Wallington works on solutions -- after the marches, protests and activism

The world watched in summer 2020 as thousands of people took to the streets protesting police brutality and America’s systemic racism. When the protests were over, many former demonstrators then asked, “What next?”

Keith Wallington and the Washington-based Justice Policy Institute can help answer that question. The nonprofit JPI, founded in 1977, works on solutions based on people’s actual experiences.

Wallington, JPI’s strategist in Baltimore, Maryland, describes his work as “giving our research some legs.”

Before reports and policy recommendations are released, Wallington and his colleagues meet with current and former inmates, and families to understand their experiences and ensure the information and recommendations align with those experiences.

“It’s very important for us to work with those who have been most impacted,” Wallington said. “In my opinion that is what keeps our work honest.”

JPI has focused on the long-sentence populations the last few years. JPI has worked longest on the strategies using the 2012 Unger v. Maryland decision, which is often cited when advocating for parole reforms. The decision helped lead to the release of nearly 200 felons serving life sentences who were convicted predominantly of murder or rape prior to 1981.

However, the court ruled they had not received fair trials, mostly based on improper jury instructions. The defendants, now known as the Ungers, are a case study in how to help former inmates re-enter society -- through aiding them with connections for housing, jobs and other necessities.

Maryland’s overall recidivism rate is about 40%, but inmates released under the Ungers decision have a recidivism rate close to 3%, according to the Abell Foundation. The University of Maryland and the Open Institute collaborated to effectively help the Ungers re-enter society.

JPI often cites the Ungers in parole policy. Wallington has spoken with several and acknowledges: “You can take people who were the worst of the worst -- and they’ll tell you they did … dangerous things -- and provided the right treatment and programming, you know, people change.”

Wallington has worked with JPI for 12 years, starting in juvenile justice and now focusing on parole reforms. He called his work therapeutic “because the year I started JPI was the year the guy who shot and killed my brother was paroled. It took a lot of soul searching early on.”

Most of the men he meets with are in prison for murder or rape.

“I struggle sometimes,” Wallington said, “but working with the men and women who I've seen make dramatic changes … has really had an impact on me and my focus on this work.”

As JPI advocates for criminal justice reform, its staff members are mindful of crime victims, survivors and families.

Wallington’s concern is that the legislature focuses on only half the victims’ voices.

“You hear the half that wants to push for more punitive issues,” he said, “but you don’t hear the half that want to push for more programs and treatments.”

Part of the advocacy includes involving the families of incarcerated men and women. During the pandemic, JPI held bi-weekly calls that began as general updates and connected families to various services.

But as family members, especially mothers and wives, learned more about the system, they became more engaged wanting to testify and use their voices to support reforms.

Wallington describes parole as what is supposed to be a decarceration tool, but he says Maryland’s parole system is broken.

One of the problems is the governor’s veto power in the parole process. In 1995 then-Gov. Parris N. Glendening said “life is life,” removing the possibility of parole for life sentences.

Former Gov. Glendening penned an op-ed in the Washington Post March 1, 2021 calling his decision a “serious mistake” and supporting the Maryland General Assembly’s bill to remove the governor from parole decisions.

“It meant that people whose sentences promised a chance at parole were denied it for decades,” the former governor wrote, “regardless of how thoroughly they worked to redeem themselves and make amends to those they harmed.”

Maryland is only one of three states that still requires the governor’s approval after the parole board makes a recommendation based on detailed records, medical and psychological assessments, and interviews with victims and family members.

The Maryland legislature is attempting to pass a bill to reform the life-sentence parole process.

The other bill JPI is advocating for this legislative session is the Juvenile Restoration Act that Governor Larry Hogan recently vetoed. The act would eliminate life without parole sentences for juveniles and allow prisoners convicted as juveniles to petition the court for resentencing after serving at least 20 years.

Advocates consider the Juvenile Restoration Act a second chance for young offenders.

These reforms, as well as all policy JPI proposes and supports, is considered through a racial lens. Wallington says it has to be.

Maryland incarcerates the highest percentage of African Americans compared to any other state, according to a 2019 JPI report. African Americans comprise approximately 70% of the state’s prisoners yet only 30% of the state population.

The national average of African Americans in prisons is 32%. According to the Census Bureau, African Americans are only 13.4% of the U.S. population.

Awareness is being raised across the country about the large numbers of people of color, specifically Black people behind bars.

Ava DuVernay’s documentary, “The 13th'', explores how the 13th Amendment’s loophole that slavery was illegal except as punishment for a crime, evolved to the criminalization of African Americans and how mass incarceration has become extremely profitable.

Michelle Alexander, a civil rights litigator and legal scholar, wrote “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness” discussing mass incarceration and arguing the War on Drugs is the new system of racial control.

Bryan Stevenson, founder of the Equal Justice Institute, wrote “Just Mercy,” a memoir documenting his experiences with men, women, and children who were unjustly sentenced or wrongly convicted. And in 2019, Michael B. Jordan developed the story of one of Stevenson’s first cases into a feature film, “Just Mercy.”

The United States makes up less than 5% of the world’s population yet holds over 20% of the world’s prisoners.

The issue of mass incarceration is larger than the justice system.

“Some of the things we noticed, “ said Wallington, “was the neighborhoods that had the highest numbers of individuals going into the justice system were also the neighborhoods who had the highest number of high school dropouts, the highest unemployment rates, the worst healthcare systems. So there's this conversation about investment that we really don’t talk about.”

As the prison population is reduced, Wallington said resources should be redirected to the communities most impacted.

“This is not just about prisons,” he said. “This, in some cases, is about rebuilding communities.”