to differences in race/ethnicity of the parolee and subsequent outcomes of decisions and supervisions. 

The key research goals of this study were to (1) determine if there are any patterns in Board decisions to release an eligible person to parole supervision, (2) determine if there are any differences across cases brought before the Board, (3) identify how the hearing and decision-making process impact eligible parties/parolees, and (4) examine the degree to which release decisions are accurate in determining a parolee’s likelihood to reoffend. Below are summaries of each goal and a brief overview of the takeaway messages from each section. 

One in seven people in prison in the US is serving a life sentence, and most of these people will eventually be eligible for discretionary parole release. Yet parole hearings are notoriously understudied. With only a handful of exceptions, few researchers have considered the ways in which race shapes decision-makers’ perception of parole candidates. We use a data set created from over seven hundred California lifer parole hearing transcripts to examine the factors that predict parole commissioners’ decisions. We find significant racial disparities in outcomes, with Black parole candidates less likely to receive parole grants than white parole candidates, and test two possible indirect mechanisms. First, we find that racial disparity is unassociated with differences in rehabilitative efforts of Black versus white parole candidates, suggesting that differential levels of self-rehabilitation are not responsible for the disparity. Second, we test the hypothesis that racial disparity owes to commissioners’ reliance on other professionals’ determinations: psychological assessments, behavioral judgments, and prosecutors’ recommendations. We find that reliance on these evaluations accounts for a significant portion of the observed racial disparity. These results suggest that inclusion of professional assessments is not race-neutral and may create a veneer of objectivity that masks racial inequality.

After passage of the First Step Act, Lisa Kuffel was granted compassionate release after serving 31 years of a 53-year sentence.

David Mandeville is not the same person he was when he committed the crime that landed him a life sentence at age 18. Now in his mid-40s, David has spent almost his entire adult life incarcerated – and somehow, he has thrived. There are plenty of people locked up like David Mandeville, who do not pose a risk to public safety yet languish in prison for decades because Pennsylvania’s laws don’t give them a second chance.

This report analyzes the fiscal impact of New Mexico Senate Bill 247, which would prohibit the imposition of a sentence of life without parole on a child and provide parole procedures for children sentenced to life without parole.

This letter to the United Nations special rapporteurs alleges that the United States’ extreme prison sentencing policies and practices of life without parole (LWOP), life with parole (LWP), “virtual life,” and other term-of-years sentences that exceed life expectancy and thus effectively condemn individuals to death by incarceration (DBI), violate the prohibition against racial discrimination; violate individuals’ right to life; violate the prohibition against torture, and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment; and are an arbitrary deprivation of liberty.

The appendix includes 44 statements reflecting the experience of individuals serving DBI sentences and their family members.

The signatories urge the Special Procedures to conduct an investigation into the serious human rights violations described in this submission, raise them with the U.S. government, and find that:

1. All death by incarceration sentences in the United States, including LWOP sentences, are cruel in violation of the international prohibition on torture; racially discriminatory; an arbitrary deprivation of liberty; and violate incarcerated individuals’ right to life, family life, dignity, and liberty disproportionately on the basis of race;
2. The United States should abolish all DBI sentences, including LWOP sentences;
3. The United States should adopt maximum sentencing laws to end the imposition of “virtual life” and other lengthy or indeterminate sentences;
4. All prison sentences must include parole eligibility within a determined number of years;
5. All those eligible for parole should be released at their eligibility date, unless there is an evidence–based determination, through a process that meets international human rights standards, that the individual poses a current and real threat to public safety based on recent conduct in prison