White Collar Support Group to Examine the Trauma of Seeking Pardons and Clemency at White Collar Conference 2026
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West Palm Beach, FL – August 26, 2026 – The White Collar Support Group™ announced that “The Trauma of Asking for Forgiveness: Pardons, Clemency and Reliving the Worst Chapter of Your Life” will be a featured panel at White Collar Conference 2026, taking place virtually on Saturday, October 10, 2026, beginning at 9:00 a.m. Eastern/6:00 a.m. Pacific on Zoom. Networking will open at 8:30 a.m. Eastern/5:30 a.m. Pacific.
The third annual conference, themed “Ending the White Collar Life Sentence,” will bring together justice-impacted people, families, lawyers, advocates, government officials, researchers and others to examine the long-term consequences of white collar prosecution and incarceration—and what meaningful restoration should look like after a sentence has been served.
The pardons and clemency panel will focus on an aspect of the process that receives comparatively little attention: the trauma that can arise when people who have spent years rebuilding their lives are required to return to the facts, shame, family disruption and public humiliation surrounding the worst chapter of their lives in order to seek forgiveness from the government.
Prominent clemency scholar Professor Mark Osler will join federal pardon applicants for a discussion of the emotional and psychological effects of pursuing presidential pardons, including the uncertainty, waiting, disappointment and family consequences that can accompany the process.
Jeff Grant, co-founder of the White Collar Support Group, recently addressed these issues in his article, “The Trauma of Asking for Forgiveness: Pardons, Clemency and Reliving the Worst Chapter of Your Life.” In the article, Grant argues that pardons should remain an important avenue of relief, but should no longer become a short-term strategy around which justice-impacted people organize their recovery and future.
Read Jeff Grant’s article on Medium
“A pardon should not become the plan for rebuilding a life. It certainly should not become a short-term strategy around which a person organizes recovery, relationships, finances and hopes for the future,” Grant wrote. “Our clemency system asks whether the applicant has been rehabilitated. We should also begin asking what the process of proving that rehabilitation does to the applicant.”
“For years, many people in our community understandably viewed a presidential pardon as the ultimate validation that their justice journey was finally over,” Grant said. “But we have learned that organizing a life around obtaining a pardon can create another kind of dependency. People can spend years waiting for a president, an administration, a political connection or the right moment to validate a redemption they have already worked very hard to achieve.”
“We are not turning away from pardons or clemency. We want a fairer, more transparent and more generous clemency system. But we are increasingly telling people: build the life first. Take responsibility, make amends, rebuild your relationships, get treatment if you need it, work, serve others and become useful. Then, when the time is right, pursue a pardon thoughtfully. The objective is not simply to become pardonable. The objective is to become whole.”
The panel grows out of broader work by Grant and the White Collar Support Group around pardons, expungement, reentry and restoration. Several years ago, Grant and Chloe Coppola wrote in the American Bar Association’s Criminal Justice Magazine about creating a “Culture of Pardons” and a continuum of “Problem-to-Pardon” support. Grant now describes the next stage of that work as building a “culture of restoration”—one that treats pardons as one possible component of a much longer process rather than the sole measure of redemption.
“The process itself can require a person to reopen old court records, revisit the details of the offense, confront newspaper coverage, discuss harm caused to others and ask family members and friends to write about a period everyone may have spent years trying to move beyond,” Grant said. “Accountability matters enormously. But accountability is not the same thing as perpetual self-condemnation.”
The panel will also explore how lawyers, pardon advocates, mental-health professionals, families, clergy and peer-support communities can better support applicants throughout the clemency process.
“Human beings do not recover according to a docket sheet,” Grant wrote in his article. “The deeper task is to help people take responsibility for their past without requiring them to live there forever.”
The clemency panel is part of a broader program examining what happens to people after prosecution and incarceration—and how institutions and communities can help end what organizers describe as the “white collar life sentence.”
Josh Smith, Deputy Director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, will deliver the conference keynote, bringing the perspective of senior BOP leadership and lived experience with federal incarceration to questions of prison programming, rehabilitation, reentry and restoration.
The conference will also feature a fireside conversation between legendary trial lawyer Dickie Scruggs and Brent Cassity, both of whom experienced federal convictions and incarceration after achieving substantial professional success and later rebuilt their lives. Their discussion will explore failure, identity, humility, incarceration and second acts.
A panel on careers after prison, moderated by Drew Chapin, will include Emily O’Brien, Desmond Meade and Rashmi Airan. Together, the sessions will examine different stages of the same journey—from incarceration and reentry to rebuilding careers, seeking restoration and confronting the lasting stigma of a criminal record.
“This conference is about more than criminal justice,” Grant said. “It is about restoration. A prison sentence has an end date, but the collateral consequences of a conviction can follow a person for decades. If we genuinely believe in rehabilitation and second chances, then we also have to ask when punishment should end—and what support people need to build meaningful lives after it does.”
Registration is now open. Information, tickets and sponsorship opportunities are available at WhiteCollarConference.com.
About the White Collar Support Group™
The White Collar Support Group™ is a program of Progressive Prison Ministries, Inc., a nonprofit organization serving people and families impacted by the criminal justice system. Founded in 2016, the White Collar Support Group has built an international peer-support community for justice-impacted people and their families, offering weekly meetings, education, advocacy, mentoring and resources addressing the challenges of prosecution, incarceration, reentry and long-term restoration.
The White Collar Support Group has held more than 500 weekly meetings and has served thousands of people and families in the United States and internationally. Its work is grounded in the principle that no one should navigate a criminal justice situation alone.
Media Contact
Company Name: White Collar Support Group
Contact Person: Jeff Grant
Email: Send Email
Phone: 2128593512
Address:516 S. Dixie Highway Box 222
City: West Palm Beach
State: Florida
Country: United States
Website: https://prisonist.org/
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