How I’m Preparing for Parole After 27 Years in Prison

By Lawrence Bartley

Perspectives from those who work and live in the criminal justice system.

Soon, I will walk out of prison for the first time in 27 years. I’ve been preparing for this day for so long, I know exactly how it’ll go: My wife will pick me up at the gates of Sing Sing, and we’ll drive over to Hudson Link, the prison college program that helped me earn my bachelor’s degree. They have a computer and a suit waiting for me. Then we’ll drive over to the DMV; I’ve been studying for my written driver’s test. I hear everything takes a long time at the DMV, but I’m hoping we’ll be done in time to pick up my son from school.

All the while, I’ll also be thinking about Tremain Hall. And about the boy I was decades ago before I came to prison.

I was 14 years old when my parents divorced. My father and I moved from our middle-class neighborhood in Laurelton, Queens, to an urban block in Jamaica, Queens…..

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