The Unlikely Friendship Helping Drive NY Parole Reform Fight

By: Rachel Rippetoe/Law 360

Carol Shapiro, a former member of New York’s parole board, and Jose Saldana, whom she voted to release on parole in 2017 and now serves as director of Release Aging People in Prison (RAPP) campaign, sit together at Shapiro’s apartment in Manhattan in September. The two have become good friends in recent years as they advocate for parole reform in New York. Between them, they hold a collage that Shapiro, who dabbles in art alongside her advocacy work, made to represent her view of parole. (Ben Jay | Law360)

Jose Saldana had long passed his minimum 25-year prison sentence as he prepared for his fifth parole hearing in November 2017.

After being arrested at 28, by 66 he had built a reputation inside Green Haven Correctional Facility in Dutchess County, New York — not one connected to the 1979 attempted murder of an NYPD sergeant that landed him in prison, but one based on the mentorship he offered to other men inside….

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