(coffee dripping) (people talking indistinctly) - Y'all want some more coffee?

Hello?

Y'all want some more coffee?

- Not yet.

- All right.

(people talking indistinctly) - Making coffee especially without using the type of coffee that they sold in prison, sold in jail, commissary coffee.

Going through the process of brewing the coffee, you know and making a coffee and not just for myself, for my coworkers.

That I'm able to use a coffee pot.

That I'm able to use this type of little gismo that once upon a time I didn't even know how to operate.

This a blessing.

That I'm able to wipe the water that I just spilled for more.

Like I said, a machine, a coffee machine that I didn't know how to operate when I first got here.

That literally, it took my coworkers to teach me how to use.

Yes, it's like being a baby again, being a toddler.

And being needed to be guided on everything in life, even the simple things like making coffee.

It's an honor of self.

It's just a smell of freedom.

Alice, whose cupcakes are these?

Those cupcakes.

They yours?

Is it possible for us individually to rehabilitate?

A hundred percent.

And even against all odds.

Even when people are pushing against you not to change.

Because ultimately, it's up to us to rehabilitate.

It's up to us to change.

And if we're given those avenues and the tools to be able to change, we will change.

(instrumental music) This is the place.

This is where I wanna be at.

You know what I'm saying?

I was blessed to be given a chance by Precious Blood Ministry of Reconciliation to be part of the housing program.

And it's a housing program available to return impacted citizens like myself.

- I'm glad that you actually are staying committed.

- [Marcelo] My friend.

My partner, good peoples, one of my advocates, you know, mentor Jojo.

Joseph Mapp, right?

- We try to live out the restorative model of giving people who were system impacted a chance, myself being one of 'em.

- It was like breathing fresh air when I found out that he had became the program director for Precious Blood Ministry of Reconciliation.

My family don't understand why I choose to live in a housing program, right?

When they have plenty of place for me, right?

And then I tell 'em, listen, it's not just the roof over my head, it's the environment that I'm returning to.

The program with the rent is that Precious Blood, since it's a non-for-profit organization, they cannot profit from the housing.

So what they do is that they collect that money, they save it for you, give you that money back and double it.

They will match that money.

For the simple strength of you having enough money to have a down payment security for an apartment and enough money maybe for two or three months rent.

(door slams) That's one of the blessings that I was fortunate to have.

(instrumental music) (wind blowing) I grew up in several cities.

Unlike my family, moved from places to places, but I spent majority of my time in Chicago.

Between Chicago, Philadelphia, and New York.

Chicago was the first city I lived in the mainline United States.

We moved from Puerto Rico when I was 10 years old.

Family problems, you know?

And my mother escaping abuse, verbal abuse, you know which is the worst, anyways.

And she grabbed me and my siblings and moved us to Humboldt Park.

I was about 10 years old and because of my little gang banging affiliations as a kid, at age 10 I caught my first case.

Like at 11, I got caught with a gun.

And by age 12, 13ish, I got caught with crack cocaine.

Was sent to a juvenile hall for two to four months.

I turned that two to four months to two and a half years.

I didn't come home till I was 15 and a half.

Coming up I know I did a lot of crazy stuff.

And that at any given time the police would come and pick me up.

(instrumental music) I was told that one of the little fellas had got killed.

(police sirens) And he was 15 years old.

And we literally could see the homicide detectives pulling the sheet over the kids' head, over the body.

I didn't believe in sending somebody off, like giving a gun to somebody else to do harm to somebody else.

I felt it was my obligation.

The kid should have never been part of the block.

Should've never been part of the gang.

Immediately it just like triggered something.

I gotta retaliate, you know?

Then it just dramatically, (gun shot) I just took their life.

It was just no longer a wanna be.

That was me, you know?

And I was always told that by age 21 I was gonna die.

That either I was gonna die or I was gonna spend the rest of my life in prison.

The self-fulfilling prophecy, you know what I'm saying?

I'm like, okay.

Everybody see this, think that must be true, you know?

This is who I am.

But by age 20, before I caught this case I had so much in the streets and in and out of the system that I was already tired and I was ready to change.

That was the last day from that point that I was incarcerated to April 7th of this year.

And I've done almost 21 years.

(cars passing by) Nine months before I came home, I believe.

And it's like in the, one of the peaks of the pandemic.

Now I'm getting scared 'cause now it's like, okay, it's getting here.

I no longer can tell people I got two years left, three years left, one year left.

I went through the months now and the months now are flying.

And I'm thinking, okay, what's gonna happen?

Am I gonna have furniture?

Am I gonna have food?

Am I gonna be living?

'Cause my state of mind at that moment was that I was going into a halfway house with a bunch of other dudes.

I didn't know that we actually get an apartment.

(instrumental music) First impression, you know.

