In a continuing and profound shift in the judicial system: almost everyone charged with a crime ends up pleading guilty, the New York Times reports. Prison consultants help defendants who do not know what to expect. The idea of a prison consultant might conjure an image of an insider broker, but they're more like an SAT tutor - someone who understands logic and the nuances of unwritten rules. The work also involves dealing with desolate people who have lost almost everything. Justin Paperny, himself a former financial criminal, leads a consulting firm called White Collar Advice. It consists of 12 convicted felons, each with their own consulting specialty based on where they served time and their own sentencing experiences. Many who find themselves on the pathway to prison have come across Paperny's YouTube channel, where he creates videos for those who may be concerned about going to prison.
The journey to prison is a set of routine bureaucratic actions that involve interviews, numerous forms to complete and dates with officials. A lawyer is a legal guide to staying out of prison, but once that becomes inevitable, a prison consultant can chaperone the offender through the steps that eventually land them in their new home. Much of Paperny's advice comes from the attempts he made to avoid prison. Once he realized prison was his reality, Paperny prepared the same way everyone does, and how his clients still do - Googling "what happens when you go to prison?" He quickly discovered that there are many prison rules that Google doesn't have the answer to, and that there are things inmates must discover by themselves. Paperny didn't want people entering prison to go through it alone like he did. So, when he got out in 2009 he co-founded his business with a fellow inmate.Ho