by Hill Harper
The worst thing about doing a bid in prison is going home.
—Lemon Andersen
Dear Brother,
You’re about to be separated from the prison world. My heart leaps with joy as you prepare to leave these walls and bars behind you and move along your path toward your own version of success and freedom. I’m excited to bear witness to the impact and legacy you will create. I fully expect you to lead an unreasonably happy life. You leave in thirty days. It’ll be right after your second tech course, the one on office technology, ends, right? Congrats!
You’re probably wondering why I waited awhile with my congratulations the day you wrote me about the panel approving your parole. The answer to that is simple. Both you and I know that the decision of the parole board is just a recommendation. That decision could have been reversed after it was reviewed.
I’m so glad that your prison believes in what I’d call “gradual release.” I don’t like the idea of their keeping you locked up and in the same prison routine you always had until you walk out of there and start blinking at all that sunlight. If I understood you right, while you wait for release, you must still stay on prison property, but you’re also allowed to go outside on supervised work assignments. What was it like walking into that garage on the outside for the first time?
Listen, I’m in touch with other guys who are in prison and confused about the parole process. I jotted down what you said on the phone about the conditions of your parole, and I just want to check my list with you. Don’t worry; I’m not doing this to “police” you, but just to learn more about the process. Also, I know it differs from state to state. But if I understood what you explained, these are the conditions you’ll be under out there. If they’re deemed violated, you get sent back to finish more of your sentence:
You can’t commit another crime of any kind.
You can’t be found with illegal controlled substances on your person or in your home or car.
You have to attend a treatment-center program related to drug abuse; your social worker on the inside and then your parole officer will give you details. It will include random drug testing.
At least until your parole officer revises the decision, you must stay home or wherever you are being lodged after working hours.
You’ll start out at a halfway house.
You’ll have six months to get established in a job and get your own living conditions, or you may be sent back to prison.
You must live within fifty miles of your hometown.
You must get permission before marrying, moving, changing jobs, or traveling out of state.
WALKING PAPERS
You’re going to need a lot of documents, man. So I asked my prison “guru” Cindy Franz to send me a list of documents you’ll need along with copies of forms. Maybe that’ll be easier than you digging all that up yourself. Although things might be partly different in your state, here’s what she says you’ll need:
Birth certificate.
Release papers (given upon release).
Proof of education (GED, apprenticeship certifications, or college course transcripts).
Certificate of Good Conduct (Apparently, if you have one of these, a licensing agency or employer must consider it as evidence that you are “rehabilitated.” (Yeah, I don’t like that word, either. Isn’t the stuff of red tape magical? Ha ha.)
Résumé.
Letters of reference (you’ll have one from me, one from Cindy, and one from my office assistant Lynn; three should do it).
Record of arrest and prosecution (rap sheet).
Cindy also sent me this incredible pamphlet from the New York City Bar’s Reentry Law Project. It’s called the “Small Business Toolkit.” I copied down a few things for you:
You must have acceptable forms of identification to conduct all kinds of public and private business. Also, you will need photo ID just to enter many public and private buildings. The following forms of ID issued by the government are important and, in some cases, necessary to have.1
Here they are:
Social Security card: You can find out how to get it by going online to www.ssa.gov/online/ss-5.html or calling (800) 772- 1213 for your local office and information.
Driver’s license or nondriver photo ID: The applications for a license or learner’s permit are usually online, or you can call your local Department of Motor Vehicles.
U.S. Passport Card (with photo): This is a U.S. government ID card that’s not the same as a passport and costs less to get. You can’t use it for international air travel, but you can use it for border crossings with Mexico and Canada and for entering U.S. ports from the Caribbean. Of course, if you have a regular U.S. passport, that’s even better. (I don’t think you’ll necessarily need both the motor vehicles license or ID card and the passport or passport card in most situations. One or the other should be acceptable identification.)
After Cindy told me about the toolkit, I went online and found out you can download it for free. This is what it claims to be about:
The toolkit starts with an explanation of the laws that prohibit employment discrimination based on criminal records and provides tips for getting necessary identification documents and applying for certificates of rehabilitation, both of which can be very helpful when starting a new business or trying to get a job.2
Yeah, I know, it’s for people who were released from New York State prisons and who want to start a small business. But it has fantastic information for any ex-con from any state who wants to work as soon as possible after he gets out. I’ll leave it to you to do some research in the prison library or ask a counselor if your state follows all these procedures and regulations. But check out the pamphlet. It’s in this envelope.
Cindy also tipped me off on how you can clean up your rap sheet. That’s all about expunging, or erasing, certain records of infractions that are either plainly incorrect or that don’t need to be there anymore. Anybody who’s been arrested and fingerprinted has a rap sheet.
