My name is Jaun B., I’ve been in prison for 47 (forty seven) years now. Before coming to the realization that I was misguided, deceived, and living between worlds – between two kingdoms really – my goal was to pretty much make a name for myself by being the worst person you’d ever want to mess with. I committed a terrible offense in 1978, I was prosecuted in 1981. Between Juvenile Hall and prison, I’ve been on the streets about 141⁄2 years of my life.
I completely changed the course of my life many years ago, and I’m proud to be able to say and live by the fact I will never make another victim.
Back in the 1980’s and late 1990’s (as justice system politics fluctuate), everyone told me, “you’re never getting out.” Hopelessness is something I had bought into – and with it being so easy to get in trouble in prison, it was all the more reason to kiss hope goodbye and instead run violent prison politics to the ground with others on the mainline.
I want the younger generation to know that gang life is so deceiving, [connect]
you start thinking “I’m signing up for this because this is my family.” But I learned the very hard way that was just a BIG lie.
Youth can fall into the trick of gang life through several unfortunate situations, but if you know what not to get involved with upfront, you can suffer through those unfortunate situations knowing that doing the right thing will always pay off, and you will eventually become a force for good and not evil. You have to know and believe that about your life, make it who you are.
Some examples of those unfortunate situations can be: indifferent, overly busy, or overly strict parents…it can leave their kids feeling abandoned. Broken homes and dysfunction, whatever the case may be, when you are feeling lost, its so easy to become attached and to identify with a group of people that feel the same way, e.g. “Oh yeah, my parent(s) are like that too.”
*but that distorted ideas of success is so dangerous. | not “is so dangerous.”
Allowing myself to live two different lives is something that stands out to me where I went wrong as a young teenager. I played basketball and had my normal good friends, but then I also had my active gang member friends I should have stayed away from. I even had separate clothes depending on who I was hanging out with. I would be invited to a clean party with my school basketball friends, but they would ask me not to bring my other friends they knew I had. It was those people who knew better and were my real friends, but it took me a long time to realize that.
“I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice [i.e. suffer when that’s what it takes to……..
do the right thing, to follow the actual teachings of Christ], holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what’s good and acceptable and perfect.” —Romans 12:1-2