Newsletter Vol 1 No 7

December 2019

According to our estimates, there are 100,000 low-income Philadelphians who have turned their lives around since finishing their sentences and who deserve to get a fresh start. The Board of Pardons has made it significantly easier to apply and is now approving over 85% of applications that they hear. How do we make the pardon process more accessible? Our answer: videos!

Earlier this year, the Thomas Skelton Harrison Foundation awarded PLSE $10,000 to create a peer-to-peer video library to help people apply for pardons. Led by veteran Philadelphia TV news anchor and PLSE Board member Renee Chenault Fattah and produced by the students in Drexel University’s Dragon Productions, the first five videos are now finished and will be posted on our website within the next few weeks. Five more videos are expected by the spring. Take a sneak peak of the first video.

We’re planning a second day of shooting next spring. If you’ve applied for a pardon and are willing to share with others what you learned, contact us !

Looking Forward Philadelphia is an innovative program of JEVS Human Services that provides an array of social services and employment assistance designed to meet the immediate and longer-term needs of individuals returning from incarceration. It’s clearly a perfect partner for PLSE…and now it will be!

In January, PLSE will start providing counseling, expungement representation and pardon-related services to Looking Forward’s participants at JEVS’ program offices on Cecil B. Moore Avenue in North Philadelphia. “Job training falls short if a criminal record prevents candidates from getting the jobs they’ve trained for, and getting records expunged isn’t enough to get people into the jobs they’re qualified for,” explained Jeff Abramowitz, Executive Director of Reentry Services for JEVS. “We’re delighted to be joining forces with PLSE in what I am confident will be just the first program in which we work together.”

Every year, the incoming Chancellor (leader) of the Bar Association addresses its membership and gives an overview of what she or he plans to accomplish. With so many issues facing Philadelphia and the legal profession, it’s often the case that priorities one year won’t be priorities the next. For that reason, we were absolutely thrilled to hear Judge Michael A. Snyder say that pardon reform would remain high on the Bar Association’s list of priorities for 2020. This follows a year when the Association, under the leadership of Chancellor Shelli Fedullo, unanimously adopted three different Resolutions that called on the Governor, the Lieutenant Governor, and the Attorney General to fundamentally restructure and reform the pardon process so that it would be accessible to Pennsylvanians who cannot afford lawyers to help them with the process – plus the Board of Pardons actually did what the Association asked them to do in many instances!

“ The work in reforming the pardon and clemency process is not done,” said the incoming Chancellor. “ We will continue to make these efforts a priority during the coming year.” We thank him sincerely for this commitment! To read the press release announcing this commitment, click here.

GuideStar is the largest source of nonprofit information and has collected information about more than 13,000 nonprofits worldwide. Its assessments help assure donors about the quality of the organizations they cover. GuideStar only awards its “Gold Seal” to the Top 0.5% of all the nonprofit organizations it reviews. PLSE first received this recognition in early 2018, and we have received it again! You can check out its assessment of PLSE here.

Pictured (L to R):  Wayne Jacobs, Josie Reed (Chair of the Committee), Akeem Sims, Evan Figueroa-Vargas

Pictured are (L to R, back row): Jarue Lawson (inaugural Mike Lee Fellow), Akeem Sims, Tobey Oxholm (Director, Pardon Project), Ghani Songster

(L to R, front row): Evan Figueroa-Vargas, Rev. Michelle Simmons, and Paula Budnick.