A“Daily Struggle”

WTTW’s FIRSTHAND Explores the Challenges Complicating Life After Prison

By DANIEL HAUTZINGER

Is the criminal justice system meant to reform or punish? Thousands of restrictive laws govern people who have been released from prison in the United States, making it difficult for them to find housing, employment, and to restart life after they have done their time. Beginning on February 13 and throughout 2023, WTTW’s FIRSTHAND: Life After Prison examines the struggles faced by people after they have served time through a series of documentaries, expert talks, community engagement events, and a discussion guide. This month, we talked to Mario Tharpe, the producer of the documentaries and director of one of them.

THE GUIDE: Why is re-entry an important topic, even though it isn’t often discussed?

MARIO THARPE: Life after prison and recidivism are topics people kind of shy away from. I think that’s because it really requires so much work in order to try to find an answer as to how to solve the problem. Talking to our five subjects, that’s the biggest struggle. People want to look down on folks who’ve been incarcerated, not necessarily knowing why or what the reason is, because there are a million reasons why people unfortunately wind up going to jail or prison. It certainly is a topic that needs to continue to be discussed—but more importantly, some solutions have to come out of these discussions. And unfortunately, that’s really not happening.

THE GUIDE: Why is this an important topic for you personally?

THARPE: My grandmother had ten kids, and we were all very close. The majority of my aunts and uncles went on to do great things in life, but I had two uncles who unfortunately turned to drugs. It left a lasting impression on me, because I saw what it could do to a family. I also saw them struggling to put their lives back on track, and it never happened. One of them had been clean for well over fifteen years before he passed, but ultimately, I think that their use of drugs and their stints in and out of jail played a major part in why they passed away and why they were never able to reclaim who they used to be. It was personal for me because I saw it firsthand. Working on this project was therapeutic for me.

THE GUIDE: What did you learn during this project?

THARPE: How hard the struggle is. To give you an example, we captured the release of Nicholas, [a subject of one of the documentaries], after spending 24 years in prison. Nicholas had to learn how to use a cellphone. He went to prison when he was 18, so he didn’t have a driver’s license, and had to learn how to drive from his mother when he was 42. He was used to dealing with cash; he didn’t know how to use a debit card.

Just the things that we take for granted every day, these guys are now trying to figure out. You might think: you go to prison, you come out, you should be able to just hop right back into the swing of things.

But if you don’t have the knowledge, that’s a challenge.

THE GUIDE: What does approaching the topic of life after prison via personal stories do?

THARPE: Everybody’s story is different. I wish that every person who is in a position to change the system could watch a hundred or two hundred of these stories. Kyle, [another documentary subject], became addicted to drugs because of a tooth infection. The dentist prescribed him some medication, and that kicked off his addiction. In order to feed his habit, he started stealing. Not everybody is in their position because they went out and made a bad decision.

THE GUIDE: Why should the general public care about the struggles of people after they’ve been released from prison?

THARPE: First of all, we taxpayers are paying a high price for it. And why not care about the next person? Isn’t it the right thing to do? A lot of folks are really struggling, and they’re quiet about it. I pre-interviewed a lot of people for this project, and many of them didn’t want to tell their stories, because they didn’t know how the world was going to feel about it. They didn't want to draw attention to their crime because they tried to find employment for a year and finally have a job. People shouldn’t live like that. They shouldn’t have to feel that way. I think the more that the average citizen hears and understands their stories – that, in a lot of cases, they’re just like us – I think the better we will all be.

THE GUIDE: What does the way life after prison works in America say about the criminal justice system here?

THARPE: It needs a lot of work. The system is broken. The stories that I heard were just unbelievable. These folks have been on ten, fifteen, twenty job interviews, and the second that the employer finds out they’ve served some time, they’re not being hired. How can we expect them to turn their life around if we’re not giving them an opportunity for a job, or housing, or benefits? I hate to say this, but it seems like the system is set up for them to fail.

Not enough is being done. These are not the stories we should be hearing. We should be hearing, “I was released, and within 60 days I had a job, or I had the necessary skills to get a job.”

THE GUIDE: Do you have one takeaway from working on this project?

THARPE: The resilience. They know that the journey is not going to be easy, and they are still fighting. It’s a daily struggle. They are really working hard to try to fit back into life. They’re strong people.