President Barack Obama has been focusing on national prison reform in the past month, as he recently commuted 46 inmates serving federal prison sentences and just last week became the first sitting president to visit a federal prison.
Now, Florida clemency lawyer and lobbyist, Reggie Garcia aims to bring that same message of reform to his home state with his new book, “How to Leave Prison Early: Florida clemency, parole and work release.”
“Florida has nearly 101,000 inmates in 56 major state prisons and numerous annexes and work camps across the state,” said Garcia. “The Florida prison population has doubled in the last five years and I think there is an educational challenge; just to inform them of their options.”
Garcia, who has family in Destin, said he penned the book in order to put information in the hands of inmates and their loved ones.
“It’s clear that family members are buying these, and informing inmates of their rights,” he said. “It’s giving them general information on how to proceed without a lawyer; as frankly most of them cannot afford lawyers. It’s a confusing system so it’s really just to educate and empower inmates so they know their options.”
As a Tallahassee-based lawyer and state government lobbyist, Garcia has had more than 20 years experience in presenting clemency cases. His book takes what he has learned over the years and clearly details 25 steps for clemency, 17 steps for parole, seven steps for work release and four steps for conditional medical release.
“The governor has the power to grant mercy under the Florida constitution,” said Garcia. “Clemency is often for the people who have served long sentences and are model inmates.”
Garcia explained that it costs the state $50-60,000 a year to house an inmate, so clemency and work release are both cost-effective ways to re-introduce qualified inmates into society.
“Hopefully the inmates who are released through clemency or parole-who have worked long and hard to get it, are very minimal risk to re-offend,” said Garcia.
However, Garcia noted that statistics show about 26 percent of inmates that leave state prisons return within three years; a number that he links to lack of a good job.
“Almost everybody wants work release, to make money and be close to their home,” he said of the inmates. “But there are only 4,000 slots at 35 work release centers in Florida. If we have 33,000 to 35,000 people leaving prison in the next 12 months but only 4,000 work-release slots there is an eight-to-one supply and demand availability.”
Garcia said that the prison reform process is a long and laborious one but he hopes his book will help bridge the gap between inmates and lawmakers.
“The terminology is very confusing and intimidating to people, so we are trying to demystify the terminology,” he said. “It’s written to help inmates, inmates families and advocates to find out if any or all of those options apply to them.”
How to Leave Prison Early is available on Amazon.com. For more information on the author visit www.floridaclemencylawyer.com.