News on Youtube Jan 24 2018

Im going to tell my story from going through the inside of the system itself.

My first encounter with the criminal justice system within this country was at 14 years

of age, I got into a fist fight with one of my peers and the police was called and I was

taken to jail and at the same time my family was in the process of moving to California.

We had already pretty much moved; we was just finishing out our school years and stuff like

that, and the judge didn't take anything into consideration, no mitigating factors,

he just strictly gave me 6 years and I was just separated from my family for that period

of time.

And that's like, that was the hardest thing for me was that, my family was over 2,000

miles away and I was here alone in a system that was just training me for the next level

to go to the adult system.

They pretty much just sit you in that place and they want you to become a monster because

they put you around people that's gonna enforce those same things, and that's what

they constantly do, and then from the guards to the other guys that's in there with you,

you constantly being pounded and pounded and pounded until you become like them or become

a part of what they want you to be.

And, so, I wound up I think I did a total of 18 months of that time, and the judge finally

let me go home to my family in California, but it was like, it was kind of like too late

because I was already conditioned to do what they wanted me to do, to be what they wanted

me to be, to be hard, to fight, to always want to think that someone is out to get me,

I had that kind of idea, so going to California, that was kind of magnified a thousand times

more, with the gangs out there which I didn't even know nothing about, the gang lifestyle,

all those different things, that I tried to avoid.

But, it's like, the basic thing was that, you know, you're still going to be out there

doing things that you were trained to do, that you were taught to do, that you learned.

And sometimes you just basically sitting in a cell listening to people's stories, wondering

what they did, how they do it, how do they accomplish this, but it was all negative,

never nothing positive.

So, going into California, I took that mentality with me and continued to get into trouble,

and I transitioned into the adult system.

And one thing about it is that once you get into the system, it never want to let you

go because they constantly keeps your past in front of you.

When I went to California, they had passed a new law there that said, no matter how old

the crime was, whether it was a juvenile case or whatever, we going to use it against you.

So, I think, after getting a drug case, they went back and said, well, you did this as

a juvenile, this as a juvenile, and they gave me a life sentence in prison.

And all I had was a drug transportation charge.

So with that in mind, it's like, that kind of like blew my whole world up because I had

just had a baby daughter born that same year, so it's like that's another time me and

my family are separated now.

So it was like, wow, and when you get in that system, they continue to want you to be separated

because they put all the burden on you and your family like with the phone calls, the

letters, everything gets more and more expensive.

They come and visit, they put you so far in the middle of nowhere, to where: those contacts

are hard to maintain for those people that have jobs to pay they bills and then come

and see you all the time, so it was like, my contact was constantly getting separated

further and further and further.

And beating that system, I learned that what hurt me the most is that these things are

by design.

It was by happenstance or by me just being just who I am; it was by design.

These things designed and I fell into the traps.

And I look back at how people talk, even in my own community like, "well you did it

you deserve it.

You deserved this, you did that, you shouldn't've sold those drugs."

And I'm like, well, ok.

The time should always fit the crime.

It should never be a point just to make money off of me, cause that's what they were doing.

I could sit around all the times in the cell and hear the guards talking, like: "I got

all this overtime this week, I'm making $100,000 more this year because of the overtime

that these guys are letting me make."

I'm thinking like, "wow, it's like I'm a commodity."

And when I see the way they were doing this: we were just warehouse.

There wasn't no, nothing to teach you, nothing to make you better yourself.

If you didn't take the initiative yourself, you wasn't gonna get better.

It was just a warehouse to house a product.

And if you refused to work like they wanted you to work, they would penalize you, give

you more time because you didn't want to work and make money for them, so, it was like,

it just...this systemic problem that we have in our society is ripping up our communities

in the poor areas of our country at alarming numbers, and I just wonder: what are we going

to do about it?

And that's why I'm telling my story because I don't want people to always think that

your kid is just bad, your kid is just getting in trouble, or your loved one is just constantly

messing up because that's what he want to do.

There's a real system out there that's designed to paint you that way, and to make

you always think about people that way.

And my personal experiences...it's nothing good, it's nothing good.

We always got to be there to support one another because when I was in that cell, 14 years

old, missing my family, being so far away from them, that was devastating because I

felt like I was on my own, and that transformation became easier to become a monster, to do what

they want you to do because you feel like you have no support.

And they kind of take advantage of that, and I just want y'all to know that you got to

support your families.

They get into trouble, your friends: support them and understand it's a system out there

designed to put us in that time of situation.

Thank you for your time.