Published Works

Prison University Project student Troy Dunmore’s story is one in a series of oral histories that Voice of Witness has collected through collaborative storytelling workshops with Prison University Project students.

The moment of my life that I often think about is the first time I used drugs. As I sit in prison trying to obtain my release, I often reflect on my past. I asked myself the same questions over, and over. How did I get in this position? How did I turn out so different than my brothers, and sisters? We grew up in the same house, same parents, and were taught the same values. Nevertheless, I have a life sentence, they are productive members of society.

During the course of my self-discovery, I can draw a distinct link to a choice I made as a teenager. In the seventh grade I took my first hit of weed, little did I know that one hit would lead me to a life filled with crime, and drugs. If I could go back in time, I would tell my young self, “Why are you seeking acceptance from your peers?” You see, I was asked by some older dudes from the neighborhood if I wanted to smoke weed with them.

I remember the feeling of acceptance from some in the neighborhood who were the most popular. I would tell my young self that one hit will lead you down the path of destruction. All your hopes, dreams, and desires will be replaced with jails, prisons and funerals. Most importantly, you will give up your self-respect, and disgrace your family name.

That was my cross roads moment, and I chose the wrong road. However, all the pain and heartache I endured, my faith led me to the man I have become today. I took the negative and turned it into a positive. My past has inspired me to make a difference in this world. I share my story to the youngsters in my family. Today, I’m guided by my faith and walk in my recovery.

Even behind these prison walls I am able to be a positive role model to my family. I can no longer be ashamed of my past, I will use it to help better the same community I once terrorized. My ultimate goal is to give back. Over the course of these 24 years countless people have given to me.

I believe that my calling is to serve my community.

Attribution: This article originally appeared in the Voice of Witness blog on March 12, 2019.
Read Story

Please note that the Prison University Project became Mount Tamalpais College in September 2020.

Prison University Project student and Program Clerk James King examines the dilemma of a 20-year-old incarcerated man he calls Naz. 

I first met Nazhee Flowers when I was working as a teaching assistant for a college prep English class. Naz was twenty at the time and showed many of the contradictions you might expect from a young man trying to better himself but struggling to get out of his own way.

He was smart, often coming to class, listening to the discussion taking place, and making insightful comments in spite of the fact that he hadn’t read the materials we were discussing, or done any of the homework. As teachers, we struggled to find ways to engage him intellectually and resist the everyday temptations a young man in prison faces.

It isn’t hard for me to imagine him, under different circumstances, walking a college campus, perhaps going to class hung over, regretting the videos he’d posted the night before on Snapchat. In fact, to this day, the only thing that separates Naz from any other young students are the conditions he faced growing up and the consequences he faces for his choices today.

He was separated from his family as an infant, and adopted by another family when he was four years old. Over the years, he struggled to come to terms with his new family and acted out more and more at home, in school, and in the neighborhood. Then at age fifteen he was arrested and convicted for carjacking and sentenced to a fifteen year sentence.

He started off at Juvenile Hall, a place we often call “gladiator school,” because of all of the fighting that goes on there among the kids. On his eighteenth birthday, he was transferred to Santa Rita County Jail, and then, eights days later, he was transferred to a state prison. His years of incarceration in a violent Juvenile Hall made him someone to look up to among his young peers. But like most kids his age, Naz struggles to live up to their expectations.

Often, I would see him walking across the yard, just prior to class beginning, in a group of youngsters. As the semester progressed, it would take him longer and longer to peel away and come to class. Sometimes he would make appointments with me for individual tutoring, only to fail to show up. Later, I would see him on the yard with one of his partners.

The first time Naz did show up for a tutoring session, he didn’t bring his books or any of his homework with him. Instead, he shared with me something he’d recently wrote about his childhood. At age twenty, Naz was looking back over his life in much the same way I would, at a much later time in my own life. He was still striving to understand himself, minus the luxury of being able to learn from his decisions without it affecting his freedom or personal safety.

Like most people under the age of twenty-five, Naz has issues with impulse control and overcoming peer pressure. If he were free, and walking a college campus, his infractions would be understood as the indiscretions of a young man learning to make the connections necessary between our actions and consequences. On campus it may be bar fights or poorly thought out social media moments. In here, it’s melees or using a cell phone. One institution is built upon the premise that its inhabitants are there to learn. The other institution has been trained to see every independent action as a threat.

