I was a teenager when I met Earl Gale (Shakur) in Graterford prison, in Pennsylvania. He had already been in for nearly 15 years. He was the first person I met who was sentenced to remain in prison until death. Today, he has nearly 35 years in, and he's being reviewed for commutation, which is like a pardon for good behavior. I have thought about our conversations we had many times as I grew up. Words of wisdom that could only come from someone who has been through what he has been through. Being in prison since 1992, he has lost a lot many friends and loved ones. He could use our support, with a letter or email to the board of pardons in Harrisvurg, Pennsylvania. Mr. Gale's pardon # is C - 9543 and his application # is 55839.

The irreparable damage to a persons mind begins in the county jail as they await trial. The not-knowing what's about to happen to you becomes so overwhelming that it makes you beg the court to just sentence you...to anything...just get it over with. It takes years in prison to develop the patience to handle things like that. I have spent nearly two decades of my life in prison. That's half. My friend Aaron is my age, and he has been in prison since he was 15 years old. When he was sentenced as a child, he was told "life in prison without the posibility of parole." This past December the judge was forced to re-sentence him (because the U.S. Supreme court deemed it unconstitutional to sentence a child to prison for life with no chance of parole) he was given 50 years to life. The trauma we have endured has made us who we are today. Products of a so-called justice, raised by our flawed system designed to profit from our lives. Like some sick form of torture...forced to sit in a concrete cell to generat money for a few of our contries elite. Many of us are eventually cut loose and sent back into a world unfamiliar to us. Some of us will never see your world again, but through a few pictures. Take a journey with Aaron and I as we try to make sense of it all.

When I first got out of prison I turned to websites like YouTube, Quora, and Reddit to understand a lot of the new technology and changes made to the world. As I asked my own questions, I read many about prison life. While talking to my friend Jay, I thought of asking some of the questions posted, for him and I to answer. Jay has nearly a decade in prison and has been in since he was nineteen with a sentence of life without the posibility of parole. I had also begun another episode, with a few of the mothers I know of those incarcerated, to answer some of the questions asked by the mothers of those in prison. I shall post that in the near future. I hope this helps, and feel free to email me with any other questions. I know how hard it can be, but you're not alone.

I met Stephen Poaches several years ago in the law library at a prison in Pennsylvania. Like most people in prison, he said that he was innocent. My response was always, "I can't believe you're innocent until I see it for myself (It just didn't seem likely that all of these people professing their innocents' was true after going through our judicial process - of course, later I learned how flawed our judicial process is, and that there are too many innocent people incarcerated to do nothing about it. He allowed me to read through his court papers and I did find it interesting that things the district attorney had said, and the media, didn't match up to what was on his arrest papers. Then I read that his guilt was established by his words that were spoken after being held in an interrogation room for nearly two days, without food or water and the light was left on. I had spent time in a cell under those same conditions, and it does something to your mental health. In fact, I still feel that I have trauma from that. Stephen told me that he was put on a medication called "Thorazine," which is a common medication prescribed in county jails and State prisons. They prescribe it to pacify us so that we don't act out. If you're familiar with the medication then you know that you cannot make any rational decisions while on it. I read enough of his court papers to conclude that he should be entitled to a new, and fair trial. In Pennsylvania, as many other States, there is a time limit on appealing, and Stephen is beyond that limit. People should have an opportunity to appeal regardless of any time-limitation. If there is a posibility that you're innocent what does a clock matter. So many people in our prisons have been found to be innocent many years later. Now that we know that it's a posibility, shouldn't we allow anyone the ability to appeal, even those that didn't know how, or had the money for an attorney. Thomas Jefferson stated at the inception of the composition of our Constitutional rights that he would rather see 100 guilty people go free than 1 innocent person go to jail. He and the composers of our judicial system had confidence that our courts would protect our rights. we know that has been lost now for many years. It's time we fix this, and it's time we give these men and woman a platform to speak, to let us know what happened to them.----I don't mean to resurrect emotions for the family and loved ones of the woman and her unborn child who was killed. I do believe though, I would want to be certain that the person being punished is the right person, and that the person who did this doesn't do it to anyone else. It is also interesting to note, that this was the first case that the FBI used celluar-phone data to pin point a persons location.

