“MY LIFE AS A LIFER AND WHAT A SECOND CHANCE MEANS TO ME.”
Hello world! My name is Jobarie Watston and I am a lifer who’s currently housed in the North Carolina department of adult prisons. Thanks to behindthewalltalk.com for allowing me this platform and the opportunity to tell some of my experiences during my life as a lifer as well as what a second chance means to me.
To me a second chance is a form of rebirth, to have your life taken away and then be given hope for a new future is a feeling I can only explain through the eyes of a newborn baby who realizes he has been here before. I’m going to attempt to give my best effort to explain my life as a lifer in the system has taught me as well as what a second chance is at life would mean to me. I will begin by giving a bad story on who I am and how I grew up along with what led me to commit my crime. I also take you inside my 18 years of incarceration. The slow drawn-out pretrial procedures I underwent to the calculated placement within a social circle that the system labeled me and placed me in since day one of my prison sentence. I will also be explaining the process of self-help and self-rehabilitation that took place during my incarceration. I will also touch on the mental health effect that that being incarcerated without a chance at parole has had on me. Lastly, I will explain why I Believe life reserve a second chance at earning our life back and becoming positive productive people in society. I really hope that you can take the time out to not only read but reflect on “second chances” and by that, I mean another chance of life on the outside of the walls as a free man.
I was raised in low poverty neighborhoods and projects between Charlotte, Kannapolis, and Winston- Salem just to name a few of the cities I moved around from place to place in the mid-80s and 90s as a child. This alone made me at a higher risk of a lot of things according to the statistics. Things like death, prison, and addiction seems to have been predestined for me since birth. At a young age I embraced violence and destruction as the norm because that was my everyday life experience, witnessing crime every day around me. This developed mindset also made me more subjected to being exposed to and being involved in negative activities as a juvenile. By the age of 17 when I dropped out of school, I had been to so many different schools and cities that school no longer even interested me. I ended up dropping out in the 10th grade. At this point of my life, I didn’t have a clue what I wanted to do with my life. I just knew that everything I tried, and life failed I lack confidence and motivation to see I was still young with a long life ahead of me.
At 20 years old I was arrested for a crime that ended up costing someone their life. It was 10 seconds that changed the whole direction of my life forever it was 10 seconds it took to lose their life to violence and mind to the system. A system that convicted me of my first major offence at 23 years of age for a crime I committed when I was 20 years old. I was given life after pleading guilty to the crime. Before this arrest I never spent a night in jail and now after my first night in I may never walk out again. The pretrial process was 2 1/2 years no plea deals only a public defender who constantly reminded me I was facing the death penalty by showing me pages of printouts on the North Carolina history of the death penalty. Looking back, I realized I was being coerced into pleading guilty to avoid a death penalty and accept a life sentence. This was the path I chose coming into my incarceration. Since then, it has been 16 years of lifelong lessons learned from experience. My journey since my incarceration has been one of regret, guilt, shame, depression, and anger at myself for allowing my younger self to make mistakes that would prevent a full life as an adult. Something I never experienced life as an adult on the outside. I was young making young dumb decisions. I do believe in justice, but I also believe in a chance at redemption. My time behind the walls has not been 100% perfect but it’s being purposeful. My infraction record is not squeaky clean, but it shows the history of growth and maturity over the years. I started out at 23 years old and in a close custody maximum security prison. And I am now housed in medium custody with hopes of receiving a commutation of my sentence so that I can be promoted to minimum level custody. As of now I have not been allowed access to minimum custody as do the lifers with parole. Lifers under the new law have been restricted to brown clothes (medium custody). We are also limited in educational programs that we can attend as lifers. How do you live a life with no life to look forward to? That is the question that hits the hardest from people. Well, my answer is you live with hope!
I can tell you as a black man in America who grew up in a life of poverty that I never actually thought I was going to end up serving a life sentence. Regardless of the darkness that surrounded me as a child, there was enough love in my life to help me realize that there was light in my life. I just couldn’t dig deep enough to find that light. As a lifer I find myself pulling daily motivations from thin air and like the life-giving element I breathe that motivation and let it flow through my body like the life-giving fluid. It is motivation that keeps alive from moving. It is hope that keeps a lifer motivated and purpose is what gives us hope. What purpose do we serve as lifers on state? That is the question the system should answer. From my experience we are housed and used specifically for slave labor. That’s a whole other story within itself. Out of this understanding of what the system uses life is for we find our own personal sense of purpose in the world. Even if is our smaller version of the world. We hope to take this purpose and use it to benefit society with purpose and hope in mind. It is easier to get motivated to continue to self-educate as well as take advantage of every reentry program that may become available in the future. As I began my life as a lifer my life became more valuable. I just need an opportunity to show the world that second chances are needed in the justice system. Especially when you’re dealing with young children, men, and women who by law can’t even buy smoke products or alcohol products are becoming lifers hoping for a second chance at a first life. Support second chances!
Thank you to all the readers and supporters of behind the walls talk.com. This platform is a revolutionary vein in the heart of North Carolina prison system keep beating, and keep pumping love comrade Jobarie Watson