What I find interesting is now we are beginning to see articles that look at what’s happening across the country. You get a better picture of what reforms are shaping up like as result of this renewed interest in social justice issues with emphasis on hyper-incarceration. When they are laid out against each other you can see what works and what isn’t and where reforms ought to be put in place. We cannot help but look at the “war on drugs” and still believe that was good policy. The time is ripe for reforms. Babz Rawls Ivy, Online-Editor and Content Curator.

Are More Criminal Justice Reforms on the Horizon in 2015?

by Lauren-Brooke Eisen This post first appeared at The Brennan Center for Justice. We saw it on BillMoyers.com

2014 was a year, as many are, of modest steps forward and a few steps back in criminal justice reform. But the national focus on flaws in our criminal justice system could lead to stronger reforms in 2015.

The year proved to be a victory for those advocating for changes in drug laws. In November, voters in Oregon, Alaska and Washington DC voted to legalize marijuana, while New York City police officers will issue summonses in lieu of arrest for possession of small amounts of marijuana — a marked shift from the nation’s mood in June of 1971 when President Richard Nixon officially declared a “war on drugs” and stated that drug abuse is “public enemy number one.”

The Justice Department took a big step forward this year by reforming overly harsh sentencing laws. At Attorney General Eric Holder’s request, the US Sentencing Commission amended federal sentencing guidelines to reduce the average sentence length for most drug trafficking offenders by 18 percent. Additionally, Holder continued to advocate for “Smart on Crime” policies, which he describes as “a targeted effort to enhance the way we charge, sentence and release individuals in order to end this country’s overreliance on incarceration and to promote efforts that give people the tools they need to return to their communities and lead better and more productive lives.”

2014 also saw legislative efforts to roll back America’s punitive criminal justice policies. Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) introduced the REDEEM Act, which aims to keep juveniles out of the adult criminal justice system and incentivizes states to make it easier for formerly incarcerated adults to have their criminal records sealed. Sen. Dick Durbin’s (D-IL) and Sen. Mike Lee’s (R-UT) also introduced legislation, the Smarter Sentencing Act, which received wide sponsorship in the Senate. The bill reduces some mandatory minimum sentences and allows individuals sentenced under the old crack cocaine – powder cocaine laws to petition for a sentence reduction based on new provisions in the 2010 Fair Sentencing Act.

Conservatives also continued to champion the need for reform this year. A panel at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) addressed how to recalibrate the American criminal justice system so that it is focused more on rehabilitation than simple retribution. Panel members included the director of the American Conservative Union’s Center for Criminal Justice Reform Pat Nolan, president of Americans for Tax Reform Grover Norquist, Texas Gov. Rick Perry (a possible GOP presidential candidate) and former New York Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik.

There was also a tremendous movement in the states to reduce the number of people who are incarcerated. Currently, more than 86 percent of prisoners in the US are in state facilities. Idaho passed legislation that, among other things, restructures parole to prioritize prison space for violent and high-risk offenders. Mississippi enacted a package of reforms aimed at refocusing prison space on violent and career criminals in addition to providing more resources to probation and parole services. In California, a state that is struggling to control its inmate population, voters authorized Proposition 47 which retroactively classifies six low-level felony offenses as misdemeanors. San Francisco, Washington DC, and states such as Delaware, Illinois, Nebraska and New Jersey also adopted ban the box policies which removed questions related to criminal records from employment applications.

Also promising this year, the US executed the fewest number of people under the death penalty in two decades. Thirty-five inmates were executed this year down from 98 executions in 1999. The majority of those executions, or 80 percent, were carried out in only three states: Florida, Texas and Missouri. Additionally, seven death row inmates were exonerated this year, the most recent on December 9th in Ohio.

There were also other signs that people are waking up to our nation’s addiction to mass incarceration, including a whopping $50 million grant to the American Civil Liberties Union’s political arm to reduce incarceration by 50 percent over an eight year span. The National Academy of Sciences also issued a 464-page report this year urging the nation to revise criminal justice policies to significantly reduce imprisonment rates. The Brookings Institution’s Hamilton Project also shed light on the country’s $80 billion a year in direct corrections expenses in a recent report. And, more than a million people viewed the VlogBrothers’ four-minute video focusing on how the war on crime is failed policy and that, “It’s cruel, it’s shortsighted, and to continue this policy of mass incarceration would be foolish. We’re living inside of a massive $75 billion per year failed experiment.”

Sadly, despite well-intentioned efforts made toward improving how we treat those who come into contact with the criminal justice system, most will remember 2014 for the cases of Eric Garner and Michael Brown. 2014 will inevitably be written into the history books as the year two grand juries in two separate cases in two different states voted not to indict white police officers who used what many believed was excessive force exerted upon unarmed African-American civilians that resulted in their deaths. It will forever be known for its hashtags such as #ICantBreathe, #blacklivesmatter, #HandsUpDon’tShoot and #justiceformikebrown.

Since these lack of indictments were announced, less than a month apart, legislators have introduced grand jury reform legislation and President Obama appointed a Task Force on 21st Century Policing. The White House blog announcing the task force states that it “will examine how to strengthen public trust and foster strong relationships between local law enforcement and the communities that they protect, while also promoting effective crime reduction.” While the Task Force was in the works before these grand jury decisions were announced, the group’s recommendations will be carefully followed by many Americans in 2015. And, earlier this summer, after the photographs and videos of police in riot gear as a response to violence in Ferguson, Missouri, were tweeted, posted and carried by national media, President Obama directed a review of federal programs and funding that allow state and local law-enforcement agencies to acquire surplus military equipment.

It’s been a busy year for those working to improve the criminal justice system. The seeds sown for reform in 2014 have the potential for genuine change in 2015. With violent crime rates continuing a downward trend, communities reporting less fear of crime, major federal reviews of policing and grants programs, bipartisan legislation pending in Congress, and a 2016 presidential campaign about to kick into high gear, 2015 has the prospect of serving as an important year for those who wish to improve the fairness, efficiency and justice of America’s criminal justice system.

The views expressed in this post are the author’s alone, and presented here to offer a variety of perspectives to our readers.

NPR: As Court Fees Rise, The Poor Are Paying The Price

The proliferation of court fees has prompted some states, like New Jersey, to use amnesty programs to encourage the thousands of people who owe fines to surrender in exchange for fee reductions. At the Fugitive Safe Surrender program, makeshift courtrooms allow judges to individually handle each case.

Nicole Beemsterboer/NPR

In Augusta, Ga., a judge sentenced Tom Barrett to 12 months after he stole a can of beer worth less than $2.