Where Cindy lives, in New York State, you just write the Legal Action Center to see it. They publish a pamphlet about it that explains the steps.3 I checked several other states I could find on the Internet, and every state seemed to have a way of doing it. For example, in California, you can get a request form here: http://caag.state.ca.us/fingerprints/forms/AOCSSCHR.pdf. And if you don’t have the Internet, you can write to:
California Department of Justice
PO Box 903417
Sacramento, CA 94203-4170
Attn: Record Review Unit
(916) 227-3835
I’m sure the librarian or your social worker knows how to find yours. Get proactive about it and ask, okay? Apparently, there are controls preventing an employer from seeing your rap sheet without your permission in most states, unless it’s a certain type of employer, such as government employers (federal, state, and local government agencies) and all law enforcement agencies, child care agencies, hospitals, museums, home health care agencies, financial institutions, schools, and companies hiring school bus drivers and school bus attendants. But then they also added that “hundreds of jobs (including barber, real estate broker, doctor, nurse, and taxi driver) require a state or municipal license.” And often, the agency that issues that special occupational license won’t let you have it unless you can show that you possess “good moral character.”
There are a few licenses that people with criminal records can’t apply for—“good moral character” or not. Finally, they explain that even if a prospective employer isn’t entitled by law to see your rap sheet without your permission, they can still use a service that does criminal background checks and get some of that info anyway. No, it’s not gonna be easy, man. But hey, we never expected or even wanted it to be, right?
BANKS
The toolkit has a chapter o
n becoming “financially literate.”4 They recommend you open a bank account as soon as you can. Here are the reasons they give:
Bank accounts are insured by the FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation) so your money is safe—up to $250,000.
Banks make it easy for you to keep separate accounts for personal and business expenses.
Checking accounts let you take out money by writing a check or using a debit or ATM card.
When you pay with a check, the check becomes an automatic record that you made that payment.
Your bank statements can help you keep better track of your money and expenses.
Banks offer easy twenty-four-hour access to your money with ATMs.
If you put money into a savings account, you can usually earn interest on that money. It’s a good, easy way to save money.
Don’t just hand the bank your money, though. Before you open an account with a bank, there are a few questions you should ask first, like whether you need to keep a minimum amount in your account not to get charged, whether there are monthly fees and how much, and whether the account will have overdraft protection. Overdraft protection keeps a check from bouncing temporarily if there’s not enough money in your account. But beware: A friend of mine racked up a small overdraft, never paid it back, and it mushroomed to five times the amount through interest. He ultimately couldn’t pay it and it ruined his credit score.
There’s a hell of a lot to think about, isn’t there? We can handle it, though. To do that, we want to start working on it now. One thing we should get to immediately is figuring out how you’re going to create and use a résumé when you first get out, and how it will change several months into your freedom—when you’ve had more experience.
Listen, Brotha, you never mentioned it, but you must have some kind of prerelease unit inside that helps you plan your reentry, including where you’re going to live. Most of those units have specially trained staff for doing just that. The unit should have updated listings of agencies in the community that’ll help you find a job, deal with a drug program, solve a medical issue, whatever.
Before you get out, we need to talk about looking for a job in more detail. Finally, I want to give you some tips about job interviews, too. But since I’m excited—real excited—I’d rather end on that up note. Don’t forget to call me tomorrow. I’ll be home by eight P.M.
Peace and love,
Hill
P.S. Now that you’re just about to be released and I know you’re sick and tired of hearing from me, I asked a buddy of mine, Kevin Hagan, who did twenty-eight years in Cali prisons, to write to you about what to do once you’re out. I hope you find this helpful.
At one time I was a “lifer,” and most of the guys I was locked up with were lifers, too. The first thing you have to do when you get to prison is forgive yourself for whatever reason you’re in there. You have to look at yourself and do a lot of self-evaluation. Why did I get to this point, why did I do what I did, and what wrong turns did I take? Prison gives you a lot of time to evaluate yourself, but you have to want to do it. You have to get involved in a lot of self-help groups, from anger management to NA and AA to self-esteem groups. Education is one of the biggest keys. If you educate yourself while you’re there, you will not only fare better inside, but you can learn to think. I have a philosophy: If you can’t think, you can’t win.
In the job that I do now, working with youth,
If you can’t think, you can’t win.
that’s one of the main things that I try to teach: the importance of changing your way of thinking and building a new culture within yourself. It’s important that we keep our family ties strong. Some guys have burned bridges, but that doesn’t matter, because if there’s love, there is forgiveness. You have to respect yourself, too. That’s another thing that is really important. You have to know your triggers: the things that got you to the point where you are. You have to recognize those triggers when they come and be able to deal with them, whether it’s by sitting down and reading a book, going outside, working out, or talking to somebody. And try to surround yourself with people who are positive. Even though you’re in prison, there are positive people around you. There are a lot of volunteers, as well as people who work there, who are willing to help you.
