LWOP Stories Inside Angola, AL's Abysmal Parole Record + More

"He might've been a character when he got here. But this man has developed character. This man developed compassion." 
 
The U.S. prison population is rapidly aging, and care for elderly inmates is expensive—costing taxpayers around $70,000 per prisoner annually. Meanwhile, some 50,000 people are serving sentences of life without parole, regardless of the progress they've made towards rehabilitation behind bars. In a moving video-format opinion piece, several “lifers” in Louisiana's Angola prison tell their story of growth and search for redemption, shining a light on an increasing movement for states to consider second-look legislation that would give model inmates a second shot at life on the outside. 

"This is called the second prison. Literally, you walk out of one and you walk into another one."

Roughly 1 in every 5 Americans needs an occupational license to earn a living. For people with a criminal conviction, obtaining one is often an insurmountable challenge. Subject to a patchwork of state and local laws, even convictions that are unrelated to the profession for which the license is being sought can end up locking out an otherwise qualified applicant from earning a living. At a time of low unemployment and high demand for skilled employees, advocates say the business case for eliminating these barriers is as strong as the moral one. 
 
"You have a problem that is systematic, and that’s kind of decades in the making. Your access to justice shouldn’t depend on what ZIP code you live in."
 
When voters passed an initiative seven years ago that made most felony drug possession offenses a misdemeanor, the hope was that the reduced number of felony filings would result in savings that could be reinvested into community mental health treatment. While the money is starting to be allocated, a bigger problem remains: even with the additional money, wide swaths of the state are unable to provide proper mental health and substance abuse treatment, especially in rural areas. 

"Some correctional facilities say they’d never hire a decertified police officer. Other people said the jobs are different enough — and if properly supervised — they could see a path for those former officers to work." 

An article from NPR in Kansas this week highlights a story of a law enforcement officer who lost his law enforcement certification after misconduct, but was hired by a local jail shortly afterward. In that state, police officers who are decertified for misconduct can later work in the corrections system. Advocates say police and corrections officers should have the same hiring standards, and allowing decertified officers to work in corrections puts those facilities at a higher risk for abuse. 
 
"The [Alabama] prison system is now under threat of a federal takeover after the federal government filed a lawsuit against the state over its prison conditions in 2020."
 
The state of Alabama has granted parole to less than 1 in 10 prisoners whose petitions it has considered so far this year, putting the Board of Pardons and Paroles on track for a new low release rate even as the state prison system is facing deadly overcrowding issues and a potential looming federal takeover.