By Citlalli Florez
TRENTON, NJ – The commentary piece in Rolling Stone magazine began with a story in which Tariq Maqboo—incarcerated in New Jersey State Prison—got into an argument with a custody supervisor.
Maqboo suggested that those who have life in prison should be offered “more vocational training opportunities and educational activities,” because, otherwise, they would be sitting around with nothing to do.
The custody supervisor responded, “Why should the Department of Corrections spend money in here? I mean, you guys ain’t going nowhere!” before laughing and walking away.
Maqboo reflected on the supervisor’s response stating that “it encapsulates the feeling of utter uselessness most incarcerated women and men like me experience on a daily basis. Every day, I contemplate whether it’s even worth it to leave my cell. Because in the end, it doesn’t matter whether I’m good or bad; the day will end the same exact way. I’ll be back in a cage.”
However, despite the feelings which Maqboo feels, he writes he and his friends try to improve themselves. Maqboo’s friend Bobby Brown has been working for decades. He spent two years on death row, something he calls “simply solitary confinement while awaiting execution.” Brown was convicted of murder along with an accomplice.
New Jersey abolished the death penalty in 2007 and Brown was resentenced to life with a mandatory minimum of 30 years. He’ll be eligible for parole in 2050. He is now becoming a prison paralegal.
Brown commented, “I can only continue to try to be a better man than when I came here.” He wants to be an improved version of himself compared to what he deems a “twentysomething-year-old idiot…I have accomplished a lot being in here that is positive and I believe that growing in here gave me another chance at life…I have no desire to hurt, harm, or destroy anyone, or anything. I love life.”
Maqboo notes, unfortunately, he won’t be able to show everyone the improvements he has made unless he is able to live to his parole date, when he’ll be 84 years old. He is very likely to die in New Jersey State Prison.
Another friend of Maqboo, John Allen, maintains his innocence but will never be able to see the outside world again. Allen is serving two life sentences with a mandatory minimum sentencing of 30 years. Allen is also part of an Inmate Legal Association and works at a prison school area.
Maqboo said he met Allen in 2005 and has expressed appreciation of life over the death penalty but also states “such long-term sentences are a death penalty.” Allen will be eligible for parole in 2049 at the age of 80. According to Maqboo, “despite keeping hope alive—despite working to become better men-there’s no real escape.”
Kelly Orians, an assistant professor of law at the University of Virginia School of Law and director of the Decarceration and Community Reentry Clinic, said keeping people in prison for decades has no real purpose because recidivism rates for those who have spent a decade or more incarcerated are extremely low.
The U.S. Sentencing Commission concluded, says Maqboo in Rolling Stone, that after 10 years of incarceration recidivism rates went down by a third. Orians stated, “Since at least 1994, Department of Justice studies have concluded that the recidivism rate for people released after a homicide conviction is considerably lower than the rate for people released generally.”
Orians, in the Rolling Stone piece, continued, “In particular, less than two percent of people convicted of homicide are ever convicted of another homicide.” Despite this, the state of New Jersey rarely paroles anyone with violent crimes. The state also tends to want to increase sentences with many Republican politicians pushing for the reestablishment of the death penalty.
In contradiction, said Maqboo, red states such as Mississippi have been pushing toward reform. The Mississippi Legislature passed a new law to provide opportunities to violent offenders that show they are capable of rehabilitation. The Earned Parole Eligibility Act sets mandatory minimum sentencing for unarmed violent crimes at 50 percent, excluding serious crimes such as murder.
A person sentenced for an unarmed violent crime in Mississippi would be eligible for parole consideration after half of their sentence has been served.
Orians has commented, said Maqboo: “Sentences for murder vary widely by jurisdiction…in some states, there are types of homicide offenses that are punishable by only a few years imprisonment; in others, the sentence is mandatory life without the possibility of parole, regardless of any mitigating factors.”
Orians continued, “In some states, parole rules allow prisoners to seek some form of conditional freedom after serving only a fraction of their ‘full’ sentence; in others, parole either doesn’t exist or is practically unavailable, limiting the ways for people to earn their way out of prison.”
