Corrections in Ink: A Memoir

by Keri Blakinger

Parole isn’t really designed for you to succeed. When you’re “on paper,” you can go back to prison for something as trivial as getting a speeding ticket, getting caught out just a few minutes after curfew, or getting caught doing any mundane errand in another county. The rules are expansive and unexpected: There are required weekly meetings with your parole officer, required outpatient treatment every other day, and required self-help meetings at least twice a week. There’s a monthly supervision fee to pay, along with the cost of the required counseling and any outstanding fines you have left. There are curfew checks and random home visits. You can’t live in a house with guns, can’t drink or set foot in a bar, and could go back to prison if your partner so much as leaves a beer in the fridge. You need permission to drive and to own a dog, and can’t leave the county without approval. You have to get a job or at least show that you’re trying to find work, cannot have any contact with police, and cannot have any contact with known felons—including all the women you just lived with for the past two years. Failing to meet any of these requirements can—at the parole officer’s discretion—trigger a “technical violation,” which is when you get sent back to prison not for committing a new crime but for breaking a rule. That’s exactly how 85 percent of New York parolees end up behind bars again, since the state locks up more people for technical violations than anywhere except Illino...