California’s Board of Parole Hearings has declined to release former Detroit Lions receiver Titus Young because of his “history of violent criminality.”

Young, raised in Los Angeles, is serving a four-year sentence at the California Rehabilitation Center in Norco after pleading guilty last year to assaulting a neighbor. He is also serving a two-year sentence concurrently for an assault in Carlsbad.

The board’s two-page report on Young issued Jan. 31 noted “a pattern of assaultive behavior,” but said he hasn’t violated any prison rules involving injury or the threat of injury. He has participated in several educational and recovery groups during his incarceration, but is on the waiting list for anger management, substance abuse and other programs.

The L.A. County District Attorney’s office opposed his release in two letters to the board, according to the report.


Young previously gave the Los Angeles Times excerpts of a diary he kept while behind bars. It details his troubled behavior since the Lions released him in January 2013 and coming to terms with having mental illness.

In the diary, Young wrote that he is bipolar and heard voices, triggering a string of run-ins with law enforcement that led him to accumulate at least 25 criminal charges in Southern California since 2013.

Despite the imprisonment, Young, 28, expected to resume his NFL career.

“I want to be free,” Young wrote. “I believe God has a plan for me and deep down I believe it’s to dominate the NFL.”