When the semester ended, I didn’t see Naz as much, but I did notice that he continued to make positive changes in his life. I saw that he joined a self-help group called Kid C.A.T., which is for people who were incarcerated at a young age, and helps them process their childhood trauma. Soon after, he started hanging around his old friends less, and spending time with guys in his self-help group more.

He also started participating in the San Quentin tours. At these tours, people from various outside communities would come in to learn more about incarceration and the criminal justice system. Naz would tell his story and answer their questions.

About a week ago, Naz came to me to tell me he was being transferred to a higher security prison. He’d been deemed a “program failure” by prison officials here because he’d received five disciplinary write-ups since coming to prison.

Most of Naz’s actions can be traced back to his age. For his part, Naz is not sad to be transferring and has come to terms with moving to a higher security prison. After all, it isn’t the first time he’s been on one of the more violent yards, and perhaps a small part of him believes the more structured environment will help him with his decision making.

His choices are really only problematic because of where he’s making them. One of his most recent write-ups was for possession of a cell phone. Phones are now common in prison, and the pathway to the outside world that they represent proves too much for most people in here to resist. Naz found his younger brother with that cell phone, someone he’d never met before. In fact, he’d also located his birth mother while in Juvenile Hall when he noticed a kid there who had the same last name as his mother. For Naz, those moments are the highlights of his young life. As he strives to discover what type of man he will be, it’s showing the initiative to find his family, being a big brother to his younger siblings, and being respected by his peers because of his experience that shows him his own potential.

My hope for Naz is that he finds a strong support network waiting for him at the next prison. I hope he doesn’t internalize a belief that he is somehow flawed, or different from other kids his age.

Still, Naz is exceptional. While here, he’s seen glimpses of his potential, and knows that he doesn’t necessarily have to conform to his circumstances, but can instead rise above them. The same kid who can find his mom, even from gladiator school, can also find the pathway to being his best self. As time goes by, he’ll gain greater control of his impulse control, and grow better at resisting peer pressure. I’m betting that, in his case, it’ll be sooner rather than later.

Please note that the Prison University Project became Mount Tamalpais College in September 2020.

Prison University Project student Joe Garcia reflects on his parents. His story is one in a series of oral histories that Voice of Witness has collected through collaborative storytelling workshops with Prison University Project students.

The sheriff’s voice crackled over the intercom on the wall of my cinder block cell.

“Garcia, get dressed. You have an attorney visit.”

Did my ears deceive me? This was an unexpected turn of events. I had been to court only a couple of weeks prior to this, before I’d been placed here in “the hole”– a dungeon like series of cells, with the only window being a small 10×10 view of an unlit hallway connecting them.

Either swathed in bright fluorescent light or complete darkness by the sheriff’s discretion, there was hardly any routine other than the twice a day feeding schedule. Reality quickly became distorted, so the surprise announcement was a shock to the surreal environment. Why would my lawyer come to see me now? Most every court date, he would spend an hour or so conferring with me in a holding cell outside the courtroom. We were on the verge of starting my second trial after getting the first one overturned for juror misconduct, so we had a firm grasp on every aspect of my case.

My attorney was just as surprised that he had to visit me in a whole separate unit of the facility. Having had some experience with jailhouse visiting and LA County Jail’s hole, he could see through the plexiglass before I even sat down that it was a welcome break from my isolation.

I smiled at him as I picked up the phone on my side of the glass. We spent a moment or two going over the details of how I became housed here. Quickly, however we turned to the subject of his visit: my father had had a severe stroke, and my family needed to speak with me. I usually checked in with them at least once a week, but being in the hole meant no phone privileges.

I had already been locked up for six years fighting my murder case at this point, and both my parents’ health had started to decline shortly after my arrest. I don’t believe that to be simply due to coincidence. I can only imagine the extreme emotional and physical toll that my incarceration caused them, their only child facing a life sentence with little chance of being acquitted.

