About Us
In California today, there’s a clear gap in the law. People under 18 can no longer be sentenced to life without parole. People 18–25 who received extremely long sentences – sometimes 100 years or more – can now go before the parole board after 25 years, because the law was updated to reflect what science tells us about brain development.
But 18–25-year-olds who were sentenced to actual life without parole are treated differently. It is exceedingly rare for them to ever get a second look by the governor or a court. That process is discretionary and uneven, just as the sentencing process.
The result is that two people who commit similar crimes at the same age can end up with completely different futures – not because of their actions or who they are after decades inside, but because of how their crimes were charged, or whether a prosecutor chose to review a sentence.
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Our collective – including the Anti-Recidivism Coalition, Human Rights Watch, the National LWOP Leadership Council, Latino Justice, the USC Gould School of Law Post-Conviction Justice Project, SEIU California, the California Labor Federation, PICO California, the California Catholic Conference, and many others – believes California can do better.
Together, we represent families, faith, labor, business, and community voices who all agree on one simple idea: fairness should be the standard. The solution already exists – AB1308. It’s time to fix the gap and provide the same opportunity to the entire qualifying age demographic.
Mission and Vision
Our vision is to create a parole system in California that is consistent, fair, and rooted in equal opportunity. Our mission is to ensure that people who were under 26 at the time of their crime and sentenced to life without parole have the same opportunity for review as their peers with comparable crimes and equally long sentences.
We believe in public safety, fiscal responsibility, and the human capacity to change. By fixing a gap in the law, we can keep communities safe, save taxpayer dollars, and promote a criminal justice system that values rehabilitation.