You also have to feed your spirit. You’re going to feel like an empty shell at times; there will always be that little voice inside you asking, “What am I missing?” You need to fulfill the spiritual part of your makeup. It’s important that we do that. Learn how to be positive, no matter what the circumstances are. Right now you’re in a box, but that’s okay. Think outside the walls. See yourself out there in the community; imagine yourself out there with a job and living life. A lot of times I’d put my music on and think about going to the beach, walking in the sand, going to the mountains, spending time with my family, my nephews, my son, my grandson, my sisters and brothers, and things like that. It’s very important to do that.
It’s also important for a guy to understand himself. That’s one of the biggest keys: to know yourself again. Most guys who have gone to jail have lost themselves somewhere along the way, and they need to find themselves again. Inherently, people are not bad. Maybe it was learned behavior, or the people you hung around with influenced you. You need to find that person within yourself who says, “You know what? I’m done with this! Apparently I wasn’t too good at what I was doing, because I got caught. So now it’s time to turn over a new leaf and find something different to do with my life.”
You have to stay positive no matter how many times you go before the parole board. I went to the board twelve times and I was told no eleven times, until they saw that I had a true understanding of what I had done. You have to have remorse and empathy for the people you’ve hurt—not just for your victim, but for your family as well. Because your family does time with you, and they suffer. So it’s a matter of getting your priorities straight, getting your mind straight. Your heart and soul have to be in good condition, too. If you don’t have those things together, you’re walking around in a haze and you’re never going to get to the point where you’re ready to step from behind those walls.
You have to prepare yourself before you get out; you have to put the work in. Then when you are released, be sure to surround yourself with family and good people. Jobs are hard to find for a guy like me; I’m fifty-some years old, and I committed a felony. But there are people who care about me. I have a nice part-time job; three days a week, I go in and work with youth. At some point I hope to have a full-time job, but you just keep trying, and you never give up. That’s my whole philosophy in life: Never quit. I quit on myself once, and I paid the ultimate cost for it, which was twenty-eight years of my life. And I learned from that.
When I was released, it took about three and a half months before I felt comfortable. Now, after two years of being out, sometimes I still have a little residue if I’m in certain situations that remind me of prison, but my therapy is going back into a correctional facility and working in it. That has really helped me to evolve and know that I never want to be in that situation again.
The hardest thing when I got out was dealing with large groups of people who were moving too fast. My sister took me to a store, and I had an anxiety attack because there were so many people bumping into me and crowding; I had to step outside for a little while and regain my composure. And I had to relearn how to live in society again as far as the financial aspects—how to use the ATM, for instance. But it was fun for me because it was new, and I took it as a learning experience. You pay your bills, establish credit, get a car, and just live your life. You have to make those adjustments, and you can’t have the prison mentality when you’re out here, because it doesn’t work.
Be sure to surround yourself with people who help you along. If you don’t know something, then ask questions. Get out of that “man box,” what we call “Mr.
BS.” A lot of men are brought up with a faulty belief system: “Men don’t cry,” “Men don’t share their feelings.” We have to learn that stuff all over again. It’s okay to cry; it’s okay to share your feelings. It’s okay to talk about it if you’re overwhelmed. Don’t stay stuck in that mentality, in that box.
If something difficult comes up, there are people I can sit down and talk with about it. You have to learn to enjoy your life and leave prison in prison. Leave that mentality behind you. Nothing’s personal out here; there’s a different mind-set and a different set of rules. We were out of societal norms, and that’s why we ended up where we did. But now it’s a matter of setting your mind and sticking to the course.
If you stay ready, you don’t have to get ready.
If you’re on parole when you get out, you don’t have to worry about the parole officer breathing down your neck as long as he sees that you’re doing what you’re supposed to be doing. My parole officer is trying to get me off on early discharge. I have three years of parole—we call it a three-year tail—but because of what I’m doing out here, he’s trying to get me off early. If it doesn’t work, I’ll have parole until next year, which is no big deal. I don’t worry about it because I’m doing everything I’m supposed to.
You can’t make up for what you lost, but you can live your life to the fullest, regardless of where you’ve been. I get up every morning and make it to the gym by five thirty A.M. Then I go to the park and drink my coffee and listen to the birds singing. Life is good.
In closing, I want to say that first and foremost, always be true to yourself. If you stay ready, you don’t have to get ready. Treat yourself; don’t cheat yourself. Do the programs and have a sense of accomplishment, because there’s nothing like the feeling that you’ve started something and you’ve finished it. And always finish what you start. Finally, don’t let your current situation deter you from being the best person that you can possibly be.