In Ionia, Mich., 19-year-old Kyle Dewitt caught a fish out of season; then a judge sentenced him to three days in jail.

In Grand Rapids, Mich., Stephen Papa, a homeless Iraq War veteran, spent 22 days in jail, not for what he calls his “embarrassing behavior” after he got drunk with friends and climbed into an abandoned building, but because he had only $25 the day he went to court.

GUILTY AND CHARGED: KEY FINDINGS

NPR’s yearlong investigation included more than 150 interviews with lawyers, judges, offenders in and out of jail, government officials, advocates and other experts. It also included a nationwide survey — with help from NYU’s Brennan Center for Justice and the National Center for State Courts — of which states are charging defendants and offenders fees. Findings of this investigation include:

• Defendants are charged for a long list of government services that were once free — including ones that are constitutionally required.
• Impoverished people sometimes go to jail when they fall behind paying these fees.
• Since 2010, 48 states have increased criminal and civil court fees.
• Many courts are struggling to interpret a 1983 Supreme Court ruling protecting defendants from going to jail because they are too poor to pay their fines.
• Technology, such as electronic monitors, aimed at helping defendants avoid jail time is available only to those who can afford to pay for it.

Listen to Morning Edition and All Things Considered all this week for additional stories from this investigation.

Chart: State-By-State Court Fees

The common thread in these cases, and scores more like them, is the jail time wasn’t punishment for the crime, but for the failure to pay the increasing fines and fees associated with the criminal justice system.

A yearlong NPR investigation found that the costs of the criminal justice system in the United States are paid increasingly by the defendants and offenders. It’s a practice that causes the poor to face harsher treatment than others who commit identical crimes and can afford to pay. Some judges and politicians fear the trend has gone too far.

A state-by-state survey conducted by NPR found that defendants are charged for many government services that were once free, including those that are constitutionally required. For example:

• In at least 43 states and the District of Columbia, defendants can be billed for a public defender.
• In at least 41 states, inmates can be charged room and board for jail and prison stays.
• In at least 44 states, offenders can get billed for their own probation and parole supervision.
• And in all states except Hawaii, and the District of Columbia, there’s a fee for the electronic monitoring devices defendants and offenders are ordered to wear.

These fees — which can add up to hundreds or even thousands of dollars — get charged at every step of the system, from the courtroom, to jail, to probation. Defendants and offenders pay for their own arrest warrants, their court-ordered drug and alcohol-abuse treatment and to have their DNA samples collected. They are billed when courts need to modernize their computers. In Washington state, for example, they even get charged a fee for a jury trial — with a 12-person jury costing $250, twice the fee for a six-person jury.

In Allegan County, Mich., Frederick Cunningham pleaded guilty to forging a prescription for pain medication and was told to pay $1,000 in “court costs.” Testimony from a court official in a case where Cunningham challenged his fees shows that $500 reimbursed the program that paid for the impoverished man’s court-appointed attorney and $500 helped pay for the costs of running the county courthouse. Those costs include the salaries of court employees, for heat, telephones, copy machines and even to underwrite the cost of the county employees’ fitness gym.

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The funds from the rising costs of court fees in places like Allegan County, Mich., are used to help pay for all sorts of court-related items, including this fitness center for county employees.

Joseph Shapiro/NPR

“The only reason that the court is in operation and doing business at that point in time is because that defendant has come in and is a user of those services,” says Michael Day, the administrator for the Allegan County Circuit Court. “They don’t necessarily see themselves as a customer because, obviously, they’re not choosing to be there. But in reality they are.”

Courts usually offer alternatives to paying fees, like doing community service. But sometimes there’s a cost with that, too. Jayne Fuentes, in Benton County, Wash., went on the county work crew to pay off her fines — only there was a $5-a-day charge, which she had to borrow from her daughter.

Alternatives For The Poor?

The people most likely to face arrest and go through the courts are poor, says sociologist Alexes Harris, at the University of Washington. She’s writing a book on these fees and the people who struggle to pay them.

“They tend to be people of color, African-Americans and Latinos,” Harris says. “They tend to be high school dropouts, they tend to be people with mental illness, with substance abuse. So these are already very poor and marginalized people in our society, and then we impose these fiscal penalties to them and expect that they make regular payments, when in fact the vast majority are unable to do so.”

Many fees can be waived for indigent defendants, but judges are more likely to put the poor on a more manageable payment plan.

Courts, however, will then sometimes tack on extra fees, penalties for missed payments and may even charge interest.

In Washington state, for example, there’s 12 percent interest on costs in felony cases that accrues from the moment of judgment until all fines, fees, restitution and interest are paid off in full. As a result, it can be hard for someone who’s poor to make that debt ever go away. One state commission found that the average amount in felony cases adds up to $2,500. If someone paid a typical amount — $10 a month — and never missed a payment, his debt would keep growing. After four years of faithful payments, the person would now owe $3,000.

Virginia Dickerson, of Richland, Wash., has been drug-free for more than three years and out of jail for over a year. She’s living in a treatment house and working as a waitress and cook. On the day last fall when NPR reporters met her, Dickerson was at the courthouse trying to get a summary of how much she owed in fines, fees and interest. The total: almost $10,000.

“I don’t want to have to worry about going to jail. And that is my biggest fear,” she says. “Relapses aren’t even a thought to me. This is the only thing that is hindering me.”

Stephen Papa was sentenced to 22 days in jail, not because of his original offense — destruction of property and resisting arrest after he got drunk with friends one day — but because he couldn’t pay the fines and court fees. At his hearing, the judge asked for a $50 first installment on his $2,600 in court debt, but Papa, who was homeless and on the verge of starting a new job, had only $25.

 

When an impoverished person fails to keep up with these payments, he has violated probation. There may be more fees and penalties. In some states, people who don’t pay can lose their driver’s license or benefits like food stamps. Sometimes felons have to pay before they get back their right to vote.

NPR’s reporting came across many of these situations, including a woman in her 60s who lost her subsidized housing for seniors and became homeless. It was discovered she still owed $500 on a conviction decades before for forging a prescription. Other examples included people who didn’t pay court costs and lost their driver’s license, but they kept driving — to get to work, to get kids to school — until they were caught, went to jail and were assessed thousands of dollars in more fines and fees.

The result is that people face arrest and go underground to avoid police. But this means they cut themselves off from job opportunities, welfare benefits or other programs that could get them on their feet.

“There are a lot of things you can’t do. A lot of jobs you can’t apply for,” says Todd Clear, who studies crime policy and is provost of Rutgers University, Newark. “Lots of benefits you can’t apply for. If you have a license, a driver’s license that needs to be renewed, you can’t renew it. So what it means is you live your entire life under a cloud. In a very real sense, they drop out of the real society.”

