Someone new to our community asked me,
“I got six years. How long will I serve?”
“I have no idea”, I told him.
“I can make up an answer or tell you the truth.”

That’s like asking, “How much does a home cost in Los Angeles and what can I buy?”

Homes are a little or a lot, and what you can buy depends on your credit, income, and assets.Same with sentencing and prison. What you get (early release, home confinement, support) depends on what you’ve built and developed over a lifetime.

For our webinar on Tuesday, let’s work under the idea you get exactly what you want:
◦ Shorter sentence
◦ Home confinement
◦ No halfway house
◦ No delay

Then what? You’re still not done. Now you’re sitting in front of someone who wasn’t part of your case, someone in a government office who doesn’t know you. It might be a probation officer. Or a low-level staffer at a halfway house who decides when you work, where you go, and whether you’re a candidate to work for yourself or KFC. Someone who would love to send you back to prison if you violate while on home confinement.

It happens.

We’ll share examples, those who were ready, and those who weren’t.
We’ll explain what helped. And what made things worse.
We’ll show how small decisions early on came back to matter (this might be the most important part of the webinar).

“Justin, should I do this in prison?” I get asked a lot.

“It depends on what success is for you. Have you defined it?”

We are not your parents. We’re not going to tell you what to do in prison, or whether you should use or avoid the iPhone, engage in the hustle, or spend four days a week playing pickleball. We offer advice, best practices that have helped a lot of people, including me, succeed. Your choices are your own.
I am fascinated by people only willing to do the work if it gets them home sooner.

My partner, Michael Santos, served 26 years in prison. He didn’t wait for a law to tell him when to start building. He didn’t write his release plan to shave time off. There was no time to shave. The First Step Act didn’t exist yet. He wrote it because it brought meaning to his journey. Because he wanted to live as an example of how to emerge with, as he likes to say, “dignity intact.” He embraced the process. He loved the process: creating, overcoming, trying and documenting all of it (more on this Tuesday). He wasn’t chasing a single reward. He was building a life.

Compare that to the messages we often get:“If I do this, will it shorten my sentence?”

“Will it get my loved one out of the SHU?”
“Will this lead to an early release?”

My answer is always the same: I have no idea. I know you if you do not try, the struggle continues.
Last week, I tested something with my golf coach.
I told her, “A friend of mine is thinking about taking lessons with you. But he said he’ll only do it if you can guarantee he’ll get to a four handicap.”

She laughed. Then she said,
“Wrong mindset. Let me ask you something.
How many times a week will he practice?
How many swing videos will I get from him?
How much time will he spend on his short game?
Is he willing to make changes, play through the struggle, and accept that his scores might get worse before they get better?
Will he quit when it gets hard?”
Then she said, “Until he can answer those questions, don’t waste my time.”
I’ll say the same here.

If you’re not building something honest, measurable, and consistent, the rest doesn’t matter. To learn more, make sure and read our newsletter this Sunday titled; “Action Solves Everything. But Can You Handle the Reaction?”

PrisonProfessors.org has spent years advocating for reforms we hope to see in place soon: expanded furloughs, access to home confinement, shorter terms, prison closures, and case files that include more than the PSR. These reforms, supported by White Collar Advice, don’t benefit everyone. They threaten positions, job security, and long-standing routines. Not everyone is on board.

Tuesday’s webinar is about preparing, even when you can’t predict.
It’s about doing the work for the right reason, even if it does not lead to a shorter sentence or earlier release. You are doing it to improve your life, long after you are done standing for count or reporting to a probation officer.

Join us Tuesday at 11:00 AM Pacific.

Justin Paperny