Purpose

This follow-up essay builds on the Big Ideas document I sent on July 30, 2025. It expands the core concepts with narrative context, lived experience, and a focus on how Prison Professors Charitable Corporation can collaborate with and contribute to BOP leadership to drive measurable cultural change.

Core Mission

To align Leadership, Policy, and Communication so that everyone—people in custody, staff members, employers, and the broader community—understands their role in building a justice system that produces safer communities, fewer victims, and more contributing citizens.

Key Strategies

1. Define and Incentivize Excellence — Create a systemwide definition of “extraordinary and compelling adjustment” and integrate merit-based incentives at Admissions & Orientation and throughout the sentence.
2. Tablet-Based Tools — Provide 24/7 access to self-directed programming, release planning, and personal development resources.
3. Public Dashboards — Promote transparency with points-based tracking systems to highlight and reward self-directed growth.
4. Merit-Based Liberty Pathways — Expand earned access to lower security, home confinement, work-release, and other privileges based on measurable progress.
5. Public–Private Partnerships — Host innovation challenges, mentor programs, and clemency support pipelines to prepare people for post-release success.
6. Clemency Support — Partner with the Office of the Pardon Attorney to identify, support, and advance reform-minded candidates.

Our Role

Prison Professors Charitable Corporation has developed a free, gamified platform that allows incarcerated individuals to track, document, and showcase their progress. To pilot this platform, our nonprofit offers it to support:

• Law firms in pre-sentence preparation—so people understand that release preparation begins before sentencing and before the person surrenders to prison.
• Administrators in reentry programming—so staff members in all agencies will have transparent filters to assess how hard a person is working to prepare for success upon release.
• Individuals and families in building a verifiable body of work—to offer a blueprint to engineer a pathway to recalibrate, atone, and prepare for success upon release.
• Employers and enterprise systems—that may open employment opportunities for people with felony backgrounds, or offer services such as credit, insurance, and pathways to restoring full citizenship.

Next Steps: If the BOP deems it a worthy cause, our nonprofit would like to pilot these initiatives—at no charge to the government—in select institutions, measure outcomes, and scale successes across the BOP network. I look forward to discussing implementation opportunities during our September 8, 2025 meeting.

Introduction

For the past several decades, determinate sentences have been the norm in federal criminal justice. Unless a person began working in the federal system more than 40 years ago, it’s unlikely that they have any direct experience with indeterminate sentencing—or how that structure once shaped the entire culture of confinement. These changes were still unfolding in the summer of 1987, when my life took a turn that would lead me into the federal system—and into a front-row seat to watch how sentencing policy shapes prison culture.

Indeterminate sentencing meant that a judge would impose a sentence, but after a person served a portion—often about one-third—a parole board would determine whether it made sense to keep the individual in prison or release them under supervision. In my view, indeterminate systems incentivized good behavior, personal development, and preparation for success upon release. Staff could influence outcomes, reinforcing mutual accountability.

Building a Justice System that Strengthens America

Big Idea: Align Leadership, Policy, and Communication to produce safer communities, fewer victims, and more contributing citizens.

The 1984 Shift to Determinate Sentencing

The Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984 ushered in “the new law.” It reduced good-time credit and eliminated parole for federal offenses committed after November 1, 1987. Under determinate sentencing, people generally serve the term the judge imposed, with few opportunities to earn earlier release. The change influenced the culture of confinement for decades—removing discretion and incentives, and eroding the rehabilitative spirit that once gave meaning to the term “correctional institution.”

Entry Point

I entered the federal system on August 11, 1987—during the waning days of indeterminate sentencing—at age 23. Charged as a leader, I was placed in solitary during pretrial for nearly a year. After my conviction, an officer in the Special Housing Unit—Officer Wilson—handed me a copy of The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, then Plato’s Republic. Those works helped me accept accountability and build a plan:

1. Educate myself to the highest level possible.
2. Contribute to society in meaningful, measurable ways.
3. Build a support network to reconcile with society.

Sentenced to 45 years, I later learned that, because my crimes preceded the new law, I could satisfy the term in 26 years with clear conduct. Purpose took root: make amends and prove worthy of relief.

End of Parole

At USP Atlanta, I learned how parole had given people a reason to pursue programs and maintain clean records. Historically, parole began pragmatically through wardens and was formalized in 1910, then centralized in 1930. Under indeterminate sentencing a 15-year term could mean release in five with a strong record—fostering hope, accountability, and motivation. Removing it left people adrift.

Retribution Era & “Nothing Works”

By the 1990s, punitive approaches dominated. The 1974 Martinson article was distilled to “nothing works,” becoming a political soundbite that justified dismantling rehabilitative programming. Budgets shifted from people to prison capacity—more facilities, more staff, longer sentences. The Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984 created the Sentencing Commission, introduced mandatory guidelines, and abolished parole for post-1987 federal offenses.

The 1988 political use of the Willie Horton case accelerated “tough-on-crime” sentiment, reinforcing the War on Drugs and mass incarceration.

