John Pace
After serving 31 years of a life sentence given at age 17, John was resentenced and paroled, and since his release, he has dedicated himself to supporting other former juvenile lifers in their reentry journeys and young people who find themselves involved in the criminal justice system, earning recognition for his advocacy work and serving as Senior Reentry Coordinator at the Youth Sentencing & Reentry Project in Philadelphia.
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About John
Sentenced to die in prison at the age of 17, John served 31 years of a life sentence before he was subsequently resentenced and paroled following the U.S. Supreme Court decisions in Miller v. Alabama and Montgomery v. Louisiana. Since returning home in 2017, John has been actively hitting the ground running supporting other men and women who were children when they too were sentenced to die in prison, but now had the opportunity to return home. John has been featured in the Nation Magazine, CBS Morning News, and NPR for the work that he has been doing supporting former Juvenile Lifers in their transition back to the community. He was named the first-ever recipient of the Philadelphia Reentry Coalition’s Raymond Pace Alexander Reentry Star of the Year Award in June 2018, in recognition of his outstanding accomplishments since returning home from prison.
Currently, John resides in the Philadelphia area and serves as the Senior Reentry Coordinator at the Youth Sentencing & Reentry Project (YSRP) and a Program Associate for the Inside-Out Prison Exchange at Temple University. He is a member of the board of the Philadelphia Bail Fund (PBF) and Advisory Committee of Eastern University Prison Education Program (PEP). He served on an advisory committee for Eastern State Penitentiary, on a project called Hidden Lives Illuminated. John is often invited to be a guest speaker on panels throughout the country sharing his experiences about prison, reentry, and the value of higher learning in prison. He has assisted in teaching classes at University of Pennsylvania, Temple University, Rutgers University, Drexel University, Eastern University, St. Joseph’s University, and... While incarcerated, John earned an Associate’s Degree and Bachelor’s of Arts Degree from Villanova University, with minors in Criminal Justice and Sociology.
