BILL ANALYSIS Ó SENATE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS Senator Ricardo Lara, Chair 2015 - 2016 Regular Session SB 261 (Hancock) - Youth offender parole hearings ----------------------------------------------------------------- | | | | | | ----------------------------------------------------------------- |--------------------------------+--------------------------------| | | | |Version: March 24, 2015 |Policy Vote: PUB. S. 5 - 2 | | | | |--------------------------------+--------------------------------| | | | |Urgency: No |Mandate: No | | | | |--------------------------------+--------------------------------| | | | |Hearing Date: May 11, 2015 |Consultant: Jolie Onodera | | | | ----------------------------------------------------------------- This bill meets the criteria for referral to the Suspense File. Bill Summary: SB 261 would expand the youth offender parole process to include persons who committed their crimes before attaining the age of 23, as specified. This bill requires the Board of Parole Hearings (BPH) to complete all parole hearings for eligible individuals as of the effective date of this measure by July 1, 2017. Fiscal Impact: Immediately eligible caseload : Major one-time costs to the BPH of $4.6 million (General Fund) to complete risk assessments and conduct parole hearings by July 1, 2017, for 800 inmates estimated to be eligible upon the bill's effective date. Future caseload : Significant future annual costs, likely in the hundreds of thousands of dollars or greater (General SB 261 (Hancock) Page 1 of ? Fund), to conduct hearings for inmates as they become eligible. The magnitude of costs would be dependent upon the rate at which BPH conducts hearings, as there is no timeframe mandated for prospectively eligible inmates. The CDCR estimates an additional 5,600 inmates would be added to the BPH's hearing calendar over the next several years. An additional 3,000 inmates are estimated to be within the BPH's hearing cycle currently and would be eligible to request to advance their next hearing date, as specified. Regulations : One-time costs of about $100,000 to review and re-write regulations. Reduced writs : Potential offset to an unknown degree by state trial court savings as a result of an accompanying reduction in writs of Habeas Corpus, by which inmates challenge convictions and/or sentences. Future incarceration savings : Potential cost savings of $0.2 to $0.5 million (General Fund) for every 20 to 50 inmates released or sentences reduced. Savings would grow as the years they otherwise would have served compound. Over ten years, the savings could increase to $2 to $5 million assuming the inmates would have served ten additional years. Minor offsetting increase in parole costs. Background: Existing law creates the youth offender parole hearing, which is administered by the Board of Parole Hearings (BPH) for the purpose of reviewing the parole suitability of any inmate who was under 18 years of age at the time of his or her controlling offense. (Penal Code (PC) § 3051.) Existing law provides that the timing for the youth offender parole hearing is dependent on the sentence: if the controlling offense was a determinate sentence, the offender shall be eligible for release after 15 years; if the controlling offense was a life term less than 25 years, the person is eligible for release after 20 years; and, if the controlling offense was 25 years or more, the person is eligible for release after 25 years. (PC § 3051(b).) Existing law provides that if the youth offender is found suitable for parole at the youthful offender parole hearing, then the youth offender shall be released on parole. (PC § 3051 (e).) According to the CDCR April 2015 Status and Benchmark Report to SB 261 (Hancock) Page 2 of ? the Three-Judge Court: The State continues to implement Senate Bill 260 (2013), which allows inmates whose crimes were committed as minors to appear before the Board of Parole Hearings (the Board) to demonstrate their suitability for release after serving at least fifteen years of their sentence. From January 1, 2014 through March 31, 2015, the Board held 534 youth offender hearings, resulting in 158 grants, 328 denials, 46 stipulations to unsuitability, and 2 split votes that required referral to the full Board for further consideration. An additional 225 were scheduled during this time period, but were waived, postponed, continued, or cancelled. All available inmates who were immediately eligible for a hearing when the law took effect on January 1, 2014, have had a hearing date or have one scheduled on or before July 1, 2015, as required by the terms of Senate Bill 260. In addition, nearly all youth offenders who received a grant