Coming home the difficult transition from federal prison to society
e
plus r equals o
or event plus response equals outcome
i was 13 years old when i realized i had
to do something
i watched as my mother worked two jobs
to take care of my sister and i
have little to show for it i watched
this
crack cocaine decimated my community
i watched as many of my friends mothers
became addicted to crack cocaine
i watched as my friends came to school
with pockets full of money
and purchased their lunch while i ate my
free lunch
my friends who used to share pants with
me and others
in order to make it through the week
without wearing the same outfit
they were coming to school with new
clothes and new shoes
they were able to do the things we had
always wanted to do in the past
and this was in eighth grade i was
starting to
see that selling drugs was becoming more
and more popular
in my environment let me refer to this
quote from napoleon hills classic book
think and grow rich when men first come
into contact with crime
they abhorred if they remain in contact
with crime for a time
they become accustomed to it and endure
it
they remain in contact with it long
enough
they finally embrace it
growing up i witnessed all types of
crime
my early role models were numbers
runners and drug dealers
it was common to witness fighting
shooting drug transactions robbery and
more
i soon became a participant in these
crimes
and by the age of 14 i began selling
drugs
it seemed as if everyone around me was
selling crack
so i soon followed suit
i sold crack and over the years i became
very good at it wasn’t long before i was
a
big time drug dealer or kingpin
i had made a name for myself in the
streets and i was well respected
but was it worth it
i stand before you today speaking from a
position of experience
i served 17 years of a 30-year federal
prison sentence
my release date was 2026
before i had my sentence reduced to 20
years
that reduction in my sentence was a new
lease on life
i have been home now a little over five
years
i came home focused i was a certified
personal trainer
so my first job was at the gym i looked
the part
and i loved the job but things did not
work out
and i left i had many other jobs after
that
and i used each of the stepping stones
and i learned from all of them
i went on to become a loss prevention
agent
at a local gross grocery store chain
before getting a job at a beer warehouse
where i learned to operate a forklift
and became a certified beer server
after that i became a certified peer
support specialist
in the realm of mental health and
finally
a licensed north carolina real estate
agent
i am a homeowner i sit on the board of a
non-profit organization
fathers united i founded my own
non-profit organization
versatile development group i am the
brand ambassador for a non-profit
organization
village minded i’m a mentor a life coach
uh inspirational speaker and a member of
the deli eagle speakers bureau
i have a millionaire for mentor mr
joelle dudley
i’ve had my artwork displayed in
galleries and i’ve sold pieces
all over the united states
i did all this in spite of my 17 years
of incarceration
but i was not always this focused and
took a considerable amount of growth
to get to this point
early in my incarceration i was very
bitter i was a 24 year old boy when i
left society and i was mad at the world
i felt there was no way i deserved a
30-year sentence
i was in an institution with a lot of
guys with life sentences
i was surrounded by individuals who had
little to look forward to
the energy was low and it soon rubbed
off on me
i started to feel as if i may as well
have been given a life sentence
when my attitude only got worse when i
got my first cell mate
i ended up with a guy with five years
i hated this dude i hated the fact
that he had a five year sentence and he
cried about it every day
he cried about his five-year sentence to
a guy with a 30-year sentence
at some point i decided i was going to
kill my cell mate
i don’t know where i came up with this
stupid plan
but i made the mistake of sharing my
intentions
with some of my life for buddies
well i got screamed on and cursed out
badly for it
this big dude from indianapolis named
big ale
let me have it he called me stupid
and a lot of other things i could not
repeat
he told me to stop crying and to be glad
that i had to exit date
he said that his exit date was when he
was deceased
see big ale understood that although he
walked in that prison
that he would be carried out in the box
well i was embarrassed by the way big l
screamed on me
but i was also not crazy see big air was
the largest human
i have ever seen plus he had a life
sentence
so i just listened to him and i changed
my attitude
big air changed my life that day that
was
one of two major points of
transformation i experienced
while incarcerated the second
toastmasters international came to
pollock louisiana while i was housed
there
toastmasters was an international
speaking organization
i learned while attending their first
meeting that they boasted a one percent
recidivism rate
in their workshops in the state
we were to be the first established
chapter in federal prison
that was all the convention i needed i
joined
joining toastmasters was a great move on
my part
it helped to make me a more confident
communicator
it also set me on course to becoming an
internationally recognized
inspirational speaker
toastmasters was a breath of fresh air
to all of its members
we were in a hostile environment with
very little solace
our meetings became our solace
it was saddening to me when i was
shipped to another institution
and they did not have toastmasters
i tried to get the program implemented
at every institution i touched after
that but they were reluctant
