This article was published in partnership with The Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization covering the U.S. criminal justice system. Sign up for The Marshall Project's newsletters, and follow them on Instagram, TikTok, Reddit and Facebook.
One of The Marshall Project’s readers has spent more than 40 years incarcerated in a Washington state facility. In that time, he has thought a lot about what he’d say to the elected officials who make some of the decisions that directly affect his life.
We should reconsider life without parole, he wrote to The Marshall Project, especially for those who have already served decades behind bars. He’s worried about the aging population in prisons across the U.S., the cost of keeping older people incarcerated, and most importantly, about what those sentences mean for their families.
“They are also doing time with us,” he said, describing the compounding costs of prison visits and phone calls, and the emotional toll of knowing a loved one will never come home.
“It’s very emotional, as they know their loved one will die in here,” he wrote.
This is a special edition of “Sending Kites,” a Marshall Project newsletter: Ahead of the midterm elections, we asked incarcerated readers around the country what they would tell a candidate or elected official if they had five minutes together.
As you will read below, many of the respondents asked the country to really consider whether the system is set up to rehabilitate, or if its core purpose is to punish. “People don’t get better because of prison, they get better despite prison,” one reader wrote from New York. Others were specific about their grievances. One reader in Texas, pleading for a rehaul of the prison medical system, described watching a person with heart problems return from a medical visit and die on their bunk. Like many other Americans concerned about inflation, a reader questioned how he was supposed to afford a 10-ounce cup of coffee from commissary, now $4.75, on wages of $3.75 a week.
Voting rights vary by state, but in many parts of the country, those incarcerated for felony convictions cannot cast a ballot. The consequences of this voter disenfranchisement are especially clear if and when criminal justice is on the ballot, like in the upcoming election. Voters in Indiana, Louisiana and Tennessee, for example, will consider measures restricting bail, while Colorado voters will weigh harsher penalties for fentanyl offenses and child sex trafficking. This is part of a developing pattern in which statewide measures on sentencing, penalties or bail have gone in a more punitive direction since 2022, according to national analysis by Ballotopedia.
The letters we received offer a firsthand perspective on many of the policies voters and elected officials are being asked to consider. Here’s what incarcerated people want to change.
Start by seeing us:
Before weighing any policy, readers wanted lawmakers to understand one thing: The people behind the numbers are humans, and they’re the ones who know how the system fails.
FROM A READER IN COLORADO
If I could sit across from a lawmaker for five minutes, I’d look them in the eyes and tell them my name. So often those incarcerated are nothing more than a statistic. I’d tell them about the 208 years I was sentenced to in Colorado, how one serious violent crime with a history of lower-level drug offenses gave me the big habitual offender [label]. I’d pull out the inch-thick stack of accomplishments I’ve done in the decade-plus I’ve sat here. I’d hope that they don’t have a daughter who’s endured addiction, nor abuse by men. I’d ask them to spend an hour with me in conversation because I don’t belong here forever.
FROM A READER IN NEW YORK
Treating people badly for years at a time is not a good way to build respect for society. People don’t get better because of prison, they get better despite prison. Incarceration, the separation from society, is punishment enough. Anything else is gratuitous cruelty that serves only to undermine the supposedly legitimate goals of the system. Incentives work much better than penalties — show people the benefits of embracing society, not its capacity for indifference.
FROM A READER IN MISSISSIPPI
Legislators need to understand the impact [that] the votes [of] incarcerated people could have on the outcome of policies that address policing, parole, etc. Since we’re the ones actually affected by incarceration, we are truly the only voices capable of stressing the importance of delicate and unheard issues. For instance, in Mississippi, there’s a fight to prevent redistricting that would suppress the Black vote. If the Black people in the system were able to sit across from the legislators, we could let them know how such a change would basically be taking us back to the three-fifths-of-a-man vote. Modern-day slavery at its finest.