prior to January 1, 2014, have reached their minimum eligible parole dates and have been processed for release from their life term by the Board. Proposed Law: This bill would extend the existing parole process for persons sentenced to prison for crimes committed before attaining 18 years of age, to persons sentenced to prison for crimes committed before attaining 23 years of age, as specified. This bill provides that those eligible for a youthful offender parole hearing on the effective date of this bill shall have their hearing by July 1, 2017. Prior Legislation: SB 260 (Hancock) Chapter 312/2013 established a parole process for persons sentenced to prison for crimes committed before attaining 18 years of age. AB 1276 (Bloom) Chapter 590/2014 requires the CDCR to conduct a youth offender Institutional Classification Committee (ICC) review at reception to provide special classification consideration for every youth offender. SB 9 (Yee) Chapter 828/2012 authorizes a person who was under 18 years of age at the time of committing an offense for which the SB 261 (Hancock) Page 3 of ? person was sentenced to LWOP to submit a petition for recall and re-sentencing to the sentencing court, as specified. SB 1223 (Kuehl) 2004 would have authorized a court to review and suspend or reduce the sentence of a person convicted as a minor in adult criminal court and sentenced to state prison after the person has either served 10 years in prison or attained the age of 25. This bill was held on the Suspense File of the Assembly Appropriations Committee. Staff Comments: The CDCR has indicated one-time near term costs of approximately $4.6 million assuming approximately 800 inmates would immediately be eligible for a parole hearing. The CDCR estimates that an additional 5,600 inmates would be added to the BPH's hearing calendar over the next several years. The BPH would be required to give these inmates a consultation about five years prior to their initial parole hearing. An additional 3,000 inmates are estimated to already be within the BPH's hearing cycle and would be eligible to request to advance their next hearing date based on the requirement for the BPH to give "great weight" to the factors of youth, their growth and maturity since the crime. Components of the one-time $4.6 million cost for the 800 immediately eligible inmates: Risk Assessments : The BPH would need to complete 800 comprehensive risk assessments for the backlog of hearings over the course of eight months at an estimated cost of $2.7 million. Interpreters : Minor costs of less than $40,000 to provide this service for a small percentage of the 800 hearings. Transcripts : At an average cost of $570 per hearing, and assuming 10 percent of the 800 cases will be postponed or continued, transcription services would cost approximately $400,000. State-appointed counsel : The BPH is required to provide each inmate with counsel. State-appointed attorneys receive $400 per SB 261 (Hancock) Page 4 of ? hearing. For 800 hearings, the cost would be $320,000. Commissioners and Deputy Commissioners : To handle an additional 100 hearings per month, it is estimated the BPH would require additional resources at a cost of about $1.1 million. Attorney III : To dedicate one staff, for six months, to review each possible youth offender scheduled for a hearing for eligibility as a youth offender and to respond to inmate counsel on individual cases in which the inmate's status as a youth offender is in question. In many cases, determining eligibility requires the BPH to obtain birth certificates and additional court sentencing documents. The BPH would, therefore, request funding for six months to handle this additional workload at a cost of $85,000. CDCR indicates this bill would create substantial ongoing workload due to the increase in consultations the BPH would be required to conduct and additional hearings added to the BPH hearing calendar in the future as a result. Other ongoing costs would include increases in processing inmate petitions to advance hearing dates, conducting administrative reviews to advance hearing dates, and correctional counselor duties for parole hearings. Finally, the BPH and CDCR indicate the need to modify existing automation systems to process offenders under the provisions of this bill. While the total costs could not be quantified at the time of this analysis, they would likely be substantial. The costs of this measure would be offset in whole or in part by potentially significant future costs savings to the extent a number of offenders are granted parole and released as a result of this measure, resulting in reduced incarceration costs that otherwise would have been incurred under existing law. -- END --