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I have done prison time for 13 years without any conviction.

What happens once you get a felony conviction? Now you are entering this American caste system where you can't get a job, you can't get a loan, you can't get a Pell grant, you can't get public housing.

I've worked in the prison system for five years, and most of those folks in prison didn't have a direction.

No one can say, 'I have dropped out - I am no longer in the system.' When you're in prison, you're even closer to the system: you feel it more, and you might be in there for whatever reason. You don't transform the system as an absolute thing.

I spent five years of my youth in prison - some very bad prisons.

Being incarcerated is truly very serious, and it has changed my life to such an extent that breaking the cycle has become my sole focus. Jail is definitely not cool. Education is.

Even if I was in prison, I could be free in my head. I can adapt easily.

People who do crime do it for reward. But you end up in jail - that's no reward. Through crime, your ambitions are low.

To be in prison so long, it's difficult to remember exactly what you did to get there.

On some days in prison you might just need to get out of there, but on some days - not all days, but some - you might be able to see the sky and see the blue in it.