By: Glenn E. Martin

On Sunday night, John Legend courageously jolted Americans awake when he stated at the Oscars that, “There are more black men under correctional control than there were under slavery in 1850.” For me, exiting from a New York state prison in 2000 after serving 6 years was a rebirth. As a life-long New Yorker, born and raised in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood, my mission started to crystallize. I wanted to be a voice for the countless intelligent, earnest, and genuinely good people that I was leaving behind. Reflecting on the 2.3 million people in U.S. prisons and jails and another 5.6 million under correctional supervision, mostly young black and brown men and women, I kept asking myself, “if prison is where we send bad people who do bad things, where do we send good people who do bad things?” The hypocrisy and insidiousness of our criminal justice system …

Originally posted on Huffington Post

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