New laws have passed in California that allow individuals who were sentenced to life in prison a chance to earn their freedom. Individuals that have been incarcerated for decades and defined only by the “L” attached to their sentences are going home. To me that spells wins across the board. Having been a victim of the cycle myself, I know too well that it’s the voices of  individuals like these, the OG’s (original gangster, a respectful term for someone that has been in prison for a long time) and the veterans that younger offenders will listen to. 

Only now instead of pointing young minds towards gang violence and to crime, our released lifers — our second chance citizens — are advocating for unity and education. With many youths having no positive role models, they turn to gangs for support with the same loyalty that a child has for their parents. Youngsters are going to great lengths to earn the admiration of fellow gang members. Many of them have no obvious alternatives.

It’s the individuals that have been down that road that understand the swift and deadly currents that carried them to disaster. They have the power to save lives. It’s individuals like Eddy F., an inmate at Corcoran State Prison in California serving 18-years-to-life for a gang-related shooting death that occurred in 1992. Eddy is just one of the many California lifers scheduled to go in front of the parole board in 2021. 

If found suitable, Eddy will be given a release date after serving 30 years in prison, 20 of which were spent in solitary confinement, while struggling to cut ties with the gang life. 

“We are the ones who can seek out and save kids falling into the cycle,” Eddy said to me. “We know what to look for and how to reach them.”

Once we begin to recognize the insight that Eddy and others like him have, we can begin to take action. 

As communities, it’s our responsibility to save misguided youth. I see a need for an online community, where people who want to can offer their support, where people in communities that have a need can shine a light on their youngsters. It would be place where like-minded individuals and their families and friends can come together and get the conversation started. 

How can we work together to turn our past L’s (lifers) into future W’s (winners)?

Close window X

Republish this article

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Prison Journalism Project is happy to share our writers and reporters’ stories with your print and online audiences. You are free to republish them under a Creative Commons license unless otherwise noted on the page. You can use the URL or copy and paste the story into your CMS.

Here are our ground rules:

• You must credit Prison Journalism Project. In the byline, we prefer “[Author Name], Prison Journalism Project.” At the top of the text of your story, please include a line that says: “This story was originally published by Prison Journalism Project” and include a link to the article.
• No republishing of photographs, illustrations or graphics without specific permission. Please contact inquiries@prisonjournalismproject.org.
• No editing the content, including the headline, except to reflect changes in time, location and editorial style. For example, changing, “today” to “last week,” or San Quentin to San Quentin, California. You can also make minor revisions for style or headline size, and you can trim stories for space. You must also retain all original hyperlinks, including links to the Prison Journalism Project newsletters.
• No translation of our stories into another language without specific permission. Please contact inquiries@prisonjournalismproject.org.
• No selling ads against our stories, but you can publish it on a page with ads that you’ve already sold.
• No reselling or syndicating our stories, including on platforms or apps like Apple News or Google News. You also can’t republish our work automatically or all at once. Please select them individually.
• No scraping our website or using our stories to populate websites designed to improve search rankings or gain revenue from network-based advertisements.
• Any site our stories appear on must have a prominent and effective way to contact you.
• If we send you a request to remove our story, you must do so immediately.
• If you share republished stories on social media, please tag Prison Journalism Project. We have official accounts on Twitter (@prisonjourn), Facebook (@prisonjournalism), Instagram (@prisonjournalism) and Linked In.
• Let us know when you share the story. Send us a note, so we can keep track.

Turning Losses Into Wins

by Brandon Lee Sr., Prison Journalism Project
March 9, 2021

<h1>Turning Losses Into Wins</h1> <p class="byline">by Brandon Lee Sr., Prison Journalism Project <br />March 9, 2021</p> <p>New laws have passed in California that allow individuals who were sentenced to life in prison a chance to earn their freedom. Individuals that have been incarcerated for decades and defined only by the “L” attached to their sentences are going home. To me that spells wins across the board. Having been a victim of the cycle myself, I know too well that it’s the voices of&nbsp; individuals like these, the OG’s (original gangster, a respectful term for someone that has been in prison for a long time) and the veterans that<strong> </strong>younger offenders will listen to.&nbsp;</p> <p>Only now instead of pointing young minds towards gang violence and to crime, our released lifers — our second chance citizens — are advocating for unity and education. With many youths having no positive role models, they turn to gangs for support with the same loyalty that a child has for their parents. Youngsters are going to great lengths to earn the admiration of fellow gang members. Many of them have no obvious alternatives.</p> <p>It’s the individuals that have been down that road that understand the swift and deadly currents that carried them to disaster. They have the power to save lives. It’s individuals like Eddy F., an inmate at Corcoran State Prison in California serving 18-years-to-life for a gang-related shooting death that occurred in 1992. Eddy is just one of the many California lifers scheduled to go in front of the parole board in 2021.&nbsp;</p> <p>If found suitable, Eddy will be given a release date after serving 30 years in prison, 20 of which were spent in solitary confinement, while struggling to cut ties with the gang life.&nbsp;</p> <p>“We are the ones who can seek out and save kids falling into the cycle,” Eddy said to me. “We know what to look for and how to reach them.”</p> <p>Once we begin to recognize the insight that Eddy and others like him have, we can begin to take action.&nbsp;</p> <p>As communities, it’s our responsibility to save misguided youth. I see a need for an online community, where people who want to can offer their support, where people in communities that have a need can shine a light on their youngsters. It would be place where like-minded individuals and their families and friends can come together and get the conversation started.&nbsp;</p> <p>How can we work together to turn our past L’s (lifers) into future W’s (winners)? </p></p> <p>This <a target="_blank" href="https://prisonjournalismproject.org/2021/03/09/turning-losses-into-wins/">article</a> first appeared on <a target="_blank" href="https://prisonjournalismproject.org">Prison Journalism Project</a> and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.<img src="https://i0.wp.com/prisonjournalismproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/cropped-PJP-favicon-2.png?fit=150%2C150&amp;ssl=1" style="width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;"><img id="republication-tracker-tool-source" src="https://prisonjournalismproject.org/?republication-pixel=true&post=960&ga=" style="width:1px;height:1px;"></p>

1