Finally, Some Good News!
By Ann Espuelas
It was a recent Thursday night, and the halfway house that supervised William Curtis’ home confinement was calling. “My case worker told me to come in the next morning. She wouldn’t say why,” he says. “I was bummed, because I thought it was some kind of trouble.”
William was on home confinement under the CARES Act, after serving more than 20 years of a 27-year sentence in prison. He works as a welder, and has been focused on his family and rebuilding.
But like everyone else on home confinement, William has been living in a state of anxiety. While life on an ankle monitor is better than prison, it’s extremely restrictive. Depending on the halfway house under which a person is monitored, it can be very easy to make a mistake. For instance, people get sent back to prison for missing a check-in phone call, even if it’s not their fault.
But in this case, something amazing — and completely unexpected — happened. When William showed up to the halfway house Friday morning, they told him his sentence had been shortened and he was getting immediate release.
“First thing I said was, ‘Get this thing off me!’” he says. And they did — they removed his ankle monitor, and he was truly free.
William’s release, and that of thousands more, came about because of the Bureau of Prisons’ new rule implementing the Earned Time Credit provisions of the First Step Act of 2018. This rule says that certain kinds of prison programming and a person’s risk and needs assessment can earn them relief off their sentence. People in prison and on home confinement who qualify are finally getting the second chances they worked so hard for.
While benefiting many people right now, the rule will also encourage people in prison going forward to participate in rehabilitative programming, which will in turn reduce recidivism and make the country safer.
Like William, Shari Natysin recently received the same great news. She got a year taken off her 46-month sentence because of the new rule around earned time credits, and that meant immediate release from home confinement and the ankle monitor. That has had a profound effect on her family.
“It absolutely means everything for us,” Shari says. Her baby daughter, Anya, was born prematurely in December of 2021 and has been in the NICU ever since. Anya’s birth weight was only 1 lb., and she now weighs 1 lb., 12 ounces. Shari needs to be in the NICU with Anya every day, and it’s been extremely difficult getting the BOP and her halfway house to agree to that. “I feel like I can truly be a mom again, to Anya and to my 14-year-old, Alexis.”
Big picture, though: More work lies ahead. FAMM continues to believe that, as designed, the First Step Act’s earned time credit provisions fail many of the people who should benefit from it. The provisions exclude too many people because of the offense they committed and fail to target programming to those who would benefit the most. Racial disparity is a byproduct of the risk assessment tool.
But for now, the happy stories keep coming in as more people receive time off their sentences and leave prison or home confinement. Families are rejoicing, rebuilding, and healing. William and Shari and thousands more can get on with their lives and show the world that second chances can work.
After William got his ankle monitor off, he took a moment to let the fact that he was free sink in before he left the halfway house. “I was thanking God,” he says, “And also thinking that the halfway house better not call me anymore!” And with that, he walked out the door.
Would you like to help FAMM work for second chances for people like Shari and William? Find out how here!
