The first time Michael Tracy skipped school, it was to help plan a robbery. He was 17, and reckless.

It did not go well. Wearing masks and looking for a Rolex, the Klein ISD student and two older friends strolled through the front door of a northern Harris County home and held the owner at gunpoint. No one got hurt, and they fled with only a fraction of what they’d expected.

But less than a week later, the long-haired kid found himself facing a very adult charge: aggravated robbery, a first-degree felony. He took the case to trial, and lost.

Two months before his 18th birthday, he was sentenced to 60 years in prison. That was in 1994.

“I’ve been gone so long,” he told the Houston Chronicle recently, “I no longer dream of the free world. I only dream of prison.”

But now, Tracy and a few hundred other aging inmates like him have a new hope for reprieve with proposed legislation known as the Second Look bill. Filed in the Texas House by Rep. Joe Moody, D-El Paso, and in the Texas Senate by Sen. Jose Rodriguez, D-El Paso, the measure would make some prisoners who were sentenced as minors eligible to get out much sooner. Anyone hit with a first-degree felony before turning 18 would be up for parole after 20 years or half of their sentence — whichever is sooner.

“Basically, it’s parole reform,” said Deanna Luprete, an advocate who’s dedicated herself to helping the measure pass. “This is not resentencing, this is not opening the gate and letting them go. It’s asking that the parole board give this juvenile a second look.”

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