Inmate on Advisory Council

One of our interns, Emily, received the message below from a prison inmate serving a life sentence without parole. Emily has helped us recruit subject matter experts to be part of our Corrections Advisory Council. Their purpose is to help improve our program design in juvenile detention centers and schools. We thought it was only appropriate to include an inmate to ensure we are accounting for the perspective of those we serve. The letter reads…

Emily,

When [CORRECTIONS OFFICER’S NAME] first sent me your because I said I would card I would have never thought I’d be where I am now with it. This idea of keeping a promise, no matter the difficulty, has given me some tough thoughts to chew on.

I have been ruthlessly reshaping my life for the past 20 years. Seeing myself as a man who had no worth while serving time in solitary confinement started my commitment to be the best version of myself that I could be.

I was convicted for aggravated murder, my codefendant shot and killed [VICTIM’S NAME] while we were robbing the convenience store she worked at. I was held accountable to her murder as if I had committed it myself.

Being convicted of a murder I didn’t commit and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole made me a very angry person. I was 18 years old and I was going to serve the rest of my life in prison. What was there left for me?

I fought, gambled, did any drug I could find, drank, and played at prison politics. I was unrepentant and in fact believed I was the victim. I spent the first ten years of my sentence drowning out reality, suppressing any real accountability of my actions.

I changed in that moment and made a promise to myself, if it was written on one of your cards it would have read, “I will become a person [VICTIM’S NAME] would have been proud of.”

That all changed with my time served in solitary confinement. I woke one day, quite literally, to the thought that I could die right now in this cell and no one would truly care. How had my life come to this, sitting in a cell 10 feet square at 28 years old?

I changed in that moment and made a promise to myself, if it was written on one of your cards it would have read, “I will become a person [VICTIM’S NAME] would have been proud of.”

I was lucky enough to have a good friend to help me realize my self-improvement, who came along with me and has helped himself along the way. This change in my paradigm was not easy, and I needed him as an accountability coach.

 I’ve made my own cards, using card stock and hand printing the words because I said I would… on them. I hand them out to my Redemption and Yoga students

I am on the right path today, I live my life to be of service to others rather than to be of service to myself. I’ve spent the past 10 years mentoring other inmates through my commitment to the Redemption Project. I have reached out of prison and helped people in need by making hand bound vision journals for battered women and children’s shelters and quilts for the homeless, I teach fitness management and am a yoga instructor. I teach four yoga classes a week to my fellow inmates where my focus is on trauma informed yoga.

I want to thank you for helping me in my transformation. I’ve made my own cards, using card stock and hand printing the words because I said I would… on them. I hand them out to my Redemption and Yoga students, I ask them to make a promise to themselves. I also ask releasing inmates to leave me a letter they have written to themselves. Asking them to write about their hopes and dreams for the future and to make promises to themselves. I mail this letter to them three months after they have been released. Hopefully when they get this letter from themselves they will be reminded of their hopes and dreams, and correct any behaviors that could result in them returning to prison.

I hope I can be of use to you and your organization. Thank you for being a source of positivity. I will never know if I have become someone that [VICTIM’S NAME] would be proud of, but therein lies my salvation, constant effort to become better today than I was yesterday.”

Because I said I would Chapters in prison focus on building self-control through character development workshops and volunteerism. Unlike this inmate, many of our chapter members will be released from prison one day. We hope our programming can decrease violent criminal activity and reduce recidivism rates with the inmates we serve.  Thank you to all of our donors who help make this program possible. You are helping keep communities safe.