Eddie Restrepo was one of those dropouts. Three years ago, the Iraq Army veteran came home to New Jersey but couldn’t find work. He was homeless and all he had was his car. He didn’t have the money to renew his license — or to pay the fines when he got caught by police. He says he was caught twice: driving with a suspended license, with no registration or insurance, and for many unpaid parking tickets. There was also interest that went unpaid.

“I was always hiding from the cops,” he says. “If I was driving, I had to turn left when they were coming right. I was always trying to hide.”

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  Nicole Beemsterboer/NPR
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  Nicole Beemsterboer/NPR
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  Joseph Shapiro/NPR
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During a four-day period last November, nearly 4,500 people turned themselves in to Fugitive Safe Surrender, a New Jersey program for people with unpaid fines and fees to get significant reductions. A judge reset Restrepo’s court debt — from $10,000 to what Restrepo called “a measly” $199. And that has helped him get back on track. Last year, he took a job with the parking enforcement agency. He now gives out the kinds of citations and fines that got him into trouble.

But across the country, NPR found cases of hundreds of Americans who are jailed for failure to pay off those court debts.

This month, the governor of Colorado signed a law that tells judges they can’t send people to jail simply because they’re too poor to pay fines and fees.

The action came after the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado challenged the practice of courts in three Colorado cities.

One example was a case in Westminster. Jared Thornburg was ticketed for making an illegal left turn. He went to court and the offense was dropped to driving a “defective vehicle,” a ticket with $165 worth of fines and fees. At the time, he was homeless and unemployed. He had recently lost a job at an oil field after a serious workplace injury. So he couldn’t pay the ticket.

The day before he was to start a job at Taco Bell, he says, he was arrested for not paying the fines, which had increased to $306. He was sentenced to 10 days in jail.

“I cried a lot being in jail because I was scared,” Thornburg says.

It cost the city of Westminster about $70 a day to jail Thornburg, according to the ACLU of Colorado.

“How is that humanely right?” he asks. “It cost the taxpayers more than what my fine was for and it just wasted 10 days of my life.”

The Threat Of Pay Or Stay

But some communities argue they make needed money from fines and fees.

NPR obtained a year of jail records from Benton County and sampled data over a four-month period in 2013. On a typical day, about a quarter of the people who were in jail for misdemeanor offenses were there because they had failed to pay their court fines and fees.

Benton County District Court Judge Robert Ingvalson defends the county’s heavy use of fines and fees — and jail time for those who don’t pay. He says it’s needed to hold people accountable when they break laws.

“If they won’t pay the money, the only thing we can take from them at that point is their time,” Ingvalson says.

But Vanessa Torres Hernandez, an attorney with the ACLU of Washington who recently wrote a report criticizing the practice, disagrees.

“If you have resources, a court fine and fee isn’t a big deal. You can pay that money. You can walk free. But for people who are already poor, the court fine and fee is in essence an additional sentence,” she says.

One result, she says, is that poor people are faced with difficult choices, sometimes using money they need for food or rent to pay court costs to stay out of jail.

Benton County collects just a fraction of all the fines and fees it’s owed. But the county still collected $13 million in 2012 — making it one of the state’s top revenue producers.

There is some debate in Benton County about whether that’s a good thing. Court officials note with pride how much money they raise. But local police chiefs say money goes out, too. It costs the police departments about $65 a day to keep someone in jail for not paying their fines.

The county prosecutor worries that the practice is unfair to poor defendants, and he has asked local judges to put a cap on how many days they will put people in jail.

“I actually have some question about the fairness of some of the fines that are imposed,” says Benton County Prosecuting Attorney Andy Miller. “But a lot of these fines are mandatory, set by the legislature.”

Common Court Fees

Pre-conviction

• Application fee to obtain public defender
• Jail fee for pretrial incarceration
• Jury fees
• Rental fee for electronic monitoring devices

Sentencing

• Fines, with accompanying surcharges
• Restitution
• Fees for court administrative costs
• Fees for designated funds (e.g. libraries, prison construction, etc.)
• Public defender reimbursement fees
• Prosecution reimbursement fees

Incarceration

• Fees for room and board in jail and prison
• Health care and medication fees

Probation, parole or other supervision

• Probation and parole supervision fees
• Drug testing fees
• Vehicle interlock device fees (DUIs)
• Rental fee for electronic monitoring devices
• Mandatory treatment (includes drug and alcohol,) therapy and class fees

Poverty penalties

• Interest
• Late fees
• Payment plan fees
• Collection fees

Source: Brennan Center for Justice and NPR

Who’s Too Poor To Pay?

In 1983, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Bearden v. Georgia that people can’t be sent to jail simply for being too poor to pay fines and fees. The court said someone could be sentenced only if he or she had the money and had “willfully” refused to pay. But the justices did not define what that meant. The result is that it’s often left to judges to make the difficult calculation: Who’s too poor to pay. And who can, but didn’t.

NPR found sweeping discrepancies across the country over how courts make those decisions. Some judges will tell an offender to give up their phone service, or quit smoking cigarettes and use the money instead to pay court debt.

Some judges and politicians — even ones with reputations for being hard on crime — are starting to question whether the use of fines and fees has gone too far. The new law in Colorado was passed on a near-unanimous vote of Republicans and Democrats.

Courts, too, have taken action to limit the use of fees. Last month, a U.S. district judge stopped the city of Montgomery, Ala., from collecting traffic fines from three defendants who went to jail for failure to pay fines and fees. And over the last two years, judges in Alabama and Georgia have ruled in other cases to limit fines and fees. Earlier this year, the Ohio State Supreme Court warned judges to stop putting people in jail simply because they’re too poor to pay a fine.

A History Of Rising Fees

The roots of the growing practice to add more fines and fees can be dated back to the start of America’s tough-on-crime policies, beginning with the War on Crime in the 1970s and then the War on Drugs in the 1980s. In 40 years, the number of people behind bars in the U.S. jumped 700 percent. Jails, prisons and courtrooms became overcrowded. And the costs of running them, according to the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics, rose from $6 billion for states in 1980 to more than $67 billion a year in 2010.

At the same time, states struggled with budget deficits. Politicians faced new pressure not to raise taxes. So states started charging user fees to defendants. Fines have long been a tool for judges; for decades they’ve been another form of punishment. The focus on fees, that are used to pay court, jail and probation costs, is newer.

