Judith Negron, a mother of two, was sentenced to 35 years in federal prison for a first-time white collar offense. 

“Your loved ones do each and every day of that incarceration with you,” she says. “Your children are incarcerated with you. Your spouse is incarcerated with you.” She focused on what she could control, teaching classes on the inside and helping develop a parenting program that fostered a more welcoming environment for kids to visit their mothers inside.

After serving eight years, her sentence was commuted by President Trump, and she walked out of prison into her children’s arms. 

But she wasn’t fully free. Upon her release, she was placed on federal supervision, and lived in constant fear that a single misstep would result in her being sent back to prison. She feared for herself, but even more for her kids. She couldn’t imagine leaving them again. “I didn’t want to mess up.” To avoid accidentally violating any of the dozens of rules of her supervision, she stayed home for months. 

“The conditions were nearly impossible,” she says. “The one that scared me the most was that I couldn’t have contact with someone with a felony record. That could be anyone—I was afraid to even go to the grocery store.” 

Still, she focused on her blessings. Being home with her family, she said, made her feel a gratitude she can’t put into words. “To be able to hug my children without the limitations and constraints of a prison wall is the most wonderful feeling a mother can experience,” she says. She also fought to free others, especially the women she left behind those prison walls. 

But sometimes supervision even stood in the way of that. 

Alongside a group of other formerly incarcerated women, Judith traveled to the White House to advocate for more clemencies and stronger reentry support for people coming out of the federal prison system. She shared her story and lifted up those voices still on the inside, and she called for a building a system that promotes true rehabilitation.  

But when she got home, she learned that even this act of civic engagement could have landed her back in prison. Her probation officer warned her that she was potentially in violation of her federal supervision conditions because she had been in the presence of other individuals who were recently released from incarceration and had criminal records. 

“I was shocked,” she says. “I am a mother. I am an advocate trying to help other women. I couldn’t begin to imagine going back to prison and leaving my sweet sons, when they had just gotten their mother back.”

So, when another invitation to the White House arrived, she declined. She simply couldn’t take the risk. It’s hard to imagine that any community in the country was made safer by preventing Judith from advocating for a better system. 

In December 2020, President Trump granted Judith a full pardon, ending her supervision term. For the first time in nearly a decade, she was truly free. 

Judith with her family

Today, Judith continues fighting for the women she left behind and for the families impacted long after a prison sentence ends. Her story underscores an important truth: federal supervision often focuses on the wrong things. Instead of helping people rebuild their lives, maintain stable families, and contribute to their communities, it frequently penalizes the very actions that support successful reentry.

Federal supervision should focus on real public safety threats, not on mothers trying to make a difference. That’s why Judith supports the Safer Supervision Act, federal legislation to build a better federal supervision system. Sign up today to learn more.