When I was a year old, my father went to prison for a drug-related crime; he served eight years and died when I was 12. I am currently incarcerated for murder and attempted manslaughter that occurred during a drug deal — crimes far worse than my father’s. I can say from experience that my father’s incarceration did nothing to protect society. Instead, It was an ingredient that only created bigger problems.
Growing up in the Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, with an incarcerated father made it six times more likely that I would go to prison myself. From 1980 to 2000, the number of children with a father in prison or jail increased by 500%. I am part of that statistic.
When I lost my trial in 2003, I called my sons Brandon and Nicholas to tell them about my 55-years-to-life sentence. I called from a phone attached to the dorm wall in the Los Angeles County jail. Their mother handed the phone to Nicholas, who was 8 at the time. I could hear the sniffles of my child crying on learning that his father was never coming home.
