For the women who don't already have eligibility, the staff who work with them routinely in the institutions have talked about the fact that there is virtually nothing they can do. They have done all the programs they can do, or they're on hold because they aren't allowed to take the programs because they're so far away from any parole eligibility dates. The staff describe the sense of hopelessness that prisoners feel.
Now, for these women, this isn't resulting in their doing anything negative to anybody else—although it does mean they're sitting there languishing in a context where they perhaps could be contributing in some ways. They certainly try to contribute. Some of them have developed volunteer programs to help in the community and those sorts of thing.
But in the men's prisons, I certainly know that when I worked with men and when the whole issue of the first revision was being discussed—and certainly when the faint hope clause was introduced, before I was doing that work—I understand that many correctional officers and many senior corrections people, as well as policy-makers, had significant concerns about the impact of that on diminishing the hope of prisoners and the opportunities for rehabilitation. So I think that would be an ongoing concern.
And certainly for the women who have been successful in having their parole ineligibility reduced and who have gone out to the community and are making, in some cases, very incredible contributions, if only to their families or to their grandchildren, and certainly are trying to make recompense for the harm they've caused, that's a far greater benefit to society than keeping them in prison for another 10 or 15 years.