When her 13 year old son with a known, significant mental illness was sentenced to a blended prison sentence, Lois Pullano says, "I didn't know that we have a significant number of individuals on the inside who suffer from severe mental illness or cognitive impairment. It was a wakeup call for me. I used to think that 'you do the crime, you do the time', that people were getting what they deserved."

Living with her son's imprisonment, and realizing how all families suffer along with their incarcerated loved ones, led Lois to start Citizens for Prison Reform.