Second Chances Resource Library

This bill, passed in 2021, allows for the discretionary early release of those who are medically incapacitated or terminally ill.

64 elected prosecutors and law enforcement leaders joined together in this statement urging elected prosecutors and policy makers to embrace mechanisms that can provide second chances for the many people in our nation serving decades-long sentences who pose little or no risk to public safety. The statement notes that in order to end mass incarceration, justice system leaders must address the high number of individuals serving extreme sentences and cites well-established research showing that these lengthy prison terms have not deterred crime or promoted public safety.

This fact sheet provides information on California’s County Resentencing Pilot Program. This is the first pilot of its kind across the country, in which nine California counties have been allocated budget specifically and solely for resentencing.

These guidelines provide a detailed model of how elected prosecutors can develop and implement a sentencing review policy in their respective offices.

This essay describes several avenues that federal decision-makers can use to identify people serving needlessly long sentences and who are no longer a danger to society, and then reduce that person’s sentence.

This study examined the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office (DAO) approach to juvenile lifer resentencing under two different administrations starting in 2017, after the U.S. Supreme Court made juvenile lifers retroactively eligible (Montgomery v. Louisiana, 2016) for resentencing under the 2012 landmark ruling that mandatory life without parole sentences for juveniles (JLWOP) were unconstitutional (Miller v. Alabama). The researchers found a recidivism rate (defined as reconviction for any offense) of just 1.14% among people who were sentenced as juveniles in Philadelphia to life without the possibility of parole and then subsequently released.

Nearly 200 people who had been given life sentences in Maryland, primarily for murder or rape, were released from prison after serving 30+ years after a court found that the jury instructions given in their cases were unconstitutional. The release created a natural case study from which Maryland and other states can learn. This report looks at that evidence. Most notably, in the six years since the decision, only five out of the 188 people released under the Unger ruling returned to prison for violating parole or a new crime – less than 3 percent.

In 2020, The Sentencing Project obtained official corrections data from all states and the Federal Bureau of Prisons to produce their 5th national census on life imprisonment. Key findings include: One in 7 people in U.S. prisons is serving a life sentence or virtual life (50 years or more); 30% of lifers are 55 years or older; and more than two-thirds of those serving life sentences are people of color.

This article reviews existing studies looking at recidivism among people convicted of violent crimes and offers new empirical analysis. Most notably, the synthesis of the available evidence suggests that released violent offenders, especially homicide offenders who are older at release, have lower overall recidivism rates relative to other released offenders.

This bill, which was not enacted, would have allowed people who have spent at least 10 years in federal prison to petition a court to take a “second look” at their sentence.