Reclaiming Our Children
EXCERPT

Well into the twenty-first century, it’s clear that we haven’t yet solved all of our problems as a nation. Crime is a major issue well beyond epidemic proportions in our society. Deviant behavior among our children has increased dramatically: Children are murdering each other at school; children are murdering their parents and committing suicide in record numbers. I submit to you that we’re on the verge of losing the vast majority of this generation’s youth. Sadly, we’re crushing our children’s dreams and goals, opening the door for them to be seduced away by glorified criminal elements. Another equally saddening reality is this: Along with increases in crime come growing rates of incarceration.

Yet to the surprise of many, I hold that not everyone who commits a crime is a criminal. Yes, it’s true: Many of our nation’s children have erred in judgment that does not however make them criminals. Criminals consciously commit crimes with narrow goals in mind: power and/or financial gain. Other, non-criminal persons commit crimes because they are influenced or deceived into doing so. Yet our prison systems are full of these types of men and women who’ve merely made mistakes, errors in judgment.

Twenty-three years ago I was one such person, 22 years of age, very kind-hearted, impressionable, naïve to the trappings of the world. In 1985, the year that would change my life for years to come, I was duped into committing a crime, and before I knew it my life had begun to change forever. Having landed the in the Federal Corrections System, it would be almost 11 years later before I’d have another opportunity to resume ordinary life and be together again with my family. But that very time wrought many newfound experiences upon my then-young, impressionable mind. Many of these experiences would later serve as scars that would remain to serve as reminders to me of deeply imbedded emotional wounds.

I was raised in northern California, the son of a gifted minister and a devout Christian mother. One would think this environment should have contained all the makings for well-reared children whose subsequent lives would remain unblemished. However this was not the case with me, for as gifted and talented a minister though my father was, and though he could preach a sermon that would stir the soul of the strongest atheist and bring folks to tears, as I witnessed on many occasions as a youth, he wasn’t rightfully prepared for the responsibilities of fatherhood. I felt closest to him as a youth; I was his first-born son and everyone around me knew it. I was raised in a stable home, and looking back I realized my parents did the best job of rearing us they knew how at that time. It wasn’t until I was much older and had been incarcerated for a few years that I’d realize how much preparation for life I hadn’t received.

I came to understand that despite growing up with both parents at home, I’d never developed a truly personal and meaningful relationship with my father. To this day, I know very little of my father’s childhood, teen-age or young adulthood; he never shared his childhood stories with me. It seemed to me the older he became, the more distant he grew and the more disconnected from involved fatherhood. Being raised in “Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood” stained me with a sort of naiveté about life beyond the bubble I knew. As a child I had no clue how ugly people could be and as a teenager, looking back, I was a bit too trusting. This would later be my downfall that would lead to my physical hiatus.