One of the first instances NPR found of fees charged to criminal defendants was in 1965 when California required payments to reimburse crime victims. By the 1980s, states started billing criminal defendants to reimburse taxpayers. Michigan, in 1984, passed the first law to charge inmates for some of the costs of their incarceration. By 1990, Texas reported that fees from offenders made up more than half the budget of the state’s probation agencies.

In Benton County, Washington, on a typical day, about a quarter of the people sentenced to jail through the misdemeanor court were there because they had failed to pay their court fines and fees.

Joseph Shapiro/NPR

Today, fees are more common than ever, as states are under increased pressure to find funding. NPR, with help from the National Center for State Courts, surveyed state laws since the recent recession and found 48 states have increased criminal and civil court fees, added new ones or both.

The number of Americans with unpaid fines and fees is massive. In 2011, in Philadelphia alone, courts sent bills on unpaid debts dating back to the 1970s to more than 320,000 people — roughly 1 in 5 city residents. The median debt was around $4,500. And in New York City, there are 1.2 million outstanding warrants, many for unpaid court fines and fees.

The growth in the number of people who owe court-imposed monetary sanctions shows up in surveys by the U.S. Department of Justice, too: In 1991, 25 percent of prison inmates said they owed court-imposed costs, restitution, fines and fees. By 2004, the last time the Justice Department did the survey, that number climbed to about 66 percent.

But Harris of the University of Washington estimates that 80 to 85 percent of inmates now leave prison owing these costs.

Public Defender Fees

The growth of the fees charged for a public defender is typical of the way these charges have grown.

In 1963, the Supreme Court — in the landmark case, Gideon v. Wainwright — ruled that indigent criminal defendants have a right to a lawyer. But the high court didn’t say how states were to pay for those lawyers. So states turned to user fees.

The NPR survey found, with help from the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law, that in at least 43 states and D.C., defendants can be billed for a public defender. We found two typical charges: an upfront application fee to hire a lawyer, which can range from $10 to $400; and reimbursement fees, which can cost thousands of dollars.

“After the fact you can be asked to reimburse up to the full cost of your representation,” says Alicia Bannon, an attorney with the Brennan Center.

The courts — including the Supreme Court — have justified this by saying even a poor person can often pay something — even if it’s just that small application fee. Or maybe that person is poor today, but tomorrow will find a good-paying job and have money.

In reality, NPR found that poor people sometimes skip using an attorney. Or they carry the debt for their court-appointed lawyer for years.

Tom Barrett, who stole that can of beer in Augusta, Ga., was offered a court-appointed attorney, but turned the service down because he didn’t want to pay the $50 administration fee. Now he says that was a mistake.

A lawyer might have helped him stay away from a deal he couldn’t afford. His costs added up to more than $400 a month, which included daily rental of the electronic monitoring device and fees to a private firm that managed his probation. But Barrett was homeless. His only income, other than food stamps, came from the $35 he got selling his plasma to the blood bank. So when he quickly fell behind on his payments, he was sent to jail.

The NPR survey found, all states — except for Hawaii and also the District of Columbia — now allow or even require the cost of those devices to be passed along to those ordered by a court to wear one. Usually that includes a daily rental fee: Typically around $5 for a tracking device and often twice as much to rent the alcohol monitoring device. It also includes the cost of a land-line phone for the systems to work, and an installation fee.

Last fall, Augusta Superior Court Judge Daniel Craig put a temporary stop to forcing poor people to pay fees for the devices and other costs.

NPR’s Emma Anderson, Nicole Beemsterboer, Robert Benincasa and Barbara Van Woerkom contributed reporting and research to this investigation.

Reprinted from Prisonist.org, Jan. 2, 2015

WHAT IF, you are exactly where you are supposed to be?

So many of us are in a place where our first life has come to an end.  A divorce, the death of a child or other loved one, loss of a job or career, alcohol and drug problems that finally crushed us, financial issues that overwhelmed our ability to be present for ourselves and our families, an illness or mental illness, hospitalization, poor judgment that has caused rampant legal problems, incarceration.

So many of us are suffering and want to find a new way.  But they – we – are mostly frozen.  Stopped dead in our tracks feeling alone, isolated, and hopeless.  We mourn the past and fear the future.

WHAT IF, the feelings you are feeling, the sorrows and joys, the suffering and the release, are what is exactly intended for you?  More than just intended for you, what if this moment in your life had to happen – that it has actually been pre-programmed?  Pre-programmed for you, and for me, and for everyone.

WHAT IF, knowing that this was pre-programmed, we could anticipate it, welcome it, and accept this part of life as natural.  As a God-given portion of our lives.  I’m talking to you about middle part, the liminal part.  The part of life you are in now – after the first life you’ve lived. And before your second life, a life of uncertainty and the unknown.

WHAT IF, where you are right now is actually the best time of life – the greatest moment of life?  And to experience it in all its greatness, all you have to do is ACCEPT that this is exactly where you are supposed to be?  That God has pre-programmed in us this moment – whether it be for a week, a month, a year or a decade – and has given us the power and free-will to make it absolutely the greatest period of our lives?

Among my resolutions for this New Year is to present to you some things I’ve learned on my spiritual path to prove that this space we enter, the middle place, actually is (or can be) the best and most important time of our lives.

Let’s start with the Bible, or at least 500 years of it or so crammed into a few paragraphs (with apologies to scholars & close readers).

Have you ever thought about the term, Good Samaritan?  Everyone who goes to church wants to be a Good Samaritan, don’t they.   Don’t you? In many passages, Jesus talked about good Samaritans, and commended them for all the good works they did for others.

For example, Luke 10:25-37 is actually called “The Parable of The Good Samaritan.”  In this scripture, Jesus tells the tale of three men who approach a man on the side of the road who had been attacked by robbers, and commends “the one who had mercy on him.” The Good Samaritan. In other examples in the Bible, John 4:4-26, Jesus meets a Samaritan woman at a well, and asks her for a drink.  In this interchange, Jesus gives the Samaritan the greatest gift of all.

The question I have is: when did Samaritans become the good guys, and the people named in the Bible to receive God’s gifts?  The Samaritans were a class of people who had lost there place in Jewish society, and were loathed and despised by the Jews ever since.  When were Samaritans lifted up and given a place of respect and importance?  Repurposed if you will, such that the name Samaritan itself went from being synonymous with outcast, to that of being a doer of good deeds?

It started with the Exile – the Babylonian Exile.  Or more accurately, in the time the Fall leading to the Exile.  Many prophets had prophesied that the Exile was coming.  The Prophet Isaiah, for example, spoke of the coming destruction and exile (i.e. Isaiah 5:13).

