At 83 years old, Ms Lea has been working for almost 30 years to make a path for her son to come home.

As the mother of a “lifer” Lea describes herself as “having skin in the game.” But she wants to be more than the mother of a lifer. She describes how “there are no winners in this. We are all in pain. Living every day with your loved one in a cage, we are all suffering from the pain of mass incarceration. This is a crisis. It’s painful.” She finds solidarity with other women in a support group for mothers with incarcerated sons.
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Lea has dedicated her years of retirement to justice system advocacy. In her advocacy work, Lea was asked to become the President of Maryland CURE, where she has served for over a decade. Their focus is on an equitable and rehabilitative justice system, rather than one that warehouses people. In watching her son work for “pennies on the dollar” during his incarceration, Lea describes how prisons too often profit off of misery, and act like businesses instead of focusing on public safety.
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Lea also serves on the Executive Committee of Maryland Alliance for Justice Reform (MAJR) and has worked on various justice reform bills over the years. “We need to educate elected officials on criminal justice issues, and it WORKS when we do. We must stop begging, and start building.” 

Lea believes that everybody deserves a second chance and the MD Second Look Act CAN happen, stating, “People can change stuff overnight.”