FROM LOST BOYS TO FOUND MEN
There's a population of prisoners within the United States prison apparatus that were waived from the Juvenile court system into an adult system and given lengthy prison sentences. These men have been incarcerated for the past 10-15yrs, and for alot of them they have another 10-15yrs to complete before they are even eligable for parole. This specific population of prisoners have successfully transformed from lost boys to found men despite the prison enviroment's relentless promotion of malfeasance. Just as you and every other mature adult has, these men have shed their adolescent skin, nature/time has freed them from their myopic cages, that was, their adolescent brains, leaving no resemblance of the child that came through the prison gates 10-15yrs ago. These men are, fundamentally speaking, completely different people, just as you are fundamentally different today than you were in high school.
I thoroughly and intimately know these men, for I am one of them, and I walk amongst them. We represent a small proportion of the prison population but our lights shine brightly within this cave and our hearts pound in rhythm with everything positive behind these cold walls. We want the world to know that we are here, that we exist. For waivering it's hildren into the adult prison system and giving lenghty sentences is a fairly new American trend, which makes our existense within the U.S prison population a new phenomena. So we want to give our voiceless existence a loud clear message and our invisability a form. We are the portion of the prison population, the only portion, that are well into our adulthood though we never committed a crime as adults, yet we are being forced to pay with our lives for a childhood mistake.
"Does it not come a point when one person (the man) is being punished for the actions of another person (the child) ?
Dante D. Cottingham
#259241
Posted By: Dante Cottingham
Saturday, July 16th 2011 at 2:21PM
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