Notable coverage of supposed "new breed" of prison consultants

I have been following the federal criminal justice system for the better part of 30 years, and throughout there have always been various types of experts who seek to help defendants with sentence mitigation and preparation for prison (especially in the white-collar universe where greater resources are available to pay for these kinds of services).  Still, every now and again, the press seems eager to make much of the phenomenon of so-called "prison consultants" as, for example, in a 2020 Town & Country  piece, "Inside the World of Prison Consultants Who Prepare White Collar Criminals to Do Time." 

The New York Times has long been keen on the prison consultant beat as evidenced by older articles like a 2009 piece headlined "Consultants Are Providing High-Profile Inmates a Game Plan for Coping" and a 2012 piece headlined "Making Crime Pay."  This week, the Gray Lady has this very long piece in this genre appearing in its magazine under this full headline "Want to Do Less Time? A Prison Consultant Might Be Able to Help. For a price, a new breed of fixer is teaching convicts how to reduce their sentence, get placed in a better facility — and make the most of their months behind bars."  Though I am not sure why prison consultants are now described as a "new breed of fixer," I am sure this lengthy article is still worth a full read.  Here are excerpts: 

After a prominent felon is sentenced, a spate of stories often appear about these backstage fixers for the wealthy, consultants who can help get a client into prisons that one might prefer — say, a prison that has superior schooling or CrossFit-level gyms or lenient furlough policies or better-paying jobs or other refined specialties.  The federal prison in Otisville, N.Y., for example, is also known as “federal Jewish heaven” because of its good kosher food (decent gefilte fish, they say, and the rugelach’s not bad).  When those Varsity Blues parents were busted for paying backdoor operatives to engineer their kids’ college admissions, it was also reported that many hired prison consultants to game out the aftermath.

[Justin] Paperny’s business is a natural market outgrowth of a continuing and profound shift in America’s judicial system.  Almost everyone facing charges is forced to plead guilty (or face an angry prosecutor who will take you to trial).  In 2021, 98.3 percent of federal cases ended up as plea bargains.  It’s arguable that in our era of procedural dramas and endless “Law & Order” reruns, speedy and public trials are more common on television than in real-life courthouses.  What people like [Hugo] Mejia have to deal with as they await sentencing is a lot of logistics.

The idea of a prison consultant might conjure an image of an insider broker or fixer, but they’re really more like an SAT tutor — someone who understands test logic and the nuances of unwritten rules. Yet prison consulting also involves dealing with a desolate human being who has lost almost everything — friends, family, money, reputation — and done it in such a way that no one gives a damn.  So they’re also a paid-for best friend, plying their clients with Tony Robbins-style motivational insights, occasionally mixed with powerful sessions about the nature of guilt and shame....

On television, the journey to prison is nearly instantaneous: a jump cut to a slamming cell door. But in the real world, it’s a set of steps, routine bureaucratic actions that involve interviews, numerous forms to complete and dates with officials. A lawyer is your legal guide to staying out of prison, but once that becomes inevitable, a prison consultant is there to chaperone you through the bureaucracies that will eventually land you in your new home, easing your entry into incarceration — and sometimes even returning you to the outside, utterly changed....

One of the first things Paperny advises a client like Mejia to do is to stop [minimizing the offense], especially before sentencing.  You pleaded guilty already.  You did it.  Own it — because the vamping will almost certainly annoy any judge or civil servant who hears it, and you’ll wind up with a much longer sentence.  That’s arguably the most crucial piece of advice that Paperny provides to his clients, for the simple reason that when you’re going to prison, you have to formally tell your story to all kinds of people.

The storytelling officially begins a few weeks after a guilty plea (or a conviction by trial) in a sit-down interview with a law-enforcement officer whose specialty is writing up a pre-sentencing report, which will be given to the presiding judge.  The descriptions of the crime come largely from the plea agreement, which is, naturally, centered on the proposition that you are a heinous criminal and a moral fugitive.  Think of a Wikipedia biography that tells the story of the worst moment of your life, with everything else about you salted away in footnotes.  This is what the sentencing judge will read before deciding precisely how long you will be confined — and it’s a story that will follow you throughout your stay with the state.

“They call the pre-sentencing report the Bible in prison, because it is one of the first things a case manager or counselor will rely upon,” Paperny said. “It will influence early release, your half-house time, your bunk, your job and so on.”