And as we know, these prophesies turned out to be accurate. Jerusalem was invaded, people were massacred, and the city and the Great Temple were burned to the ground.  The elite – the wealthy, the intelligencia and the religious leaders – were the first to be sent into bondage in Babylon.  Followed soon after by the lesser classes.  But not all Jews living in Israel and Judah were sent into Exile – some were left in Jerusalem as slaves in their own city.  And ignored completely were the Jews living in Samaria – an outpost city in the north of the kingdom.

Not that much was written about the Jews while they lived in exile in Babylon.  But one thing seems certain: before the exile the Jews were a people of the Temple, who believed that God resided in the Temple.  They worshipped God at the temple and other high places (in Hebrew “bemot”).   Without the Temple and high places, the Jews were without their God and the foundations of their religion.  In order to preserve their religion and people, having no homeland to call their own, the leaders made a critical decision while in exile – they decided that God was indeed everywhere, and that the worship of God would be from that point founded in the Bible. That is Judaism changed from a “religion of place” to a religion “of the book.”  This important decision, made while in captivity – in a space of suffering – not only ensured their continuity in exile, but enabled the Judeo-Christian religion to survive for the next 2500 years.

We know that Jewish people were allowed to return to Jerusalem after 70 years of exile. That prophecy was fulfilled in 537 B.C., and the Jews were allowed by King Cyrus of Persia to return to Israel and begin rebuilding the city and temple.  Two great prophets emerged from exile to lead the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the Temple.   The prophet Ezra, who declared that the Temple should be rebuilt first, and that God would protect the people who first honored God and their religion.  On the other hand, the prophet Nehemiah declared that the Jews should first rebuild the walls of the city.  Perhaps more pragmatic than Ezra, he determined that without walls the city would be vulnerable to attack.  It is unknown who won this debate, or if the Temple or the walls were reconstructed first.  But the debate, between putting God first or material security first, rages on in various ways to this day.

But not all Jews were permitted to rebuild the Temple and the walls of the city.

The Jews who had been left to live in Samaria without going to exile wanted to help rebuild Jerusalem.   But in the ensuing seventy years, the Jews in Samaria had intermarried with non-Jews, and now were considered unclean and half-breeds. They were no longer considered to be Jews by the people in Jerusalem and were not allowed to enter the holy city.  Instead, they were scorned and mocked for what they had done.  The Samaritans were considered a lesser people for the next 500 years, through the Greek occupation of Israel, and then the Roman occupation of Israel, and right up to the time of Jesus when he spoke of them in parables.  When Jesus lifted them up, and declared their worthiness as people of God.

It always amazes me that the greatest time of change for the Jews – the change that assured them a new life and a new freedom, was in the middle period while they were in Exile.

The same is true for the Israelites in the Exodus. When we think of the Bible, we are usually drawn to the desert, the place in the middle where the Israelites witnessed great miracles for forty years and became a new people – a people without memories of bondage in Egypt and who had yet to be delivered to the promised land.

And is true for the Samaritans, who led lives of dejection and persecution by their own people, not allowed the rights and privileges to worship and belong for over 500 years.  They were restored by Jesus in a new way in a new community, a community which was forming even as Jerusalem and the Temple were again burned to the ground in 70 AD.

I am an Israelite, a Jew, a Samaritan and a Christian.

Perhaps as Israelites, Jews, Samaritans and Christians these Bible passages were given to us for a reason.  Perhaps that reason was to charge us with the message that life, and our identity in this life, is impermanent.  Perhaps after all the generations since it is burned into our DNA.

Perhaps it has become so embodied that we intuit, we know, that the day will come along where life will indeed different than the life we planned – like the Israelites in Egypt, or the Jews in Jerusalem, or Samaritans in their own city.  And that we all enter places middle places where we will have the opportunities to change into something different than before.  Something more authentic to our new and unexpected place in the world.  Something more able to survive the trials and tests, and enjoy the gifts and blessings of our new order.  That, in fact, this inevitability is the only way we can survive and flourish.  And that because it is inevitable, it something we do not have to fear.  Instead, it is something that we can joyfully anticipate and plan for.

It is my proposition that this middle space, this place of no longer the past and not yet the future, is not actually a place of exile, but is a place of sanctuary.  A place of retreat.  A holy, God-given place that is an oportunity for every one of us to rest, grow, learn, evolve and become the people God intends us to be.

And in order to experience these gifts in this place, all we have to do is one thing.  One simple thing that eludes most of us for so long that we suffer.  The one thing we have to do is ACCEPT that we here.  ACCEPT that God has delivered us to this place.  That we are in this place, right here right now.

The middle place. Exactly where we are supposed to be.

Watch For: A Repurposed Life: My Story. 

We welcome your thoughts, comments & contributions: online or at: jgrant@repurposedlife.org

Reprint from ThinkProgressive.org by Josh Israel Posted December 31 2014

Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) will commute all remaining death sentences for those in the state’s prison system to life without parole, he announced Wednesday. Maryland’s General Assembly repealed the state’s death penalty in 2013 for all future convictions.

In a statement, O’Malley said, “In a representative government, state executions make every citizen a party to a legalized killing as punishment.” He noted that the legality of executing the four remaining death row inmates was in question and argued that “leaving these death sentences in place does not serve the public good of the people of Maryland — present or future.”

O’Malley, who signed the 2013 repeal into law, leaves office next month after serving the state’s maximum of two consecutive terms. Over his tenure, the state enacted marriage equality, created a state-level “DREAM” act to allow undocumented children to pay in-state tuition at the state’s public colleges and universities, banned several assault weapons, and incentivized off-shore wind power.
Maryland’s governor-elect, Republican Larry Hogan, said in the campaign that he would have voted against repealing the state’s death penalty, but that he does not plan to attempt to reinstate it.

Maryland was the 18th state to repeal its capital punishment law.

Ronald Lewis still faces challenges from a brush with the law ten years ago. (Courtesy Ronald Lewis)

By Jazelle Hunt
NNPA Washington Correspondent, www.blackpressusa.com

Ronald Lewis was standing on a street with his brother, who was selling drugs. When police were approaching, Lewis warned his brother. Both were arrested. That minor, almost reflexive reaction, led to Lewis sharing a drug possession charge with his brother as well as charges of being an instrument of a crime.

His lawyer advised him that he could win a trial. Later, that advice became a plea offer. Without being tried, Lewis accepted a B-class misdemeanor conviction, served no time in prison, and was released from probation early for steady compliance.

That was 10 years ago. Lewis, now 35, feels he is paying again for his past mistake.

“I paid that lawyer $10,000…I didn’t know what [the deal] entailed. I didn’t know the impact it would have on my life,” he says. After going through the criminal justice system, Lewis entered a vocational program and earned an engineering license.

