Bills addressing sexually violent predators still making their way through legislature

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(The Center Square) – Two bills that seek to further regulate public safety concerns regarding inmates convicted of sex crimes are still advancing through the legislature.

Assembly Bill 2727, authored by Assemblymember Stephanie Nguyen, D-Elk Grove, aims to increase the age to 65 for elderly parole after an inmate has served 25 years of their sentence. It applies to individuals convicted of certain specific sex crimes. That bill is next scheduled to have a hearing in the Senate Appropriations Committee after the legislature returns from its summer break in August.

The other bill, Senate Bill 1446, authored by the Senate Public Safety Committee, aims to make the Board of Parole Hearings’ voting decisions public. The bill also allows for someone convicted of a sexually-violent crime to be referred to the board for a sexually-violent predator hearing.

Nguyen, Sen. Jesse Arreguin, D-Oakland and chair of the Senate Public Safety Committee, were traveling and unavailable for interviews on Friday, according to both their communications directors.

Both bills are just two in a slew of legislation introduced in California this year that aims to address public safety issues related to longtime convicts who were serving sentences for sex crimes.

Earlier this year, two convicted child molesters, David Allen Funston, 64, and Gregory Lee Vogelsang, 57, were eligible for the state’s elderly parole program. They both qualify for California’s elderly parole program after serving 20 years of a prison sentence and reaching at least at 50.

According to the California District Attorney’s Association, more than 1,000 inmates convicted of violent crimes have been released under California’s elderly parole program, quoting figures from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

“Some of these people are exceedingly dangerous,” Greg Totten, chief executive officer of the California District Attorneys Association, told The Center Square on Friday. “There’s concern of the threat they present to the public. But there’s also concern that when they get a sentence, the victims have a right to expect they’re going to serve that sentence.”

The potential passage of either bill would impose both fiscal and human costs on California’s taxpayers, according to letters of opposition to both pieces of legislation submitted by the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office.

Incarcerating someone over 55 years old would cost the state between $255,000 to $383,000 a month, the office said, and costs to the state would be exacerbated by the passage of AB 2727. Passing SB 1446 – which would expand the state’s sexually-violent predator program – would cost the state $14 million to $25 million a year, the organization said in its opposition letter to SB 1446.

“Lastly, the bill also raises serious humanitarian concerns,” Melanie Kim, the state policy director for the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office, wrote in its opposition letter to AB 2727. “In practice, delaying Elderly Parole eligibility until age 65 for some people will function as a death-in-prison sentence for individuals who were not sentenced to die in prison, especially given the significantly reduced life span in prisons, where the average age of natural death is 54.”

Numbers supplied by ACLU California Action, which also opposed the bill, put the average annual healthcare cost for someone over age 80 at $240,000, rising as high as $450,000 for some individuals.

Other bills that sought to tackle the issue of raising the age of elderly parole included Assembly Bill 2570, authored by Assemblymember Tom Lackey, R-Palmdale. That bill was set to undergo a bill hearing in the Assembly Public Safety Committee in April, but the hearing was cancelled at Lackey’s request, according to the state’s bill tracker.

Totten agreed with the ACLU and public defender estimates of the costs.

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation could not be reached for comment late Friday.