Life Under the “New Law”

For people sentenced under the post-1987 regime, parole was gone, incentives scarce, and “good time” limited. Program opportunities shrank. In that vacuum, gangs strengthened and prison culture deteriorated—predictable in a system with no meaningful incentives for positive adjustment.

One Narrow Exception: RDAP

The Residential Drug Abuse Program (RDAP) allowed up to 12 months off for those who documented a substance abuse disorder in the year prior to arrest. Those without such a history had no comparable opportunity, despite model conduct or educational progress.

Change Through the Courts

• Apprendi v. New Jersey (2000) — Any fact increasing a sentence beyond the statutory maximum must be proven to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt.
• United States v. Booker (2005) — Mandatory application of the federal guidelines violated the Sixth Amendment, making the guidelines advisory.

These decisions restored some judicial discretion to consider rehabilitation and remorse.

Second Chance Act (2007)

Expanded halfway house/home confinement up to 12 months—modest but a recognition that structured reentry improves public safety.

Proving the Model

I concluded my sentence on August 12, 2013—9,500 days after it began. That day, Attorney General Eric Holder called for sentencing and prison reform to address a system “bloated, inequitable, and counterproductive.”

Academic and Literary Work

• About Prison (Wadsworth) — used in criminal justice curricula.
• Profiles from Prison (Greenwood) — used in curricula.
• Inside: Life Behind Bars in America (St. Martin’s Press) — used in curricula.

I contributed to The Oxford Handbook of Sentencing and Corrections, taught The Architecture of Incarceration at San Francisco State University, and worked with the Robina Institute. I published a peer-reviewed article, Incentivizing Excellence, in UC Hastings Law Review, and addressed the Ninth Circuit’s judicial conference on incentive-based reform. With BOP Regional Director Andy Matevousian, I piloted Preparing for Success After Prison in several facilities.

The First Step Act (2018)

On December 21, 2018, the FSA restored incentives via Earned Time Credits (ETCs) for evidence-based programs and productive activities—reintroducing a direct link between daily effort and custody time. It also expanded opportunities for home confinement and addressed sentencing inequities (e.g., Fair Sentencing Act retroactivity, reduced certain mandatory minimums, expanded safety valve).

Implementation Challenges

Rollout was slow and uneven: risk assessment tooling, sufficient qualifying programs, and accurate ETC calculations lagged. The lesson: reform on paper is only the first step—culture must change.

Leadership Messaging: A Cultural Shift

With new DOJ and BOP leadership in 2025, including Director William K. Marshall III and Deputy Director Joshua J. Smith, the Bureau publicly emphasized fully implementing the First Step Act and Second Chance Act, expanding home confinement, and launching a First Step Act Task Force. Deputy Director Smith’s lived experience underscores credibility and a focus on results.

In our summer 2025 meeting, Deputy Director Smith emphasized the role of leadership and wardens in shaping culture. He asked for “big ideas”—which this memo advances.

Implications for Sentencing Advocacy

The FSA and leadership focus create a new advocacy dimension. Defense teams should prepare clients to:

• Enter prison with an effective release plan.
• Build transparent milestones showing commitment to success.
• Track and document progress to support self-advocacy.

Differentiate with a documented body of work: education, program participation, written reflections, and the CEO mindset—consistent, measurable, verifiable.

Our Free Platform & Points System

To make this accessible, our nonprofit provides a free platform for law firms, prisons, individuals, and families to build live profiles of rehabilitation:

• Log courses, programs, and work assignments.
• Upload book reports, journals, release plans, reflections, and statements.
• Track milestones over time.

Points Gamification enhances engagement and advocacy:

1. Motivation — Reward every documented achievement.
2. Advocacy Tool — Quantify progress for case managers, attorneys, and decision-makers.
3. Ambassadors — Encourage participants to model change and recruit others.

Redefining Justice

We should not measure justice by the number of calendar pages served. We should measure justice by how hard a person works to reconcile with society, make amends, and prepare to live responsibly and contribute meaningfully. With leadership from the Administration and BOP, the First Step Act restores the link between effort and outcome.

Justice should produce safer communities, fewer victims, and more contributing citizens. For this vision to take hold:

• Defense attorneys should prepare clients for the journey before sentencing.
• People in custody must choose daily to move closer to release.
• Prison leaders must foster environments where excellence is possible and rewarded.
• Policymakers must expand pathways to earn freedom through measurable achievement.

A Call to Action

We stand at a rare moment. Policy, leadership, and public sentiment are aligning. But laws and leadership shifts need people to do the work.

• Attorneys: guide clients toward preparation from day one.
• People in custody: take ownership of your adjustment.
• Prison staff: embrace the role as partners in transformation.
• Policymakers: keep building pathways where excellence is the standard.

If we align policy, leadership, and individual effort, we can build a system where justice is not measured in years served, but in lives rebuilt—where transformation is the metric that matters.