WEBVTT

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Everything that I do is driven
by a need to redeem myself,

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with an obligation
to give back to our society.

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It all started when the metal door
slammed shut onto the cell.

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It sent shivers down my spine.

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The chamber was cold,
and it smelled of stale air.

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You know, there's something
about a door slamming shut,

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that provides an eerie level

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of finality and reflection.

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You hear the echo of it in your mind
for a long time to come.

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And as that door slammed,

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I started remembering
all that advice that my parents,

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and my teachers gave me,

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and I ignored it.

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And there I was,
with plenty of time to reflect,

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on all that information,

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that I met with disbelief,

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laughter, and scorn.

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June 24th, 1992, I made mistakes
that I couldn't fix.

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After a long night of being violent,

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I ended it with beating a man,
taking his wallet,

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then trying to run him over with a car.

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That's how, at age 17,

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that I was arrested,
charged, and convicted,

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as an adult.

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At an age where most kids are thinking
about their high school prom,

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or thinking about who
they're going to vote for next,

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I was facing 11 years.

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And while facing those 11 years,

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again I had plenty of time
to think about all of my decisions.

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After being sentenced
to prison for 11 years,

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it took,

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well, you may think that out of all
the information that I did receive,

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that somehow it would get through to me,

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but it didn't.

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Then I was finally sentenced,

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to prison, where I met some of the most
interesting people that you'll ever meet.

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(Laughter)

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I met a man who ate mice, rats, and bugs.

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This man was also serving a life sentence

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for trying to kill another man
after a drugs deal went bad.

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I watched grown men melt
into puddles of insanity,

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as their minds could no longer
take the conditions

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of the monotony of being
in solitary confinement.

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I watched massive amounts of violence,

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that included guards beating prisoners,

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prisoners being stabbed,

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and all this before I turned 18.

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And again, you would think
that with that information,

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and with what I saw,
and what I experienced,

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that that would get through to me.

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But it actually wasn't.

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It was actually one
of the most unlikeliest people,

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in one of the most unlikeliest of places
that finally did get through to me.

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And it's a man who
I'll always be grateful to.

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His name was Alamin.

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In our conversations, he would tell me
that his cell was actually his tomb,

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and that's how he would call it.

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He would say, "This is my tomb,
this is where I'm living at."

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He was serving two life sentences,

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and when there were disturbances
or things going on,

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the guards always wanted to make sure
they knew where he was,

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because they knew he was a man with no
reservations about what he might do.

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As we served our time together,

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he started teaching me a little
about the strategy of chess.

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Eventually, I started to understand

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about how to look at chess
in a whole different light.

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We were both in solitary confinement,

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but through the clutter,
through the 30 floors,

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through the constant
banging and yelling,

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I would get down on the floor and yell
my chess moves through the vent,

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and he would yell his.

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Through those chess moves,

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he would always make sure that he would
take time to execute them

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with another lesson.

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Some of those are lessons
that I started thinking about

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in that cell, that dirty,

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sometimes toilet-flooded cell.

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I started to practice virtues in life.

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And some of those virtues
that I started practicing

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were simple, yet profound.

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It all tied into chess,

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through those many years
of laying on the floor,

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playing this game.

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One, first lesson;

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respect everybody, no matter
what their differences.

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Looking at the chessboard;
respect each individual piece,

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and understand that each square
they are in is an important square.

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Two; protect the weak.

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You may look at the pawn,

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and it may appear at the beginning
of the game as the weakest piece,

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but it actually has the most potential,
more than any other piece on the board

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to actually become
the most powerful piece.

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Three; be humble.

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Play the game as if every move counts.

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And that's how you make decisions in life.

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Don't take it as a given.

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Lastly, practice restraint.

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When playing the game,
do not chase pieces;

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play the game to win.

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We used to play 10, 20, 30,

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40, games of chess.

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And tied in there,
I learned the art of losing.

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Because I lost a lot of games.

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(Laughter)

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But through our many
conversations, interactions,

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and just our ability to communicate,

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I realised that my redemption
was going to be obtained

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through education, perseverance,
and helping others out.

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I began to read, and I read a lot.

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I read everything
from Plato to Nietzsche,

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to Machiavelli to Carl Von Clausewitz.

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I read everything.

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You may be surprised, but some
of the most accessible books to prisoners

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are law books.

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They are heavy, they are really sturdy.

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Not only do they make good weights,

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but I also, through
reading those law books,

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and understanding
them a little bit better,

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realised I could fight battles
without ever having to pick up a sword.

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But I knew that I had to make sure,
and I wanted to make sure,

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that once I was released,
I was to never to return again.

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But in order to do that,
when I did get out,

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I need to make sure I educated
myself much further.

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Well, thank goodness
for fast food restaurants,

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because the fast food
industry does hire felons.

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When I got out, I started
working at Taco Bell,

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and I also enrolled at the local
community college.

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And in that local
community college,

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I started there and eventually,

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two, three colleges later,
five years later,

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I eventually graduated
with my Bachelors of Paralegal Studies.

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(Applause)

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After I graduated,
because of my volunteerism,

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and because of the fact that I did obtain
a much more formal education,

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I was granted permission
by the state of Iowa

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to actually work in a facility
with juveniles.

