Crime and Parole Policy

The California Republican Party has rolled out a new petition and website, 'Stop Gavin’s Predators,' attacking Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Board of Parole Hearings over decisions to grant parole to convicted sex offenders. The site names all 21 commissioners, noting they were appointed by Newsom between 2021 and 2024, and highlights several contentious cases, including Gregory Lee Vogelsang and David Allen Funston, both serial child sex offenders approved for release under California’s Elderly Parole Program. The campaign details Vogelsang’s admissions at a parole hearing that he remains primarily attracted to boys aged 5–11 and still masturbated to fantasies about young boys as recently as 2020, and cites psychological evaluations finding he poses a higher risk than most sex offenders. It also describes Funston’s alleged methods of luring and assaulting young girls and notes he remains jailed on new Placer County charges tied to a 1996 child sexual assault, which currently block his release. By personalizing the parole board and centering extreme child‑predator cases, state Republicans are trying to turn parole policy and Newsom’s appointments into a law‑and‑order liability ahead of 2026 races, echoing national GOP messaging that Democrats are soft on violent crime.