One of these things that motivated the founders of PREPARE to develop the organization was the fact that, historically, there has been no organization or entity in Maryland with the goal of providing guidance to people on how to engage with the parole system. This meant that most people were going to their parole hearings with no understanding of the system, no sense of what a good case for parole would look like, and no idea of how to best present their case.

 

While we are able to provide direct services to hundreds of people, there are 16,000 people in prison in Maryland. For that reason, PREPARE has developed an array of written materials on parole. They are available free for download from our website, but more importantly, they are on the Maryland prison tablets as PDFs, and hard copies have been made available in prison libraries throughout Maryland. Our materials include a guide on how to become a good candidate for parole, a guide on putting together a parole packet, a workbook for people with short sentences and a pamphlet for people with life sentences. 

 

So far we have placed in the prison libraries thousands of leaflets, guides on parole preparation, and workbooks in the libraries. Spanish and Arabic versions of these things have also been made available.