TDCJ inmates have a message for TJJD youth: “Prison is not fun at all”

By TJJD Communications

Who wants to be in prison? No one right? Easy answer.

But when you’re 15 and angry and unmoored, you may not be thinking about where you’ll end up after the next offense. Where you’ll be when you’re 20 or 25. You’re navigating in the moment. You probably lack resources. Have some bad role models. Perhaps someone in your family has told you to straighten up, but you are teenager, and you’ve tuned them out.

TJJD understands these hurdles. Which is why the agency recently enlisted help from some people uniquely positioned to motivate teenagers committed to TJJD. These folks are, in a sense, their future selves speaking to them about what happens if they keep committing crimes. In reality, the speakers are adult Texas inmates, many serving time for offenses committed when they were teens or very young adults.

They offer their advice to TJJD youth in a video set up by Training Director Christopher Ellison and captured by TJJD videographer Daniel Doggett. Ellison and Doggett asked them to offer their best counsel, in the hope that their stories would break through the noise and resonate with justice-involved teenagers.

The incarcerated men were eager to share their thoughts. They spoke honestly and graciously about their missteps, misfortunes and most painfully, about their regrets. They told the youth to listen to parents, mentors and counselors, follow “what is right,” set goals and change course. “Prison,” said one, “is no fun at all.”

These men are already special messengers. They work within TDCJ as peer mentors, called life coaches, or as “field ministers” helping other inmates. Now they are serving as “credible messengers” for TJJD because of their shared lived experience with the youth, extending their guidance to young people who still have a chance at building a life worth living, instead of one behind bars. Their advice is pointed: Listen to your parents. Set goals. Fail and get back up. Don’t act on emotions. Hang around the right people. And do it now, said one man, because “prison is no fun at all.”

All TJJD youth view a 25-minute version of the video at intake during their orientation process.

“We want to show that this isn’t the end, but a chance to turn your life around,” Ellison said. “We thought that hearing from inmates, many of whom were locked up at a young age, would be powerful. That it’s very possible to turn your life around if you use the resources available.”

“I hope that the youth can relate to at least one message in the video.  I don’t expect them to remember everything but if they can find one part to help motivate them and get them to focus then it will be a success,” he said. The inmates at the Ellis Unit provided amazing insights,” Ellison said. “We originally had over an hour of footgage. It was honestly difficult to cut down. The project turned out even better than we could imagine.”

TJJD greatly appreciates the collaboration with TDCJ, Ellison said, offering special thanks to TDCJ’s Executive Director Bryan Collier, Director of Rehabilitation Programs Chris Carter and Chief Operations Officer Bobby Lumpkin. Extra special thanks to TDCJ Staffer Rudy Davis who set up the interviews with the life coaches and field ministers and to all the inmates who participated.

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