Life on Parole

Megan Pohler

Life on Parole

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/life-on-parole/

9/15/17

For a year and a half PBS followed four people in Connecticut that were put on parole. In an effort to reduce the number of inmates the Connecticut has been granting parole to many people. The main people being examined in this program are all ex-convicts who are serving parole sentences from several months to several years. Erroll Brantley, who was sentenced for 30 months in prison for burglary was placed on parole for 3.5 years. Erroll leaves and goes straight home with his girlfriend Katherine, violating the terms of his parole on his very first day. Later he is caught using opioids and is recommended a rehab center and he refuses to go. He then misses his parole meeting after checking into a detox center violating his parole. Eventually he found a job and an apartment and began taking his steps to finish his parole. Soon after he began using heroin and is now being put on trial for whether or not he should be put on parole or put back in prison. 

Jessica Proctor who was sentenced for 10 years due to assault her parole will last 5 years. She began taking classes to become a nursing assistant. She tested positive for marijuana and her parole officer did not send her to jail. Her main concern is trying to come back into her son's life who never met her in person. She met him for the first time at his football game and that was a driving force for her to fix her mistakes. She graduated nursing school with a 94% grade average and saw her son graduate. 

Vaughn Greshman who was in jail for several offenses but was arrested for robbery in the film. He was sentenced for 3 years and has a parole of 7 years his first year he went back to prison 3 times. According to Mike Lawyor "the amount of time you’re sent back to prison for is a relatively short period of time while we sort of reboot them and get them back out the door again." His first day on parole he's given a misconduct for not showing up to his meeting on time. Greshman gets visibly angered by this and claims that him going to work and returning to the halfway house is "not a life." His phone was confiscated and pictures of him drinking was found and he was placed back in prison.   

Rob Sullivan a repeat offender was placed in a half-way house and was working to return home. After working for a few months, he was laid off and violated his parole by running away from the half-way house. He then met up with his daughter bought her a new pair of shoes and ate dinner with her before turning himself in a week later. His parole was revoked. He finished his prison sentence and was then reunited with his daughter. 

The production of this program was missing in terms of content but interesting enough to remain interesting. First of all, most of the people were incredibly similar and didn't show a good enough variety. Sure, they might have been different genders and different races or sex but what matters in the terms of this program is how they treat and handle parole. Almost every convict violated their parole immediately viewed it as something that was unnecessary and most of them returned to prison. While producing this they should have been aware of how similar these cases all were. Because most of these people didn't even stay on parole long it could be said that the title should be "Life not on Parole." 

The good part of this production is that it followed not only the people on parole but their parole officers and their families. It showed the impact of their choices and how it can really make the lives of others hard. But most importantly it highlighted the thoughts of these people as they continually relapsed or worked to get out of their situation. Several pieces of footage from the program were taken on the phones of the people on parole. The people would just video blog what they were doing or for the most part what violation they were committing and it was later used in the program.  

Overall, I thought that the program itself examined a topic that isn't talked about much. Most documentaries are about life in prison or life after prison but never "Life on Parole." I thought it was interesting to see all the regulations that these people had to live with on a day to day business. And whether any one likes it or not parole definitely does not mean you're free rather a step to make you free. I wish the program offered more variety but then again life isn't always filled with comeback stories. More than likely most people who go on parole don't actually complete their parole and end up back in prison or stuck in half-way houses. Therefore, this documentary is more reflective of real life in that sense and I give it credit for not just trying to please an audience.  I think parole should be more openly talked about so people don't get the wrong impression that it's just a threat to public safety. This program was very informative and enjoyable because of it's attention to what it's really like being on parole and not a sugar coated version of the real deal.