I had spoken with my dad recently, and he had assured me that he was doing okay. After that, when my family hadn’t heard from me in weeks, they knew something must have happened. My Uncle Pete, my father’s brother, contacted my attorney.

I already felt helpless about my legal situation and my uselessness to my parents. It had always been an unspoken promise that I would be there to take care of them in the same nurturing manner that they had always taken care of me. Now I couldn’t even communicate with the outside world at a significant moment like this.

My lawyer was able to explain my situation to a sergeant and convince him to allow me access to a payphone to call my Uncle Pete. I learned that my dad was being kept on life support, unconscious and unresponsive after his stroke. My family was unsure as to my dad’s wishes under these circumstances. My father and I were wonderfully close, and although he had never expressed clear cut instructions, I knew for certain that he did not want his life prolonged meaninglessly like that. He believed that whenever a man’s time came, he should be permitted to go in peace.

In an isolated confinement area, I told my Uncle to do the right thing and let my father pass. Uncle Pete figured that would be my dad’s choice, but he wanted to make sure by hearing it from me also.

I had known that if I did not win my trial outright, I would never see either of my parents alive again, so this event only solidified that unmitigated truth. No matter how deep my frustration at being incarcerated, I shudder at the thought of all the pain and desolation I brought them in what should have been their golden years. Of all the people on earth, I felt my parents deserved that less than anyone else.

In the wake of this, I did find some comfort in reconnecting with my Uncle Pete, who himself passed away several years later. Only one year younger than my dad, Uncle Pete had damn near the same voice over the phone. Speaking with him often felt like I was talking to my dad. All three of us had the Garcia nose, too. Whenever I would share my deep regret at leaving my parents hanging, he would always calm me down. “It’s not your fault, son,” he would say. “We were here for them in your place. They were surrounded by family.” Nevertheless, I should have been the one who was there for them.

Please note that the Prison University Project became Mount Tamalpais College in September 2020.

Prison University Project student and Program Clerk James King writes on voting, art, and rehabilitation.

Right now there is a lot of debate about whether incarcerated people should be given the right to vote. It reminds me of a similar dispute about the value of art in educational spaces. Many of the proponents for voting rights argue that allowing incarcerated people to vote will create better citizens, much in the same way that art advocates argue that a well-rounded education (read: one that values art) will create more well-rounded citizens.

There is a link between art and voting that is fairly obvious. Both are means of expression, and therefore deeply personal. But before exploring the similarities between the two, one fact must be established first.

Art does not rehabilitate.

Art is the result of one’s experiences or perceptions expressed creatively. As such, let’s say a person’s art springs from their unresolved trauma. Said art, like all trauma, may be expressed either harmfully or healthily, but it doesn’t become rehabilitative simply because it’s expressed. That is true, even if it feels good to express oneself. The fact that art, and the response that art generates, is affirming does not necessarily make it rehabilitative.

Sure, there is a basic intrinsic value to self-expression, but what if that expression is ignored, misunderstood, or worse, rejected by one’s peers? In situations like that, the responses to expression itself can further the trauma. Art didn’t save Mozart, Janis Joplin, Tupac, or Jimi Hendrix, any more than it saved Charles Manson.

It’s similar with voting. Imagine, for instance, I bought my potential fiancée an engagement ring, then the night before I popped the question, someone breaks into my house and steals the ring. At this point, I might believe the death penalty is too good for this criminal. Then, a potential law is placed on the ballot. This law will give all burglars life sentences. Hell, yes, I say. Early in the morning, I march down to the voting booth and vote yes. Am I now rehabilitated? What if I vote the same way on the next ten initiatives?

The truth is that what rehabilitates is the commitment by a community to invest in those among them who are traumatized. Compassion and empathy are the bricks. Kindness is the mortar. The work of rehabilitation is painstaking, tedious, with numerous setbacks. A wall goes up, then the wind knocks some of the bricks down before the mortar fully solidifies. Since the building cannot exist without the wall, we replace the bricks one by one.

If the value of art is not in rehabilitation, then what is it? Instead, art’s value springs from something far more basic. Art is expression and expression is a fundamental need of human beings. In fact, I would argue that self-expression is just as essential to life as breathing.