He says, “I thought life would begin for me…but I have had so many doors slammed in my face, I know what wood tastes like.”

According to a new report from the Center for American Progress (CAP), as many as one in three Americans has a criminal record. Despite being commonplace, this status can cause lifelong socioeconomic challenges.

The report, titled, “One Strike and You’re Out: How We Can Eliminate Barriers to Economic Security and Mobility for People with Criminal Records,” paints the picture with an array of numbers:

• Ninety-five percent of people who are incarcerated at any level will be released.
• Each day, this is the case for more than 600,000 Americans who served time in prison.
• Each year, nearly 12 million people move through local jails.
• As of 2012, more than 4.7 million Americans were on probation or parole. Most will be confronted with their record as they attempt to rejoin society.

Research cited in the CAP report estimates that 87 percent of employers, 80 percent of landlords, and 66 percent of colleges use criminal and credit background checks to screen applicants.

By 2012, the Federal Bureau of Investigation released six times as many background checks for employers as it had the previous decade. The federal law that regulates the criminal and credit background-check industry was enacted in 1970, before the Internet; it generally applies to credit screening, as opposed to criminal records.

Thus, millions of people who have been arrested – even for exercising their constitutional right to protest – and were never convicted or incarcerated, still carry the stain of having criminal charges come up in a background check.

“Even a minor criminal record can serve as an intractable barrier to employment as well as utter basics such as housing, such as building good credit, education, job training, and more,” said Rachel Vallas, co-author of the report.

Low-income and people of color with criminal records are often most likely to fall into a cycle of poverty as a result of their records. The transgression, plus a common lack of skills and/or education, often merge to bar them from employment, and then from the social safety net that keeps people from sliding into deep poverty.

In addition to the employment challenges, difficulties with housing, public assistance, education and training, and economic stability and mobility compound their predicament.

In the case of public housing, for example, federal guidelines bar people with certain convictions and criminal activity – mostly drug-related, but also violent and sexual offenses – from receiving assistance.

However, local agencies manage federal housing programs and have authority to create their own guidelines. In many areas, agencies go beyond the federal guidelines to evict or deny housing to entire families if any one member has an encounter with the criminal justice system, regardless of whether they were ever convicted.

Similar restrictions exist on receiving food assistance, federal grants, and need-based aid for college. There’s also the significant challenge of debt incurred from moving through the criminal justice system.

“Examples include various types of ‘user fees’ that get tacked onto a conviction, public defender fees for defendants who exercise their right to counsel, and ‘pay-to-stay’ fees to offset the costs of incarceration, among many, many others. Total criminal justice debts can rise into the hundreds, thousands, and even tens of thousands of dollars,” the report reads, adding that in many states, one must clear all criminal justice debt before clearing his or her record.

The difficulties often extend past the person with the record. The report notes that as of 2012, more than half of incarcerated adults have minor children. Currently, more than one in four Black 20-somethings have had a parent incarcerated during their childhood.

“It affects everybody close to you,” says Lewis. “From the moment you get in trouble, it’s a disappointment, it affects your mom…. Then your family sees you trying to turn your life around and enduring rejection after rejection. Then that spills over to your wife and your kids because your mood is not the best, and your sense of self-worth is not the best.”

There’s a form from his daughter’s school that he still hasn’t signed and returned. It includes a question on criminal background.

He says, “I don’t want them to see her differently because of my record, or things that I did.”

The report makes several recommendations to both public and private sectors on improving outcomes for Americans with criminal records. Most recommendations center on new or updated legislation in employment, background check regulations, public assistance, criminal justice debts including child support, educational aid, and more.

“Providing a clean slate is the single most powerful tool to resolve the obstacles documented in this report,” the authors write. “Congress and the states should enact legislation to automatically seal low-level, nonviolent convictions after an individual has demonstrated his or her rehabilitation – meaning if he or she has not been rearrested within 10 years of conviction. Non-conviction records should be automatically sealed or expunged, at no charge to the individual and without their needing to apply or petition the court.”

Currently, Lewis is coming upon a year being employed in his field. At night he goes to school to earn an HVAC certification, which will be his third professional license. In the future, he hopes to start his own company to give people second chances.

“You have to give people something to do, something they can be proud of,” says the father of two. “You serve your time, and then it’s like double jeopardy because every time you apply for a job it comes up. It’s one strike and you’re out. Even in baseball there’s three strikes.”

– See more at: http://www.blackpressusa.com/with-a-criminal-record-its-one-strike-and-youre-out/#sthash.A5NiQcoR.sl6RhlHa.dpuf

Our mission at the Progressive Prison Project/Innocent Spouse & Children Project, prisonist.org includes creating & advancing authentic ministry to reflect the real needs of our local communities, such that no person or family ever need suffer in silence.  To this end, I have accepted an invitation to guest preach at the wonderful Norfield Congregational Church, Weston, CT on Martin Luther King Jr. Sunday (Jan. 18, 2015), a church dedicated to faith-filled social justice.

Reprinted from Prisonist.org. Dec. 25, 2014.

I recently attended the Weston High School Company’s performance of  “The Laramie Project” and was moved by its relevance to me. The play is the story of homophobic violence stemming from the brutal murder of Matthew Shepard in 1998. Matthew, a University of Wyoming student, was brutally beaten and left to die based solely on his homosexuality. The play dramatically relates the results of hundreds of interviews conducted by the Tectonic Theater Project and is a portrayal of the interviews from the perspectives of the theater group and the residents of Laramie. As a gay man, I found the play riveting and the subject matter disheartening.

Recently released from a federal inmate program into the rural community of Weston, Connecticut, I found the event, my first public outing since my release, a horrible reality of what it is to be different in a community of White Male Privilege. This was the beginning of a second coming out process – one of a returning member of a small bedroom New England community.

I plead guilty in 2012 to three counts in a federal indictment. Simply put, my crime was that I executed closing documents that were based on falsified documents that had been presented in the application process by my life partner of nearly 20 years. By blindly signing the closing documents I affirmed all of the falsified documents he presented and was therefore as guilty as he was in committing the fraud. I took responsibility for my actions and wanted to move on with my life.

The news of this incident spread through the small hamlet of Weston like wildfire. I quickly came to realize who my true friends were and who the folks were that were only around to “see what they could get.” and to enjoy the rewards of my wealth and status within the communities in which I lived.  Immediately after pleading guilty and being sentenced to 33 months in a Federal Prison Camp (FPC), I began the actions of rebuilding and healing. I began planning for my time away and, due to the acts of a sympathetic judge who realized I was the single adoptive parent of my 13-year-old son, I had nearly 4 months to prepare. I tried to put my life in order and made the conscious decision that this was not going to define me.

