If you or anyone you know has been incarcerated, particularly for longer periods, you know how hard it is to reenter society. (The rest of us can only imagine the moral strength and courage required!)

This is – of course – true for all prisoners, but in December 2024, the sentences of 1500 people released from prison and placed on home confinement during the pandemic were commuted. Then in January 2025, 2500 people were surprised to have their sentences for non-violent drug offenses commuted.   

Biden said that with the recent commutations, he is seeking to undo “disproportionately long sentences compared to the sentences they would receive today under current law, policy, and practice.”

“Today’s clemency action provides relief for individuals who received lengthy sentences based on discredited distinctions between crack and powder cocaine, as well as outdated sentencing enhancements for drug crimes,” Biden said in a statement. “This action is an important step toward righting historic wrongs, correcting sentencing disparities, and providing deserving individuals the opportunity to return to their families and communities after spending far too much time behind bars.”

According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons website, www.BOP.gov, 44% of prisoners are in for drug offenses. That’s 63,143 people in jail for actions that may be legal now. (Of course, some of these may be combined with other offenses, such as weapons or drug distribution.)

All of these people will have to face re-integrating into society. Statistics show that 83% of those released from prison find themselves back there within 10 years. That makes the success rate of prisons a measly 17%!

Fair Shake and The Importance of Reintegration 

That’s where Fair Shake comes in. Fair Shake’s mission is to increase reentry success through personal and community-focused ownership and engagement opportunities for currently and formerly incarcerated individuals in connection with families, employers, property managers, corrections, and communities.

Founded by Sue Kastensen in 1999, Fair Shake is a registered charity, based in Wisconsin, dedicated to helping formerly incarcerated people reenter society. Incarcerated people are no different from the rest of us; all adults want to search, review, and decide for themselves which resources will be the most beneficial for the trajectory that we would like our lives to take. We want to see how things connect to prioritize our goals. And we want the freedom to look around – without being subject to someone else’s agenda – so we can reflect, weigh our values, commitments, and options, and own our decisions.

Fair Shake’s Resources for Formerly Incarcerated 

Fairshake.net provides a vast number of resources to help with all aspects of reintegration. It takes a lot of courage and strength to face the world again. It’s often hard enough for those of us out in the world to cope with everyday stresses, without being encumbered by the time we spent in prison.

How will your immediate and greater family accept you? The Fair Shake website has a page called Family and Friends, with support for both you and your family. There are also philosophical approaches, on a page called Moral Courage, that talk about your boundaries, protecting your values, and caring for humanity.

Most prisons do not allow you access to the internet, so there’s that wide world to explore. At the rate technology is changing, there’s a good chance you haven’t been able to keep up – where to start? The Fair Shake Information Center contains a section on Building Computer Skills.  

Now you need to get a job – what do you say on your resume about your time away? Find help and support in the Employment section of the Reentry Resource chapter.

Perhaps you are unsure how to get medical and dental help. Check out the Fair Shake Resource Directory to find a phone-book-like selection of goods and services specifically selected for folks in reentry. 

By providing resources, curated websites, educational manuals, and interactive tools, Fair Shake provides our incarcerated and formerly incarcerated neighbors with access to the resources and information they need to carve out their own unique path to successful re-entry. 

These ever-changing resources are actively maintained and given to state and federal prisons free of charge. For the past 10 years, more than 200 state and federal prisons have been sharing Fair Shake’s information on their websites and with those incarcerated in their institutions. In fact, many institutions have one or more copies of the 200-page “Reentry Ownership Manual,” Fair Shake’s guide to supportive re-entry resources, in the prison library.

In order to be able to enter prisons and jails to meet the people she serves, Sue did the work necessary to become a member of the Correctional Educators Association. In 2015, her work earned her the distinguished Ralph Kaplan Memorial Award for Dedication to Technological Advancement in Correctional Education Settings. Sue has been invited to the White House twice: in 2015, for her use of technology within a prison setting and again in 2016, as a Champion of Change for Expanding Fair Chance Opportunities.

Fair Shake also has a newsletter that goes out to people both inside and out. Approximately 3300 people in state and federal prisons receive the Fair Shake Newsletter. You can read each edition on the website or share the subscription address: outreach@fairshake.net, available to incarcerated people only through Corrlinks.

Doesn’t Everyone Want a Fair Shake at Life?

I first met Sue Kastensen in the ‘90s in the nascent hemp industry. Sue had a line of hemp-based body care, Sun Dog, and I had a hemp food line, Ruth’s Hemp Food. We likely met at a Hemp Industries Association convention. You always knew if Sue was present, as she was, and still is, the ‘laughing-est’ person I’ve ever met! I was always buoyed by hearing her distinctive laugh echoing through the many times we were in each other’s company.

In 1999, Sue sold her line to Dr Bronner’s and dedicated herself to helping formerly incarcerated people re-enter society. That’s when she founded Fair Shake.

I asked Sue what inspired her to start her Fair Shake journey. She told me that in 1999, with the hemp body care line rapidly growing, she was looking to increase her staff. One of the employees asked if she’d consider hiring her friend who would be coming home from prison soon. Sue was told that he was incarcerated on a marijuana charge. During the interview, Sue not only learned a lot about reentry, but also saw a problem she wanted to address: how about offering a reentry resource database? The project grew from there… and is still growing!

Since starting Fair Shake in 1999, Sue has had the opportunity to present in several institutions annually, and some of those that have reentry councils, or think tanks, or other groups dedicated to problem-solving, have invited her to join their groups for an hour or two afterward.

Fair Shake’s Growing Impact

These opportunities have given Sue a deeper understanding of the unique qualities that each person brings separately and together to the solution to the re-entry problem.

In this way, Sue grew to understand that what you focus on grows, and this idea has become central to the philosophy behind Fair Shake. She realized that it is far easier to pursue a positive goal, such as building a satisfying and successful life, than to focus on a negative goal, such as reducing recidivism.

Sue created a workshop for a National Conference on Higher Education in Prison with three men, two of whom she had previously met while incarcerated, but were now out, and one who was still in prison. 

The interest in this idea of pursuing a positive goal far exceeded expectations. At the conference, Sue was even able to include recorded presentations by Mike, the incarcerated member she worked with on this.  He later wrote a poem entitled: What You Focus on, Grows! It contains these beautiful sentiments:

I’m now becoming who I always wanted to be – even better, I’m becoming even more of me
even better than that, I’m becoming even more of we
The doubts that held me back have disappeared
I held on to a faded image for all those years
American dreams faded and gave way to a sacred mission–to become fully human

I know that for Sue, seeing Mike blossom and start to value and cherish himself was one of the most rewarding experiences of the Fair Shake journey she is on.

This journey is underpinned by the philosophy of Ubuntu. This is a traditional, sub-Saharan African thought, founded on the idea of interdependence: a person is a person through other persons. According to Desmond Tutu, it means that the very essence of being human is that we belong in a bundle of life: a solitary individual is a contradiction in terms.

Reentering society takes a lot of strength, and requires a lot of support and encouragement, and Fair Shake is there to help provide resources so you can get a Fair Shake at life.

Fair Shake is dedicated to supporting the successful reintegration of formerly incarcerated people into society. If you know anyone about to be, or recently released, please pass on this invaluable source of information to help them reintegrate: www.fairshake.net. Feel free to contact Sue directly: sue@fairshake.net.