Prison advocates, attorneys and state officials are gearing up to help the estimated 200 prisoners now eligible for parole since a landmark decision last week by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court raised the minimum age to 21 before people could be sentenced to life without parole.
The Committee for Public Counsel Services, the state’s public defender agency, says it is working with the Parole Board to identify prisoners who are newly eligible to be considered for release as the agency prepares at least 40 attorneys to represent them.
It doesn’t lead to less crowded jails, it just means that there will be more parole hearings. It doesn’t even guarantee that people that would have received a no parole sentence will actually get released at some point.