Part eight of Violation explores what time means behind bars. And listeners respond to the question: Did Jake get what he deserves?

An update on what's next for Violation...and a new investigation from WBUR.

This “Violation” update brings listeners the latest news in Jacob Wideman’s case, including his reaction to a ruling that leaves him few paths to freedom.

In August, lawyers representing Jacob Wideman argued before a judge in Arizona that state officials treated him in a “constitutionally impermissible” way when they revoked his parole more than six years ago.

Lawyers for the parole board and the state corrections department said Wideman was trying to avoid following directions and therefore could not be trusted to be free.

Thank you for listening to Violation. We thought you might like to hear about another podcast — Ear Hustle, a member of Radiotopia from PRX.

Ear Hustle shares stories about what life is really like in prison, both inside and after you get out.

Season 12 started on Sep. 6, and the show will also be marking its 100th episode in December.

You can find Ear Hustle wherever you get your podcasts and at earhustlesq.com.

Thank you for listening and joining us on this incredible journey of exploring America’s opaque parole system through a terrible murder.

We’re eager to know how this journey was for you.. because your feedback will help us serve you better.

So… can you take a few minutes and fill out a survey for us? It would be a HUGE help. You can get it at wbur.org/survey.

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Two months after Jacob Wideman was arrested at work and brought back to prison — for failing to make an appointment with a psychologist on a particular day, as directed by his parole officer — he faced the Arizona parole board again.

The board had to make a formal finding: Did Jake violate the conditions of his parole by not making that appointment? And, if so, should he stay in prison or be returned to the community?

Parole revocation hearings tend to be routine affairs. But, as this episode shows, Jake’s hearing was far from routine.

Ultimately, the parole board voted to keep Jake in prison, where he remains, possibly for life.

In the final episode of Violation, we discuss what happens now and what Jake’s legal options are. And we return to thorny dilemmas about the criminal justice system: When someone commits a terrible crime, as Jake did, is there anything they can do to prove they deserve to be free again? How does the parole system help us determine what justice should be in any given case — and does it make us more safe?

We also return to the question of why Jake killed Eric Kane in 1986. There’s one last piece of the puzzle that might bring a little more clarity, and Jake tries to explain it in his own words.

Six months after Jacob Wideman was released from prison on home arrest, he appeared before the parole board for a routine check-in hearing. His parole officer told the board that Jake was doing well: Jake’s employers and therapists gave him positive reviews, as did the director at his halfway house and the landlord at his apartment complex.

But other people were coming to a different conclusion.

About a week before the hearing, Jake’s parole officer had told him that he had received complaints that Jake had committed numerous violations of the terms of his parole — violations that, if he had committed them, could cost him his freedom.

The officer also told him something that startled him: A private investigator could be watching him.

“It brought home to me the people who didn't want me to be out were keeping an exceptionally close eye on me, and that, you know, they were willing to go to some pretty drastic lengths to try to find ways to get me put back in prison,” Jake said later in an interview from prison.

Soon after that routine check-in hearing before the parole board, Jake was re-arrested.

In Part 6 of "Violation," we hear interviews and testimony from Jake, his attorneys, parole officials and others as we piece together the events leading up to the parole violation that sent Jake behind bars again — possibly for life.

In 2016, after 30 years behind bars and seven hearings in front of the Arizona parole board, Jacob Wideman was released from prison.

Being on parole is a strange hybrid between prison and freedom. You’re still technically serving your sentence, but in the community. When Jake first got out, he was on home arrest, a strict version of parole. He had to wear an ankle monitor so the state could track his whereabouts, and he couldn’t leave his house without permission.

Jake also had to follow more than two dozen separate parole conditions, among them: no driving; no contact with minors, no drinking alcohol. Not following any one of the rules could land him back in prison on a moment’s notice. And the vague catchall condition, “I will follow all directives I am given, either verbal or written.”

This last one would come back to haunt him.

On any given day, a quarter of incarcerated people nationwide are there for breaking the rules of their parole or probation. These behaviors are called technical violations and can include things like moving to a new apartment without permission or failing to attend a drug treatment program.

You may have heard the term “mass incarceration” — this idea that the U.S. locks up more people than any country in the world. But lately, scholars and activists have also been talking about “mass supervision.” There are almost two million people in U.S. prisons, but there are almost four million people on probation or parole.

In Part 5 of "Violation," we examine what life is like for the millions of people on parole in the U.S., and describe what happened when Jacob Wideman was on parole. Jake didn’t know it when he was first released, but his freedom would only last nine months — and there were people on the outside working to put him back inside.

How do you build a meaningful life in prison, knowing you might never be free? What if whether you might one day be free hinges on your ability to build a meaningful life in prison? In Part 4 of “Violation," we follow Jacob Wideman’s decades-long journey through the Arizona prison system and hear how he prepared to tell his life story to the parole board.

Two years after he murdered Eric Kane, Jake was transferred from county jail to the Arizona Department of Corrections to begin serving a life sentence. At 18 years old, he was thrust into a world where the only way to feel safe was through physical aggression and bravado. He had many years of practice pretending he wasn’t suffering from mental health struggles in his youth, but now, Jake had to push those struggles even further out of sight as he faced a series of challenges in prison, each more difficult than the last.

“Heart test” is prison shorthand for proving yourself when you first arrive in the facility — standing up for yourself and not snitching to guards after you’ve been assaulted, for example. But the physical heart tests of Jake’s early years would give way to heart tests of a different kind: a slow and painful journey to identify and manage his mental health problems, and a search for love, even through prison bars. Eventually he would have to stitch all these experiences together to tell the parole board a compelling life story, in the hopes that they would one day find him worthy of release.