Elderly parole is intended to further reduce California's prison population by releasing older inmates no longer deemed to be a threat to public safety.
On the face of it, elderly parole seems reasonable. Many inmates do age out of their criminality and the idea that an elderly inmate using a wheelchair or a walker is a threat to public safety seems remote.
When the policy was first implemented in 2014, inmates had to be at least 60 years old having served 25 years consecutively to qualify. With a new law (Assembly Bill 3234) taking effect in 2021, it was reduced to 50 years old having served just 20 years. Consider that “elderly” Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is 50 years old, Mark Wahlberg is 51, and Tom Cruise is 60.
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