Maryland lawmakers have passed legislation that overhauls the process for releasing sick and aging prisoners, which advocates had long described as broken and among the worst systems in the United States.

Gov. Wes Moore, a Democrat, this week signed a bill that makes several changes to medical and geriatric parole. Advocates say they’re mostly technical in nature but clarify the law and provide guidance to the Maryland Parole Commission to help with decisions.

“In a lot of other states, what this bill does is referred to as compassionate release,” said Lila Meadows, an assistant public defender in the Maryland Office of the Public Defender’s Decarceration Initiative. “And for me, that is the essence of medical parole: It’s about mercy.”

“I’m not sure that there’s any value in allowing people who are sick, who are elderly and who are unable to pose any threat to public safety to die in prison,” added Meadows, who’s also director of the Decarceration Initiative Clinic at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law.