News From Barbaria: "This Former Inmate Wants To End Life Sentences Without Parole" The New York Times

This Former Inmate Wants To End Life Sentences Without Parole

Deputy Director, Opinion Video, The New York Times

This May, for the first time in his life, Robert Richardson attended a milestone event in his son’s life, his college graduation. Richardson had missed the previous two decades of birthdays, holidays and other graduations because he was locked up in Louisiana State Penitentiary.

Twenty-four years earlier, Richardson robbed a bank of $5,000 and was sentenced to 60 years in prison without the possibility of probation or parole. For a 30-year-old man, it was effectively a life sentence.

The Richardson family is not new to The New York Times.

Richardson’s wife, Sibil Fox Richardson, first appeared in The Times in 2017 in the documentary “Alone,” a short film that explored the feeling of isolation for a woman who was separated from her partner after he became incarcerated.

The New York Times

Three years later, the family was the subject of the Oscar-nominated feature documentary “Time,” published by Amazon Studios and The New York Times.

In both cases, the director Garrett Bradley was exploring incarceration from a Black feminist point of view.

“It is designed just like slavery, to tear you apart,” Fox Richardson said in “Alone,” referring to America’s penal system. “Instead of using the whip they use mother time.”

Fox Richardson spent decades filing appeals and navigating bureaucracy in an attempt to get her husband out of jail. After 21 years, Fox Richardson was successful: Her husband was granted clemency.

And this May, he was able to watch his son Freedom Richardson graduate from Loyola University in New Orleans.

Both of Bradley’s films focused on the wives of incarcerated men. Times Opinion Video reached out this time to Robert Richardson to understand his perspective and get his thoughts on the system after spending more than two decades behind bars.

Today, we published those thoughts.

In a video guest essay, Richardson, along with his wife and their son, call on the Louisiana governor, John Bel Edwards, to abolish life in prison without parole, even for violent crimes. They argue that the sentence is counterproductive — for both prisoners and society.

“After a certain point, people age and mature out of violence,” Freedom Richardson says in our short film. “If you serve 20 years without incident, the likelihood that you will reoffend is near zero.”

Meanwhile, experts believe Robert Richardson’s sentence cost society hundreds of thousands of dollars. And beyond the monetary value, his absence from his family’s lives tore them apart, a torment for everyone involved, including Robert.

Despite this experience and his decades spent behind bars, Richardson sees a path toward a more just future. “We can repair the criminal justice system,” he says in our new video, “by letting lifers live again.”