The reason for mass incarceration stems soley from addiction. From any angle you look, the majority of crimes committed were a direct result of drugs. It was only recently that I was introduced to Medication Assisted Treatment, ie., M.A.T., and I believe it has not only saved my life, but the lives of so many others. I also am certain that the ignorance of this treatment is leading to the deaths of thousands. Prison is a perfect place to begin addiction treatment and it is something that the DOC has negated to do. Until recently, and not because they had wanted to, but they were forced to by lawsuits like mine, See; Rokita v. Pa. Dep't of Corr., 273 A.3d 1260, 1272 (Pa. Commw. 2022). The following is a conversation with my friend McCamey. He's serving a life without parole prison sentence as a result of a drug deal gone wrong. We'll get to his story later, but for now you only need to know that he is good person and the only thing that has held him back in life, like many of us, is addiction. I want to explain to you how important it is that all inmates have access to treatment for addiction during their incarceration, and before they're released. It only makes sense to have a person addicted to drugs find which treatment works for them prior to being released. I had personally watched many be released and believed that they were not going to relapse because their words were spoken with such conviction, "I'm done with drugs, and I'll never come back to jail." I watched them return too quickly, and those I didn't see come back, I learned later that they had died. I personally sacraficed two years of my life, and spent many years in solitary confinement to see to it that this treatment began, i.e., The prison and it's staff retaliated for my lawsuits and tried to silence me. This is not a comfortable conversation but it is a conversation that we need to have. If you know someone who is suffering from addiction, set aside judgment with these words, "it's okay, just tell me what I can do to help." You may save a life.

Matthew Garcia has never killed anyone, but has been in prison for 27 years, since he had turned 18 and as it stands now, he is scheduled to NEVER come home. You may think that I'm leaving something out of the story, but that's it. In Pennsylvania there are approximately 700 people in prison serving a life without parole for 2nd degree murder, or "felony murder," and had never hurt anyone. That is, they had the intent to commit a crime when someone was killed at the scene, e.g., times are rough for you, and you go out with a friend to steal some food or money, and someone tries to stop ya and shoots and kills your friend. That is felony murder and you're getting the mandatory sentence of life without parole. Another example, and true story, your a teenage girl and you're looking out for your brother and his friend who are going to go into a convenient store and steal some snacks and the friend unintentionally kills the clerk, with or without a weapon. It would also be the same if the clerk killed the friend. Life in prison without parole for you and your brother. That's out Pennsylvania judicial system writing the rules back when the goal was to incarcerate as many people as possible for profit. I'd like to believe that the courts are going to change that soon. There are several cases in the Pa Supreme court right now that could set the change for people like Matt, and that teenage girl.

I met Aaron Wilson when I was 29 years old and I had first arrived at SCI Houtzdale in Pennsylvania. Back then that was considered the most violent prison in the State, and we have some good stories to tell. However, this is his story. He was sentenced to life without parole at the age of 15, and his two codefendants somehow walked out of the police station as they took Aaron to an adult jail, for the rest of his life. In 2016 (circa) he received notice that he was going to be re-sentenced because it was determined that sentencing a juvenile to life without parole is unconstitutional. Aaron kept postponing his sentencing hearing and I knew he was afraid of the world. He grew up in prison. Think back to when you were 15 years old and then up until the age of 40 years old, which is how old he is now. Imagine being in prison for all that time and never believing you'll ever get out. Aaron and I never spoke about our crimes because you really don't talk about it in there. Aaron was recently re-sentenced to 50 years to life and his lawyer did not appeal. I took on that task and I learned from reviewing his file that he may have not been the one who committed the murder. Listen closely to this conversation, and remember, he has been in prison since he was 15. He doesn't know the law, he doesn't understand how people act beyond reality television shows (he believes poeple in the world act the same as the people do on reality tv shows).

This is Samuel Harper's story. He has more than twenty years in a Pennsylvania prison after being charged and convicted for the death of his then wife, who was a Philadelphia police officer. This was a time when the Philedelphia streets were governed by corruption. Convictions were a means to generate profit and notoriety. It was only recently that this corruption began to be suppressed. Officers had been exposed and arrested on a regular basis. We learned that the court had a list of these rogue cops called the "do not call," to testify, because they had a reputation for beating people into confessing and mishandling evidence. Several victims of this judicial corruption had recently been released from prison after serving decades for crimes they did not commit. Many were young men or women at the time the cops beat them into confessing to a murder that they had nothing to do with. Charges were misapplied and evidence went missing in many cases during this time period. And there are still many of these innocent men and women left in prison without a voice or platform. This is Sam's voice, and we have an opportunity to bring him home