NO LOOK FOR VIRGINIA’S ‘SECOND LOOK’ BILL: Hans Bader reports that a committee of the Virginia state house rejected that “Second Look” proposal previously noted in this space to enable large numbers of murderers who act nice in prison while serving more than 10 years of their sentences to seek release.

Bader’s analysis is full of data points and sources that demolish the liberal argument that it’s safe to let violent offenders out of jail after they’ve serve a long stretch and abided by the rules, like these two gems:

“Supporters of the bill claimed it was safe to release criminals after 10 or 15 years in prison, falsely claiming people age out of crime by then. One backer of the bill claimed that ‘people age out of crime by their late thirty’s.’ Opponents of the bill debunked these claims, pointing to evidence that many violent criminals do not age out of crime even by their 60s, and commit violent crimes even after being incarcerated for many years.

“They cited a recent federal report showing that: ‘On February 10, the U.S. Sentencing Commission released a report, ‘Recidivism of Federal Violent Offenders Released in 2010.’ Over an 8-year period, violent offenders returned to crime at a 63.8 percent rate. The median time to rearrest was 16 months for violent offenders. Most violent offenders released from prison committed more crimes. Even among those offenders over age 60, 25.1 percent of violent offenders were rearrested. That means some violent offenders don’t age out of crime even by their 60’s.’”