Miyares leads forum on prisoner reentry
Virginia AG, others discuss challenges ex-inmates face
CHESAPEAKE — Faith leaders, prisoner advocates and formerly incarcerated people attended a forum hosted by Attorney General Jason Miyares this week to discuss ways to alleviate the challenges people face when no longer behind bars.
The role the faith community can play in the transition from prison to civilian life, the difficulties people face before parole boards, why reentry isn’t a larger focus of the conversation around public safety and how long people have to go before their rights are fully restored were topics on the minds of Monday’s audience members. Miyares, Virginia Department of Corrections Director Harold Clarke and Jesse Wiese, vice president of the Prison Fellowship, touted the steps their offices and organizations have made to help prisoners reenter society.
Miyares, speaking at the Chesapeake Christian Center, grounded his thinking on the issue of reentry in his religious upbringing, which he said taught him that all people are created in the image of God — in Latin, “imago Dei” — and therefore are worthy of a second chance.
“It means that every person that I ever talk to, no matter who they are, no matter their station in life, no matter where they find themselves, they have an amazing infinite value because they’re made in the image of God and also means they have incredible potential,” said Miyares, a former Virginia Beach delegate.
The attorney general lamented that the pandemic forced the closure of churches, shut down athletics and limited other school activities, which he said are crucial to keeping young people out of gangs.
“Now we’re getting back out of the trauma of COVID and we have to make sure that all of them have those resources,” he said.
Wiese, who served eight years in prison before becoming a licensed attorney, noted the culture shift in the public safety field toward viewing reentry as a process that begins at arrest. He attributed his personal success to one person showing concern. “For me, sitting in a prison cell, it took somebody some time, energy and effort to look at me and be able to say, ‘You know what? You matter. You can go somewhere. You can do something. You don’t have to just sit here and rot,’” Wiese said.
The Prison Fellowship operates a yearlong academy, backed by biblical principles, which provides citizenship training to incarcerated men and women in five prisons across the commonwealth as well as reentry-related training to churches and volunteers. Wiese said the gap is too wide between inmates’ release and the services they need to get back on track.
“Prisons have done a great job of telling people how you build a new life — here’s how you build a new car, here are the parts, here are the pieces, but when you open the door there ain’t no road to drive on,” Wiese said. “So I think that the next phase, the next effort in this country is for us to build the roads.”
Virginia’s recidivism rates for the past seven years have been among the country’s lowest, according to Department of Corrections data released in February. The three-year rate for Virginia prison inmates released in 2018 was 20.6%, compared with the national average of 68%, according to Miyares.
Karen Morrison, CEO of Fighting 4 Freedom, a nonprofit that advocates for early releases of eligible inmates, expressed frustration with the Parole Board’s unwillingness to release those who she said have proven they are rehabilitated and are nearing their release dates. Miyares referenced his investigation earlier this year into the parole practices of former Chair Adrianne Bennett. The probe found 83 cases from March 2020 to April 2020 in which Miyares said the board failed to meet the standard for notifying the parolees’ victims and families prior to parole being granted.
Miyares said the delays on parole decisions is likely due to increased scrutiny being applied since his office looked into the matter.
“What I imagine is, the Parole Board is measuring twice and cutting once and making sure they are talking to and factoring in the victim’s perspective, as well as getting the prosecutor involved, because that’s what our victims’ rights statute says,” Miyares said. “Before, that wasn’t being followed.”