The recent controversy surrounding the parole of David Allen Funston has sparked intense public reaction and renewed scrutiny of California’s elderly parole law.
Critics, including Sacramento County Sheriff Jim Cooper and CalMatters guest commentator Jenn Carson, a violence prevention specialist, former school counselor and suicide hotline manager, have argued that the case illustrates fundamental flaws in the policy.
But while the Funston case raises legitimate concerns about the parole review process, experts and research suggest that abandoning or undermining the broader elderly parole framework would ignore the overwhelming evidence about aging and recidivism.
Funston, who was convicted in Sacramento County of multiple counts of kidnapping and child molestation involving young children, was granted parole under California’s elderly parole law after more than two decades in prison and at the age of 64. The decision triggered backlash after details from the parole hearing surfaced.
According to Fox News reporter Bill Melugin, a transcript from the September 2025 parole hearing shows that Funston admitted he continued to experience sexual urges toward children.
Melugin reported that Funston said he had been “masturbating to children in prison, including fantasies he was having about an 8-year-old girl who used to live across the street from him.”
The transcript also indicates that Funston acknowledged targeting children because he enjoyed the sense of power over them. He reportedly told the parole board he raped a boy because the child was “vulnerable and available.”
Despite those admissions, the Board of Parole Hearings approved his release, citing his institutional behavior and a plan to manage his impulses.
According to the transcript cited by Melugin, a board member told Funston, “You have a — a really good developed urge control plan. You have steps that you take, you practice it every day so that it’ll be second nature to you if the, um, high risk — high risk, um, situation develops.”
Sheriff Cooper sharply criticized the decision and called for accountability from the parole board.
“The people of Sacramento, and every parent across California, deserve answers,” Cooper said. “The California Parole Board has granted parole to David Allen Funston, a serial child molester who used candy and toys to lure children seven years old and younger.”
Cooper noted that Funston had been convicted of 16 counts of kidnapping and child molestation and had received multiple life sentences.
“A judge described him as ‘the monster parents fear the most.’ Yet today, the parole board has determined he is suitable for release,” Cooper said.
He questioned the rationale for the decision, asking, “How do they explain that to those children and their parents? How do they tell families that a predator of this nature is ‘no longer a risk’?”
Cooper also criticized the structure of the elderly parole program itself, which allows incarcerated people who are over 50 and have served at least 20 years to receive a parole hearing.
“Age does not erase predatory behavior,” Cooper said. “Childhood sexual predators do not suddenly become safe because they turned 50.”
The controversy has also fueled criticism from Carson, whose CalMatters guest commentary argues that California’s elderly parole system imposes an emotional burden on victims’ families.
In the commentary, Carson wrote that the policy “has repeatedly forced the families of my father’s victims back into the parole process.” Her father, serial killer Michael Bear Carson, is also eligible for hearings under the law.
Carson wrote that elderly parole hearings are automatically triggered by age and time served, arguing that the process can require victims’ families to repeatedly revisit traumatic events.
“Each parole hearing requires notification, preparation and often in-person testimony,” she wrote. “Families must revisit trial records, autopsy reports and impact statements.”
Carson contends that this dynamic creates a cycle of repeated trauma for victims’ families.
“The law may not guarantee release — but it guarantees repetition,” she wrote.
She also argues that many of those eligible for elderly parole are serving sentences for the most serious crimes.
“Most people serving life sentences are incarcerated for murder, rape, and child sexual abuse,” Carson wrote. “These are not drug possession cases or technical violations.”
While Carson acknowledged that the rationale for elderly parole is understandable, she warned that age and time served alone should not determine eligibility for review.
“Age alone is not proof of reduced risk,” she wrote. “Time served alone is not proof of rehabilitation.”
Her commentary argues that California should pursue different approaches to reducing prison populations, including expanding geriatric medical units in prisons and strengthening compassionate release policies.
The outrage surrounding the Funston case reflects a genuine concern about public safety and the adequacy of the parole review process. But researchers who study incarceration trends say the broader data on aging and crime tell a very different story from the one suggested by a single controversial case.
A substantial body of research shows that recidivism declines dramatically with age. A study by the U.S. Sentencing Commission found that older offenders had a recidivism rate of 21.3%, compared with 53.4% for individuals under age 50. The same research found that the likelihood of reoffending continues to fall as individuals age.
Other data suggest the gap is even more pronounced once people reach their 50s and 60s. Nationwide statistics indicate that while roughly 43.3% of people released from prison are rearrested within three years, only about 7% of those between ages 50 and 64 return to prison for a new conviction. Among individuals 65 and older, the rate drops to about 4%.
State-level data reveal similar patterns. Research examining aging prison populations has reported recidivism rates of roughly 18% in Colorado, 12% in South Carolina and about 6% in Florida among older individuals released from prison. Those figures are far below the roughly 66% rearrest rate observed in the general prison population.
Advocates of elderly parole policies argue that these trends reflect well-established patterns in criminology showing that criminal behavior tends to peak in youth and decline with age. Studies reviewed by The Sentencing Project have found that most criminal careers are relatively short, often lasting less than a decade.
The organization has also warned that extremely long prison sentences have produced a rapidly aging prison population composed of individuals who pose little risk of reoffending.
According to research cited by The Sentencing Project, nearly half of people serving life sentences without parole in the United States are now age 50 or older, and roughly one-quarter are over age 60.
Many of those individuals have already served decades in prison.
For reform advocates, the key policy question raised by the Funston case is not whether the elderly parole system should exist, but whether the decision-making process within it is functioning properly.
Even critics of the parole decision acknowledge that the case may represent a failure of implementation rather than evidence that the underlying concept of elderly parole is flawed.
The central goal of California’s elderly parole policy is to allow review of long-term sentences for incarcerated people whose risk of reoffending has significantly diminished due to age and time served. The law does not mandate release, but instead provides an opportunity for the parole board to assess rehabilitation, behavior in prison and potential risk to the public.
In Funston’s case, critics argue that the parole board misjudged the risk factors that were plainly visible in the hearing transcript.
The broader challenge for policymakers may be determining how to refine risk assessments and parole review standards so that cases involving clear ongoing threats are identified and denied release.
That task is different from dismantling a program that research suggests works effectively for the overwhelming majority of cases.
The Funston case was alarming, but it was also detected quickly and resulted in a new arrest before any reported harm occurred.
The debate over elderly parole now reflects a broader tension within criminal justice policy: how to balance public safety concerns, the trauma experienced by victims and the growing body of research showing that people who have aged out of crime are unlikely to reoffend.
Whether California chooses to modify the program or strengthen the parole review process, the evidence suggests that sweeping conclusions based on a single case may obscure the broader reality.
The data consistently show that individuals over 50 who have served decades in prison are among the least likely people in the criminal justice system to commit new crimes. For policymakers confronting the challenges of mass incarceration and an aging prison population, that reality remains a central fact in the debate.
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