In a similar vein, considering whether voting is rehabilitative misses the same larger picture. Voting is expression. The denial of the right to express one’s self creates a second-class citizen in a society that promotes the concept that we are all created equal. If people are denied their voice in one way, they will surely find another. In fact, it’s important to remember that voting takes many forms. People vote with their actions far more often than they do at the voting booth. Take legalized marijuana, for example. Long before “voters” went to the polls in California and “voted” for legalization, thousands of people were voting for it to be legal. Instead of going to the polling place, they voted with the local weed man.

Voting should be allowed, not because it’s rehabilitative, but because it’s humanizing. If that’s true, then I guess it is actually rehabilitating….for our society as a whole.

Please note that the Prison University Project became Mount Tamalpais College in September 2020.

My first lesson in racial discrimination happened at the maximum-security prison at Calipatria, Calif. An older Mexican dude with the signature handlebar mustache told me in a Hollywood whisper, “Hey, homie, we don’t associate with llantas (tires) around here. The animales (animals) have their own rules. We follow ours. Don’t talk to them too much because someone might feel disrespected, and you’re going to get dealt with.”

Until then, I had thought “homie” meant “homey,” as in cozy and welcoming. Here, though, the word was used to separate me from anyone who was not Mexican. The older “homie” mumbled a list of Mexican rule violations I’d get beat up or stabbed for, most involving interactions with the black guys: The phone on their side of the day room and their concrete tables on the yard were off limits. No eating, lingering or trading with them. And definitely no arguing: If a black guy so much as raised his voice, I was supposed to punch him in the mouth even if it started a riot.

I was 18 years old and scared. With multiple life sentences to serve, I knew I would have to adjust to my life behind bars. I kept to the designated areas. I spoke Spanish most of the time, and I interacted only with people who looked like me.

I did not think of myself as a racist. I had grown up playing with black, Asian and white kids in Southern California. I had attended Asian celebrations, like the Tet Festival in Garden Grove. I had eaten my black friend’s mama’s famous Cajun-fried chicken and stuffed baked potato. I thought I could teeter on the edge of the lines of self-segregation without the racist prison culture poisoning me. But I had to conform to survive.

On the yard, I stood guard at concrete benches next to toilets that reeked of urine, out of “an obligation” to hold what we had designated as our ground. I would sit around a light pole in our area that cast the only shade on the yard because it was prime real estate, at least by prison standards. The racist language of the older Mexicans who had fought in the prison’s gang and race wars became my own. I repeated the stories they told me. After a while, I grew angry and resentful myself. I lost a part of myself because I started believing the rhetoric.

I thought every California prison was segregated. But when I transferred to San Quentin State Prison in November 2016, after 15 years inside, I was appalled to see groups of black, white and Mexican inmates mingling together. The interracial baseball, basketball and soccer league horrified me. Either I was narrow-minded or these dudes were tripping.

At first, I avoided crowds. I walked alone around the yard because I did not know who to trust. I felt out of place whenever I saw people of different races just standing around together joking and laughing. I was uncomfortable with everyone else’s comfort. My old world had been simpler to navigate. Its boundaries had been clear, and I knew how to behave and communicate within them.

Then I began trying to conform to this new norm, at least outwardly. I ran in the San Quentin marathon alongside men of other races. Training was the perfect activity: It let me go along with a group while still telling myself, and others, I was participating alone. When I was running, I could not be accused of depending on anyone else.

Internally, I still struggled. My prejudices were tangled up in my sense of personal comfort, safety, complacency and custom. One evening when I got back from the yard, a black neighbor in my cellblock offered me a burrito. I was hungry, but I automatically declined. He noticed I had hesitated, looking both ways on our tier to see whether there were any other Mexicans around. He said: “Hey, brother, those days are over. This place is different. The people change you.”

My prejudice had been exposed. I felt bare. I felt ashamed I had been unable to see past this man’s skin color, unable to see his kindness and generosity because I had slid too far down the slippery slope of compromise. I wanted people to see me for more than the crime I had committed, and yet I was unable to see beyond skin tone.

I started venturing out of my comfort zone because I wanted to change. I would stop people on the yard to talk about their day. I started befriending guys of different races who were fellow members of a self-help group — men who were also working to heal their family relationships and make amends for their crimes. Our pasts were similar, full of pain, regret and remorse.

