“Today, FAMM asks our highest elected leaders, including President Donald J. Trump and every Governor in the nation, to use their clemency powers robustly,” said Dr. Shaneva D. McReynolds, FAMM’s President. “Grant commutations to our loved ones who have done the hard work of transformation behind prison walls. We remind our leaders, in this season of redemption, that mercy is a sign of strength, not weakness. As a crime survivor and impacted wife and mother, I stand today on behalf of tens of thousands of families who are deserving of consideration and grace.”

These letters come both as the nation celebrates Second Chance Month and prepares for a midterm election year when an unusually high number of governors, 18, are not running for re-election. Outgoing executives are more likely to utilize their clemency powers more substantively, as evidenced when President Biden provided clemency to a record 2,500 people convicted of nonviolent drug offenses in his final days in office.

“One of the great privileges of being elected President or Governor is using the tools available to help every citizen through signing legislation or taking executive action,” said Matthew Charles, FAMM’s State Legislative Affairs Manager, who was one of the first beneficiaries of the First Step Act in 2018 and President Trump’s guest at the State of the Union. “Perhaps the greatest of these is being able to grant clemency; an act of mercy, grace, or compassion to even the least of these. Therefore, I humbly ask that you would.”

Clemency has a bipartisan track record. In their letters, FAMM pointed to actions members of both parties have taken — such as Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt (R) commuting outdated, harsh sentences for 462 people that were no longer consistent with state law and New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy leveraging clemency to cut the state’s prison population in half over the past 15 years — as evidence that clemency is an act of redemption and fairness, rather than a reward for extraordinary cases of rehabilitation. 

FAMM also specifically called on the federal use of clemency for individuals who have “old law” convictions (sentenced before the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984), and separately those who are serving more time than they would if sentenced today under the First Step Act, in which President Trump reduced the crack powder sentencing disparity under which Matthew Charles was released. FAMM argues that providing clemency is key to help the justice system remain responsive, humane, and grounded in the values it seeks to uphold.

You can view the full text of the federal letter to President Trump here and the letter to state governors here.

About FAMM

Since FAMM’s founding in 1991, it has helped more than 500,000 Americans receive shorter, fairer prison sentences. FAMM and its advocates have also helped reduce the nation’s prison population by approximately 200,000 people and reduce racial disparities in sentencing. 

FAMM’s mission is to create a more fair and effective justice system that respects our American values of individual accountability and dignity while keeping our communities safe. This mission not only reduces unnecessary suffering for incarcerated people, but also for their family members who have to serve the sentence along with their incarcerated loved one. 

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Lee’s experience is a particularly pointed example of an issue that families and criminal justice advocacy groups have complained about for years: It’s next to impossible to get information about inmates’ health from the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP), and the agency frequently fails to notify families when their incarcerated loved ones are sick or even dying.

In an opinion released Thursday morning, Chief Justice Debra Todd said the law mandating a life sentence for anyone convicted of so-called felony murder violated the Pennsylvania Constitution’s protections against cruel punishments.

The court’s ruling came in the case of Derek Lee from Allegheny County. Lee was involved in a robbery in Pittsburgh in 2014 with another man.

By KATRINA BAUGHKATRINA BAUGH | Special to the Tribune

Historically, prison systems in the U.S. are defined by their lack of transparency. This is often defended in the name of security. However, 1 in 2 U.S. adults have experienced incarceration in their family and, as a result, have dealt firsthand with hearing awful stories about what their loved ones are going through. Complaints filed through the official channels too often fall on deaf ears, since the people receiving the complaints are often involved in creating these conditions in the first place.

The need for an independent office to examine what is happening in our system is immense. It is a need rooted in the painful experiences of millions of Americans who have lived and worked in our nation’s prison systems. Many of those folks have spoken up and faced retaliation that has gone unnoticed by those of us outside the system. Many of those folks have not spoken up for fear of retaliation that will go unchecked by anyone outside the system.

At the federal level, we’ve seen steps made under multiple presidential administrations to resolve these injustices. In 2024, the Federal Prison Oversight Oversight Act (FPOA) was passed with overwhelmingly bipartisan support. This theThis legislation established a correctional ombudsman position in the Department of Justice to investigate complaints from incarcerated individuals, family members, Federal Bureau of Prisons staff, members of Congress and the judiciary.

The FPOA was signed into law by President Joe Biden. Last month, President Donald Trump signed the 2026 appropriations bill (H.R. 6938) into effect, which included language directing the DOJ to move forward with creating an implementation plan. The continued bipartisan support for transparency and accountability in the Bureau of Prisons speaks to its essential nature, and, unfortunately, the deep and widespread pain that has been experienced in its absence. When a policy carries more than just bipartisan support but actively inspires our sitting president to move forward an initiative of his predecessor, that policy must genuinely be essential.

With federal cooperation like that in a time like this, I find myself searching for cooperation on this issue here in Illinois. Why can’t we agree on an enormously enormously popular policy that benefits half of all Illinoisans?

We’ve seen an effort in the past year, namely the measures HB1438 and HB1643, propose initial steps to establish an ombudsman for the Illinois Department of Corrections before the legislation was buried in various committee hearings. If these bills were to pass, this new position would investigate complaints in Illinois’ prison system to help ensure basic livability standards are being met in our prisons. 

This is an easy yes for any legislator who believes in basic human dignity and fiscal responsibility. The ombudsman office would provide a level of protection against retaliation for those who file complaints and encourage sufficient provision of medical care in our carceral system, which is a growing necessity as our prison population rapidly ages. 

While opponents might argue that creating a new office is expensive, its proposed budget allocation is less than 0.001% of state Department of Corrections’ annual budget. Furthermore, we spend billions of dollars annually to incarcerate about 30,000 people, and those people frequently filel egitimate, unresolved grievances that the state then pays for as lawsuit settlements. In 2023, the Illinois Department of Corrections paid out over $13million, nearly 10 times the cost of the proposed ombudsman office. If this office were to have only a 10% success rate of solving issues the department itself could not, it already would pay for itself. 

There is no doubt in my mind that the prison system is one that is worth examining more closely. If the federal government can agree on that, across party lines in Congress and several presidential administrations, I hope that Illinois can agree too.

Katrina Baugh is the Illinois policy consultant for the criminal justice and sentencing reform organization FAMM.

House Bill 399, proposed by Rep. Jerome Zeringue, would amend a pre-existing law to allow inmates more time out of prison before their death. While the original bill only allows release 60 days before the inmate’s expected death, Zeringue proposes the number of days be expanded to 120.

A proposal in the state Legislature aims to alleviate that problem and give more inmates the chance to spend their final days outside prison by expanding program eligibility to people with less than 120 days to live.

At one point over the years, Paulettra had the chance to hand-deliver Jerry’s clemency petition to the governor, saying, “I know you and your wife are people of God, and so are we. Please read his petition. I beg you, please.”