A bill that would expand eligibility for parole to people who committed crimes at a young age passed the Senate on Tuesday over strong objection and criticism from Republicans. 

Current law, which was passed in 2023, allows people who committed crimes when they were 21 years old or younger to become eligible for parole after having served 60% of a sentence of less than 50 years, or 30 years of a sentence of more than 50 years. But the bill only applies to people who were sentenced before Oct. 1, 2005. 

Senate Bill 503, which passed the Senate 24-12 on party lines, would eliminate that cutoff date and raise the age from 21 to 25 years old or younger for early parole eligibility. The bill would also require judges to consider scientific evidence around the brain development of people in their 20s when sentencing someone who committed an A or B felony as a young adult.  

The bill drew significant public support in a public hearing in March. Over and over, in both spoken and written testimony, individuals recounted how they had committed crimes through a foolish and impulsive act at a young age. Some described having been raised in difficult circumstances with little guidance. They all recounted how, in prison, they had made efforts to further their education and participated in rehabilitative programs.  

Sen. John Kissel, R-Enfield, called the bill “ one of the, if not the, scariest bill that is before us this session.” 

“ This is a huge sea change for the state of Connecticut, and it’s one that I totally disagree with,” said Kissel. 

Republicans emphasized that people over the age of 21 were considered adults in every other respect under the law — they can legally drink, smoke marijuana, vote and serve in the military. 

Connecticut already has many ways for people to avoid being incarcerated, Kissel argued. He said people who were arrested for a crime received the right to an attorney and that there were diversionary programs available for many crimes. 

“I think Connecticut goes the extra mile already, and I think if you’re doing time, hard time in Connecticut — man, you had to work real hard to get there,” said Kissel. 

He also disputed the claims made by incarcerated people and formerly incarcerated people at the public hearing that their crimes were impulsive mistakes, committed in the heat of the moment. 

“ You get into these stories and you find people that had carefully calculated their crimes,” said Kissel. 

Both Kissel and Sen. Rob Sampson, R-Wolcott, also said the bill was unfair to the families of victims, who would now watch the people who had committed crimes against their relatives have the opportunity to go before the parole board. 

Sampson said that even if the brain didn’t fully develop until a person’s mid-20s, it was “irrelevant” when considering that they had committed crimes. 

“Are you suggesting that a 25-year-old adult in Connecticut can’t appreciate the difference between right and wrong?” said Sampson. 

Sen. Heather Somers, R-Groton, said it didn’t matter to the victims the age of the person who perpetrated the crime against them.

“It’s the crime itself that has affected these families,” said Somers. “Age does not reduce the damage done to those who are victims.” 

Republicans proposed amendments that would have carved out exceptions to the early parole eligibility for perpetrators of certain crimes, including murder, rape, sexual assault of a minor and assault of an elderly or disabled person. The amendments failed on party-line votes. 

Sen. Gary Winfield, D-New Haven, criticized the debate about the bill and said many people who committed crimes were victims themselves. 

“People seem to suggest that if you’re doing this, you don’t care about the victims,” said Winfield. “I’m sickened by how we don’t actually listen to people. I’m sickened by how we use victims as if they are one thing … there are people of all different sorts in the class of victim.” 

Winfield referenced scientific research of brain development regarding young people’s impulse control and ability to make decisions in high-stress environments. Advocates for the bill have stressed that the areas of the brain that regulate things like impulse control, planning, weighing long-term consequences and delayed gratification do not become fully developed until a person reaches their mid-20s. 

“I think it’s reasonable to take into account what science tells us. I think it’s reasonable to think about what it is to be a young person, even at the age of 25,” said Winfield. 

Senate President Pro Tem Martin Looney, D-New Haven, said the bill did not guarantee that someone would be released on parole — it simply gave the person the opportunity to present evidence to the Board of Pardons and Paroles that he or she had been rehabilitated. Looney noted that, the more serious the crime, the higher the bar they would have to clear in order to be granted parole. He also pointed out that people tend to “age out” of crime after they reach a certain age. 

“No one is arguing that serious crimes should not have serious consequences, but it is important, if someone has been transformed, someone has indeed studied and learned and matured and improved to the point where he could actually be beneficial to society in some way if he were released … [he] ought to be able to prove that,” said Looney. 

Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff, D-Norwalk, said the state has worked on criminal justice reform for over a decade, and that during that time, crime had decreased.

“This type of a bill continues those efforts, and those efforts to make sure that people pay for the crimes they committed but also provides for ways in which they are not sentenced for life, and ways in which they can get on with their lives again,” said Duff.