Now New York and other jurisdictions should take the next step. If we truly believe that people most impacted by our criminal justice system belong in decision-making, then more formerly incarcerated people — particularly women — should be appointed to the seats that shape jails, prisons, parole, sentencing and reentry.
In research for a forthcoming book, I have interviewed women returning from prison whose expertise is policy-ready: They train peers, draft testimony, map procedural traps and build organizations that keep people alive and connected.
But too often, women with this expertise are treated as inspiration, not infrastructure. We invite them to panels, quote them in reports, ask them to share stories of trauma and then return to a familiar lineup of administrators, attorneys, consultants and career officials. Richards’ appointment disrupts that pattern. The risk is that it becomes a symbolic exception instead of a new standard.
Why name women explicitly? Because gender shapes the architecture of harm and the architecture of return. Women’s incarceration is saturated with coercion, family separation, inadequate health care and the constant management of vulnerability inside institutions built for control. When women return home, many are also navigating caregiving, reunification, housing instability and employment barriers, often at the same time.
If women are missing from decision tables, those realities become “special issues,” shuffled into pilot programs, advisory committees and occasional listening sessions. A mandated seat turns special issues into governance priorities.
The bench exists. We already have examples from recent years of formerly incarcerated women serving in the correction and reform ecosystem, even if those appointments remain far rarer than they should be.
In Washington state, for example, Candice Baughman was appointed to the Statewide Reentry Council and has publicly described her own incarceration and later leadership in reentry work.
In Minnesota, Tonja Honsey was appointed to the state’s Sentencing Guidelines Commission and has been described in local reporting as the first formerly incarcerated woman appointed to that body.
In Virginia, Kemba Smith Pradia, a nationally recognized advocate after surviving a lengthy federal sentence, was appointed to the state Parole Board.
And in California, Norma Cumpian has served on the Board of State and Community Corrections, with public bios noting her lived experience alongside long-term reentry leadership.
These appointments prove a simple point: Women with governance-ready expertise already exist. The question is whether institutions will keep treating their knowledge as optional or build it into the structure of power.
So here is the fix: Don’t rely on political goodwill. Mandate seats.
States and local governments should create required, paid, voting seats for formerly incarcerated women, including trans and gender-nonconforming people who have been held in women’s facilities, on the bodies that shape jail and prison policy: jail oversight boards and boards of correction; corrections standards and inspection bodies; parole boards and sentencing commissions; and reentry councils that control the design and evaluation of services for those being released from incarceration.
Make these seats structural, not discretionary. Protect them with term lengths and removal rules that prevent retaliation. Provide stipends and staff support so participation is not limited to people who can afford unpaid labor.
Some critics will claim system-impacted leaders are biased. But everyone brings their own interests to policymaking. Career administrators have institutional loyalties. Law enforcement has occupational culture. Consultants have contracts. The real question is accountability: Who is answerable to the people living the consequences of policy?
Impact-led leadership is not a magic wand, but it changes what gets measured and what gets treated as urgent. It makes it harder for agencies to hide behind technical language when the people in the room can name what that language costs.
Mamdani’s appointment of Stanley Richards is a door opening. Let’s not stop at the threshold. If cities and states are serious about improving jail and prison conditions and building pathways home, they should stop treating formerly incarcerated women as afterthoughts and start treating them as decision-makers with proven expertise in the systems they survived.
Tamanika Ferguson is a Black feminist scholar and educator whose research centers on women who have experienced incarceration, gender-justice approaches to public safety that reduce reliance on jails and prisons, and equity-oriented institutional practice. Her forthcoming book, Voices From the Inside: Incarcerated Women Speak (University of California Press), draws on long-term archival and qualitative research on incarcerated women’s testimony and advocacy.
Governing's opinion columns reflect the views of their authors and not necessarily those of Governing's editors or management.
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