TAZ

This is the story of one of the young men in here. Many days, as I write down in my journal all that’s transpired, I come across moments of clarity about people. It’s a deeply felt sense that “this one” will make it. I’ve felt that way for a long time about Taz. Prison is a horrible experience. I know for the vast majority of law-abiding citizens, what happens behind bars is “just desserts for bad people.” If prisons were solely responsible for punishing and making a broken person worse, then our justice system is successful. But, that’s not what prison is for. Over ninety percent of the men and women behind bars will get out. Less than one out of three will have long-term success. That dismal statistic can be placed right at the feet of America’s love affair with retributive justice.

            Taz, I believe, will be in the minority who succeed in spite of this environment. His story offers me hope that individually people can be reclaimed and redeemed, even from the worst circumstances.

            I met Taz more than a year ago, on his first day in the college dorm. He was a young, skinny black kid with a shaved head and a smile a mile wide. “You Larry?” He asked. When I nodded that I was, he sat down. It was obvious he had something on his mind. “I don’t know if I can do this college stuff,” he told me. I asked him about his schooling. He quit when he was fifteen, got locked up at seventeen, and finally earned his GED at thirty. “I’ll turn thirty-five later this year. I haven’t been in school since my GED. I don’t write well.”

            “Well. He said well.” So many guys mess that up, but not Taz. “Tell you what. Write an essay on a person you admire. Tell me why you think so highly of them and let me critique it.” Two days later he came back with a hand-written three page piece about his grandmother. It tore at my soul. He’d been abandoned by his mom and left in the care of his grandmother. He’d gone the wrong way and found himself at seventeen facing capital murder charges. They arrested him there in his grandmother’s living room.

            “She came to court every day I was there. Visited me twice a week at the jail. Every time, she told me she loved me.” His story, his essay, stuck in my head the entire school year as Taz struggled at times with the demands of college. Every week I’d edit and re-edit drafts of his papers. He never gave up. Not once did he ever say he was going to quit. He never cheated; he never failed to complete an assignment.

            He finished the college program with a solid “B” average. I had the privilege of meeting his grandmother and his mother (she’s grown up as well in these last eighteen years).

            Taz and I talk regularly. The other afternoon he came by to talk to me. “I need your opinion on something,” he said. I was all ears. He wanted to know how to handle explaining these past lost eighteen years.

            “I’m going to live in Northern Virginia with my uncle. He’s retired military. His connections, well he’s been able to arrange a few interviews. But, I’m scared what people will say. “And then he added this, “My grandma, she’s never given up on me. I won’t let her down, or my uncle’s who’s taking me in, giving me a chance.”

            I learned about Taz’s past. He was a gang leader and killed a man. He took a plea – eighteen plus, for second degree murder of a rival banger. Seventeen years old and he’s sent to a level “5” (back then it was called “C” custody). He has street cred (killing will do that for you) and rank. Soon, not even nineteen, he was calling the shots for his particular gang.

            A funny thing happened. Call it a twist of fate, or divine intervention, but he found himself in the hole – solitary – for six months while he was investigated for ordering the attempted murder of a rival gang leader.

            “I was twenty-four. If the charge stuck I’d never get out. I’d do life.” So in that cell, alone, he made a deal with his God. He’d give up the gang life if he could just get a fresh start. And a funny thing happened. Within a week he was out of the hole, “insufficient evidence.”

            Over the next five years he worked to get his GED and his security level lowered. He made it down to level four, then three. Finally in 2009, he made it to level two and landed here. He still had his cred, that never leaves you. But, his days of being a leader were over.

            So I told him what I thought. I told him I believed a person can come back from anything. And, I told him there were dozens of people who would slam a door in his face, but there would be one willing to take a chance on him. “Answer honestly. You aren’t the seventeen year old gang leader who found himself in here.”

            As I thought about Taz’s journey I realized he wasn’t that unique. I don’t just mean in here. We all go the wrong way at some point. We all have fears. How will people accept us? How do we measure up especially when we know the real story of our life? As I thought about Taz I considered my own faith. Truth is, I more so than most squandered great opportunities and relationships. Somehow though I don’t think God ever gave up on me (or the Taz’s of the world).

            Prison is a horrendous place. Light still shines in here and people can leave here whole and healed. I have confidence my young friend Taz is one of those people.