Seeking Redemption by Revealing Our Scars Beneath the Tattoos
The scars of my childhood are the very parts of me that so many men like me, incarcerated men, want to keep locked away from the rest of the world around them. The Alternatives to Violence Project...
View ArticleI Believed I Was Gangsta, But I’m Nothing With Nobody
“To have once been a criminal is no disgrace. To remain a criminal is the disgrace.” —Malcolm X Many of us are caught in the cycle of incarceration. Is crime about decisions or is there more to it? For...
View ArticleI Wanted to Hide the Pain I Felt; Now I May Not Make It to June
I am writing you to let you know that the decisions I made at a young age has caught up to me. I mean I started to use meth when I was 14 years old and at 16 years old I started to inject the meth. I...
View ArticleLow Self-esteem, Feeling Alone Let the Gangs, Streets Shape Me
I am 38 years old. I have been incarcerated almost 15 years now. I have a sentence of LWOP (life without parole) plus 25 to life for a first-degree murder with drive-by enhancement. I was raised in the...
View ArticleLeaving Solitary to Visit Family, Friends At Home Is Frightening After 24 Years
You would think that walking out of prison after almost 24 years would probably be one of the happiest moments of my life — but you would be wrong — because it was actually one of the most frightening...
View ArticleAfter Falling in Love With Drugs, My Focus Is on My Daughters
Ten years ago I met my wife. We were high school sweethearts. We fell in love fast. Our love was like electricity. We were together every day. Things between us were great. She was the best friend I...
View ArticleThese Four Faces Free Me From My Prison Walls
I thought that I’d grown into a man knowing exactly what it meant to love someone from your heart. I thought that saying the words “I love you,” like the rest of the world, would be enough to exchange...
View ArticleMy Sad, Bad Past No Longer Defines Me, Thanks to Recovery
When I took my first breath in this world, it was while being placed into the arms of a child herself. A drug-addicted and alcoholic mother at the age of just 16 and, needless to say, my mother was a...
View Article‘I remember feeling like, if I left I would be lost’
I never said “no.” In fact, I said “I love you.” He said “No, you don’t.” He also said he was going to kill me. I don’t know if I believed him. Then he took me into a clearing in the woods. He said...
View ArticleI Found Purpose in Prison, and Not Just to Build Paper Trail for the Parole...
I murdered him. I stabbed him 51 times in his sleep, and now his name likely evokes in people close to him funny, warm and wonderful memories of a man they still love. And then it evokes pain because...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Restorative Justice Gave Me the Best Day of My Life
I want to share with you a personal story about the true practice of restorative justice and how it plays a part in my life. In 2014, I participated in a restorative justice roundtable here in San...
View ArticleGuilt, Self-hate and Forgiveness
People find it difficult to admit fault. We would rather receive an apology than apologize for our own wrongdoings. It is a position of power: having the ability to forgive someone or not, rather than...
View ArticleClik here to view.
I Got Lucky And Found Family
Foster home to foster home to foster home, etc. Twenty-six homes in total. One “family” to the next, passed on like the bubble in my mother’s tweaker circle. My birth family consists of four brothers...
View ArticleA Deadly Lesson in How Not to Feel
He broke my heart. After that night I’d see him act the same bewildering way many more times. It was, I eventually learned, what too many beers did to him. But the first time my uncle hit me (I was 4...
View ArticleClik here to view.
My Brother’s Killing Messed Me Up
March 7, 2012 my oldest brother was killed. He was killed by the NOPD (New Orleans Police Department). Coming home from school March 7, 2012, my oldest brother and his friend was sitting outside. They...
View ArticleClik here to view.
When Should You Stop Chasing Forgiveness — and Parole?
As I sat on my bunk — trying to understand why I was denied parole yet again — something in my mind was telling me that the parole board was never going to grant me parole and give me another chance....
View ArticleClik here to view.
My Story, My Transformation As a Proud Trans Man
Stas Vulkanov/Shutterstock. My name is J for all of you who don’t know me. I’m a transgender male, which means I was born as a female with the female anatomy, but transitioning into a male. Some of you...
View ArticleHelping Others Heal Is More Powerful Than a Bullet
The losses of life, the endless pain and suffering, the thousands of lives sent to prison, fatherless and motherless children and worst of all a parent having to bury their child. Going back into my...
View ArticleMy Brother’s Use of Gun Created Lasting Childhood Wounds
I have zero experience with guns. Other than using a water gun at the local fair to win a prize, I never held a gun, shot a gun or even seen a real gun in person. In my world, guns exist in movies and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
After Surviving Tough Border Crossing, I Want to Help Others
I was 5 years old in 2007, when my mother left Mazatenango, our small village in southern Guatemala. Gangs run that town and evil runs everywhere. I lived with my mom and dad and older brother until...
View Article
