Why your worst deeds don’t define you

Almost everyone in prison is redeemable says Shaka Shengor. I agree. Our prison system is profoundly sickening and it’s a reflection of our culture at large. Traumatic and violent culture, people hurting and suffering without love and care from the time they’re little children. We see here that this man is just like every one of us…in part, a product of where he found himself and becoming conscious allowed him to heal. We are all capable of such transformation.

In 1991, Shaka Senghor shot and killed a man. He was, he says, “a drug dealer with a quick temper and a semi-automatic pistol.” Jailed for second degree murder, that could very well have been the end of the story. But it wasn’t. Instead, it was the beginning of a years-long journey to redemption, one with humbling and sobering lessons for us all.

More posts on mental health and prison:

• Prison Yoga Project
• Prison Abolition, Daniel Hazen: Madness Radio
• Madness Radio: Prison Mental Health Terry Kupers
• How to Create Madness In Prisons – Kupers

And on forgiveness:

• The heart of forgiveness
• Some thoughts on forgiveness
• The source of forgiveness
• Sweet forgiveness meditation
• prayer of radical forgiveness