Now that I’m pretty much a full-time resident of the Special Housing Unit, I can say with authority that it’s a very different experience than being in a federal prison camp. The SHU is filled with guys who are serving long-term prison sentences, and many of these guys are simply lost in the system. They’ve become nothing but their inmate numbers, not names with personal histories attached. They have no voices on the outside, no one to let them know what’s going on in the world, and no avenue to change this. Some people have committed rape, murder, or child sex crimes, but a vast majority are here for drugs. So while a DEA agent is one step closer to a promotion, a prosecutor has furthered his aspirations of becoming a judge, and the judge has cemented his legacy of being tough on crime, a person is now thrown away in the eyes of society. A father is now gone from his children’s lives, and a mother is left alone to raise them. A community has lost yet another uncle, friend, cousin, and child. The drugs will not stop infiltrating your towns and cities, addiction rates will continue to increase, prisons will keep becoming more and more populated, and the most likely candidates for the next big bust will be the newly incarcerated man’s children. I want to write about these men, share their stories with a world that they have disappeared from. I want to put a different perspective on what prison really is, what it really does, and who the real victims are. To a simpleton, the saying “if you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime” is the reaction when anyone gets real about prison reform, but I hope my readers can see past that and see these prisoners as people, not statistics.

The first thing I noticed about Michael Avila is that he is extremely intelligent and well-spoken. He is fluent in both English and Spanish, and he also serves as a translator between the two languages. I’ve also heard from different inmates calling to him to ask his opinions on their disciplinary problems. When the higher-level employees of the prison come through, Mike frequently asks them insightful questions that often leave them fumbling for answers. From beginning to talk with him through the doors between our cells, I learned he was into sports and current events, both of which are not easy to obtain information on in the SHU. I am lucky enough to have a sister who writes to me nearly every day, sending me articles about sports and what’s going on in the real world. I started sending these articles to Mike, and I realized he’s the kind of guy I would smoke a blunt with, someone I’d go to a bar with. As I learned more about him, I felt the inspiration to share his story with the world outside these walls.

Mike is from Houston, Texas, a fact he proudly wears with a tattoo across the top of his back. He is of Mexican descent and grew up on the north side of Houston in what he describes as “the hood.” Raised by a single mother who had very little education in a community where you could be killed for simply wearing the wrong colors, his early childhood could not be more different from mine. At the age of twenty-six, he was arrested and charged with conspiracy of possession with intent to distribute five kilograms or more of cocaine. He was sentenced to twenty years.

I asked Mike what emotions he felt as the judge handed down his two-hundred-and forty-month sentence. His answer? “An unexplainable feeling… like maybe when I die, I’ll remember at that moment, ‘Oh yeah, this is what it felt like.'” In short, it felt like being told that your life is over. The end. I will not soon forget the feeling I had as the judge sentenced me to sixty months, and I can’t even begin to imagine what it would feel like to be sentenced to four times that amount.

When I first started asking Mike questions about his life, he brought up the term “cycle of struggle,” which struck me as an interesting concept. Coming from a two-parent, suburban, church-going, white, middle class family, I’d never experienced or witnessed a cycle of struggle before I became involved in the prison system. I think it’s natural for any child to grow up assuming that his or her circumstances are normal, like every child in America experiences the same privilege. When we become adults, we can choose to continue to be that naive, or we can listen to the struggle others have gone through and try to see things from other perspectives. For Mike, like many inmates in federal prison, ending up here was as much a part of life as going to college would be in an affluent community. All he knew was a mother struggling to provide for her family, living paycheck to paycheck. Mike witnessed his mother’s struggle, saw her never have a chance to relax, never have the time to be a mom. She did the best she could, and his love for her pours out in his words when he speaks of her. Now, on the outside, she’s experiencing health problems, and he’s in here with no hope of seeing her should the worst happen. Imagine having one wish—to see your sick mother before she’s gone from this world—and knowing that your wish won’t be answered.

While Mike makes it clear that his circumstances are not an excuse for his current situation, it is much easier to talk about rising up out of a tough upbringing than it is to actually do it. Since I’ve been incarcerated, I’ve read a book by Ray Lewis where he talks about how he rose up from his impoverished upbringing, being beaten by stepfathers, and being surrounded by gang violence to become the greatest linebacker of all time. The book was an interesting read, but it left out an important fact: not everyone is as talented as Ray Lewis. Where, then, does this leave the countless people who have no example of success that they can follow? For Mike, what he saw growing up was gangs, drugs, and domestic violence with very little hope of making a difference to avoid the path everyone around him seemed destined for. Though he had sports to look forward to while he was in school, rather than being recruited by sports scouts for top colleges, an eighteen-year-old Mike found himself already married and starting a family.

