Glenn Rodriguez is an innovative leader and advocate for criminal justice reform and a broad array of social justice issues whose inspiring story of redemption and fight for freedom have captured mainstream media attention and facilitated debate on responsible and ethical use of technology in the correctional system.
Over the past three years, Glenn has held several positions at the Center for Community Alternatives, Inc. (CCA), a not-for-profit organization that promotes reintegrative justice and a reduced reliance on incarceration through advocacy, services, and public policy development in pursuit of civil and human rights.
Glenn began his professional career as a Case Manager working with justice-involved youth who were court-mandated to participate in CCA’s Youth Advocacy Project, an alternative to incarceration program. In his role as case manager, Glenn was instrumental in helping court-involved teens navigate the complexities of their day-to-day lives. Glenn conducted intake interviews, psychosocial evaluations, needs assessments, and weekly individual counseling sessions necessary to develop client-centered treatment plans and make referrals to community-based resources. Glenn quickly emerged as a leader in his department.
Glenn’s passion for working with inner-city youth derives from his personal experience. Following the tragic loss of both parents by the age of 4, Glenn was raised by his maternal grandmother in a single-parent household. Glenn grew up in Inwood, a crime-riddled sector of Manhattan, at the height of the War on Drugs. During his sophomore year of high school, at the age of 16, Glenn joined five other teens and partook in a robbery that resulted in the death of a young used car salesman. Following his arrest in 1990, Glenn was charged, prosecuted, convicted and sentenced to 26 ½ years to life in prison.
Having served more than 25 years behind bars with a near-perfect record of rehabilitation and a passion to help people and society, to everyone’s surprise, Glenn was denied parole due to a problematic, biased software used by the parole board (COMPAS) to decide the fate of incarcerated people and whether they are ready to be reintegrated into society.
With unwavering determination, and the support of Cynthia H. Conti-Cook, in the Special Litigations Unit at the Legal Aid Society, and Rebecca Wexler, Yale Public Interest Fellow, who authored the Washington Monthly article featuring Glenn’s story, Glenn fought to overturn the erroneous decision by software that would’ve kept him incarcerated for another two years. In 2017, despite all odds, and with letters of support from correctional and political leaders, Glenn convinced a panel of parole commissioners that his decades of rehabilitation prepared him well to reintegrate into society. Glenn was released from Eastern N.Y. Correction Facility on May 11, 2017.
Since obtaining parole in 2017, Glenn has been a leading critic of the flaws inherent in risk assessment technology (including biased algorithms like the one that denied him his freedom) and an outspoken advocate and thought-leader for criminal justice reform at the Center for Community Alternatives. Glenn’s story has been featured in articles in the Washington Monthly, The New York Times, The Sydney Morning Herald, NPR Radio, and ABC News. Glenn story also appears in the VPRO documentary entitled “Algorithms Rule Us All,” and the podcast series entitled “The Watchmen: Sleepwalkers,” episode 3.