Sentences that outlast the person:
Readers who have served 40 years or more said the laws that put them inside never accounted for who they would become.
FROM A READER IN WASHINGTON STATE
One issue is life without parole (LWOP) and how it’s not ever addressed. Most LWOPs have done 30 or more years, and people change in that amount of time. Most will die in prison, and it costs the Department of Corrections a lot to keep older men locked up. [There’s also the issue of] how it affects our families; they are also doing time with us. It costs them money to visit, gas to come visit, and phone calls. Also, it’s very emotional, as they know their loved one will die in here.
What the people should be voting on is new sentencing guidelines. If we followed other states, we would do away with aggravated murder with LWOP. Most states have 30- to 40-year [limits].
As for me, I’ve done 41 years straight. I would love to sit down with elected officials and talk.
FROM A READER IN WASHINGTON STATE
I’m from a state that is fairly liberal. Washington [is considering giving] inmates voting rights and less hole [that is, solitary confinement] time for infractions of rules. But I really feel it’s all smoke and mirrors, because to me, the real problem in this state is the length of mandatory minimums and the enhancements all left over from the crack years. Sentence reform is the most important problem in this state. I’ve been down 25 years straight without a body.
Let the work count:
Degrees, trades, clean records. Readers said they’re doing the work of rehabilitation and ask why it rarely changes a release date, or pays enough to buy coffee.
FROM A READER IN NEW YORK
As a person incarcerated in New York, and serving a long sentence, I find it disheartening that there aren’t [many] opportunities for inmates with violent convictions to earn time off their sentence. In other states, sentences can be reduced significantly by completing rehabilitation programming, or by earning certificates and attending voluntary groups and classes, meeting educational or vocational goals, or having a good disciplinary record.
I also believe New York’s penal system fails us by not offering updated vocational training that can help with job placement once released on parole. If I’m released at 63 years old after having spent 28 years behind bars, what skills will I have learned that will benefit me in my search for employment? How can I possibly expect to support myself upon release with no relevant work experience and extremely outdated vocational training? Who wants to take on a grown adult as a dependent?
We need more opportunities to create advancement for incarcerated individuals upon release. New York has a population of aging incarcerated individuals who are over the age of 55 and have been in prison for decades.
The best advocates for criminal justice reform are those directly affected. Let’s start a conversation.
FROM A READER IN NEW YORK
I wish candidates and voters knew that prisoners struggle with the same things average people struggle with. In prison, we struggle with mental health and medical issues, and [economic issues, too]. It is hard financially, more than anything. Programs or “jobs” do not pay us very well. The state, or rather the national minimum wage, doesn’t exist for prisoners. I’m in school, so I am not allowed to have a program/job to help support myself. Usually, when I did have a program, I was a clerk. While I’m at school, I’m making $3.75 a week, $7.50 every two weeks, where I have to make decisions on what is important for me at the store. Asking my family for support is hard for them, too. They send me $200 a month to help me, but it is also hard for them, since the cost of living is higher. Even in prison, groceries have gone up in price. When I arrived [at my facility] in 2025, a percolated 10-ounce coffee was $3. Now, it’s $4.75, and that’s just one item.
Locking people up and throwing away the key is not the answer. If you are going to incarcerate someone, give them the proper tools to be better humans. I’m an example of what higher education can do for people. I’m earning my second master’s degree so that when I am released, I am well prepared to give back to society for the harm I did to my community.
College isn’t for everyone, so vocational training should and is also a valuable tool for the men and women behind bars. Carpenters, electricians and plumbers are always needed; these programs are helpful, and I hope and wish politicians would see this.
Judge who we are now:
Parole and clemency are supposed to measure change. Readers said the boards and the governor’s office keep measuring the original crime instead.
FROM A READER IN NEW YORK
The biggest issue that still exists with the parole system is what standards the parole commissioners are using to make their decisions.
