Lesson 1: I Grew Up in a Large and Violent Prison.

It was one of the largest and most violent prisons in America.

I was arrested and locked up on August 25, 1994. I was set free on August 25, 2019.

Add that up, my friend.

That’s 25 years.

25 long years.

9,125 days!

• The prison that became my home was the maximum-security Texas State Reformatory, Texas State Penitentiary, widely known as “America’s Bloodiest Prison.” Violent conflicts among inmates there were and are to this day commonplace. Stabbings and vicious beat downs are normal.

• You see, in prison, the normal is abnormal, and the abnormal is normal.

• According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Texas State Reformatory is known for “the brutality of its past and the cruelty of its present, as scores of men are subjected to unnecessary suffering, and even death.”

• Before I went to prison, I lived more than 100 miles from Texas State Reformatory, in the city of Dallas, Texas, located near Fort Worth. Violence in non-tourist areas of the Fort Worth was not uncommon. In 1994, more than 450 people in the city died by homicide. I witnessed murders and knew people charged with murder. 

• That’s the problem! 

• Across the United States, there are many places where young people live in extremely dangerous environments.      It’s imperative that we end these webs of madness and danger that entrap young people. The madness is often labeled Street Life, Thug Life and Prison Life. Youngsters who adopt those lifestyles are only existing until they get hurt, locked up or killed. 

Listen up, young people!

• Take it from me. Stay safe and enjoy your childhood—before it’s gone!  You will never have another one.  I missed out on mine. While my friends, cousins and classmates were going to school, playing sports and video games, having fun and going to parties, I was serving hard time. My life was at risk on every one of those 9,125 days I was incarcerated.

• Sometimes, during my first years in prison, I lay on my cot (very thin mattress), closed my eyes, and wished I was back home. But then I would open my eyes, only to accept that prison was now my home.

• Prison was no playground or game. It was a real war zone with nowhere to retreat—a never-ending nightmare and a hell hole all mashed together into a huge ball of chaos.

• To make matter worse, since my brain was not fully developed or analytical—which is the case with all teenagers, according to scientific studies—it took me a while to figure out what to do and what not to do to survive. My behavior was based more so on emotions rather than logical thinking.

Vast and Furious

• Texas State Reformatory is a huge institution where people are sent after they’ve been convicted for doing dumb things that broke the law. (Note: Some of the inmates are innocent, but the majority are truly guilty of their crimes.)

• More than 6,000 inmates live in Texas State Reformatory, which makes the prison population larger than that of the average town in America . All the inmates are men. Many committed violent crimes and are serving very long sentences. Some of them will be in prison for the rest of their lives.

• The prison used to be a plantation. It is in a remote area and encompasses a vast land mass comprised of 130 square miles. About 14,000 football fields could fit onto the property. Can you imagine being trapped in such a monstrous and oppressive world, and never being allowed to go back home?

An Unusual Punishment

• Texas State Reformatory inmates have assaulted each other or fought with prison guards just about every day (on average) since the Texas state government took control of the institution in 1901. Conditions there are so horrible that a judge has ruled that Texas State Reformatory prisoners suffer an “unusual punishment.”

• Men have been murdered, raped, and driven insane at the facility.  There have been hundreds of suicides there. Sadly, I witnessed several suicides myself.

• In 2023, a woman whose brother and son were imprisoned in Texas State Reformatory for murder wrote a dreary message about them that was published by the Marshall Project. Texas State Reformatory, she wrote, “breaks men down — their bodies and their spirits — and many die there.”

• This is absolutely true. Every day I was in Texas State Reformatory, I wondered, “Will I die here?”

• I urge you: Don’t do anything that could force you to endure such despair.

I’m a nuisance.

I go stupid.

I go dumb like the Three Stooges.

-          Lyrics by Lil Wayne on the rap record, “Look at Me Now.” (The official music video has more than more than 570 million views as of January 2025)

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