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Documentary looks at how life without parole affects families of the incarcerated

Commutations are rare, taking toll on loved ones

  • Joseph Darius Jaafari
Antoinette Osei with her son Jay at SCI Somerset in August 2019. (Courtesy of The Appeal)

 Courtesy The Appeal

Antoinette Osei with her son Jay at SCI Somerset in August 2019. (Courtesy of The Appeal)

Happy Wednesday, Context readers. We’ve spent the last week spending a lot of time talking about criminal justice issues, and you can expect even more tonight while watching the Democratic presidential debate. There’s been lots of buzz around Pete Buttigieg and Bernie Sanders in terms of electability, but tonight starting at 9 p.m. ET we’ll get to see a new face: former NYC mayor Mike Bloomberg, Grab your popcorn and keep your eyes on Twitter for rapid fire analysis and hilarious memes. I’ll be live-tweeting the debate myself, so feel free to follow me.  — Joseph Darius Jaafari, staff writer
Antoinette Osei

Courtesy The Appeal

Antoinette Osei with her son Jay at SCI Somerset in August 2019. (Courtesy of The Appeal)

One hundred thirty-two men are on Pennsylvania’s death row, but few of them will ever be executed, in part because it can take years to exhaust legal appeals, and because the current governor has signaled that he will issue temporary reprieves until structural weaknesses in the state’s application of the death penalty are resolved.

Still, those men on death row — and thousands of others — will die in prison. According to the Abolitionist Law Center, Pennsylvania is ranked second among states with the most people sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.

Activists say these sentences amount to “death by incarceration.” For all intents and purposes, in the absence of pardons or commutations, inmates sentenced to life without parole will die behind bars.

Inmates sentenced to life without parole have been convicted of fairly violent crimes, such as murder or serial rape and assaults. These crimes have terrible effects that can destroy families and hurt multiple generations. Victims and their families have important stories that should be told and heard.

So do the families of criminals sentenced to die behind bars. Reporter Josh Vaughn with The Appeal, a nonprofit criminal justice news site, published a documentary looking at the life of one mother, Antoinette Osei, and what her life has been like since her son was convicted of murder in two different counties and then sentenced to life without parole.

Yesterday, we spoke with Josh, who lives in Franklin County, and asked him a few questions about the documentary and what his experience was working on the story:

Joseph:  Josh, what makes Pennsylvania unique when it comes to life without parole?

Josh: It’s unique in the fact that we have so many people and very little ability to get relief from that. Pennsylvania is near the top as far as the number of people serving life without parole. At the end of 2018, there were about 5,400 people in prison serving life without parole in the state. That’s up from less than 700 people back towards the end of the 1970s.

Joseph: What’s changed in the past 40 years?

Josh: So a big part of it is the commutations process has changed. For someone to get relief from a life without parole sentence, you have to go in front of the Board of Pardons, which is a five member board. Currently, it requires a unanimous vote. In the ‘70s, it was a 3 to 2 vote.

Joseph: What prompted the change?

Josh: In the mid-’90s, we had a man named Reginald McFadden who was given a commutation from a life sentence and then went out and committed several very heinous crimes. Once that happened, I mean, it came to a pretty screeching halt. Since 1995, we’ve had about 25 people who have received commutations from a life sentence. And more than half of those have occurred since 2019.

Joseph: You interviewed a mother whose son is serving life without parole. What is the struggle families face with these kinds of life-long prison terms?

Josh: First off, to everyone on the outside, the person in prison is a monster. That’s the only thing that they know about them. But to Antoinette and her son, Jay. I mean, that’s her son. It’s a much more complex view of who this person is. I don’t want to put words in her mouth, but from my conversation with her, it seems like she didn’t feel like the people that were her friends or family were really there supporting her.

Joseph: And what’s the takeaway here?

Josh: I think what I have heard from a lot of people is that there is this idea and understanding in the regular world at large that people are capable of redemption, growth and change and becoming more than the worst things they’ve ever done. From many family members’ perspectives, they just want our laws and our punishment to reflect that it is a possibility. (End)

If you want to learn more about life without parole, you can also take a look at Vaughn’s photo essay documenting the life of elderly prisoners in Pennsylvania. – Joseph Darius Jaafari

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Philadelphia Free Public Library

Courtesy Free Library of Philadelphia

(Image courtesy Free Library of Philadelphia)

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