Hillary Blout

Entrepreneur, Lawyer, Policy maker

Hillary Blout is the Founder and CEO of For The People, the national nonprofit leading a new movement to bring dignity, humanity, and second chances into the U.S. justice system. Through unprecedented partnerships with the most powerful actors in the system, Hillary’s work is reuniting families, addressing racial disparities, and strengthening local economies. In 2018, Hillary drafted and helped pass the nation’s first law allowing prosecutors to bring a person’s case back to court—creating an entirely new legal pathway home from prison. Her work focuses on people who are rehabilitated and ready to contribute to their communities, yet remain incarcerated under outdated laws. What began as a novel idea has since grown into a national model for post-conviction justice. Today, these laws exist in six states and have brought more than 1,000 people home from prison—creating social and economic ripple effects across families and communities. A former prosecutor who handled violent crimes against women and children, Hillary brings a unique perspective to justice reform. Her experience inside the system helped shape an approach that engages decision-makers as partners in addressing past harms and building a system centered on equity, transformation, and dignity—not just punishment. Hillary’s leadership has helped establish a new field of post-conviction justice. She is a recipient of the Elevate Prize, Fast Company’s World-Changing Ideas Award, and the Foundation for the Improvement of Justice Award. She has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Essence, Newsweek, and Fast Company, among others. Hillary is a Galaxy Gives Fellow, a Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation social entrepreneur, an Ashoka Fellow, and a member of the Council on Criminal Justice.

God, raising teenage boys and 90’s R&B

For The People (FTP) works to redesign the justice system to one that centers humanity and repair over punishment and economic waste. FTP partners with system leaders to harness their power to build better safety outcomes that strengthen communities for generations to come. We create unique partnerships between District Attorneys, Courts, Community leaders and Prison officials to re-evaluate practices and outcomes and question whether the system is living up to its promise of keeping us safe and stable. Our key initiative, Prosecutor-Initiated Resentencing (PIR), is a national, bipartisan model for transforming how leaders within the justice system operate as a way to transform the entire system. PIR takes a legislative, policy and narrative approach to tackling the US humanitarian crisis of hundreds of thousands of people serving excessive and unjust sentences. The PIR program uses the first legal vehicle in the U.S. to enlist prosecutors to lead the effort of looking back at people in prison and bringing them home where it is clear they can be safely released. We estimate that, with the right resources in place, thousands of people serving excessive sentences in the US could be safely released from prison. PIR is the first strategy launched by FTP, marking the beginning of what is possible for a new version of justice in the U.S.

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