“It’s about the process, not just about the image. I wanted to gather, through the excuse of art, people that normally don’t talk to each other. Suddenly, guards were talking to inmates, inmates were talking to each other. There was a lot of sense of community because of the creation of this piece.”

——

“I’ve been called a persecutor and a sellout.”

——

“I tried to assimilate, And I couldn’t. I applied for jobs everywhere. I’d go in for an interview, and they’d be reviewing my resume, and then they’d get to the application and see the box [asking about a criminal record] … and just in their body language you could see they weren’t interested anymore.”

“Having a degree — no matter how many I had, it wasn’t going to make a difference. We come home to nothing — you can’t find a job, you can’t find a place to live. People ask, ‘Why do people go back to prison?’ This is why.”

——

“Money was buying my rehabilitation.”

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