Greeting citizens, how y’all doing today? This is Faluch Bigsby. Well, today I want to talk about Senate Bill 288. It passed in 2023, and technically, I’m actually past my release date. My new release date is November 30, 2023, based on the Senate bill. They took 15% off my sentence, but yet I’m still incarcerated. This is a problem. There’s hundreds and hundreds of inmates that are still here after they’ve been given a relief.
Now let me explain what’s taking place. They passed three bills in the last 10 years trying to reduce prison population. The first three bills failed to reach the mark because they only extended the relief of earned credit to those that had minor offenses. Violent crimes and so forth was never included in that bill.
Well, in 2023 legislation came back and decided that everybody but murderers and rapists would get an opportunity to better the prison population for rehabilitation by getting earned credit through programming and good behavior. Well, they passed this bill. ODRC [Ohio Dept. of Rehabilitation and Corrections] was given one year in order to figure out a way to create programming to execute the bill.
Well, in April 2024, they modified everybody’s sentences and all those that are eligible. Well, I’m past my release date. I’ve taken every program available. I’ve done everything that the bill has required us to do but yet, ODRC has failed to apply the bill properly. We need people out there to help us try to make this work. We need people that will do something for us, because those that are in here that are doing the right thing in programming, it’s basically for naught, and that’s been the problem with this population.
It’s hard for rehabilitation when they deny us the opportunities. Now, with that being said, I want to leave you with my daily quote: “It takes nothing to join a crowd. It takes everything to stand alone.” So remember, stand alone. Do the right thing. Love each other. God bless. This is Faluch Bigsby signing off.
These commentaries are recorded by Prison Radio.
