About Us
PREPARE was incorporated in 2021 – the confluence of formidable, community-driven forces:
- Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Individuals: Co-founder Anne Pack was incarcerated in MCI-W when PREPARE was founded and had been helping others with parole preparation since 2017. All our full-time staff members are returning citizens.
- MaryJoel Davis: At 92, MaryJoel is our oldest co-founder. She was running Second Chance for Women in MCI-W when she met Anne. Her 50 years of supporting incarcerated individuals was the foundation upon which PREPARE could be built.
- The Military Community: Co-founders Elizabeth Finne and Jacqueline Ahn are both military spouses who joined MaryJoel in the work and began collaborating with Anne. Our Board President, Laura Collins, is a captain in the Coast Guard. Other members of the military community serve in the organization.
The Many Facets of Parole
Reentry
Reentry
Parole is inextricable from Reentry. A strong reentry plan tailored to the individual's needs is the most important component of a bid for parole.
History
History
The so-called 'Father of Parole', a warden named Alexander Superintendent of a Penal Settlement (1787-1860), enabled people to secure early release through positive growth.
Philosophy
Philosophy
When focussed on recognizing the positive ways people grow and change, parole is aligned with rehabilitation rather than retribution.
Politics
Politics
Parole can have bipartisan political appeal by recognizing the role that both individual responsibility and broader circumstance play in crime.
Law
Law
Parole sits within the criminal justice legal framework but is able to take account of the rounded individual and look forward not just backward.
Storytelling
Storytelling
A parole hearing is a time to tell a person's broader story - past, present and future - whereas a trial focuses on specific moments in time.
Agency
Agency
The goal setting and future planning involved in preparing for a parole hearing can help rejuvenate a person's sense of agency.
Restorative Justice
Restorative Justice
A well-functioning parole system sits in a society which recognizes the importance of accountability as well as the possibility for growth and change.
Collaborative Justice
The approach we take to supporting people with parole hearing and reentry preparation is one of collaborative justice. By collaborative justice we mean:
- Improving public safety by ensuring that people who are incarcerated have the education, tools and opportunities needed to improve their lives and work towards a successful reentry.
- Being pragmatic and constructive and listening to all voices at the table in the criminal justice space.
- Encouraging and supporting people to take responsibility for their past and agency over their future.
When we support someone in preparing for parole and reentry, we do so in collaboration with many others, including:
- The candidates for parole who are putting their journey of self-development before the Parole Commission. It is their life stories which are at the heart of the process. It is they who do the hard work.
- The peers on the inside who help raise up others by guiding them through the the process.
- The families and friends on the outside who provide the love and support necessary to get through incarceration and build a strong reentry plan.
- The Parole Advocates on the outside who help bring all these different elements into a well put together case for parole.
- The Reentry service providers on the outside who help give substance to a bid for parole by connecting with people before their parole hearings.
- The staff within the prison - case managers, COs, wardens, VAC officers - who facilitate PREPARE being able to provide our services.
- The Parole Commission - administrators and parole commissioners alike - whose receptiveness to PREPARE's work makes our striving towards best practice in parole hearing preparation a realistic goal.
Our Beliefs
- We believe that parole is an under-utilized tool for coherent and lasting decarceration
- We believe that a well functioning parole system is one in which every person who goes to a parole hearing understands the system, knows what factors are to be considered and is prepared to make their best case. PREPARE Inc exists to ensure that happens.
- We believe that rational parole decision making is dependent on all the relevant information in a case being available to decision makers in a comprehensive, organized and even-handed format.
- We believe that reentry planning is inextricable from parole hearing preparation. Because the Parole Commission must consider the adequacy of the reentry plan, a good case for parole necessarily entails a strong reentry plan presented as an alternative to further incarceration.
- We believe it is unrealistic to expect people to build their own reentry plans while in prison without significant support. For that reason we have developed a statewide network of reentry providers along with a reentry needs assessment in order to support people in building the reentry plan most likely to lead to their success.
- We believe that reentry is a process not an event. We therefore provide peer mentoring and ongoing support to our clients who have returned home.
- We believe in collaborative justice. Decarceration is not something which one organization can achieve alone. In supporting someone in their journey out of prison we are collaborating with case management and other institutional staff, the Parole Commission, reentry service providers, the person’s family and, of course, the funders who make this work possible.
- We believe that collaborative justice entails teamwork between those who have been personally impacted by incarceration and those who have not. Our team includes returning citizens whose lived experience has enabled them to develop specific skill sets and insight which can be used to help other. Our team also includes engaged citizens who share in a vision of a more limited and just prison system.
- We believe that collaborative justice is a positive process focussed on identifying, implementing and contributing to solutions rather than criticizing other players in the criminal justice sphere.