Below is an excerpt from the letter I sent to my friends prior to my self-surrender date of April 20, 2012:

I have truly learned many things from this experience and grown tremendously – many have said, “you are like a different person.” I have taken control of my life and am a better father, son, brother, partner and friend. My plan is to continue my path of awakening while I am away, learn what I can from the past, start to build a future and take advantage as this opportunity to “restart” my life and my next chapter. The universe has taken care of me in the last two years and Christopher (aka Stepford) came into my life at a time I never expected anyone. He stuck by my side, knowing exactly what was going on and said, “I want a future with the person I met, not his past.”

As you know, I have a strong belief in family, both the one you are born into and the one you choose throughout your life. This experience has helped me to define my “family” and I will forever be indebted to those who have been there for me and at the same time hold no ill will towards those who have not.

I appreciate all of the kindness and support that I have received. I know that this portion of my journey has made me healthier emotionally, physically, mentally and spiritually and you each have had a hand in that. I will be a stronger person and a better father because of this. Through all adversity you must grow and not dwell on negativity.

The portion of my sentence at FPC Devens was nothing compared to the continued sentence I live as I try to rebuild my life in Weston, Connecticut. I am labeled with the scarlet “F” on my forehead for FELON. At the play that evening, I walked into the theater knowing that heads would turn and whispers would begin. Many people did approach and say hello and wish me well, but most lowered their heads and looked the other way. I walked with my head held high and my partner by my side, but on the inside, I felt that same uneasiness in my stomach that I did so many years ago, knowing that I was gay but still afraid to admit it to the world.

I continue the struggle of living in Weston and rebuilding my life. The only thing that keeps me in Weston is that my son is in high school in the Weston Public School district, and with everything that he has gone through the past few years, I can not take him out of the only school he has known since kindergarten. I continue to experience people turning their heads or looking down when they see me in Peter’s Market, Weston Post Office, Lang’s Pharmacy or the Weston Hardware Store. If I am strong enough, I catch their eye and joyfully greet them and ask about their life and family. That always catches them off-guard and diffuses the situation, but I realize that I am being no better than they are by purposefully making them uncomfortable.

I have had many horrible experiences and disappointments as I try to reconnect with my family. I am turned down for employment and, because of my past, was recently denied the opportunity to take the Connecticut Real Estate exam that I had studied for. Membership in a local Organization was reviewed with more scrutiny because of my past, which has given me pause as to whether or not I truly want to be a part of that organization.  My guilty plea and sentencing were supposed to be the punishment for the crimes I plead guilty to, but many people and organizations feel the need to continue to inflict punishment based on their judgment of my actions.

As I said in my letter prior to my self-surrender, “Through all adversity you must grow and not dwell on negativity” and I will not allow others to define me. I will not let these things stop me from moving forward and growing as a person. And because of that defining moment in Laramie when Matthew Shepard was killed and became the legacy of strength and courage, I have the strength to survive.

Genaro Hathaway is a Business Consultant living in Weston, CT with his partner of 4 years and his 16-year-old son. He continues to volunteer in the LGBT Community, at his Church and various other philanthropic organizations. He is committed to help others who are faced with the challenges of reentry in the community after a prison sentence. 

— Nicholas Kristof on Thursday, December 4th, 2014 in a broadcast of the “Daily Show”

By Jon Greenberg on Thursday, December 11th, 2014 at 5:10 p.m.

A South African army patrols Port Elizabeth in 1985 during apartheid. (UN Photo)

Angels Without A Face: A Christmas Blog, By Lori Dooley, Innocent Spouse

As I walked into church this Christmas season, there hung the tree of Christmas Angels to help those families in need. I would normally just grab an Angel in hopes to bring some joy to a boy or girl. I have always enjoyed being part of this gift giving, but did I really reflect on what it truly meant. These pieces of paper are not merely pieces of paper on a Christmas Tree; they are families who need us. This time, the Angel had a reflection and the reflection was my family.  For the first time, my Angel had a face.

No present can ever take the place of my daughter having her father home for Christmas or change what has happened, but what I am starting to see a little at a time is that there are many who want to help and put their judgments aside to bring some joy and peace to those that find themselves without it.  Not one person who picks up their Angel from the tree ever judges that boy and girl for what is going on in their life. They pick a family out of unconditional love. During this Christmas and holiday season, it is a beautiful time to reflect on what it is all about.  A precious child was born unto all of us, even those in prison, to be the Savior for all mankind.  He was born unto sinners. He was born unto those who need his grace and forgiveness. No one is ever truly worthy of such honor by a Savior, but that is what makes it so wonderful. He loves each and every one of us; every failure, every sacrifice, every bright light that shines within Him. He is Goodness and Glory. His is Merciful. I ask that each and every person that looks at this blog ask yourself what is the true meaning of Christmas and this holiday season.  Can you forgive? Can you lend a hand to a family less fortunate who has a parent incarcerated? Can you believe that people are forgiven because Jesus Christ was born for all of us?  What a wonderful time to reflect and realize what matters to us all in this world. We are all connected in some way.

As every day passes, one step at a time, I find myself able to come out of this shadow I have been hiding behind. As hard as this journey is and continues to be, I will keep on my journey with one of hope just as the Wisemen did on their journey following the Star of Bethlehem. Please consider those innocent spouses and children who are without this holiday season because of an incarceration and what we can do together to help, and to stop over incarceration so that children can have their father’s home for Christmas.

God Bless you this holiday season and let us all be thankful for the true meaning of Christmas.

Lori Dooley

Comments from Social Media: 
 All I want for Christmas/Chanukah
By Reentry Survivor Barry S. Diamond, Founder of reentrysurvivors.com

All I want is:
To be accepted for my good deeds not my past actions
To laugh with friends at the silly things in life
To worship with my fellow human beings
To enjoy my children & their families & wish them all the best
Sounds pretty normal doesn’t it?
Well that’s what all of us released from incarceration want, to be normal again
Those of you who have helped us, thank you
Those of you who haven’t, please remember G’d forgives
So why can’t you?

Kenneth Ireland, Exonerated, Served Time For Murder & Rape, Sits on Connecticut State Board of Pardons & Parole

Photo

WATERBURY, Conn. — There was the usual grab bag of inmates preparing to be heard here, from the career offender with a heroin problem to the plotter of a jewel heist to the glum men with girlfriend trouble.

All were former convicts who had landed back in prison on parole violations, and this was their chance to explain their conduct to the Connecticut Board of Pardons and Paroles.

