Pa. needs more opportunities for second chances
On Sept. 4, Pennsylvania’s Board of Pardons voted to send eight cases to Gov. Tom Wolf’s desk for possible clemency.
It’s beautiful to see these eight people offered second chances, and the board should be applauded for their dedication to supporting clemency for them.
The overall results of these hearings, however, highlight that relying on clemency as the only pathway to relief from unending punishment barely scratches the surface of what must be done in our state. We send too many people to prison for too long. There are thousands of people in Pennsylvania’s prisons whose incarceration serves no further purpose.
Pennsylvania’s clemency system was robust in the 1970s: Between 1971 and 1978, the board supported clemency for 267 people serving life sentences, and Gov. Milton Shapp approved second chances for 251 of them.
This was easier prior to 1997, when the Board of Pardons required a simple 3-2 majority for a person seeking clemency from a life or death sentence to advance to the governor, but now applicants must be supported by a unanimous 5-0 board vote.
The unanimous Board of Pardons vote requirement and failed tough-on-crime policies contributed to a near stoppage of clemency for people serving life without parole. The board recommended just 10 people serving life sentences for clemency between 1995 and 2015, and only six of those were granted by the governor.
Since taking office in 2015, Gov. Tom Wolf has granted clemency to 19 of the 23 people serving life sentences who were recommended by the Board of Pardons. The recent increase in clemency cases heard, recommended and granted mark a positive step forward, but Pennsylvania must do more to uphold our commitment to second chances.
In Pennsylvania, clemency is currently the only pathway to a second chance for people serving a long sentence, life without parole or death sentences. But it doesn’t have to be. Through steps like ending life without parole, passing medical and geriatric release, expanding compassionate release and broadening clemency, Pennsylvania’s legislators can make huge strides toward a fairer justice system.
Thanks to criminal justice reform measures, Pennsylvania has begun to see a decline in our prison population over the past eight years. The Department of Corrections’ 2019 “Crimelines” report shows a 4,387-person reduction in overall inmate population since 2012, along with a 29% drop in crime over the same period in Pennsylvania.
However, despite the drop in population, due to a lack of mechanisms for second chances, the increase in the number of people serving long and life-without-parole sentences continues. Pennsylvania’s older prison population grew from 6% to 22% of the overall population since 1996, and we now have more than 10,000 people over the age of 50 living in our state prisons.
Incarcerated people often feel the effects of aging sooner than those of us outside prison walls, and the cost of housing and caring for this elderly prison population is enormous. The Department of Corrections’ 2020-2021 budget says it spends $3.2 million monthly on prescriptions for people over age 50, and there are more than 400 people in longterm skilled and personal-care units at a cost of $500 each day per person.
Many of these people have already spent decades enriching their prison communities and themselves, and would be mentors and leaders in their home communities if given second chances.
Pennsylvania must also reckon with the historical disproportionate harm caused to Black communities and communities of color through limiting second chances for those sentenced to life without parole.
In Pennsylvania, Black people serve life-without-parole at a rate 18 times greater than white people, and Latino people serve lifewithout-parole at a rate five times greater. In addition, 65% of the people serving life-without-parole sentences in Pennsylvania are Black.
Pennsylvania’s approach to sentencing is wasteful, separates families, exacerbates racial disparities and deprives people who have made mistakes of nearly any opportunities for redemption or mercy. All of us change and mature, and our laws should reflect that.