When California voters amended the state’s harsh three-strikes law in 2012, they ensured that nonviolent third offenses would no longer lead to life sentences. Significantly, they made about 3,000 people serving those life sentences suddenly eligible for release. Since then, more than 2,000 have emerged after years in prison into worlds dramatically transformed from those they left behind.
This Op-Doc video profiles one of them. Stanley Bailey was a lifer until he was released earlier this year. Carlos Cervantes, a former prisoner himself and part of a “ride home” program founded by the Stanford Three Strikes Project and the Anti-Recidivism Coalition, picks him up and guides him through his vulnerable first hours of freedom.
Read the full article here.
