An inmate at the DC Jail on Tuesday became the first incarcerated person ever elected to office in the nation’s capital.Joel Caston was elected on Jun 15 to be the advisory neighborhood commissioner for District 7F07, which includes the correctional facility, a women’s shelter, and a recently-opened luxury apartment building, NBC News reported.
Caston, 44, has been incarcerated for 26 years.
He was locked up at 18 for the murder of 18-year-old Rafiq Washington, whom he was convicted of shooting in the parking lot of a Chinese restaurant in DC, The Washington Post reported.
Caston has spent more than four years of his sentence incarcerated at the DC Jail in the southeast quadrant of the city.
That makes him one of the jail’s longest-tenured inmates, according to The Washington Post.
The DC Jail houses 1,400 male and female inmates.
In July of 2020, DC changed the law to allow incarcerated people in the city to vote, and that brought attention to the fact that the seat on the Advisory Neighborhood Commission (ANC) district where the DC Jail was located had been vacant since 2013, The Washington Post reported.
I propose making his cell a national shrine. Former fellow inmates can narrate guided tours. A gift shop can market T-shirts, framed Caston prints, pamplets and books.