As part of these efforts, I joined the San Quentin News, our prison newspaper. The teacher of the weekly journalism class said reporting makes a difference because it informs people about the world and the options out there. For a long time, I did not know there was any reality other than the one I knew. I wanted to help share how the world is much bigger and brighter than what we sometimes see.

When I first started working in the newsroom, the editor in chief, a lanky black man named Bonaru, told me, “See where you fit in, and we’ll help you along the way.” One day, I almost lost it when he scolded me for sneaking a peek at my story on the managing editor’s computer. I was not used to black people telling me what to do. But I checked myself, and he explained the chain of accountability.

Beyond that lesson in interracial work relations, though, he believed in me. After so much time in prison, with few challenging opportunities, I had a serious confidence problem. Bonaru pushed me to learn the computer program I was nervous to use, saying, “Unless you try it, you won’t learn. And if you make mistakes, I’m right here to fix them.” I eventually learned how to lay out a newspaper and Photoshop images. Bonaru taught me that the undo command, ‘Control-Z,’ works in my favor, and he helped me realize there are other things in my life I can fix, too. We still work together today, on neighboring computers. He is one of my best friends and mentors.

Although there are people in San Quentin stuck in a mentality of “us against them,” I have a wide circle of friends of other races, men I confide in and consider my brothers. These friendships have awakened dormant feelings of compassion, sadness and longing. I have come to understand why it was hard for me to see I could live like this and there was an alternative way to think. I see pop culture and even news on television — the few windows I have into the outside world — constantly reinforce racial stereotypes. I see the inequity that fuels racial tensions elsewhere in America. I see how people on the outside are also shaped by their environments. Their behaviors become their beliefs, and vice versa. Despite my fears for my self-preservation, I confronted my biases and worked to change my perspective. Maybe society can do the same.

Gov. Jerry Brown commuted my sentence in December from 67 years to life to 20 years to life — a rare act of mercy. I had imagined the effects of a commutation on my life; the commutation’s effect on incarcerated people at San Quentin State Prison, though, surprised me. The night of my commutation, men cheered in their cells like the 49ers had just won the Super Bowl. It felt fantastic to hear men call out to me with joy, but I also recognized that they weren’t cheering for me. They were applauding something much more important than me.

That “something” is difficult to convey, as it showed up in emotions more than in concrete events. In their questions, I heard a thousand times: Emile, why do you take so many self-help classes? Why are you always reading? Who are you trying to impress? These questions didn’t come from everyone; but when they came, they felt loaded with judgment.

I felt like people wanted to tear me down.

I was wrong, people hadn’t wanted to tear me down. Their concerns were analogous to those of Denzel Washington’s character in the film “Fences.” He degraded his son’s sports dreams in a misguided attempt to protect his son from disappointment. Listening to them cheering for my commutation, I realized that what I’d taken as judgment was fear for me. My questioners had anticipated my “inevitable disappointment” and wanted to protect me, in their imperfect way.

Now they cheered, because they’d been wrong. And they’d never been happier to be wrong.

“They don’t give that kind of stuff to people like us, you know?” one man told me. “That kind of stuff is only for other people.” He had a thunderstruck look that reminded me of my own arrival at San Quentin. I met dozens of free people (volunteers in the prison) who wanted me to succeed — which wasn’t consistent with my internal narrative about a society that wanted me to fail. I’d found a community that wanted me, and I had never admitted to myself how desperately I wanted that. It proved an epiphany in my rehabilitation.

Six years later, I witnessed a similar moment of realization by the man who thought commutations were only for white people or rich people. His narrative, common in prison, about an “entire system” arrayed against him, was cracking.

A father spoke to a room of incarcerated journalists who work on the prison newspaper and radio news program about the effects of my commutation on him. “Before Emile, I wasn’t doing anything,” he said. “I didn’t care … I was never going home. Now, I’m going to do something.”

His sentiment isn’t isolated; I’ve watched it spread from man to man all month. I’m at the middle of how Gov. Brown’s act of mercy fuels exponential change. People who said they “didn’t care” are admitting to themselves that they both want to care and can be restorative members of their communities. They’re energized to transform their lives; and their transformations can change the lives around them, just as my transformation ripples through the world around me.

