California Republicans Want to Get Tougher on Crime. Are Democrats Shifting Their Way?

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Republican state Sen. Brian Jones has been trying to block sex offenders from being released from prison through California’s elderly parole program for several years. Last week, for the first time, his bill to do so made it out of its first committee.

It was just one of many votes Senate Bill 286 will have to survive in a long road ahead in the Capitol, but it caught Jones’ attention. In a Legislature dominated by Democrats who often shelve Republican tough-on-crime proposals, the approval from the Senate Public Safety Committee was unanimous.

“I don’t think it would have passed a committee last year,” said Jones, the Senate minority leader.

California’s Democratic legislators — who for years have been passing progressive measures designed to reduce sentences and lessen mass incarceration by emphasizing more rehabilitative solutions to crime — were dealt a blow last fall when an overwhelming majority of voters approved Proposition 36.

The measure backed by business owners, police and Republicans, increased sentences for some drug and theft crimes, partially undoing more lenient measures that voters approved just 10 years ago. Though many Democrats opposed the measure, they’re now tasked with providing funding to carry it out.

Jones, of San Diego, said he’s seeing Democrats inching toward stricter incarceration measures as a result. He said he saw a window to bring back the legislation this year.

“The smart Democrats are getting it,” he said. “The voters spoke overwhelmingly.”

The Public Safety Committee also gave unanimous approval this month for another bill Jones authored, SB 379, that would add regulatory guardrails before the Department of State Hospitals releases sexually violent predators. It’s his fourth year in a row pushing that measure; the proposal passed the Senate and died in the Assembly last year, after failing to clear a single committee both years before that. SB 432, authored by a different Republican senator to increase penalties for selling or giving fentanyl to minors, also got unanimous approval in the committee this month.

Freshman Sen. Jesse Arreguín, an Oakland Democrat who chairs the committee, said his fellow Democrats don’t intend to return to an era of overcrowded prisons or harsh penalties for lower-level crimes. But he acknowledged they’re also shifting their thinking in response to their voters, and called that approach “pragmatic.”

“That was the direction I was given as chair of the Public Safety Committee, was that we need to provide more balance in terms of how we look at criminal justice policy,” he said, referring to the Democratic caucus. “Just focusing specifically on restorative justice and prevention, and not focusing on accountability (for offenders), that’s not where the voters are now.”

Criminal justice reforms still advancing

So far, the shift hasn’t been enough to worry Tinisch Hollins, executive director of Californians for Safety and Justice, a group that advocates for reduced imprisonment and pushed for the 2014 sentencing changes that voters approved.

She pointed to bills her organization has sponsored that are also advancing through the Legislature, including legislation to expand the state’s efforts to clear criminal records to give past offenders second chances, and to require that the California Department of Corrections apply more good behavior credits to reduce prisoners’ time served. With the state tight on cash, she said she doesn’t believe lawmakers will be eager to significantly increase imprisonment and sees a “consensus that we shouldn’t go back that way.”

“Even Prop. 36 wasn’t a referendum on reform,” Hollins said. “There’s still plenty of support for different approaches to public safety that really address the root cause and prevent crime from happening in the first place.”

Any stricter measures the Legislature approves this year will ultimately be narrow, with Republicans pointing to extreme examples to push their case.

Jones’ elderly parole bill targets a program the Corrections Department first created in 2014, in response to a court order to reduce prison crowding, that allows prisoners who are older than 60 and have served at least 25 years of their sentences to petition for release.

He tried in 2019 to restrict those convicted of sex offenses from being eligible; the bill never got a hearing. In 2020, lawmakers quietly lowered the eligibility for some prisoners to age 50, if they’ve served at least 20 years, though many have not been approved for release. The following year, Jones proposed a bill undoing that change for sex offenders, which went nowhere.

Between January 2021 and June 2024, the Board of Parole Hearings released 1,762 people through the elderly parole program, corrections spokesperson Emily Humpal wrote in an email. Department data analyzed by CalMatters show that while more people have been released under the elder program since 2021, the rates at which the board grants parole fluctuate between 14% and 20% each year, hovering just above the board’s overall parole-granting rate. The department would not immediately provide a breakdown of their convictions, nor of how many of those released were between the ages of 50 and 60.

Now, 12,303 people currently imprisoned – nearly 14% of the prison population – are eligible for either form of elderly parole, Humpal said.

Jones’ bill would bar those convicted of sexual felonies such as rape and child sexual abuse from parole eligibility at age 50. It would not affect their eligibility upon turning 60, or the parole eligibility date in their original sentences.

He also proposed blocking the earlier eligibility from people convicted of murder, but Arreguín’s committee removed that provision with Jones’ agreement before voting to advance the bill.

Proponents of the measure, including San Diego County District Attorney Summer Stephan, say victims shouldn’t be forced to relive the trauma of parole hearings and the prospect of their abusers’ release before the end of their original sentences.

They point to Mary Johnson, who identified herself as the childhood victim of rape and sexual abuse by her uncle. The abuser, Cody Klemp, was originally sentenced in the 1990s to 170 years. In 2023, under the elderly parole program, the Board of Parole Hearings recommended his release — then rescinded the decision last year. His next hearing is scheduled for 2029.

“Suddenly, I was no longer a 49-year-old woman, but I was a 13-year-old trapped and powerless and fighting again,” Johnson said in a press conference. “No victim’s family should have to fight over and over again to ensure that a dangerous predator serves the sentence that they were given.”

Closing the doors on the rehabilitated?

A group of criminal justice reform and civil rights advocates including the American Civil Liberties Union opposes the legislation, arguing it would close the door on those who have been rehabilitated in prison and pose less of a public safety risk. Studies have found the chances of re-offense decrease as a defendant ages.

Gary Harrell, who was given a life sentence for his participation in a murder, testified that despite becoming eligible for parole in 1984, he wasn’t released until about 40 years later, after he had gone before the parole board about 20 times. He said in the last two decades of his incarceration, he turned his life around, and now works a day job while in his spare time giving homeless Sacramento residents food and hygiene products.

“I have taken so much from others and now it’s time to give back and do my part to make the world a better place,” he said. “I hope you can see that the people who will be impacted by this bill are people like me who have changed and want to give back.”

Arreguín said he proposed removing Jones’ exclusion of people convicted of murder to focus the bill on sex offenses.

That tactic has yielded bipartisan backing in the last legislative session.

In 2023, Republican Sen. Shannon Grove of Bakersfield pushed a bill to increase penalties for child sex trafficking. Democrats in the Assembly Public Safety Committee resisted but, after a public outcry, Gov. Gavin Newsom stepped in with rare public comments in support of the legislation, which ultimately won more Democratic support and his signature.

Last year Grove’s bill to increase penalties for soliciting a minor for prostitution — targeting the buyers of sex — also prevailed. Senate Democrats carved out exclusions for 16- and 17-year-olds who are allegedly solicited, out of concern it would inadvertently rope in older teenagers who aren’t actually involved in or victims of trafficking. (The legal age of consent is 18.) This year, Grove is turning heads with a bill, Assembly Bill 379, co-authored with an Assembly Democrat, to undo those exclusions and apply the changes to all minors.

Jones acknowledged the tactic of focusing on sexual offenses is an incremental step toward tightening criminal sentences overall.

“We’re smart enough to know how far we can go,” he said.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.