Why I Started Earning Freedom on Medium
Our nation’s commitment to mass incarceration, from my perspective, represents one of the greatest social injustices of our time. As a man who served 26 calendar years in federal prisons of every security level, I sense a duty and responsibility to help more people understand why we should reform our nation’s sentencing and prison systems. Reform begins with education. By launching Earning Freedom on Medium, I hope to bring more people into the conversation.
If you’re a writer and you’d like to contribute, please consider contributing your stories here.
https://youtu.be/weP9b19AAYo
Initially, while still incarcerated, I wrote a book titled Earning Freedom to share strategies that empowered me during my imprisonment. The book showed strategies I learned from masterminds that included Socrates, Viktor Frankl, Nelson Mandela, and Mahatma Gandhi. They taught me how to live a values-based, goal-oriented life. From those leaders I learned that I had to live in the world as it existed rather than as I wanted it to be. By working to reconcile with society during my lengthy journey through prison, I anticipated that opportunities would open upon my release. In Earning Freedom, I wanted to convey this message to other people in prison.
When I concluded my obligation to the Bureau of Prisons, in 2013, I felt passionately about working to improve outcomes for more people who experienced of our nation’s prison system. Although the Internet didn’t exist in 1987 when I began serving my sentence, upon my release I could see how effective technology would be in spreading awareness about injustice. With an intention of building an audience, I began building my website at MichaelSantos.com. Later, I started recording videos on YouTube (subscribe here). Then I began recording the Earning Freedom podcast (subscribe on iTunes here). All of that work contributed to my three-pronged plan:
- To create programs and services that would help people who experienced our judicial system emerge successfully, as law-abiding, contributing citizens.
- To build bridges formerly incarcerated people could use to transition into the job market and mainstream society.
- To spread more awareness on why our massive prison systems influences the lives of every citizen.
Rather than perpetuating intergenerational cycles of failure, appropriate reforms could lead more people to emerge as law-abiding, taxpaying citizens. Yet reform begins with education.
With Earning Freedom on Medium, I’ll invite other writers to join me in spreading the word. I’m inviting everyone to publish articles to share their experiences about the criminal justice system. Our goal is not to condemn the system, but to inspire change that will improve outcomes for all who experience the system. Ultimately, we want our nation’s criminal justice system leading to safer communities. And we can do better than what we have now.
If you have a story to share about any aspect of the criminal justice system, please join the Earning Freedom publication on Medium and share. Publish as frequently or as infrequently as you would like. I am hoping to find contributing writers from academia, policy advisors, nonprofits, the judiciary, the legislative branch, and of course people who’ve experienced any aspect of the criminal justice system — including defendants and family members. If you would like to become a contributing writer, please contact me by email or through my Twitter handle below. We need writers who can help us understand the 53 different criminal justice systems int he United States, including:
- The criminal justice systems that operate in each of the 50 states.
- The District of Columbia’s criminal justice system.
- The Federal criminal justice system.
- The military criminal justice system.
I’ll continue using Earning Freedom podcasts, videos, and the written word to share because it’s my way of living as the change that I want to see in the world.
I’ll maintain a separate publication within Medium called Success After Prison, to share my own experiences. With the Earning Freedom publication, I hope to broaden the dialogue, including as many voices as possible — including yours.
Thanks.