Mike had connections in Mexico, and he saw the drug business as his way to move his family up a level in society. He was 100% committed to providing a better life for his children, wife, and mother. It’s easy to be someone who grew up in completely different circumstances and judge his actions as illogical and unreasonable, but the reality is that none of us know what we would do if our lives were different. If you had one parent instead of two. If you went to sleep hungry every night instead of well-fed and read to. If you had to watch your back while walking to school, making sure your clothes didn’t have the wrong color on them at the risk of being shot instead of having a mom or dad to drop you off.

Mike lived the drug business life for some time. He had three children who he still loves dearly and stays in regular contact with, and—even more telling to the kind of person he is—his wife continues to remain his loyal spouse despite him being in prison for the last twelve years. He misses his family and the times they shared together; he told me about the Mexican parties where all you need is music, a truck with an ice cooler in the back, and something to grill. But even the sweetest memories in prison are complicated by the bitterness of regret. Mike regrets that the business life got him lost in the web of money and drugs. The lines blurred a little, and he lost his focus. Family. It was always supposed to be about his family.

On December 16th, 2008, Mike was pulled over and arrested. He spent almost the entirety of the next year in county jail awaiting his court date. When the day finally arrived, Mike’s lawyer gave him two potential plea bargains. The first one: he could sign a statement saying that his brother-in-law and the guy who was driving the vehicle were part of the conspiracy, and he would receive ten years in prison. The second: he could refuse to sign and he would get twenty years. The truth was his brother-in-law was not involved with his dealings, but as is common in these cases, the prosecution did not care what the truth was. Mike would not send his innocent family member to prison for a crime he didn’t commit, so he took the full twenty years. The prosecution used an old marijuana conviction he’d received probation for to enhance his sentence from a mandatory minimum of ten years to one for twenty years. This is the common practice of federal prosecutors who gain appointments and promotions based on the number of human beings they incarcerate and the number of years these human beings are locked away for. Mike’s lawyer got 100 grand richer, the prosecutor took another evil drug dealer off the street, the conviction rate for the feds went up, the judge showed he was tough on crime, and not a single person looking to buy a bag of cocaine in Houston went without. Real effective. Now Mike’s children are growing up without a present father, his wife is a single mother doing her best to raise her children, and the cycle of struggle continues.

And while prison is a normal part of life for the people Mike grew up around, he got a real wake up call when his brother received a 75-year sentence in Texas. The gist of Mike’s story is all too familiar. If it isn’t already clear to you, then let me lay it out: the prison system is built on drug convictions.

What truly separates Mike from other inmates is his attitude. Despite his circumstances, he doesn’t allow himself to feel defeated. He stays committed to being an integral part of his family members’ lives, and he betters himself in every way available to him. He told me that he asks two questions to inmates who have been down awhile: “Where were you mentally, physically, emotionally—and most importantly—how much knowledge did you have when you got to prison?” Then: “What have you done to improve yourself to make a difference and be happy and successful when you leave?” I have found that these questions apply not only in prison, but in any stage of life. You can either become a robot in prison like many guys do—watching T.V., working the bullshit jobs they give you, and basically wasting away your life—or you can refuse to be imprisoned in your own mind. You can take a twenty-year sentence and use it to gain knowledge. Mike has completed 80 programs during his time in prison, and his main focus is real estate management and starting an LLC. The funny part about prison is that there are two types of classes. One is run by guards, which gives you more credits. One is run by inmates, which typically gives you more education. Imagine that.

Before I got shipped to the SHU, I had a person who followed my content message me. They said that I always point out the flaws in the prison system, but don’t give enough solutions. The person who sent the message is actually a state attorney. So I asked Mike what he thought of the prison system and asked him how he would change it. His answer is as follows:

“It’s a big joke. Or really, a big business. I say this because the staff in the BOP doesn’t care about corrections or rehabilitation. The programs are a joke. I would make it mandatory for inmates being released back into society to have learned at least three vocational training courses, or at least have earned one degree. Maintain a job while in prison that will translate to the streets, one that grants you certification in that field. With mock job interviews. It’s simple shit a kid could come up with, but it seems that the prison system is mostly interested in housing inmates in human warehouses.”

