Tarra Simmons, Modern America’s First Ex-con Elected Official

Posted on by J. Nelson

The future is…second chances.

The emergence of the United States’ first formerly incarcerated member of a state legislature defies the conventionally held view that ex-cons can’t become elected officials. 

And when I say, “conventionally held,” I’m referring to the one, two, and three people covered by the fact that one in three American adults has a criminal record, according to the FBI. And if 30% of adults have a criminal record, just about every American is likely familiar with the hard truths, impressions, and clichés of mass incarceration*.

Yet almost all of us believe that people with records are permanently disqualified from post-conviction opportunities. Former inmate Tarra Simmons is a reminder to check that belief.

And sure, there have been a number of other cases where ex-cons have successfully sought office. The difference is, those stories usually involve a privileged, corrupt suit who wants back in the game. Simmons is anything but. She did time for drug delivery, sales, and firearm possession. Then she attended Seattle University School of Law, graduating with honors in 2017.

When the Washington State Bar Association voted against admitting Tarra Simmons, a former bank-robber-turned-lawyer, Shon Hopwood, brought her fight to the State Supreme Court – and won. By mid- 2018, Simmons had been sworn in as an attorney. 

Although she had no political aspirations prior to 2019, Simmons ran as a Democrat this year in an effort to “give people a first chance, so they won’t need a second chance later on in life.”

You might say she was provoked. With some encouragement, she announced her candidacy for a seat in Washington’s 23rd Legislative District after Republicans gave her state bar victory the Willie Horton treatment: a snail-mail attack used in a state Senate race called Simmons a “drug addicted ex-con.” 

She just took her district by 63.32% of the vote.

But no more spoilers. Simmons’s story is a fun, inspired tapestry. You’ll be hearing about her a lot in the coming years, I suspect. After all, she has seen the future, and it looks like criminal justice reform.

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*Convicted or not, employment and other forms of discrimination are still a thing.

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De-institutionalization (and your Tax Dollars)

Posted on by J. Nelson

Mizuo Shinonome_Where Excuses Go to DieSome see de-institutionalization as prison reform’s black hole. We neither think about nor understand it much, until we see how much it can swallow.

Yet redirecting, rather than just recycling, offenders begins and ends with the most common form of second chance behavioral therapy of all: showing individuals the potential in themselves they can’t yet see. I’m certainly a product of it, and there are countless other second chance cases even more deserving of the right mentor than I was.

In such an inexcusably crowded prison system as California’s, wringing Yard life from offenders can devour solar systems of resources, and profoundly institutionalized individuals are difficult people to be around on a good day. So for both plucky and grizzled corrections professionals working with offenders and parolees, resolve and past re-entry successes are crucial. So, too, are faith and funding – or at least the delivery of funds previously promised. Read more

Crass Incarceration

Posted on by J. Nelson

Eligibility for a second chance begins with being taken seriously.

Crass
• adjective: lacking in discrimination and sensibility, blundering, asinine

WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?__Where Excuses Go to DieOkay, here it is: the mentally ill in California prisons are far more likely to be subjected to harsher treatment and longer sentencing than other inmates. That’s a criminal lack of discrimination and sensibility. Of all the inmates who occupy facilities up and down the state, roughly 30% are mentally ill, making the California Department of Corrections a de facto mental health treatment provider. Now there’s your blundering and asinine.

According to the Stanford Law School’s Three Strikes Project, “The average sentence imposed on defendants suffering from mental illness is longer than the average sentence imposed on defendants who do not have mental health diagnosis but who committed the same crime.”

Shane Bauer of Mother Jones claims there are ten times more mentally ill people behind bars than in state hospitals, and many of those inmates have severe illnesses like schizophrenia. Furthermore, solitary confinement can make it harder or even impossible for the untreated mentally ill to re-enter society. Amy Fettig, senior staff counsel for the ACLU National Prison Project says “it’s a risk that can’t be condoned. They come out such ruined human beings. It has essentially harmed them in such a substantial way they can’t ever return to the community or society.”

The Coldest Iron_Where Excuses Go to DieThe passage of California’s Prop 47 was important to me personally because of the smiley Nicaraguan we called “Hey,” to whom my book, Where Excuses Go to Die, is dedicated. Hey’s chapter is one I read a lot at book signings and other events, because even without shocking statistics it powerfully demonstrates how narrowly the public has been trained to recognize what prison and prisoners look like. Where Excuses Go to Die exists to defy that recognition. Read more