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Tana Hackley pats a friend on the shoulder as she leaves prison as a result of Oklahoma’s mass commutation of hundreds of people’s sentences for low-level drug and theft cases.

Release from Prison

Shane Bevel
Life Inside
This Motivational Speaker Faced Down a Tough Crowd: Fellow Lifers
Over 27 years behind bars, Bobby Bostic learned to inspire people in dark places. It all started with the “complete failure” of his first big speech.
An illustration depicts Bobby Bostic, a Black man wearing glasses, a yellow flannel shirt and a gold watch, speaking into a mic at a podium. There are yellow waves and an orange glow surrounding Bobby in the background.
A poster of a Black barber adjusting the head of a Black boy, wearing a cape while he sits on a chair.
Cleveland June 5, 2023
Don’t ‘Punish Them More.’ Effort Grows to Ease Job Barriers After Prison Release
Nearly 2,000 formerly incarcerated people return to Cleveland each year with few job prospects. Some lawmakers want to change that.
By
Jay Jordan, the project director for Time Done, a nonprofit that works with former convicts, in Oakland, Calif., March 7, 2019. Under a proposed law in California, millions of people like Jordan, who spent more than seven years in prison for robbery and auto theft, would have their criminal records automatically sealed from public view. (Jim Wilson/The New York Times).
Closing Argument April 1, 2023
How Criminal Records Hold Back Millions of People
More than 70 million Americans with arrest records face barriers to find work or a decent place to live.
By
An illustration shows Bobby Bostic, a Black man, opening a refrigerator door. Light shines out of the refrigerator. Photos of family are on the side of the refrigerator. A white dove flies above, and the background shows a pattern of leaves and plants.
Life Inside February 24, 2023
I Was Sentenced to Die in Prison. But After 27 Years, I’m Finally Free
When I went to jail in 1995, I had never used the internet. As I play catchup, the simplest things are everything.
By Bobby Bostic
An illustration shows a bird's-eye view of a light-skinned person in an orange prison suit handcuffed, sitting at a table with a courtroom microphone.
Life Inside June 17, 2022
I Joined the Parole Board to Make a Difference. Now I Call It ‘Conveyor Belt Justice.’
Between the grueling schedule, copious paperwork, abrupt hearings and risk-averse colleagues, prison reformer Carol Shapiro realized the New York parole system was dysfunctional by design.
By Carol Shapiro as told to
Nacola McNeil in front of the Leading Into New Communities (LINC) transitional housing in Wilmington, NC, in January.
News January 19, 2021
Prisons Are Releasing People Without COVID-19 Tests Or Quarantines
People getting out of prison are bringing the virus outside because lockups aren’t taking basic precautions. Overtaxed halfway houses and other reentry programs are left to pick up the slack.
By AND
A man sleeps inside the dormitory at Fannie M. Lewis Community Corrections and Treatment Center, a halfway house for federal inmates, in Cleveland, Ohio.
News October 25, 2018
How Jeff Sessions Is Undermining Trump’s Prison Reform Agenda
The president wants to send more prisoners to halfway houses. The Justice Department is doing exactly the opposite.
By
Life Inside May 31, 2018
Getting Out of Prison Meant Leaving Dear Friends Behind
“We leaned on each other. We found reasons to laugh while in agony.”
By
Bernard Noble hugs Elnora Noble, his mom, and Gwynne Noble his sister, outside of Bossier Parish Medium Security Prison early Thursday morning.
News April 12, 2018
Seven Years Behind Bars for Two Joints — And Now He’s Free
Bernard Noble, whose case became a symbol of harsh drug laws, walks out of a Louisiana prison.
By and
Life Inside October 19, 2017
I Served 26 Years for Murder Even Though the Killer Confessed
One of the strangest, cruelest stories of wrongful conviction you’ll ever read.
By Alton Logan and Berl Falbaum
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