Alison Coleman, now 58, struggled to support her two children while her husband, Jay, served a 25-years to life sentence in a New York state prison for robbery—-the minimum
for anyone arrested a third time in New York under the Rockefeller Laws.

She grappled with social and emotional isolation, with illness and financial hardship, and she faced the tensions at home that are common between parents and teenagers…but she did so single handedly.

In this segment, Alison describes how she met Jay, how she reacted at his sentencing, and how she struggled to raise their special needs child during his incarceration:

Related:

Jay Coleman Previously in the series: Part I: A long journey from petty criminal to husband and father. Part II: Parenting by phone. Part III: Watching your children grow up from behind prison bars”>video interviews.

An editorial in the New York Times notes that the New York Legislature finally seems poised to overturn the infamous Rockefeller drug laws. The impending change comes too late for the tens of thousands of low-level, nonviolent drug offenders who wasted away in prison because of mandatory sentencing policies when they should have been given treatment and leniency. But after years of building support for reform, legislative leaders now have it within their power to make wholesale changes in this profoundly destructive law.

Read the rest of the editorial here.

As Democrats captured a majority in the state senate for the first time since 1964, beating out Republican incumbents in two districts, the new political landscape has many reformers anticipating a once-in-a-generation opportunity to influence longstanding legislation.
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