BILL NUMBER: S5283

SPONSOR: SEPULVEDA
 
TITLE OF BILL:

An act to amend the executive law, in relation to parole eligibility for
crimes committed at age twenty-one or younger

 
PURPOSE::

This bill will make anyone who's crime was committed before the age of
22 eligible for discretionary parole release after fifteen years,
regardless of the length of such person's minimum sentence.

 
SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS::

Section 1 amends Executive Law 259-i by adding a new subsection 10.

Section 2 provides for an effective date.

 
JUSTIFICATION::
              

It is well established that young people's brains do not reach maturity
until the age of 25. Teenagers and very young adults do not necessarily
see the consequences of their actions in the same way an adult would,
making some individuals prone to risky or criminal behaviors by virtue
of their immaturity. Most people who engage in criminal behavior while
young outgrow that behavior and, at age forty, do not act like they did
at 20. Many people who commit serious crimes when they are young have a
very different perspective on their lives and their crimes as they grow
older. To keep punishing such people by forcing them to serve long peri-
ods of incarceration after they grow up and are rehabilitated is unfair,
unnecessary for public safety, and contrary to our understanding of
human development.

This bill provides that people who commit serious crimes as teenagers
will become eligible for parole after fifteen years, in recognition of
their ability to change and effect real rehabilitation as they reach
adulthood. Nothing in the bill requires the Board of Parole to grant
release to anyone who poses a public safety risk or does not otherwise
meet the criteria for release from parole.

 
LEGISLATIVE HISTORY::

S.4335 of 2023-2024; Referred to Crime Victims, Crime and Correction;

S.4319 of 2021-22: New bill, Referred to Crime Victims, Crime and
Correction

 
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS::

None.

 
LOCAL FISCAL IMPLICATIONS::

None.

 
EFFECTIVE DATE::

Ninety days after it shall have become a law.