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Actually at the same facility
where I spent time as a juvenile.

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Currently, I supervise over 50 employees
that include case-workers,

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that include program supervisors,
residential counselors,

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and nighttime workers.

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I also provide crisis intervention
to our local police department, hospitals,

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and I also work part-time at our local
juvenile detention center.

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I was a guest there too.

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I feel as though I'm making a difference,
but that's not really enough for me,

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not at all.

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What I need to do,
and what I knew I needed to do,

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in order to affect real change,

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and in order to affect any type of policy
change on a local, state,

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and federal level, I knew that I needed

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to further my education
even more than that.

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I eventually did receive
a masters degree in criminal justice,

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and I'm very close to receiving
a PhD in criminal justice.

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(Applause)

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What I'm looking at is, "How do we work
with kids in the system?"

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We have to examine everything
that gets them where they're at.

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We have to examine the trauma that a lot
of these kids have experienced,

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We have to then introduce
trauma-informed care.

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If you take anything from what I've said,
I want you to take this;

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when you look at these kids,
when you look at them,

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even the adults, these young adults,

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I want you to look at them,

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and instead of saying,
"What's wrong with you?"

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I want you to say, "What happened to you?"

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That is the lens that will allow you
to sort of look at these people

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in a different manner, so then,

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as these policies eventually
go through the game,

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they become one of the most
powerful pieces as well.

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Currently, as I mentioned,
I'm working in this field.

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This is something
that is important to me,

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but if I could change four things

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to help facilitate the habilitation
of these juveniles,

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I want to list those out.

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Now, notice I said "habilitation".

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It wasn't a mispronunciation.

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Habilitation is what I say because

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we can't really say "rehabilitation"

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because that assumes
that you have to be able to go back

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to what you were, and a lot
of these kids were not there,

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so how can you rehabilitate someone
who was never habilitated to begin with?

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You can't.

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The first thing that I believe we need
to take a look at and focus on,

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when looking at reforming
the juvenile justice system

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is one; we need to look at the individual.

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We've got to understand
what got him or her there,

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especially if they are at a young age.

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One thing I want you guys
to realise is that this,

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what I'm talking about,
and what I'm speaking about,

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it isn't just my experience
that's making me say this,

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but this is what science says.

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The adolescent brain
doesn't fully form until age 25;

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the frontal lobe is still
not connected at all.

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What you have then
is someone telling these kids,

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"Don't do this, don't do this!"

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Not understanding that in addition
to the frontal lobe not being connected,

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you also have someone
who has also probably

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had multiple amounts of trauma,

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violence in their life
that they witnessed.

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That affects the brain on another level,

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in the way that it sees, hears,
feels things, and perceives situations.

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We need to focus on the individual,

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and that's the first
thing I want us to look at.

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Second thing is we need
to actually engage the family.

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The family need supportive
services put in there as well,

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because a lot of times,

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we work on the child,
but we don't work on the family,

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so you send the child back to the family,

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and we're right back
where we started, right?

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Is that habilitation?
That's rehabilitation there then, right?

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That's not what we want;
not that type of rehabilitation.

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We have to work
with them at the same time.

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You have to work with the family,
you have to work with the child,

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and you have to create
a child interaction plan,

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that will allow them to go back;

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The child with the right tools,

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and the family with the right pieces
of services placed in there

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to support them
with what's going on in their lives,

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and their individual, diverse situations,
whatever those might be.

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Third; I want us to really,

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and this is one of the more
personal things for me

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is that we cannot allow

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juveniles to be with adults

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in prison settings.

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I have to tell you that when I first went
to the Iowa State Penitentiary,

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there was 550 prisoners there,

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I was the youngest for at least a year.

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And I was still 17,

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the neighbor to my right when I walked in
and I go to the lines of cells,

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I go to a cell, my neighbor
to the right, his name was "Shank",

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he's doing a life sentence.

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Neighbor to my left,
he's doing a life sentence,

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and he just shanked somebody.

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So what we've got then is,

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this is who is influencing our kids
when we put them in there.

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Then, my first cellmate
was a 50-year old man,

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who was in there
for second-degree murder.

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And I'm 17.

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Again, he had the whole thing going on,

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from the "three-time loser" on his arms,
to, you know, everything going on.

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That was my roommate;
that was my cellmate.

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We cannot continue to house
juveniles and adults together.

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That's wrong.

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(Applause)

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Lastly, the other point
I want to make, the fourth one,

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is that we've talked about the individual,
we've talked about the family,

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we've talked about, "They've done
something; where do we put them at?"

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But then they've also got to go back
to the community, right?

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That's what shapes everybody
as they're growing up, is the community.

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We need to re-establish
community connections.

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Those community connections
have to involve job opportunities,

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they have to involve the ability
to complete education,

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school, because school
was one of my saviors.

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And they also have to be able
to engage in community service.

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Everybody here has a choice,
and that choice is simple.

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You can either continue to invest

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in prisons, and we do, a lot, don't we?

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We invest in a lot of prisons.

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Or we can invest in our children.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)