A Call To Justice: The Next Generation Parole Problem

A Call To Justice: The Next Generation Parole Problem
By: Tristan Darshan

When one hears the word ‘justice,’ what does one associate with it? Most would agree that the country hailed as the standing defenders of true justice is the United States of America. Yet the concept of justice is only negligibly enforced in two of our country’s largest institutions, the prison and parole system. The courts are not exempt from this disconnection, setting the standard for the parole board to vigorously move to persecute injustice but only vanishingly appear to protect the rights informing justice. It has become widely understood in America that ‘criminals’ will always be held accountable to the letter of the law, yet the very rights of these same people are never held to the same standards. Problem is, these failures in justice hardly transpire in a vacuum. They in fact criminalize a family of citizens, vicariously and intimately who identify with these people as loved ones. This drastic tilt toward injustice at the expense of justice is something I know all too well. Ever since I was a few days old, travelling to various prisons every weekend all over New York State, I would come to notice that every facility was labeled as a ‘Corrections’ Facility. I always associated the word ‘corrections’ to the mission of those incarcerated, like my father, and whom once the corrections were made would be released. I grew up believing that my father, incarcerated since 17 years old, would undoubtedly be released given his effort toward corrections. I have learned, now a few months from turning 17 years old myself, that I was sadly mistaken. One might suspect that I am biased. It is, after all, my father, but consider the record.

My father has accomplished more in prison than many people I know outside of prison. My father acquired his Associate Degree from Bard College with the honor of a commencement speaker. He obtained a Bachelor’s degree from Thomas Edison State College and is currently working on his MBA. He has volunteered in many facility programs, such as Puppies Behind Bars (PBB), holding a lead trainer position in raising service dogs for our wounded veterans. He has served as Internal Vice President of the Community Minded Organization (CMO), a program that supports, funds, and facilitates much of the volunteer programs at Fishkill Facility. He has facilitated the Crime Victim Awareness program, a program with the objective to build engaged empathy for the many victims. He’s also facilitated the Aggression Replacement program, which is the premier violence program in prison. My father has volunteered as an Ethics Coordinator and a facilitator of a critical writing course in the Network Program. He is also a mentor and tutor to young inmates. He’s also a published author, dedicating the proceeds of his book to the Bard Prison Initiative. He also has an exemplary disciplinary record with a very low risk per the COMPAS Reentry Risk Assessment report, moreover, holding a record that has no violent tickets in over his 17 years of incarceration. His rehabilitation should be a success story for Corrections. Instead, it has devolved into a horror show of abuses in power and systemic injustice.

So you can see my despair, but also my disillusionment, after learning that my father was denied parole not only once but four times now. The fact that my father has served more than his minimum time and continues to be denied parole is mind-boggling, especially when knowing that my father was not the prime perpetrator of this crime. Yet this story is not just my father’s. Many inmates have similar stories. All told, members of the parole board continue to deny these inmates due largely to internal biases and prejudices. More devastatingly, these prejudices extend to juveniles in a most crippling way, with their age functioning as an aggravating factor, not a mitigating one. The parole board continues to deny inmates like my father primarily due to the ‘nature of the crime’, essentially in violation of the constitutional mandate providing juvenile lifers “a meaningful opportunity to obtain release based on demonstrated maturity and rehabilitation.” It is simply stunning, to point of being revolting, that the discretion of parole commissioners have come to outrank the jurisprudence of the Supreme Court Justices, who wrote the constitutional mandate.

I myself will be 17 years in May, the same age as my father when he was incarcerated. I can’t imagine being separated from society at this age, especially as someone not adeptly trained in the law. But which teenager does? Which teenager goes out thinking about laws they may or may not be breaking to put them away for life? I don’t know any that thinks along these lines. What I do know is that I cannot continue to watch this country grow starved for justice because of its insatiable appetite for injustice. This makes us not a nation of laws but a country of cannibals, feeding off the moral fiber holding us whole. What I also do know is I cannot lose hope here. To quote from my father’s commencement speech, which is an inspiring message of hope, “…you feel your humanity slipping from your reach, and it is at that precise moment when the point of no return is not far enough – that you draw from the most audacious depths of all human power. You draw from the depths of human hope…. You can’t help but to feel a little less of the weight, a little less of the pain, and a bit more inspired to dream of another place. Perhaps an even greater place – where life, liberty, and happiness are not only extended to those who live life without mistakes. But a place where the power of these truths allows for men to redeem their mistakes. It’s a place where our compassion is deep, human empathy is wide, and men try to forgive more than they condemn. It is, I believe, that benevolent place we all see when we dream from deep down inside.”

Through this letter and other endeavors, I am on a mission to make a difference for people like my father, once troubled juveniles who have developed into respectable men, because I know they can change for the better while also changing the lives of others, such as mine, for the better.