Media coverage billed me as “a more obvious choice” for clemency and a model of rehabilitation. I’m humbled. And I respectfully offer that in 20 years I learned to be this man from a lot of worthy men who don’t have my writing skills and so don’t have my visibility. Hundreds of them will file for a commutation this year. Imagine the power to spread transformation in a hundred acts of mercy.

I was walking the prison track on a sunny southern California day in 2006 when a friend I’ll call Michael joined me. He looked like he could barely hold it together. His dark complexion was ashen, and there was dried toothpaste around his mouth. When I asked him how he was doing, it took a full four seconds before he answered.

“I’m going to kill myself,” Michael said.

He said it matter-of-factly, but when I looked at him to see if he was joking, his shoulders were slumped, his head down, his eyes focused on the track immediately in front of him. I wondered if he had the same feeling I had, that any verbal misstep could end in disaster.

“Come on man,” I responded, with a lightness that I hoped hid the nervousness I felt. “Nothing could be that serious.”

“There’s a guy in my building that won’t leave me alone. He’s pressuring me to have sex with him.”

This threw me for a loop. I knew just about everybody on the Yard, and I was skeptical of his claim of abuse. I remembered that Michael had a reputation in our circle of friends for being overly dramatic. Often, he would bring up “problems” that were just attempts to get attention.

After a few minutes, we rounded the track past the handball courts and came up to a row of picnic benches on the south side of the Yard.

“Let’s have a seat,” I said.

He took it like I was trying to create some privacy for us, but in truth, I was stalling for time. In my seven years of incarceration, I had never been propositioned for sex, let alone pressured. Of course, I’d grown up hearing the stories and the “don’t drop the soap” jokes that people tossed around so freely. But I still couldn’t shake my skepticism — why would this predator pick Michael, of all people?

Yet something about Michael’s demeanor seemed sincere. If he was making this up, what did he hope to get out of such an embarrassing story?

Slowly, Michael began to tell me what had happened, starting very early on in his life. He’d grown up in an abusive household — I’m talking about one of those homes where the kid never has a fighting chance. Beatings with extension cords, whole days locked in the closet. It seemed like everybody in his life either hated him or was indifferent.

One of his mother’s boyfriends had been different, though. He would let Michael hang out with him while he ran around the hood; he’d buy Michael brand new clothes, or take him out for pizza; he’d come into Michael’s room late at night to spend time with him.

It soon became clear that the only person who’d shown Michael any attention had also sexually assaulted him.

To me, this was clearly an abusive relationship, but Michael said he didn’t see it that way. He seemed to appreciate the positive attention that his older male companion had shown him, and spoke about their relationship with an affection he didn’t bother to hide.

By this time, I realized Michael was not lying about the guy pressuring him. I also realized that Michael might be gay and therefore, according to my way of thinking at the time, shared some blame for what he was going through.

“I know what the problem is,” I said. “You have a spirit of homosexuality. So does the guy pressuring you. If you reject that spirit, I believe he’ll leave you alone.”

“The fact that I’m attracted to men has nothing to do with this. Because I’m not attracted to this guy…”

I was extremely uncomfortable at this point. For some reason, Michael could not see that this person was reacting to Michael’s homosexuality. And to top if off, he was unapologetic about it.

Still, Michael was a friend of mine. I couldn’t let him continue doing what I then felt, like many inmates do, was a sin, a weakness that made him deserving of all he got in prison.

“It doesn’t work like that,” I told him. “You can’t play around with homosexuality and just think you’ll only attract people you like. In that lifestyle, predators come after you. Especially in prison. Besides,” I said, “you’re a Christian.”

Then he said, “Is that Christianity, or just your understanding of it?”

Looking back, I now realize that, like many survivors of childhood abuse and neglect — so many of whom are in prison — Michael was well-acquainted with shame. My response, which was to blame him, was as familiar to him as his name.

Over the next few months, Michael and I had many more talks. Though I prided myself on being a compassionate Christian, I never missed a chance to subtly attack him for his sins. And since my attacks fit the ashamed self-image that he had internalized as a child, we slipped seamlessly into our new roles.

