ANNAPOLIS, Md.–A few months after the murder of his daughter in Baltimore, Frank LaPere is asking lawmakers this session to change the law he blames for her death.
The man charged with killing tech CEO Pava LaPere might have been in prison at the time of the killing, serving time for a previous charge, but he had been released early under special provisions for good behavior.
“No other victim should fall prey to repeat violent sexual offenders,” LaPere’s father told lawmakers in a recent committee hearing. “We cannot allow the system that failed Pava to continue.”
The bill he is pushing for would prohibit people incarcerated for first-degree rape or first-degree sexual offense from receiving what are known as “diminution credits,” reducing the length of incarceration for behavior like attending classes or therapy.
The defendant in LaPere’s killing was released early from prison with diminution credits, according to news accounts. He is scheduled to go to trial this summer.
Diminution credits are “an incentive tool used behind the wall to maintain order, encourage good behavior and offer opportunities to learn and develop the skills needed to return to the community,” said Marguerite Lanaux, the district public defender of Baltimore City.
Del. Jackie Addison, D-Baltimore City, said that, as a mother and grandmother, she hopes to see the measure passed this legislative session.
“I have three daughters and a granddaughter and I would never want that to happen to anyone, not just my family but anyone,” Addison, a co-sponsor of the bill, said in an interview with Capital News Service. “I just pray that it does get passed because it is a very important bill, and we need the bill.”
But some public defenders say that taking away diminution credits won’t incentivize inmates to do the work while they are still incarcerated to prepare them for the real world, and it won’t make communities safer because they will be released anyway.
An alternative option, they say, would be providing better programs for sexual offenders in Division of Corrections facilities.
The measure would “make the DOC a more traumatizing place so across the board it will have a negative effect on all incarcerated people and our communities when they are released,” said Gabriel Ellenberger, of the public defender’s office, during a committee hearing.
The proposed measure is named after Pava LaPere, who was the CEO of a tech startup company called EcoMap Technologies.
“While she is physically gone from this world her vision and dreams will still live on,” LaPere said.