Second Chances Resource Library

The Second Chances Resource Library contains resources related to expanding release opportunities
for people in prison who are serving long sentences or have other circumstances warranting release

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Found 332 resources
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PDF Freedom Delayed, Justice Denied: Increasing Racial Disparities in New York State’s Parole Release Decisions

Organization/Publisher:The Center for Race, Inequality & the Law at New York University School of Law

This report is based on data on release rates by New York State’s Parole Board, which was
obtained by the Vera Institute of Justice. In short, the report finds that the vast racial
disparities in parole release rates have only worsened in recent years. The last three years of
data, 2022 through June 2024, show the widest gap in release rate racial disparities
since this data began to be collected in 2016. Not coincidentally, this three year
period coincides with Governor Hochul’s time in office. From 2022 to 2024, the Parole
Board was 32.28% less likely to release a person of color than a white person. This level of
racial disparity in the last three years is 71.65% worse than the already existing racial disparities
of the previous six years. If people of color had been released at the same rates as white
people, just since 2022 there would have been over 1,300 more grants of parole release for
people of color than the actual number of releases of people of color. Each person of color
denied release because of these racial disparities is a person who remained incarcerated in a
New York prison rather than being at home with their family and community. This report
recommends amending the statute governing parole determinations (Executive Law 259-i),
as well as the statute governing the powers of the Parole Board (Executive Law 259-c), to
help ensure all people in prison receive meaningful opportunities to demonstrate their
rehabilitation and be fairly considered for release.

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PDF A Matter of Life: The Scope and Impact of Life and Long-Term Imprisonment in the United States

Organization/Publisher:The Sentencing Project
Author:Ashley Nellis and Celeste Barry

One in six people in prison – nearly 200,000 people nationwide – are serving life sentences. This comprehensive 50-state report examines the prevalence and implications of life sentences across the country, highlighting the disproportionate impact of such extreme sentences on people of color and the inefficacy of punitive measures in improving community safety.

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PDF Lawyerless No More

Organization/Publisher:Inquest
Author:Jennifer Soble

Once a person is imprisoned, indigent defense stops. But the gravity of mass incarceration demands legal representation to the very end. This opinion piece makes the case for a post-conviction right to counsel, including specific discussion of the need for lawyers in medical release and clemency contexts.

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PDF Governor Kate Brown of Oregon’s Historic Use of Clemency: Using Clemency Exactly as it Was Intended

Organization/Publisher:Lewis & Clark Law Review
Author:Mark Cebert and Aliza Kaplan

In Oregon, executive clemency is among the most expansive, yet historically underused, power a governor possesses. Yet, across her two terms as Oregon’s 38th governor, Governor Kate Brown exercised her power of executive clemency a record 61,777 times, dwarfing the clemency use of her predecessors and her contemporaries in other states. Governor Brown’s proactive approach to clemency presents a model for executive involvement in criminal justice reform and aligns with her beliefs of a redemptive and rehabilitative criminal legal system.

In this Article, we examine Governor Brown’s use of clemency, analyzing what her stated and implied rationales reveal about her concerns for the nuanced impacts of criminal sanctions, as well as for the Oregonians most impacted by the criminal legal system. We contextualize Governor Brown’s use of clemency with her predecessors and compare the constitutional structure and use of clemency in Oregon with other states. We detail and examine Governor Brown’s grants of clemency by type: pardons, commutations, reprieves, and remissions. We discuss the media’s response to Governor Brown’s historic exercise of her clemency power, and finally, in Governor Brown’s own words, discuss the future of clemency in Oregon and beyond.

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PDF Second Look Update – The 20 Year Compromise

Organization/Publisher:American Friends Service Committee Criminal Justice Program

Second Look Update: The 20-Year Compromise, is a data driven booklet that examines the potential impact that Second Look Legislation may have on Michigan if passed with a 20-year minimum requirement to apply. It also looks at the demographic of currently incarcerated people who currently have 20 years served, as county by county information, and quotes of support from those inside and out.

