Second Chances Resource Library

Effective October 1, 2021, the Maryland Juvenile Restoration Act permits people who have served at least 20 years of a sentence for a crime that occurred when they were under the age of 18 to file a motion for reduction of sentence. This report documents the progress that has been made implementing the Act and its successes over the first year.

Consistent with what the research predicts and the legislature intended, courts in the first year since the Act took effect have reduced sentences and released people in the majority of cases decided. Twenty-four people who sought sentence reductions were released within the first year that the act was in effect. As of October 2022, none had been charged with a new crime or found to have violated probation.

The first year of the Juvenile Restoration Act shows that, with an available court mechanism and robust re-entry planning and support services, many individuals who have served long sentences can be safely released. The General Assembly should expand on the success of the JRA by expanding eligibility for sentence reduction consideration to people who were emerging adults (18 to 25 year olds) at the time of the crime and older prisoners who have similarly served long prison terms. Funds should also be invested in implementing these recommendations and encouraging reliance on community based services where incarceration is no longer necessary for public safety.

FAMM’s “Clemency Resources by State” documents provide information about eligibility criteria, the application process, the decision-maker(s), and constitutional and statutory authority for each form of clemency available in the state. Alabama offers the following form(s) of clemency: pardons, parole, and„ restoration of voting rights.

First appearing as a three part series in the alternative Maine-based newspaper The Bollard, this extended essay lays out an argument for how to stop the flow of people into the carceral system (through investing in community infrastructure and well-being, utilizing restorative justice processes to respond to harm, and more), how to transform the criminal legal system to open pathways for second chances legislation and earlier avenues for release, how to transform the culture inside prisons to prepare people to return to their communities as soon as possible (through enabling and supporting communication with loved ones on the outside, allowing employment at free world wages, eradicating punitive carceral culture, and more), and how to build a restorative and supported pathway to reentry. The focus is Maine, but the basic argument holds for any state. A top priority in the middle section is confronting the impact of extreme sentences and LWOP sentences by prioritizing second chance legislation and policies for supported early release.

Report examines misconceptions around crimes of a sexual nature that contribute to the rise in imprisonment rates and the lengthening of sentences, and offers recommendations for reform.

The Article argues that Maine incarcerates too many people, for too long, for too many things, at too great of an expense. We offer evidence to support this claim, briefly review some of the criminal legal legislation that shaped our present reality, and show how recent efforts at reform have been, at best, only modestly successful. In concert with a growing number of expert voices across the country calling for strategies of decarceration, our goal is to demonstrate the need for second chance legislation in Maine in the form of the reinstatement of parole, an effective clemency process, a far-reaching reevaluation of custody levels, and a new revision of the Maine Criminal Code. We argue that Maine needs a restorative pathway to decarceration that would meaningfully reduce the number of people in prison and recidivism rates, while emplacing broader and more effective responses to harm than that afforded by incarceration alone.

In 2022, the Michigan Supreme Court held in People v. Parks that mandatory LWOP sentences for people who were age 18 at the time of the crime violate the Michigan Constitution. However, the Court did not decide in that case whether this applied to people who were already serving LWOP sentences. Instead, it sent People v. Poole (this case) back to the Michigan Court of Appeals to make that determination. The Michigan Court of Appeals concluded that the Parks decision does apply retroactively. Several counties were already interpreting the Parks decision to apply retroactively, but the Poole decision means that statewide, people who were subject to mandatory LWOP sentences for crimes that they committed when they were 18 will be resentenced.

American parole boards have played a critical role in the formulation and administration of states’ prison policies in recent decades—and could play an equally important part in helping end mass incarceration. Long neglected by academic, research, and policy communities, systems of discretionary prison release are in need of improvement, if not “reinvention.” A plan for revitalization of parole release should lay out a comprehensive and aspirational model for the future. It must address the institutional structure of parole boards, how much release discretion they are given, the substantive grounds for release decisions, the use of risk assessments in the decisional process, decision-making tools such as parole release guidelines, the requirements of fair and reliable procedures, victims’ rights at parole hearings, the need for parole supervision in some but not all cases, the intensity of parole conditions, and the length of parole supervision.

In this decision, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court found life without the possibility of parole (LWOP) sentences to be unconstitutional under the Massachusetts Constitution for people who were 18 to 20 years old at the time of the crime. The Court further held that this applies retroactively, which means that people currently serving LWOP in Massachusetts who were 18 to 20 at the time of the crime will be eligible for parole consideration under the time-frames that apply to people who were under 18 at the time of the crime. Sentences for people who were under 18 at the time of the crime were changed on July 25, 2014, so qualifying individuals sentenced to LWOP prior to that date will be eligible for parole consideration after serving 15 years, while those sentenced after that date will be eligible after serving 20 to 35 years, depending on the specifics of the crime. The decision does not guarantee that they will be released; it simply provides them the opportunity to go in front of the parole board, show their rehabilitation, and demonstrate that they are ready to safely return to the community.

This decision was based in large part on a growing understanding of the science of adolescent brain development. The Court pointed to four specific ways in which emerging adults differ from older adults due to their not-fully-mature brains:

• Emerging adults are “less able to control their impulses in emotionally arousing situations” than older adults, and instead are more similar to 16 and 17 year olds in terms of impulse control.
• Emerging adults are “more prone to ‘sensation seeking,’ which includes risk-taking in pursuit of rewards,” in comparison to both older adults and younger teens.
• Emerging adults are “more susceptible to peer influence” than older adults.
  Emerging adults “have greater capacity to change than older individuals because of the plasticity of the brain during these years.”