One by one, they were led to rooms at their prisons to participate via teleconference in hearings that dispensed assembly-line justice. Soon, they were offering reasons for their mistakes that ran from the fantastic (“Yes, I had a knife but only because I was cooking”) to the familiar (“My girlfriend made me do it”).

One cog in the machine was different, though: The two-member panel weighing each inmate’s fate included a man who was himself a former inmate.

The expertise that the former prisoner, Kenneth F. Ireland, brought to the task — intimate knowledge of the state’s criminal justice system — came in a way no one could envy: In 1989, a day after he turned 20, Mr. Ireland was convicted of raping and murdering Barbara Pelkey, a Wallingford factory worker.

The crime occurred when he was 16. He received a 50-year sentence and spent nearly half his life, from the age of 18 until he was 39, in prison. Despite his assertions that he was innocent, friends stopped believing in him, and family drifted away. Then, in 2009, DNA testing performed at the insistence of the Connecticut Innocence Project exonerated him and identified the real culprit.

Rather than spurn further dealings with the authorities, Mr. Ireland, 45, allowed his name to be suggested for a seat on the parole board this year. “I’ve been on the inside, and I understand the programs, the issues confronting the inmates,” he said.

Nominated in October by Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, a Democrat, Mr. Ireland is now serving provisionally, along with four other nominees, until state legislators vote on the appointments next year.

Timothy S. Fisher, dean of the University of Connecticut School of Law, got to know Mr. Ireland through work he does on behalf of the wrongfully convicted. Mr. Fisher championed the idea of adding Mr. Ireland to the board in a letter to Nancy Wyman, the lieutenant governor, in March.

“He has a very cleareyed understanding of the people in prison,” Mr. Fisher said. “How so many of them say ‘I didn’t do it,’ and yet he’s no fool. He’s been around them and he knows there’s injustice, but he also knows that there are people who will try to pull a fast one. I think he will be a more discerning judge of character on this board than almost anyone.”

The hearing here served as Mr. Ireland’s first test, and he spent hours poring over each case file before joining Robert A. Murphy, a retired agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation who was the panel’s second member. The preparation showed.

“What was going on in your life that made you relapse?” Mr. Ireland pressed John Rivera, a 35-year-old Hartford man who had been dragged back into the system as a result of a failed drug test. “Help me understand.”

Those three words alone suggested how far from rote Mr. Ireland’s input was likely to be.

Similarly, he strained to pinpoint James Edward Reilly’s reason for leaving without authorization the halfway house that he had been placed in, marring an otherwise clean record. The 52-year-old inmate said his departure was prompted by his eviction from an apartment he had been renting and that he had simply “moved my stuff into storage.”

Asked about trips he had subsequently taken to Massachusetts and Florida during his absence, Mr. Reilly was repentant. “I know I should have turned myself in after I put my stuff in storage,” he said. “I know. I’m guilty.”

Mr. Ireland did not let the matter drop there, though.

“You were on parole for four years, and you didn’t seem to have a problem,” Mr. Ireland prodded gently. “What led to this?”

Mr. Reilly recounted “a little argument” he had had with his girlfriend that ended in an arrest and a charge of disorderly conduct, but said he had the situation under control: “She’s not around now and we’re broken up.”

Like Mr. Ireland, at least seven of the 11 inmates making their cases had entered the criminal justice system as teenagers. There was much talk about “poor choices,” starting with the “bad decision” that Michael Gaston, 26, admitted to making when the police found him brandishing a knife. He said the incident had happened because he was making dinner when a commotion started and he rushed into a hallway. “Absent-mindedly, I still had the knife in my hand,” he said.

Alexis deJesus, 28, did not quarrel with the panel’s opinion that carrying heroin for a friend was indeed a “poor choice.”

“You did that as a favor?” Mr. Murphy asked.

“Well, I was already in trouble,” Mr. deJesus demurred. “I knew I was going back to jail.”

Considered administrative affairs, parole revocation hearings are more stripped-down than court hearings, even though the rulings they produce are final. Inmates are advised that they may have a lawyer with them or present evidence, but few do, and some participants were flummoxed by the proceedings.

“There’s no way I can go to court?” asked Kendall Hooks, who was dismayed when the panel ordered him to serve the balance of his sentence for his role in an attempted jewelry store robbery without another chance at an early release. He had violated the terms of his parole by leaving a halfway house without permission and was suspected of mailing a package to an inmate.

No, sorry, he was told.

Though Mr. Ireland showed an interest in each of the inmates’ lives — he took a moment to congratulate Mr. deJesus on the birth of a son, for example — the panel’s decisions did not deviate from the norm.

None of the 11 inmates were released into the community, and most had months of prison time restored to their sentences for the misconduct that led them to be arrested again.

“You want to set up these guys for success,” Mr. Ireland said later. “No one wants them to be in prison.” He acknowledged that it might be hard for the inmates to perceive that after sitting through a day of “deny, deny, deny.”

Addressing the youngest inmate of the day, 23-year-old Geraldo Ruiz, Mr. Ireland took a particularly firm stance.

Mr. Ruiz had been accused of violating the rules at his halfway house by letting his girlfriend stay over — twice in the first week he was there.

“What did you want me to do?” Mr. Ruiz asked indignantly. “Kick her out in the street?” The choice, as he framed it, was “either her getting raped or killed” or jeopardizing his parole.

“I understand you might care for the girl,” Mr. Ireland said. “But you got to look out for yourself.”

The idea of having Mr. Ireland on the board appears to have originated with Vivien Blackford, a member of the Connecticut Sentencing Commission, according to people who supported the appointment.

“Having been in prison, he brings so much to the board because he understands the experience, the perspectives and the reasons that people do what they do,” Ms. Blackford said.

Mr. Ireland quit a steady job as a bookkeeper to accept the appointment, which comes with a salary — though that does not seem to be what motivates him.

He stands to collect millions of dollars once Connecticut lawmakers finish reviewing his case. A state law, enacted when Mr. Ireland was still imprisoned in 2008, entitles the wrongfully convicted to compensation. He served more time in prison and was younger when he was sentenced than the man whose case moved lawmakers to pass the law.

Harsh conditions at the prisons where Mr. Ireland spent those 21 years, including the fortresslike one in Wallens Ridge, Va., will also be hard to ignore. He spent a year in solitary confinement when he was 20, lost part of a finger in an assault and watched an inmate die from burns. He said he still has trouble answering the door for fear of who might be lurking there.

For all his nerves, there was no flinching when duty called at the parole hearing. Each time the hearing officer asked the board if they had questions for the men peering up at them from the other end of the video cameras, Mr. Ireland certainly did.