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PDF SAFE RETURN: North Carolina’s Experience With Bringing People Home Early From Prison

Organization/Publisher:Southern Coalition for Social Justice

As a result of litigation initiated during the height of COVID, more than 13,400 people were granted “early reentry” from prisons across North Carolina between February 2021 and July 2022. During that same approximate period of time, the Durham County (NC) District Attorney’s Office consented to the release of 64 people serving lengthy sentences, saving nearly 600 years of incarceration. Only one of the 64 people returned to prison after their release.

As part of its focus on reframing public safety, Southern Coalition for Social Justice took a closer look at these efforts and their outcomes to determine whether early reentry and prosecutorial “second look” approaches can and should be continued—and perhaps expanded in the future. After a close analysis of public records from the Department of Public Safety, Department of Adult Correction, and Durham County, the conclusion was that these measures— which saved hundreds of years of incarceration and potentially millions of dollars, and had no adverse effect on public safety—should be widely adopted and expanded.

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PDF Disparities in Sentencing: Creating a “Benchcard” on Brain Development to Incorporate Neuroscience Research

Organization/Publisher:LSU Law Journal for Social Justice & Policy
Author:Stevie Leahy

This article explores the disparities in juvenile sentencing across the United States, with a focus on the implications of the Supreme Court’s decision in Jones v. Mississippi (2021) and the importance of incorporating neuroscience research into legal decisions. It highlights how different jurisdictions handle juvenile life without parole (JLWOP) sentences, leading to significant inconsistencies based on geography. The article advocates for the development of a “benchcard” that would guide judges in making informed decisions by integrating the latest scientific understanding of brain development, particularly concerning individuals up to age 25. By examining the evolution of legal protections for juveniles and the role of the prison industrial complex, the article argues for a more equitable legal approach that considers the developmental differences of young offenders.

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PDF Regarding the Other Death Penalty

Organization/Publisher:Columbia Law Review Forum
Author:Kempis Songster, Terrell Carter, & Rachel López

This essay responds to Randle DeFalco’s recent book, Invisible Atrocities, which explores the function of the aesthetics of violence in international law. In the book, DeFalco questions international criminal law’s preference for punishing spectacular demonstrations of violence, rather than more banal, bureaucratic actions that cause mass scales of suffering and misery. The book resonated with the co-authors of this essay, because they have seen the same dynamic at work in U.S. criminal law with respect to society’s views on two forms of the death penalty enacted by the carceral state: capital punishment and life without parole.

Indeed, two co-authors of this essay, Kempis Songster and Terrell Carter, who were sentenced to life without parole over three decades ago, intimately understand the invisibility of the harm described by DeFalco and believe that their sentence is more aptly described as death by incarceration. Employing DeFalco’s framework, the essay aims to visibilize the slow, but fatal violence of this sentence.

The essay is part of an emergent genre of participatory law scholarship (or PLS), which is legal scholarship written in collaboration with authors who have no formal training in the law, but rather expertise in law’s injustice through lived experience.

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PDF Still Cruel and Unusual: Extreme Sentences for Youth and Emerging Adults

Organization/Publisher:The Sentencing Project
Author:Ashley Nellis

The report highlights the latest data on youth and emerging adults serving life sentences, including:

Life sentences for youth under 18

  • In 2020, over 8,600 people were serving either life with the possibility of parole (LWP) or “virtual” life sentences of 50 years or longer for crimes committed as minors.
  • California (2,358), Georgia (900), Texas (1,081), and New York (461) hold the largest number of youth sentenced to LWP or virtual life sentences.
  • In Georgia and Wisconsin, 10% or more of the entire life-sentenced population were under 18 at the time of their crime.
  • In the following states, at least 80% of people serving these sentences are Black: Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, and Mississippi.

Life sentences for people 25 or younger

  • Nearly two in five people sentenced to life without parole (LWOP) were 25 or younger at the time of their crime.
  • Being Black and young produced a substantially larger share of LWOP sentences than being Black alone: two-thirds of emerging adults sentenced to LWOP were Black.

A broad range of experts across the fields of neuroscience, sociology, and psychology agree that juveniles and emerging adults share reduced culpability and developmental immaturity. In addition, social science consistently shows that extreme penalties offer little community safety benefit.

As states implement policies to eliminate LWOP for juveniles, they must provide a second look for all youth, not just some.

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