The first thing I would like to address is the belief (read: propaganda) given to the public by the BOP that everything Mike mentions is already taking place in federal prison. I took the Auto VT course given by Mr. Mayson at the camp. This course was considered the best class available at the camp, and it was six months long. The entire six months of the course, I saw Mr. Mayson once. He got us all together the week before the attorney general, Senator Lindsey Graham, and other politicians visited our institution to celebrate the First Step Act. He made a big deal about us showing up and making it all look good. They ended up just locking us in our dorms while those people came in and hand-picked inmates that would be allowed to speak. For the rest of the six months, we referred to the class as Napping 101. The program on the computer we learned from was made in 1995. Our fellow inmate instructor had us miss questions on the initial tests, then gave us the answers when the test actually counted. For Mr. Mayson, this meant his classes had a 100% graduation rate. A lot of guys simply paid the prison instructor to do all their work for them. This class guarantees you a job at Meineke when you get out of prison. Needless to say, I wouldn’t go there to have my car worked on.

This is the case with everything the BOP offers. Think about it. What job in the world today requires absolutely no use of modern technology? Even when modern technology is available to us, computer classes here use Windows XP, which has been obsolete for over a decade. You can take “college classes” from unaccredited universities through correspondence courses, but imagine really trying to learn anything that applies to the modern world without the Internet. Inmates should at least have access to the same kind of Internet they provide in public schools.

I like the spirit of Mike’s opinion, but I would take it a step further. I believe every non-violent offender should be given a plan of release that caters to each individual offender and offense. Instead of giving out a twenty-year sentence, why not make a list of accomplishments one must reach to re-enter society? If someone spends five years getting an education and preparing themselves to re-enter the world as a good father and citizen, is that not better than spending twenty years doing nothing but costing the taxpayers money, waiting for release, and falling into a cycle of recidivism? I think it’s time we take a fresh approach to imprisoning our fathers and mothers, our daughters and sons.

The War on Drugs is a failure, and the real victims are the addicts who die due to unregulated drugs, not to mention the taxpayers who not only pay to house inmates but also pay to raise the children these inmates leave behind, the families themselves left without fathers, mothers, or both, and the inmates who lose years of their lives. A lot of people will immediately dismiss the idea of ending the war on drugs, but let me explain a perspective you might not have thought of. I agree that the concept behind the war on drugs is admirable. “Let’s stop people from becoming addicts by making the drugs illegal.” What’s not to love, right? The ironic part is that many of the same people who believe in this philosophy say that making guns illegal won’t stop gun violence, yet somehow, making drugs illegal will prevent addiction? The same concept applies. The realities of both situations are incredibly more complex than that.

I was addicted to OxyContin. I have many friends who’ve died of heroin addiction. The sister of the girl I love most in the world died from fentanyl-laced heroin. When you leave drugs unregulated, it doesn’t make fewer people use them. Every statistic of addiction shows this to be true. By legalizing drugs, you make the drugs inherently safer. You take away the need for street justice. You take money away from organized crime, and instead you add money to the country via taxes. You lower the cost of the prison system. You lower the cost of the justice system. With the money earned from taxes on legalized drugs, you invest in addiction counseling, drug awareness, and programs for kids to give them things to do instead of turning to drugs. You put fathers back with their families. You put money back into the communities most affected by the war on drugs, and you create a way out of the cycle of struggle. Until the war on drugs is over, guys like Mike will continue to be buried behind a wall. Someone else will take his place. The prosecutor will end another life. The judge will show their commitment to ending crime. And every rich white person looking for a gram of coke while they’re at a bar in Houston will find one. This is our system. This is what we do to our citizens, and this must change. I know change doesn’t happen overnight, and change doesn’t come from one person writing a letter that gets posted on the Internet. But together? Together we are many, and they are few. The naysayers, big prison business, and unjust justice system will all be eclipsed by the power that comes from us uniting together. Together we can change the world.

-PrisonDaddy

P.S. Mike would love to hear from anyone who feels moved by his story. You can find him on BOP.gov by searching for Michael Avila, inmate #16237-078. He also has a Facebook page: Clemency Michael Avila. Please sign his petition. He hopes his story will reach people with a platform like Kim Kardashian, people who are actively working on prison reform. He wants to shout out love for his family, friends, and city. Final words from Mike: “Rest in Peace, Edgar Garcia. Wish I was throwing thousands of $1s with you from the second floor of St. James again.”