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Jeff, 58

Jeff, 58

Stories

Meet Jeff

55 days after my 21st birthday, I was convicted of all charges against me, and sentenced to death. The very next morning I was abruptly taken out of  jail and transported to San Quentin State Prison, where I was handed over to the warden on California’s Death Row.

The classification board cleared me to participate in the exercise yard, so each morning after being strip-searched and handcuffed, I am escorted to a concrete ‘yard’, 40 by 60 feet in size, where I mingle with other inmates for several hours before being escorted back inside.

After being here eight years, two executions occurred. When each of their executions took place, something very profound happened to me.

I took their deaths very hard and became depressed. In my cell one night, with that quiet cell door closed, I fell to my knees on the floor with tears streaming down my face.

I begged God to help and repented all my sins. While on the floor, despondent and broken hearted, a peace I had never known came washing over me. Jesus became my Lord and Savior that night.

Until then, I had been reading the Bible, but my dyslexia had made it quite hard to understand. I kept at it each morning and the spirit and the word became my teacher and my counselor.  I was transformed into a new creation.

Next, came the renewing of my mind. I began going to sleep earlier and was awakened in the twilight hours by the spirit of God so that in the early quiet hours I could read and re-read God’s word. The very first thing I wanted each morning was more of God’s presence, peace and His love.

As I began living my life through God, with his Son Jesus, as my high priest, I began taking baby steps in my life’s renewal. I began fasting, just a couple meals at first, in order to clear my mind and body and before long I was able to fast for several days at a time, consuming nothing but water. 

Reading his living word pierced my spirit and soul more clearly than any blade could do. I have been praying for others whom Satan has in bondage. It is my desire to reach, teach comfort and encourage our youth in juvenile hall centers all over the world.

Jeffery, 48

Stories

Meet Jeffery…

Prison is a necessary evil, but an evil nonetheless. 
I wanted to grow up too fast. I had children, bought a house, married and divorced by 24. Although my marriage was loveless, the greatest pain I have ever experienced was the effect the separation had on my children. Unfortunately, I spent the following year trying to drink away the pain. For those going through a breakup or divorce, alcohol only makes the problem worse. Once I was sober enough to realize I was not helping the situation, I quit drinking, smoking and began the process of fixing the emotional and financial devastation. In the midst of this I made a poor choice. Although I did not commit the crime of conviction, my choice harmed not only my family and friends, it harmed society that I am not contributing financially or politically. I lost the ability to work and vote. For most of my life I was so embarrassed by my handwriting and spelling I would avoid any job that would require writing. That really held me back in life. My early experiences in prison involved being sexually assaulted by a prison staff then retaliated against for speaking out and using the prison grievance system.  I was thrown in solitary confinement or the “Hole” given a golf pencil, some paper and was told “If you don’t like it, you can sue us”. Prison is a necessary evil, but an evil nonetheless. 

My family invested in a dictionary and typewriter that beeped when I spelled something wrong. My poor celly thought I was sending Morse Code until my spelling improved. I began writing letters to the administration, governor, and legislatures which greatly improved my handwriting and style. I filed several lawsuits against the prison and staff, made some minor improvements within the system and earned some money. I was floored when a superior court judge stated I had excellent writing skills. After years of litigation and realizing I was not making enough positive change, I wrote a short story published in a zine for prison reform and two other publications.  I am now a contributing writer for an oversight group dedicated to improving the prison system and was invited to submit this letter to HoSQ.  Trying to transfer my writing skills from legal, which has a limited audience, to a broader demographic, I asked my friend for constructive criticism. He provided some and said I should get a book on creative writing which I would have if the COVID-19 hadn’t shut down the prison library for over a year. Because of the early support from my family I was able to use the money I received to donate some to charities, helped two former prisoners start their own businesses, and provided a laptop for a prisoner that started community college upon his release. I hope to improve my writing skills to make positive changes to the prison industrial complex and the lives impacted by it.

Tyrone, 48

Tyrone, 48

Stories

Meet Tyrone

Thinking of all the good times I had

why did everything have to go bad

from the top of being happy

to the bottom of being sad

I started looking for a way to escape the pain

I found drugs as my savior

and threw my whole life down the drain

getting high became a full time job

stealing from anyone I didn’t care who I robbed

I never thought I would take me this far

I said goodbye to my house and farewell to my car

I was even at the point of being a star

my family and friends said Tyrone look at who you are

I stared in the mirror for a short brief time

I tried to find myself but I knew I was gone

skin and bone is all I saw in my reflection

I was at the crossroad no more intersections

death was my angel but God was my protection

and since I knew that more dope through injection

I wanted it all until I fell

getting high was like having a ball

then I thought of all the people that I loved the most

and that’s what saved me

when I hit the floor and overdosed

Kevin, 28

Kevin, 28

Stories

Meet Kevin

Some of you may and some may not relate to my story. I was born in El Salvador, son of a strong, beautiful immigrant woman. When I was four, she migrated to the US after my father was killed from criminal violence. After a year of my mother migrating she gathered enough money to bring me to the US.

She is a faithful Christian and gave me everything so I can stay out of trouble, yet in the end, I was a lost innocent child tangled in the ways of ‘The Street Life.’

When I enrolled in elementary school, I felt out of place not knowing the lingo of the land. A couple of months later I learned to speak English and was making A’s and B’s. I was told by teachers that I was bright and smart. In middle school, I was easily influenced by drugs and gangs, that’s what the ‘cool kids’ were doing. This led me straight to juvenile detention centers.

