Published:
Monday, December 9, 2024
In a landmark 2012 case, Miller v. Alabama, the U.S. Supreme Court held that mandatory life without parole sentences imposed on people under the age of 18 at the time of their offense are cruel and unusual and violate the 8th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The ruling reflected an emerging consensus that “children are different” and had important implications in Washington state, where children had been tried as adults and receiving mandatory life without parole sentences for decades.
In response to this ruling, the Washington State Legislature passed what is often referred to as the “Miller-fix” in 2014. This legislation granted children who were previously sentenced to life without parole the opportunity to go before the Indeterminate Sentence Review Board (ISRB) to be considered for release after serving a minimum of 25 years. The next year, the legislature expanded consideration by the ISRB to other children who received long or life sentences once they had served 20 years (provided they had not been convicted of an additional crime after the age of 18).
This legislation significantly altered Washington’s sentencing structure. Washington largely abolished parole in 1984, but the Miller-fix legislation expanded post-conviction review. Now, a decade later, we have information about the impact of this shift – and what is possible when we give people a second look.
My co-author and I recently conducted a study of recidivism among a sample of people affected by the expansion of ISRB review. Specifically, we examined rates of re-offending among people who returned home after receiving a very long or life sentence for a crime they committed as a juvenile but who became eligible for a second look after serving 20 or more years in prison. We found that just 2.1 percent of them had been convicted of a new felony crime since their release. By contrast, the rate of recidivism for people exiting prisons in Washington state is 10 times higher at 22 percent.[1] These findings are consistent with those reported in studies examining the impact of similar reforms in other states.
We also found that the people who were released through a second look process after serving decades behind bars contribute importantly to their families and communities. These men and women found full-time work, and many work in the non-profit sector where their experiences, skills and insights are highly valued and where they work to promote healing, safety, and justice. They also care for children, partners, friends, and parents. They are essential members of the communities of which they are part.
Unfortunately, the impact of the Miller-fix legislation has been limited. This legislation provides some relief to people who committed their offense while under the age of 18. But brain science tells us that brain development continues until people are in their mid and even late twenties. Limiting these reforms to those who were 17 or younger at the time of their crime is thus inconsistent with neuroscientific research.
The Miller fix legislation also fails to remedy inequities in many cases involving co-defendants. Here is one example: Mark and his co-defendant Kai were convicted as accomplices for the same offense in 1995. Kai was 17 and Mark was 18, only six months older than Kai, when they committed the offense. Kai was sentenced to 53 years in prison but was released by the ISRB after serving 24 years. Mark was also sentenced to 53 years but since he was 18 years old at the time of the offense, he is not entitled to a second look by either a court or the ISRB. Mark has spent his nearly three decades in prison engaging in peer-support groups, workshops, art therapy, and counseling to address trauma from his childhood. He hopes to use the skills and insights he’s gained by volunteering with art and healing programs to serve others. His only hope of doing so is through the clemency process.
Exceedingly low rates of recidivism among people who received life or long sentences but were released because of changes to sentencing law challenge widespread stereotypes that suggest that some people – and especially those who commit an act of violence at one point in their lives – are inherently irredeemable.[2] But evidence of extremely low recidivism rates among released lifers is entirely consistent with criminological research, which shows that age is the most powerful predictor of repeat offending[3] and that people who were convicted of violent crimes have the lowest rates of recidivism.[4]
In short, research in Washington and in other states shows that people who returned home after being sentenced to life in prison rarely reoffend. They also make important contributions to their families and communities. It stands to reason that we can expect similar results if the legislature were to expand access to post-conviction review in Washington.
[1] Gov. Jay Inslee, Building better neighbors and improving public safety: New executive order updates Washington’s recidivism and reentry efforts, September 16, 2024, Medium, https://medium.com/wagovernor/building-better-neighbors-and-improving-public-safety-new-executive-order-updates-washington...
[2] Katherine Beckett, Ending Mass Incarceration (New York: Oxford University Press, 2021).
[3] National Research Council, The Growth of Incarceration in the United States: Exploring Causes and Consequences, edited by Jeremy Travis, Bruce Western, and Steve Redburn (Washington, D.C.: The National Academies Press, 2014), p. 156.
[4] Mariel Alper, Mathew R. Durose, and Joshua Markman, 2018 Update on Prisoner Recidivism: A 9 Year Follow Up Period (Washington D.C.: Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2018); Lila Kazemian and Jeremy Travis, “Imperative for Inclusion of Long Termers and Lifers in Research and Policy,” Criminology and Public Policy, 14, 355-395.