Maqboo said, in New Jersey, the sentencing scheme has been at a back and forth with numerous attempts at reducing the prison population. According to the ACLU, between 2017 and 2022 there has been a drop of more than 45 percent in the prison population. However, the ACLU has also pointed out disparities between who is sentenced to what.
A report released by the New Jersey Sentence and Disposition Committee has documented the worst racial disparity sentencing in the country, added Maqboo, quoting Orians, “The disparity is still roughly the same as it was a decade ago (Black folks today make up 59 percent of the incarcerated population).”
In response to New Jersey’s schools being the most segregated in the country, Orians has commented, “And I’ll say, this is a pretty sobering stat, especially considering how New Jersey has been held up as a national model of decarceration.”
Maqboo, in his commentary, reflected on his own situation writing, “Although I’m not Black, I am a minority, which I believe contributes to the harshness of my sentence; I’ve met men with the same charges as me who are serving far fewer years. Prisoners and custody staff alike are often shocked that I’m serving 150 years. And at times, I feel beyond hopeless and sad that the proverbial book was thrown at me, a first-time offender.”
According to Maqboo, those on death row are treated better. He writes in his commentary piece, “No one ever really talks about the indignity of life in prison. I get it; they likely assume it’s better than being put to death—plus we deserve whatever we get.”
The death penalty was placed into the spotlight when Former President Donald Trump called for the return of firing squads. Maqboo commented about this focus “as someone on the inside, there’s something unsettling about that—how we’re all too willing to argue about the inhumanity of executions and ignore those of us who are still alive.”
He continued, “People seem to care so much about the sanctity of life—enough to argue how to most humanely end it. Yet those same folks find no issue with sentencing a human being to physical, mental, and financial torture.”
Maqboo compared the treatment of those on death row versus those who have life in prison. He and others who have been sentenced to life have been kept in rooms where temperatures surpass 100 degrees Fahrenheit. They are crammed into small spaces with barely any room to move around and only see the sun a few times per week.
They are fed food that would not be authorized to be given to zoo animals and still face solitary confinement in “restorative housing units” despite claims that solitary confinement is no longer practiced. Maqboo writes, “If the free society has a propensity for ‘cancel culture’, our humanity has been summarily canceled.”
In contrast, people on death row have it better. According to Maqboo’s friend Marko Bey, you are treated more kindly than the general population. Bey was on death row for more than 20 years before the death penalty was abolished; this was for most of Bey’s life when he was first sentenced at 18 years old.
Bey academically excelled in his early years of schooling and was good at sports. Unfortunately, he was abused both physically and mentally as a child which led to drinking and then to NJSP’s death row, writes Maqboo.
Bey told Maqboo, “Your mental state [on death row] is more unstable and fragile due to your situation… but NJDOC seemed to go the extra mile to resolve any medical, dietary legal access, and other issues…you’re treated better than those [whom] the prison is tasked with keeping alive.”
Due to a moratorium on executions the New Jersey death row became equivalent to doing life without parole, said Maqboo in the Rolling Stone piece.
Another friend of Maqboo, a teacher’s aide at NJSP’s school and a member of Captive Voices, has spent two and a half years on death row from 1999 to 2001 before he was commuted to a life sentence.
According to Tommy, he had gone numb when he was indicted for capital murder. When he got the death sentence the feeling crashed.
He told Maqboo, “When you realize that the state just sanctioned your death, it gets heavy. You feel utterly alone; no matter how many people are in your corner, they can’t protect you… you can’t protect yourself…even though we [knew] New Jersey never kills anyone [due to a moratorium] it [was] difficult to separate the intellectual from the emotional.”
Tommy continued, “I have nightmares now where I’m put back on death row and I feel trapped…it’s a suffocating feeling, and I wake up with my heart racing and cold sweat slicking my brow…life is always better than death; with life, there is always a chance.”
As a final comment, Tommy reflected on hope, reported Maqboo, stating, “I am far from ambivalent. I literally just put in a motion for reconsideration of sentences due to changing laws and, if a current trend toward youtube offenders continues, I might be able to gain my freedom before I die!” He is up for parole in 2072 when he will be 94.