I want to be able to, people to understand that I could wear the cheapest of clothes and still look good.

The clothes don't make me look good.

I make the clothes look good.

You know what I'm saying?

I still hate the fact of individuals showing me they ass cheeks, you know what I'm saying?

And it's something that my father like, cultivated in me.

And it remained, you know.

Especially being in a culture in prison that a lot of times it's like we attribute to an individual sagging their pants.

And as you exhibiting yourself, you know what I'm saying?

You know, and that's a no-no in prison, you know.

That's why when people ask me, man, how is it man?

Did it hit you?

When did it hit you?

And I'm like, boy, it haven't hit me yet.

Being free haven't hit me yet.

Despite the fact that I enjoy freedom, despite the fact that I am free, I'm still afraid to open my keys.

I'm afraid of getting home at certain time because of the fear of what the streets got.

What I notice in the streets.

The mentality of individuals.

So the good feeling to open the key from coming from work.

(inhaling) (exhaling) Yeah that's nice.

And it's a big, it's a culture shock.

Hearing the little creeks of the wall, the floor.

You know how the late at night when everything's quiet, you hear the little noises in the house?

And I will get up and I will check the windows and I'm like, 'cause I literally thought somebody was gonna come in through the windows on me.

For the first time, I was actually witnessing drama.

'Cause I understood drama and I understood the little sensation that we go through that the body let us know that, man, you bout to snap.

Stop.

You know?

Now I'm like, well I went through a lot of stuff.

And I'm like, I grabbed a knife.

Literally, I went into the kitchen and I grabbed one of them butcher knives.

And for the first month of being out, I slept with this big old knife under my pillow.

The crazy part is that I do this.

This is when I'm not, when I'm off.

When I'm working from home, I'm gonna clean.

Anything that's hidden, don't get clean.

In prison we call it a hygienic challenge.

You know what I'm saying?

You know.

So, cause you know, in prison we got, we live in a small space that is a bathroom, slash bedroom, slash dining room, slash living room, slash study hall, slash, slash, slash, slash.

I was tied in and out (indistinct) the whole.

You know, a prison went from prison, 24 was a day in a cage.

And most of my sig sentences or periods were because I was fighting with cellies.

So after a while I have to say, okay, it's now.

It's a fact that it's not them, it's me.

So now in order for me to fix this, I gotta see what's tickin' inside of me that bothers me so much that I'm fighting with individuals.

So what I did, I came with a solution.

I said, I just not gonna expect cellmates to automatically clean because I refuse to feel like I'm living in a jail cell.

(water running) (instrumental music) Is anxiety part of my everyday living?

No doubt about that.

Like I eat, I poop, and I sleep anxiety.

To be able to been locked up for 20 plus years and come home to a world that was no longer that world when I first got incarcerated is as a returning citizen, I wear that out on my sleeve day and night.

I fear that the smallest thing might land me back in prison.

So anxiety is my best friend and my enemy at the same time.

Why my best friend?

Because it keeps me on my square.

And I say my enemy because it's too much anxiety.

And if I don't recognize that and get too lax with it, you cannot just believe that there's no other way.

(heavy breathing) For years, I never told someone good morning.

Literally, I've been with cellmates that I never spoke to.

Only, "excuse me", "let me get by", that's it.

Hey, Telia are you going out?

They said, close the door, I'm closing this door.

Or Joe, I gotta go to school.

You need this door open?

Those type of words.

I never said goodbye, goodnight, good morning.

And yeah, the thanks, you welcome, and stuff like that because that's just natural.

Is something that outta respect.

- [Trainer] You need to take your time and stay right here to open it up.

Open it up.

- I got you.

Trauma is real, you know?

And until we're put in that situation and really understand how much we've been traumatized, then we never will know how is it in that moment.

How does it feel telling another person wholeheartedly, "good morning".

(laughing) Now that's a good worker.

That's a good warmup worker.

I love people wholeheartedly, but it's hard for me to show it.

You know, it's hard for me to and sometimes when I do show affection, it's like come off the wrong way, you know what I'm saying?

And I don't like being seen as phony.

(basketball dribbling) (people talking indistinctly) (instrumental music) - His name is Marcelo.

I named him after myself.

I remember the day I came home, April 7th, right?

2022.

And make into Chicago and me and my two sisters and my mother being hungry.

But I wanted to see him first.

That's the first thing I wanted to do.

(birds chirping) So why you gotta really assume immediately that a person gotta be aggressive with you, bro?

- Nah bro, that's just the way you answered the phone.

- This is not the first time.

- It's not just me.

And I don't talk to you no type of way for you to feel like you can talk to me like that.

If you were to talk to my mother on the phone, would you respond to my mother in a way, like that?

Would you talk to her- - Like what?

All I said was I'm heading that way.

- But you said it in an aggressive tone of voice.