fortunately for me not long after
leaving pollock louisiana
i had my sentence reduced to 20 years
that left me with roughly five years to
my release date
i spent every day of that five years
preparing for my release
when i was released july 1st 2015
i was ready i felt i was prepared for
every variable the world had for me
i had my family support in place i had
my short-term goals and my long-term
goals written down
i had even vowed to abstain from female
contact for 30 days after my release
in order to concentrate on what was
important
i immediately began my job search and i
immediately ran into problems
i could not figure out how to explain
the 20-year gap
in employment
i didn’t have a car so that eliminated
me from many positions
i wasn’t allowed to use my cell phone in
the halfway house
in order to check my email messages
my son had a child had two more on the
way
by two different women my mother did not
live on the bus route
so when i moved in with her i had to
walk two miles daily to the bus stop
despite these obstacles i was able to
overcome them
and find employment however
many come home who have far more
obstacles and far less support
what happens to those individuals a good
friend of mine came home after
18 years he could not get around to
questions
about his past so he lied about it
he did not answer truthfully when asked
if he had ever been convicted of a
felony
well he got the job did well at the job
and they loved
me but at some point they found out
he lied on his application and he was
released
even though he was perfectly capable of
doing the job
and had been doing it for a time
fortunately for him
he was able to find something equally
rewarding at another company
the truth is that even after serving our
debts to society
we are treated as second-class citizens
we are faced with many obstacles and
many are not able to overcome them
mentally they often revert to old
behavior and re-offend
76 percent of state inmates reoffend
and 44 percent of federal inmates
reoffend
our prison population is over 2 million
and we have not changed our approach to
incarceration
yet my story is an exception to the rule
i’m a licensed real estate agent because
of persistence
not because the door was opened at all
i recently published a manual to help
individuals
coming home from prison i outlined 10
steps that i took
to increase my chances of a successful
transition
i was impacted by a video i watched
while incarcerated
it was about a guy from richmond
virginia who came home after 14 years
he had a positive attitude and a
supportive family like i did
and he went on to become one of the top
car salesmen in the city
he was featured in a commercial and he
made very good money
that video changed my outlook
before seeing that video i thought i
would be relegated to a life of
fast food jobs and minimum wage
after seeing that video i became more
ambitious napoleon hill states
in his book think and grow rich that
there is no remedy for lack of ambition
maybe that explains the higher
recidivism rates
individuals need something to look
forward to
incentive is a strong motivator for most
if you think that you will be relegated
to a life of fast food jobs and minimum
wage
then it is easier to get back into a
life of drug dealing and stilling
there’s high risk but there is also
greater reward
the fifth habit in the seven habits of
highly effective people
by stephen r covey teaches you to
seek first to understand then to be
understood
if we don’t try and empathize with the
situations of our brothers and sisters
then we will never truly feel for them
as an inspirational speaker i understand
the importance
of positive reinforcement
we must try to work with these people
and change their minds mentally
if we want change golf taught
treat a man as he is and he will remain
as he
is treat a man as he can and he should
be
and he will become as he can and he
should be
i know that my story is different
i’m i i i made an exception where others
have failed
i’m i’m my fifth year as a positive
contributing member of society
i live my life for my family but i will
never forget
the people who supported me on the other
side
i would never forget how big air changed
my life
i implore you i know that there are
people
who live vicariously through me i
implore you
as members of society to let the judge’s
sentence
be the end of judgment
prison is often a result of a mistake in
judgment
mistakes are correctable if people are
allowed to learn
from those mistakes let us not forget
that some great men were incarcerated at
some point in their lives
martin luther king nelson mandela
even jesus christ and they all went on
to inspire
nations after incarceration
if we want these men and women to
succeed after incarceration
then maybe we should do what we can to
facilitate these track transactions
and not add to the many obstacles they
already face
another quote from seven habits of
highly highly affected people states
that
he who could not change the very fabric
of his thought
would never be able to change reality
and would never therefore
make any progress
i have theorized that humans are a lot
like caterpillars
when we are young is when we are most
destructive
some are more destructive than others
my point here is not the the amount of
destruction or the reason
for the destruction my focus is that
like the caterpillar at some point in
our lives we
go through a metamorphosis at some point
in our lives we change
unlike the caterpillar our change is
mental and not
physical we go into our cocoons
figuratively and come out butterflies
prison is that cocoon for many
i implore you to accept
the change and stop expecting the
butterfly
to revert back to the damage that it
caused as
a caterpillar thank you
you