When the death penalty was abolished those on death row had their sentences commuted to life in prison. The majority had a built-in parole bracket of 30 years.
Maqboo remembers a friend in the Inmate Leal Association, Kevin Jackson, who confided in him back in 2006 as they worked on a fellow prisoner’s legal motion. Jackson told Maqboo, “I made it off death row and I’ll be going home in a few years. Anything is possible. Hope is a powerful thing Tariq, don’t lose it.”
Despite these words of hope, Jackson is eligible for parole in 2028. Maqboo is not eligible for parole until 2130. Maqboo reflects, “When I was 25, I found myself entangled with the law: a Pakistani Muslim American facing down the New Jersey police just one year after 9/11, charged with a double homicide. In the end, yes I eluded death row, but I was sentenced to more years in prison than I could possibly live.”
New Jersey’s law required Maqboo to serve at least 85 percent of the 150 years before he is eligible for parole.
Maqboo said, “Over the years, seeing others with similar or more egregious charges getting a lesser sentence has made me feel depressed. I understand that murder is the most serious of crimes, yet it’s hard to understand the apparent disparity in punishments. I still don’t understand the fact that my sentence—as a first time offender, with no previous criminal history—is on par, and in some cases more severe, than even that of serial killers. In fact, Manson Family member Leslie Van Houten—who participated in one of the most infamous crimes of all time—recently got parole in California.”
He continues, “I probably could have gotten out eventually, too. In fact, I was offered a plea deal of 30 years in prison, but chose to go to trial because I didn’t want to admit to a crime I didn’t commit. And although staying true to myself has kept me sane, my life has been in constant turmoil.
“Being condemned to die in prison is beyond torturous—not only for me but for my family, too. In prison, your loved ones ‘do the time’ with you. My claims of innocence aside, I remain very much aware of the fact that my existence is equally painful for my family and for that of the victims’ relatives. To be the bane of so much hurt is heavy, to say the least.”
According to Tariq Maqboo, his family and loved ones have come to see him almost every week, which can be very costly. Phone calls and legal assistance have also been a financial burden. He also noted the emotional toll on his parents and brother.
After one of Maqboo’s brothers had visited an officer commented, “Maq, you must’ve been a very good person on the outside. After all these years, your family and your people still love you and come to see you. You are blessed.”
In response Maqboo wrote, “Indeed, I am blessed. Yet, when you love someone, you also want the best for them. So, I often think of the death penalty, wondering if it would have been a better end for all.”
He continued his response, “I imagine that scenario because I wonder which would be better: to die every single day for something I did not do, or to be put out of my misery quickly with some modicum of honor. I know it sounds defeatist and selfish—some might even call it suicidal. Yet in reality, it’s none of that.”
“To be condemned to life in prison with no possibility of ever walking free is also beyond words. Moreover, the pain of my loved ones and friends who have stood with me over the past two decades is also unbreakable, and the emotional, financial, and psychological toll on them is very real and seemingly unending. No one deserves that sort of trauma,” writes Maqboo.
“Many Conservative judges and lawmakers cite the word ‘finality’ when denying death row appeals. They mean that executions give grieving families closure and an end to their suffering. When I think of my family and loved ones, I sometimes wonder whether that finality would also be a mercy for them, an acceptance, and perhaps a closure,” he adds.
Maqboo recounts a story he remembers, “When I was a kid in Pakistan, a friend went out for a small chore and then the entire community searched for him, to no avail. Some years later, I visited Pakistan and went to see the boy’s mother. As soon as she saw me, she started to cry. I remind her of him, she said.
“When I asked if the passing years had helped at all to ease his loss, she shook her head. The boy’s mother responded, “There is no closure, I constantly watch the door so that he might return. I know it might sound cruel, but I would’ve preferred it if he had passed away. This hope is what kills me.”
At the end Maqboo concludes, “Many of my friends may be steadfast in their optimism, but sometimes I find myself becoming ambivalent about hope. I do believe in it, yet with each passing year, I seem to lose more of it. In one way, hope is a lot like water: It always finds its way. But on the other hand, it tears me apart to think that somewhere my parents are frozen in time in perpetuity, sitting, waiting, filled with false hope, and never finding closure.”
