I was born in 1960 in Boston, Massachusetts, before moving to Long Beach, CA from Brooklyn, NY in 1969. In 1980, in Ramona Park in North Lake Beach, in a drunken, drugged-up fistfight I killed a man. I served time in Soledad, Folsom State Prison and the California Correctional Institution’s maximum-security unit before transferring to the state prison in Lancaster. I remain at Lancaster, living in the Honor Program. I am the chairman of the Steering Committee for the Honor Program. I am married, and the father of a wonderful 8-year-old daughter. I am serving life without the possibility of parole. I am a freelance writer, hoping to publish a book of essays I have written regarding the nature of life in prison. I remain committed to making the world I live in a better place.

After spending most of my life in prison it became clear to me that change was needed. I had worked long and hard to change myself; through this process I became convinced that I had an obligation to work for the betterment of the world I inhabit. The Honor Program is the product of this awakening desire to become a force for the good. I set myself a seemingly impossible task, motivated by a desire to do something worthy of the life I have; changing the world’s largest prison system from inside one of its cells. The Honor Program remains an ongoing struggle, but a struggle worthy of pursuing, worthy of the effort. Purpose, and the power that emanates from purpose, can change even this world of violence and despair.

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