One night, I almost lost my life to gun violence over a cheap $40 phone to a robbery at gunpoint. I thank the universe and my guardian angels that I survived. Not too long after, I was charged with aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon. Since the victim’s personal belongings were in my car, I was guilty by association. I didn’t correct it or say anything because he was my ‘friend’. When we got pulled over, my so-called friend told me not to say anything, that ‘he got me’ and everything was going to be ‘okay’.

I knew what my so-called friend had done was wrong, because I had been a victim of a prior robbery. He never showed up, never helped out and the loyalty I had towards him and the ‘bro-code’ got me five years. That may not seem like much compared to 20 years or life in prison. but to me it is more than enough. In here, I’ve received my GED, a level-centered head on my shoulders and a friend that has helped me elevate and I can call a brother.

The last five years I have lost and I have won. I have accepted my wrong deeds by correcting them. I might have lost my opportunity for a brighter future in the US as I am waiting to be extradited back to my home country. I have found myself and I no longer walk in darkness, I’m finally free and illuminated. My journey is coming to an end behind these walls and I am looking at better possibilities. In this process of losing myself, I’ve found who and what makes Kevin and that friends are worth more than money.

Christopher, 40

Christopher, 40

Stories

Meet Christopher

I sometimes wonder how I got here. Not the fact that I’m stuck in a prison cell with a 45-year sentence, I know how that happened – greed. But how I came to a place where my voice has far exceeded that of this tiny cell and the towering prison walls that surround me.

Today, I’m all the things I was always meant to be: a mentor, a scholar who’s only a few classes away from a Bachelor’s degree (after dropping out in the 9th grade, far sooner if you count when I actually stopped trying), a journalist who’s byline holds some of the most coveted publications on the planet (The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, BuzzFeed, HuffPost, and many more), a loving husband with a wife who’s amazing, loving, honest and loyal, a builder, an archiver, an artist, and so much more.

But most of all, I’m blessed because I finally learned how to love myself, and that’s what has allowed me to learn to love others – the most rewarding gift bestowed upon us in this life. And the gift that allowed me to finally find the path I was meant to travel. I wonder why I couldn’t see this confident, empathic, smart, and caring person when I was free – young and full of life. Why’d it take this – incarceration – to reach my full potential? What was it that stopped me from loving myself back then? Was it the struggle to survive?

I often tell people, only now do I actually feel like I’m living my life, before I was merely surviving, lost and confused. Jordans, cars, and fancy material positions were all I seemed to see.

Growing up poor has that effect – duct-tape on your shoes and what not. I remember being so embarrassed, the broken-down Honda my mom drove, the cheap clothes I wore to school, watching my mom struggle to pay the bills. The list was endless.

I swore I would never live like that when I was older, little did I know, prison would be my home – almost the grave, if I wouldn’t have survived that bullet! What was I thinking that night? Almost all of my friends have been shot.

I thought that was normal while growing up, like a rite-of-passage or something. Where I come from — The HillTop area of Tacoma, Washington – you get cool points for surviving a bullet, the more the better. I now recognize, it was the toxic masculinity that controlled my life, something I never learned about until my 30’s. Once I realized it ruled my life, I was able to start making changes, and that’s when all of who I was meant to be started taking shape.

Today, I fight for equality – something greater than myself and my past desire for personal gratification. I’m surrounded by good friends, people who love me for who I am, not the car I drive, shoes I wear, or any other foolish material items. I also realize that this is all that ever mattered. I wasn’t searching for money and material positions, I was looking to be loved – truly loved.

I caused irreparable harm along my path to get to where I am today. Some of the harm I’ve caused can never be reversed. I sit with it everyday, and I’ll continue to do so for the rest of my days. But this I know: I’ll never harm another in the ways of my past.

I’ll spend my life being a transformer, working to shape and shift the lives I cross paths with in hopes of helping those who look as lost as I was before I found my true self. And just maybe, if I’m lucky, I’ll have a chance to help them before they reside behind these cold steel bars with a 45-year prison sentence – forced to live with the guilt of a harm caused that can never be repaired.

We are all somebody special, and each and every one of us has something incredible to share with the world. We should encourage each other in positive ways. We should call out those who cause harm, even if it doesn’t feel like the “cool” thing to do. Most of all, we should be ourselves, because that’s when our true colors shine! Love yourself, because that is the key to truly loving others.

Edward, 39

Edward, 39

Stories

Meet Edward

I’m trying to get out to help [my son] avoid the same pitfalls that I fell into and help him from coming to prison.

I only got to hold my son once, I’ve only been around him for a few minutes since I’ve been inside. I went to jail when he was four years old and he still remembers when he touched the glass and I touched the glass.

At nine, he was in the foster care system and his social worker brought him to visit me at R.J. Donovan State Prison, but they came in late at 3pm. We got five minutes alone in the darkened visiting room when everyone was already gone. My son just cried the whole five minutes and I spent two thanking the social worker.

I last saw him when he was 15, behind the glass again at the courthouse where his mother lost custody of him. He stays with different family and friends now and he’s still trying to figure life out. I’m trying to get out to help him avoid the same pitfalls that I fell into and help him from coming to prison.

I’m really thinking that I need to get out and whoop on my son in b-ball. He’s 19 and he plays in the park, but mostly on video games like all the youngsters. He thinks he can take me. I let him know y’all youngsters now-a-days don’t get it. It’s like bread and meat, if I don’t win I don’t eat. I take it personally even when I play these youngsters in here.

My son’s name is Kobe because Kobe Bryant was my favorite player then. I’m a huge Lakers fan so that’s one thing we always talk about. Now, my son likes him more than I do!

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