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I've spent most of my life in prison. I was a prisoner of my fear and my low self-esteem.

I had a very comfortable life, but there were people who spent their life in prison, whose families were destroyed.

Prison opened my eyes to so many things. It was a great time. I met interesting people. I got to understand the behaviour of the police and the media. I am an observer of the human race.

I hit rock bottom before I even went there. Actually, prison was the rescue mission that God had put on me. He sent out his angels to rescue me. In prison, he protected me the whole time I was in there, and it was just for me to get my will power back, to get my strength back, get my focus together.

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

Life delivered me a catastrophe, but I found a richness of soul.

I wanted to go into prison and come out a better person - mentally, physically. So, I read a lot of books, got my GED while I was in there, and worked out every day. Strong body, strong mind.

I think my whole life has been shaped by my childhood incarceration in America's concentration camps.

When I was younger, I didn't have the finer things in life. It was around me - the cars, the jewelry and all of that. But I didn't have it. So I did bad things to get what I wanted. Going to jail never crossed my mind. I wish it had. When I was locked up, my mother didn't support me because she couldn't accept who I was and where I was.

I have spent a lot of time listening to people who are serving life sentences and getting to know them and the circumstances of their lives. I have never met anyone serving a long prison sentence who had anything close to what I could call a childhood; instead, the upbringings always - always - involve extreme situations of poverty and abuse.