Inside Out Reentry Community

Rich Mathias knows firsthand the despair of being in prison — and the despair of being released.

“Being in prison, especially during a holiday, is one of the worst things you can go through,” he told me this week, with Thanksgiving just around the corner. Read More

Lisa Smith felt like “nothing was done” to prepare her for re-entry following the six years she served at the Iowa Correctional Institution for Women. She also wasn’t prepared for the loneliness she would feel.

“I was surrounded by women all the time, and when I got out, not only did I not have this huge community of women around me that I had lived in a small space with for six years, I was not allowed to speak to any of them — not even on the phone — or it would have sent me back to prison,” Smith said. Read More

The last time Marlon Graham Sr. was allowed to vote, he cast his vote for Barack Obama while he was living in Minnesota.

But back in Des Moines where he’s lived most of his life, Graham is still waiting for his chance to make his voice heard on matters ranging from who should be president to who should sit on the local school board.

Graham, 42, is a father to 11 children, and some of them will soon turn 18 and be allowed to cast their first ballots. Read More

[Source: https://www.thehawkeye.com/news/20200806/rich-mathias-formerly-of-burlington-plays-role-in-restoration-of-iowa-felon-voting-rights

The Hawk Eye, 6 August 2020, by Robin Opsahl Des Moines Register]

IOWA CITY — Rich Mathias, formerly of Burlington, hoped the bumpy road to regaining his right to vote could help end Iowa’s status as the nation’s most unforgiving criminal suffrage state, where tens of thousands of people like him were banned from the ballot box.

He had been calling on Gov. Kim Reynolds to keep a promise she made in June to sign an executive order restoring felons’ right to vote.

She finally came through on that promise Wednesday when she signed the executive order into law. Read More