Nathan, Former Inmate
Meet Nathan, a former inmate who is taking control of his future. Nathan’s story within the criminal justice system is one of resilience and accountability.
Video transcript
Lift Me Up – Nathan
It's hard to take the high road, but it's possible. I chose when I was incarcerated to take the high road. I didn't always take the high road, s0, I know both the high and the low road. So, it really did accentuate on choice, choice and consequence. And that was the benefit for me, was the accountability, And really discovering, okay, this is nobody else's fault. This is nobody else's doing. This was me.
THIS WAS ME
Nathan
Former Inmate
Hi, I'm Nathan. Ex-inmate, ex-con, ex-parolee, just moving forward with my life.
So, my life before being incarcerated was the minority of my life. It was the first third of my life, because I started doing time when I was 15 years old. Right now, I'm 47, I've just turned 47.
Prison taught me, definitely taught me the consequences of right and wrong. Not for just the offender, but for the family that has to come drop you money, pay for lawyers, canteen, visit, augment their schedule to come out of the city to visit you if you're in the penitentiary when they've got to come from work.
So, it really, it lets you see not just the effects of your actions and your behavior on yourself, but on others. I started to realize that I needed programming. I needed anger management. I needed impulsivity classes. I needed to deal with grief and loss. I needed evictions programming. I needed to do mindfulness and meditation. I needed a higher heightened sense of awareness about my emotions, about my triggers, about things that made me make poor decisions. They look at trauma, they look at triggers, they look at impulsivity, they look at things that make us delve into criminality, violence and that type of thing. All the programs that I took, they did provide me with the information, the literature and the resources necessary to make changes in order to create success in my life.
If you remember what you're grateful for, getting back into society is not that hard. Positive attitude, make positive choices, bear fruit. You're going to find that doors and windows of opportunities are going to fly open when you least expect it. So, positive attitude.