The parole commissioners are supposed to take all factors into consideration when deciding if someone is worthy of release. The No. 1 criteria in their decisions is who the person is today. What have they done during their time to change so they are no longer who they were when they committed their crime(s) that led them to prison?
Too often, the parole board uses the obligatory, boilerplate “nature of the crime” rationale when denying parole. The nature of the crime is the reason why individuals are incarcerated in the first place. It is also the only thing about themselves that incarcerated individuals cannot change. They can change how they view their world, who and how they interact with, and how they react to the adversity they face in times of difficulty. It could easily be argued that the prison environment, and the culture that permeates within the walls, is the most difficult environment they will encounter.
If that is so, and if they have adjusted their mindset and behavior within this setting, it is a safe bet they will be able to carry that forward upon release.
There is nothing worse than doing everything you are supposed to, and more, maintaining a positive disciplinary record, developing an in-depth reentry plan, and having a low-risk assessment, and still being denied parole, twice.
FROM A READER IN NEW YORK
Women with higher education are supporting the community by running programs, showing a better way of life in action, while embracing the challenges of being an incarcerated woman. We know none of this actually moves those in positions of power. We do it anyway, as it’s the right thing to do.
Yet we are largely overlooked by the governor’s office when the underutilized tool of clemency is given.
What would move the governor? The prison system under duress, staff shortages, the National Guard a permanent fixture a year after the [unauthorized corrections officers’] strike? The financial burden to taxpayers? Whatever it is, I hope my peers — women — get an opportunity like our male counterparts to be afforded clemency in New York.
The basics first:
Heat, water, food, a doctor who listens. Readers in three states said it’s hard to talk about rehabilitation when survival is the daily question.
FROM A READER IN TEXAS
To me, prison is like a Third World country within the United States, but I can only speak for Texas. Suffocating heat in the summer, risky drinking water, dirty clothes, roach- and rat-infested living areas, outdated buildings over 100 years old that literally crumble before your eyes. I could go on, but you understand my point. These are people’s lives you are dealing with, and most politicians take the easy route when it comes to handling crime: “Lock ’em up and hopefully they’ll learn their lesson.” But do you consider what this may do to a person? What will this eventually do to the community this person will be released to? How much better would it be to make an attempt to enrich the spirit of this broken person who may be the product of our society’s many other broken systems? Visit these prisons and see the change these individuals are capable of making in their lives and in the lives of others not because of the criminal justice system, but despite it. See that they are human, flawed just like you. See that it shouldn’t be so hard to get a second chance, especially after one has earned it.
FROM A READER IN TEXAS
One of the most-talked about issues [among incarcerated people] that seems to get more attention would be medical [care]. Unless it is something major, all [prison medical staff] will do is talk to you, ask you about what’s going on, then give you some ibuprofen or something and send you back. Years ago, I had problems getting an MRI for my shoulder from falling [while] coming down off the top bunk, in which I had a torn rotator cuff. I also hurt both my knees, but they never looked into it, even as I continue to tell them today. I have seen people go to medical with heart problems, get sent back, lay down on their bunk and die because [staff] did not take them seriously. So medical I would say is a very serious urgent need — top-priority issue.
As for speaking to candidates and officials [on] the subject of criminal justice reform: Excessive sentences seem to not do anything to deter crimes. All that is happening is the overcrowding of the prisons, when they are understaffed, which is a security issue both for the inmates and guards. People change over time.
Don’t cut the line home:
There is a lot of sentimental value in holding a letter your loved one wrote to you. One reader asked lawmakers to protect physical copies from being replaced with photocopies.
FROM A READER IN NEW YORK
One issue that feels urgent to me is having letters that come through the regular mail — that my family sends to me — photocopied. I believe that this takes away from the essence of what helps families stay in touch, especially those families who are trying to follow everything according to the rules.
I know that some unscrupulous people may try to send things through the mail, but this is why you have a screening process. … With all the new technology that I’m learning about that’s available, a more improved screening process can be implemented, like what was done for the visiting screening process.
