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<div class="header reader-header reader-show-element"> <font
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href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/28/obituaries/mujahid-farid-dead.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/28/obituaries/mujahid-farid-dead.html</a></font>
<h1 class="reader-title">Mujahid Farid, 69, Ex-Prisoner Who
Advocated for Older Inmates, Dies</h1>
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<div class="reader-estimated-time">November 28, 2018<br>
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<p><span>Mujahid Farid in 2012, a year after being
released from prison after 33 years. He
dedicated the rest of his life to trying to
change New York State’s parole system.</span><span
itemprop="copyrightHolder"><span>Credit</span><span>via
Correctional Association of New York</span></span></p>
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<figcaption itemprop="caption description"><span>Mujahid
Farid in 2012, a year after being released
from prison after 33 years. He dedicated the
rest of his life to trying to change New York
State’s parole system.</span><span
itemprop="copyrightHolder"><span>Credit</span><span><span>Credit</span><span>via
Correctional Association of New York</span></span></span></figcaption></figure>
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<p>Mujahid Farid, a former prisoner who became a
prominent advocate for the timely release of
elderly inmates, died on Nov. 20 at his home in
the Bronx. He was 69.</p>
<p>The cause was pancreatic cancer, his brother
Randolph Howard said.</p>
<p>Mr. Farid was a founder and a lead organizer of
the organization Release Aging People in Prison,
known as RAPP. His interest grew directly from his
own experience.</p>
<p>He was incarcerated after being convicted of
manslaughter and the attempted murder of a New
York City police officer in January 1978. He was
given concurrent prison sentences of 11 to 22
years for the manslaughter conviction and 15 years
to life for attempted murder.</p>
<p>At the end of the 15-year minimum, the state
parole board denied him parole nine times. Court
documents show that each time his case came up,
the board dwelled almost exclusively on his crimes
and his conviction as a violent offender, ignoring
his model behavior in prison and his advancing
age.</p>
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<p>On his 10th attempt, in 2011, Mr. Farid was
released after 33 years. He was 62.</p>
<p>Upon his release he dedicated himself to trying
to change New York State’s parole system. In 2013,
he received a fellowship from the <a
href="https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/about/programs/us-programs/grantees/mujahid-farid"
title="" rel="noopener noreferrer"
target="_blank">Open Society Foundations,</a>
created by the philanthropist George Soros, to
help found RAPP, one of the first organizations to
advocate for the release of aging people in
prison. The group’s prominence and success
inspired similar campaigns in other states.</p>
<p>The graying of the prison population is a
national phenomenon, with people over 50 becoming
the fastest-growing segment. In the next decade,
they are expected to make up one-third of inmates
nationwide.</p>
<p>Experts consider inmates old starting at 50
because they have higher rates of chronic
illnesses as well as stress and poor diets,
causing them to age more quickly than people on
the outside.</p>
<p>Instead of calling older inmates “lifers,” Mr.
Farid helped reframe the public debate — and get
more community support — by calling them elderly.</p>
<p>His efforts helped push the New York State Board
of Parole, which had been slow to comply with a
change in state law, to <a
href="https://indypendent.org/2016/06/if-the-risk-is-low-let-them-go/"
title="" rel="noopener noreferrer"
target="_blank">consider the reduced risk </a>to
society posed by older inmates, who have lower
recidivism rates than younger inmates.</p>
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<p>His organization’s rallying cry became “If the
risk is low, let them go.”</p>
<p>Mr. Farid and Laura Whitehorn, a colleague at
RAPP, came up with that slogan one night while
riding the subway, Ms. Whitehorn said in a
telephone interview.</p>
<p>“Farid said, ‘We need a slogan, like Johnnie
Cochran had,’ ” she recalled, referring to O. J.
Simpson’s lawyer, who memorably <a
href="https://www.nytimes.com/1995/09/28/us/simpson-s-lawyer-tells-jury-that-evidence-doesn-t-fit.html?module=inline"
title="">told jurors in Mr. Simpson’s murder
trial</a>, referring to a glove, “If it doesn’t
fit, you must acquit.”</p>
<p>Mr. Farid also advocated for more minority
representation on the parole board. Gov. Andrew M.
Cuomo ordered that it become more diverse after a
New York Times investigation in 2016 <a
href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/04/nyregion/new-york-prisons-inmates-parole-race.html?module=inline"
title="">documented</a> severe failings of the
parole system, including racism and understaffing.</p>
<p>Before these changes, about 25 percent of inmates
eligible for parole were released; afterward, the
rate nearly doubled.</p>
<p>Mr. Farid, who adopted his name in prison when he
became a Muslim, was born William Howard Jr. on
Sept. 3, 1949, in Richmond, Va. His mother, Revia
(Lightner) Howard, was a nurse; his father was a
truck driver.</p>
<p>In addition to his brother Randolph, Mr. Farid is
survived by his mother and two sisters, Patricia
A. Martin and Denise C. Howard. Another brother,
Theodore, died almost a decade ago.</p>
<p>The family moved to Manhattan in the 1960s. Mr.
Farid graduated from Theodore Roosevelt High
School in the Bronx and became a printer.</p>
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<p>In 1977 he fatally shot a man outside a Manhattan
bar. The police, after arriving at the scene, said
that he had aimed his gun at them and tried to
shoot, but that it had malfunctioned, according to
court documents. His brother said in a telephone
interview that to his dying day, Mr. Farid
maintained that he had never aimed at a police
officer.</p>
<p>While in prison, he earned four college degrees:
an associate degree in business through the New
York State Department of Corrections; a bachelor’s
in arts and sciences from Syracuse University; a
master’s in sociology from SUNY New Paltz; and a
master’s in ministry from New York Theological
Seminary.</p>
<p>He also counseled fellow inmates, learned sign
language to help the hearing-impaired and helped
start a program that educated inmates about H.I.V.
and AIDS.</p>
<p>Once he was released, “he’d get to the office at
7 a.m., work all day and go to social justice
events at night,” Ms. Whitehorn said.</p>
<p>“He fought with every cell of his being for the
people he left behind.”</p>
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