You walk through life changing every year. You are not the same person you were at eighteen, twenty-five, or even thirty-five. You gain impulse control. You accumulate consequences. You learn what loss actually costs. That evolution is not abstract. It is measurable. And in criminal justice, it has a name.
It is called aging out of crime.
What “Aging Out of Crime” Actually Means
“Aging out of crime” is not a slogan. It is one of the most consistently documented findings in criminology. Across decades of research, criminal behavior follows a predictable curve. Arrests and violent behavior peak in late adolescence and early adulthood, then decline steadily with age.
This decline is not about fear. It is about development.
As people age, neurological maturity improves. Impulse control strengthens. Risk-taking declines. Long-term thinking replaces short-term reward. Social bonds deepen. People form families, maintain employment, develop routines, and attach meaning to stability rather than chaos.
Crime becomes less attractive not because the law becomes harsher, but because life becomes fuller. The cost of losing it rises.
This pattern holds across offense types, socioeconomic backgrounds, and countries. It is one of the least controversial facts in criminal justice research.
And yet, sentencing structures often pretend it does not exist.
The Counterintuitive Truth About Murder Convictions and Recidivism
Few labels carry more stigma than “convicted murderer.” Public imagination treats it as synonymous with permanent danger. Research tells a very different story.
Individuals released after serving long sentences for homicide have some of the lowest recidivism rates of any released population, particularly for violent reoffending. Lower than those released for property crimes. Lower than many drug offenses. Lower than individuals convicted of less serious assaults.
This is not because homicide is less serious. It is because the conditions surrounding these cases are different.
People convicted of murder often serve decades in prison. That time allows the aging-out process to fully occur. By the time release is even considered, many are in their forties, fifties, or older. They are well past the statistical window of peak criminal behavior.
Long sentences also force sustained reckoning. Genuine remorse, accountability, and reflection are not episodic when someone lives with the consequences for twenty, thirty, or forty years. They become structural.
Release is not automatic. These individuals face heightened scrutiny, repeated psychological evaluations, extensive parole hearings, and release planning far more rigorous than most other cases. Their freedom is conditional, monitored, and fragile.
None of this erases the original harm. It does not minimize the loss suffered by victims’ families. It simply acknowledges a reality the data refuses to ignore.
People change. Some profoundly.
Why Commutation Exists
This is where commutation enters the conversation.
Commutation is an act of executive clemency that reduces a sentence. It does not erase a conviction. It does not declare innocence. It acknowledges transformation and recalibrates punishment in light of who a person has become, not only who they were at their worst moment.
In Michigan, commutation has particular significance.
The state has long relied on extreme sentencing, including life without parole, often imposed on individuals who were very young at the time of the offense. Many entered prison before their brains were fully developed and remained there long after they posed any realistic public safety risk.
For people who have demonstrably aged out of crime, commutation serves several critical purposes.
Proportionality Over Perpetuity
Punishment imposed decades ago reflects the person someone once was. Justice that refuses to reevaluate refuses proportionality.
When an individual has spent thirty or forty years demonstrating accountability, growth, and rehabilitation, continued incarceration can shift from punishment to permanence without purpose. Commutation restores the idea that sentences should remain tethered to both accountability and present-day reality.
Public Safety and Fiscal Reality
Older incarcerated individuals are among the most expensive to house. Medical care, mobility accommodations, and chronic illness management drive costs exponentially higher, even though this population presents the lowest risk of reoffending.
Keeping elderly people incarcerated for symbolic reasons drains resources from prevention, education, victim services, and reentry infrastructure that actually improves safety.
Commutation is not leniency. It is resource alignment.
Human Capital After Long Incarceration
People who survive decades in prison and still emerge accountable often leave with skills, discipline, and perspective few others possess. Many become mentors, counselors, violence interrupters, and community stabilizers.
Their credibility is earned, not theoretical. When someone who has lived the consequences speaks to at-risk youth, the message carries weight no program brochure ever could.
Families and Secondary Punishment
Incarceration punishes more than one person. Families absorb decades of absence, stigma, and financial strain. Children grow up without parents. Parents age without their children.
Commutation does not undo those losses, but it allows healing to begin. Reunification stabilizes families and reduces intergenerational harm, which is itself a public safety concern.
Hope as a Correctional Tool
The possibility of commutation incentivizes rehabilitation. It encourages education, discipline, accountability, and engagement in programming. Hope is not weakness in correctional settings. It is order.
Facilities that offer no path forward produce despair, not transformation.
Michigan’s Slow Shift Toward Evidence
Michigan has already acknowledged these principles in part. Supreme Court decisions addressing juvenile life without parole forced resentencing reviews grounded in development, growth, and rehabilitation. Many individuals once condemned to die in prison have since been released and have not returned.
Those outcomes were not accidents. They were predictable and reflect what happens when policy finally aligns with data.
What Justice Looks Like When It Grows Up
Belief in aging out of crime does not deny harm. Belief in commutation does not erase accountability. It recognizes that justice must remain dynamic if it is to remain legitimate.
A system that cannot recognize change eventually loses credibility. A system that punishes without reevaluation punishes beyond necessity.
Second chances are not owed. They are earned. And when they are, refusing to acknowledge them says more about the system than the person standing before it.
