One question has been rattling around Loose Lips’ brain for the past two days: What is the purpose of prisons?

A debate currently playing out in the D.C. Council over Joel Castón’s nomination to the D.C. Sentencing Commission is bringing this query front and center, revealing how his critics view incarceration and the power of redemption.

Castón spent 27 years behind bars after he was convicted of murder as an 18-year-old. In that time, he earned a degree, worked as a worship leader and financial literacy officer, founded a well-regarded mentorship program inside the D.C. Jail, and won election as the jail’s first advisory neighborhood commissioner. After he was released in 2021, he got a job working as a criminal justice policy advocate. Despite all of the brutality and indignity foisted upon him by America’s carceral system, Castón came out on the other side of his sentence as something close to the platonic ideal of a returning citizen, a man who, by all appearances, has changed for the better after his incarceration.

But to U.S. Attorney for D.C. Matthew Graves, Ward 2 Councilmember Brooke Pinto, and Castón’s other critics, none of that experience qualifies him to serve on the commission, which helps craft voluntary sentencing guidelines for D.C. judges. Some of Castón’s more cynical detractors refuse to even consider his transformation over the past three decades. To them, it matters only that he is a convicted murderer, and that is reason enough to keep him off the advisory body. 

It’s not clear yet whether that opposition will actually succeed in scuttling Castón’s nomination—Council Chair Phil Mendelson opted to delay consideration of the measure Tuesday to allow the “temperature to come down” on this debate—but the message from these critics is clear. In their view, no amount of rehabilitation is possible. What Castón did as a teenager back in 1994 should define his life forever, their reasoning goes, and it’s impossible to imagine that he’s learned anything since then that would have value to the public discourse around the District’s criminal legal system. Castón did not immediately respond to efforts to reach him.

Prisons have never been rehabilitative forces in this country, but police, prosecutors, and politicians have at least kept up the facade that the purpose of incarceration is to remove dangerous people from society until they can be reformed. This uproar over the Council’s consideration of Castón shows the lie at the heart of the system’s mission statement. Instead, prisons are merely places to keep people locked up. When they get out, if they ever get out, they’re to be vilified or simply ignored.

“A prior conviction should not disqualify any person from public service, especially from positions that seek to strengthen our criminal legal system,” Kara Gotsch, the acting executive director of the Sentencing Project, writes in a statement supporting Castón’s nomination. The advocacy group’s research director is also one of the commission’s 12 voting members. “Sentencing commissions should reflect the diverse populations they serve, and for far too long, directly impacted citizens have been excluded,” Gotsch adds.

Several lawmakers raised this particular point during the Council’s breakfast meeting Tuesday, dubbing the attacks against Castón mere “character assassination,” so there is good reason to believe he will ultimately make it onto the commission. Mendelson, who recommended Castón, noted that the commission’s own staff asked the Council to consider appointing a formerly incarcerated person after several other states have done so on similar bodies. At-Large Councilmember Kenyan McDuffie called it a “missing perspective” on the current commission, which otherwise includes a mix of judges, prosecutors, and defense attorneys.

“It is a place where there is healthy debate about: how do we give guidance to the courts and to the judges about sentencing?” says Ward 6 Councilmember Charles Allen, who grew to know Castón well during his years chairing the Council’s judiciary committee. “We need a commission representing our city in all of its complexities and challenges.” (Pinto currently chairs the Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety.)

But to Graves, D.C.’s top prosecutor, none of Castón’s experience “renders him an expert in sentencing policy matters,” the prosecutor wrote in a Jan. 2 letter to the Council, and so he should be discounted. Pinto raised similar concerns about his lack of familiarity with the guidelines in the Tuesday meeting. Apparently his years of work studying (and testifying to the Council) about criminal justice matters both inside and outside of jail should be discounted entirely. The U.S. attorney found it much more relevant to note that Castón lied for years about his role in the murder he was convicted of (even though a judge ultimately described his conduct as “exemplary” in deciding to grant him early release). 

Instead, Graves feels the most important perspective that could possibly be represented on the commission is that of the Metropolitan Police Department, whose officers “have a front row seat to the revolving door” that he describes in the criminal justice system. 

“They very much have a view that is not currently reflected on the commission,” Graves lamented in the letter, eliding the fact that an MPD assistant chief is one of five non-voting members of the body. The others are prison and parole officials, as well as Pinto, in her capacity as judiciary committee chair. And don’t forget that voting members include prosecutors from both Graves’ office and Attorney General Brian Schwalb’s staff, as well as a trio of D.C. superior court judges. Truly, who among that group (which speaks constantly with and relies upon the work of MPD) could be trusted to relay the perspective of police officers?

Graves really gives away the game when he writes that Castón would “presumably” echo the views of organizations like the Sentencing Project, which supports decarceration. The U.S. attorney—appointed by ostensible criminal justice reformer Joe Biden—spent several paragraphs of his missive lamenting just how awful it is that the commission has not supported tougher sentencing guidelines and how that’s contributed to the city’s recent rise in violent crime.

Leaving aside the fact that Graves doesn’t seem to have taken the time to actually ask Castón about his views on the subject, it hardly seems unreasonable to LL to have a few members of the commission who can represent more than just the lock-’em-up viewpoint.

Graves’ letter is indicative of the belief that only longer sentences will effectively deter crime, claiming that far too many people get too easy with just a probation sentence, despite reams of research and data to the contrary. (D.C. just released stats Monday showing that only 12 percent of people on parole, probation, or pretrial supervision were arrested for new crimes last year.) His letter conveniently ignores the equally large volume of studies suggesting that the certainty of arrest and prosecution is a more effective deterrent of crime than long sentences, as his office struggles to bring charges into court. Graves announced last fall that the USAO prosecuted 44 percent of arrests that police brought to them in fiscal year 2023, an increase from the 33 percent in 2022.

This tactic of blaming someone else instead of looking inward will be familiar to anyone following the state of crime discourse in the District over the past year. Mayor Muriel Bowser has made an art form out of pointing the finger at the Council for contributing to rising crime rather than acknowledging deficiencies in her own police department or city agencies. So it is perhaps not surprising, but still disappointing, to see Graves following suit. Notably, Bowser has stayed out of the fight over Castón’s nomination. When asked Tuesday, her spokesperson referred LL to the mayor’s own nomination to the commission, Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner Sean Holihan, rather than weighing in on Castón. Allen noted during the breakfast meeting that Bowser has left the spot reserved for her appointee vacant for “years and years.” (The Council and the mayor each get one appointment to the commission.)

LL has to admit that this episode, like so many others over the past year, has him feeling a bit disheartened at the condition of the debate over crime in the city. Anxieties may be rising as violence gets worse, but that’s not a sufficient excuse to abandon the values that city leaders, theoretically, hold dear. Is it so wrong to believe in the possibility of redemption? 

The next few weeks, when the Council is set to consider Castón’s appointment once again, will reveal where many stand on that question.

“We should be judging him as the man he is today,” Allen says of Castón. “There is absolutely nothing in his actions or in his comments that suggests he would not take this job incredibly seriously, that he would not be tough and fair and thoughtful.”