I was 5’6” tall and only 125 pounds. This is what I tell people when they ask what was it like being in prison at 16. Even before I pled guilty there was no real consideration given to my size, my immaturity or the prospects for my survival as I was placed in jail cells and blocks with adults. I hadn’t won a fight in years and couldn’t imagine be locked inside a cell with men as violent as reports about prisons in Virginia said. The court process was concerned with whether I was guilty or innocent; my family was lost, trying to figure out how I’d gotten myself in handcuffs.
An eight-year sentence left with me time to piece together what led me to pick up a gun and carjack a man, searching for the answers I couldn’t give the judge and dealing with what it means to live in a place that is governed by violence. More than that, however, I spent time believing that I could get an education to craft my life into something more than a series of jail cells. Often, years passed and I found myself in prisons so far away from my family that I couldn’t get a visit. Phone calls were so expensive that I only heard the voices of guards, other prisoners and the sounds that came into my head as I read books and letters. I thought my release would be a way to end the nightmare of living with a mistake, but I was wrong.