Perhaps two years after our conversation, Michael propositioned a friend of his. The guy attacked Michael in the middle of the dayroom. It took three guards and a full can of pepper spray to pull them apart. They took Michael to the hole, and he never came back.

By 2014, he was a distant memory. I was in church listening to a visiting preacher give a sermon about godliness when he spotted two gay men sitting in the pews. Without hesitation, he said, “You can’t play with God. You can’t be swishing around here trying to entice men, and thinking you can just go to heaven.”

Every eye in the room focused on the men. People were smiling with approval, loudly proclaiming “Amen, brother!”

All I could see, though, was the hurt and embarrassment on their faces.

Anger started to burn inside of me. Here I was, sitting in a room full of men who had no problem stealing from the kitchen or lying to the guards. A thought struck me: Who were the sinners here? When it comes to women, I have little choice in who I feel attracted to, and I was sure these men didn’t, either.

I also realized that I was guilty of the same hypocrisy. The question Michael had asked me long ago came to mind. Was this Christianity, or just our — or my — understanding of Christianity?

Michael and I are no longer in the same prison. From time to time, I find myself wondering how he’s doing. I believe he’s still incarcerated; I just hope he has found some friends who are wiser and kinder than I once was.

In November, 64 percent of California voters passed a proposition to allow early parole for qualifying non-violent offenders. But Proposition 57 also permits accelerating parole for prisoners who committed violent crimes by giving more good-time credits for exceptionally good behavior.

Some fear that paroling reformed violent offenders will increase violent crime rates, but the people the proposition would affect can actually reduce violence. They can reach youth caught in cycles of violence and save them.

When I was 19 years old, a violent felon saved me. He was a skeletal man in his 50’s with fingertips that were blunt and burned from hard labor and the hot glass of crack pipes. He’d been a high-ranking militant and former prison hit man decades ago.

I was a depressed teenager with father issues facing 67 years to life for two violent felonies. I would’ve made a perfect soldier. Instead of recruiting me, he spent nights in our cell convincing me to never join a prison gang. He stripped the romanticism from gang life and showed me that I would never find the love I wanted in a gang. I listened to him because he barely knew me, but he loved me.

Legislators meet this month about how Proposition 57 can cost-effectively reduce prison overcrowding while maximizing society’s safety. When they meet, they should remind themselves why Alcoholics Anonymous succeeds.

Recovering alcoholics make passionate and effective proselytizers for sobriety. Love born of empathy exists between recovering alcoholics and alcoholics who have not yet started AA. The same phenomenon operates in people sentenced to indeterminate terms, like 25 years to life — we call them lifers — who committed violent crimes in the past but have reformed.

I’ve dedicated my life to stopping violence, and I learned that dedication from violent felons. They taught me that my violence as a teenager stemmed from unresolved traumas I experienced as a child. I took classes taught by violent felons to learn how to help other incarcerated people stop their cycles of violence. And it works. Often the men who’ve found healing show the same urgency to pay it forward as I feel.

Most lifers become eligible for parole after a fixed term like 25 years. The corrections department reported that of the lifers released in the 2009- 2010 fiscal year, 0.3 percent returned to prison for new felonies. Compare this to the national recidivism rate of 60 percent. It’s clear that reformed lifers are the safest people to release.

Given that California is obligated under federal court order to stop deadly prison overcrowding, why not release people with passion and life experience to decrease violent crime? Imagine the social transformations that would be possible.

Actually, you don’t have to imagine. Several reformed lifers have been paroled and they’re changing their communities. For example, Malachi Scott was paroled in 2013, and today he’s leading restorative justice groups, teaching empathy and responsibility for one’s community in the Bay Area.

There are many lifers like Scott ready to serve. Under Prop 57, they’re eligible for 20 percent time reduction credits while other prisoners are eligible for 50 percent time credits.

I ask that legislators take steps to give these people back to their communities by making violent offenders eligible for Prop. 57’s 50 percent time reduction credits and by applying the credits retroactively. I ask that readers contact their local representatives and ask them to extend 50% time credits to people like me.

Attribution: This article originally appeared in The Mercury News on April 24, 2017.
Read Story