I wouldn't have took it that way if it wasn't like that.

I'm not talking to you no type of way, so don't talk to me like that.

One thing that it is hard for him to accept the advice that I give him because he expects it from someone who is his age or older.

He doesn't expect to hear that from me who is his son.

- The only way a person can correct something, if you've actually pinpoint- - Well I just pinpointed it.

And one thing I always tell him is like, I've been through these things to know when and what is right and I'm not always correct.

I'm not trying to say that I'm smarter than him.

But in some aspects, I can show him things that he probably doesn't know.

- We probably just take a walk this way and then walk this way.

Be connecting with a son of mine that was born roughly a few months after I caught my case and had not spent not a single day with him in the free world.

And my question was, how do I balance that?

How can I be a father without being too hard on him because I don't have the rights to do so.

I hate when you be doing that, bro.

I just like, 'cause it make me feel like you really don't even want me here, bro.

His mother was his father.

His mother was his mother.

His mother was his everything.

And then the individual that actually raised him, that I love him to death, God bless his soul, you know, that actually became my brother, was killed just two years ago.

How do I come out and be able to make this individual understand that I am not coming in here to rule anything in your life?

That I'm your father.

I'm your dad.

I'm your friend.

And we could go from there.

You don't have to be afraid.

You want to gimme your toy?

- Seeing him with my daughter makes me feel like if he never went to prison, he would've been a great father.

The only thing is, me and him both feel like he needed that.

Because if he would've never went down the path that he went down and the events that took place never took place, he probably be dead.

He needed those lessons in life to take them where he needed to go.

And now he's back out and he's a completely changed person.

- Hello.

(instrumental music) (speaking Spanish) - Oh, it's a big difference holding my mom's hand.

If I'm just supposed to hold her hand in a visiting room and in a prison jail versus holding her hand in the backyard of a friend of mine is priceless.

- There's things that are like, they're out of our hands but only in my faith is the one that's gonna help me.

And I'm telling him that he have take care of himself and like, rest and don't work too hard.

He's working too hard.

Like, he was like 21 years old.

So right now he's free and I think he want to grab everything.

Like, do everything at once.

- Locked up really didn't comfort me because I was trying to ensure they didn't come for my mom.

(birds chirping) And it doesn't come from me out here either.

Just give me assurance, you know, it just giving me a peace of mind and still have my mother here.

And being in prison and witnessing a friend of mine not losing but one of their parents, but losing both.

And me always asking God, please don't let me go through that.

- I'm so, I'm happy because I have him like, again with me.

'Cause 21 years is a long time.

- How do I balance having my mother?

How do I balance going to school and being able that I keep up with my studies while working two jobs, reconnecting with a son of mine that was born roughly a few months after I caught my case and had not spent not a single day with him in the free world?

How did I, my question was, how do I balance that?

(instrumental music) When I started working here outta Restore Justice, people hear about being an apprentice and they automatically think that we don't get paid or that we get paid little.

And we're not, we get a salary.

- I think what would be helpful is to think about the work that you did Marcelo here.

Where you were thinking about what you would say to a legislator about how long sentences don't make us safer.

- Despite the fact that I was sentenced to 45 years, it didn't take no 45 years for me to be able to understand that I meant I needed to change.

- I think our experience in IDOC, gives us more credence to come home and advocate for these kind of issues.

- Right now, at this moment my project is to shadow, to learn how to become a lobbyist.

- Hey.

- Hello, rep. How you doing?

- Nice to see you.

- Hello, man.

- Welcome to Restore Justice.

- Thank you.

- It's quiet.

Y'all make a lot of noise, but it's quiet right now.

I like that.

- And you be surprised 'cause before coming here, who would've thought a bunch of white ladies be helping a bunch of black and brown people?

You know, be able to be successful when they come home?

Come here.

Where you going?

Come here, Joe.

(laughter) Come here.

- I was gonna try to creep away.

I didn't dress up today.

- This is the one that made it happen for all of us.

- Not really.

- Jovie Case.

- Nice to see Welcome to our home.

- This was to see my everyday dealings.

And in my everyday dealings, I deal with due to my apprenticeship and what we do here in Restore Justice.

And the main go ahead in Restore Justice is to be able to affect, influence, and change policies.

And policies in the sense of criminal justice reforms.

By the grace of God and Restore Justice.

and people like Jovie Casendun, we getting a chance to actually have a second chance.

Yes, I would love my records to be clean.

Why?

Because there are things in life that I would love to conquer, that I would love to be part of.

That record will not allow me to be in those spaces.

And the fact is that people are realizing that injustice is happening in and out the system, by the system, right?

Laws been passed that now allows me, after I believe five years after I'm off parole, that I can actually get my record, not only sponged completely, but a seal.

If I could succeed and be successful, why not bringing others with me, right?

- Exactly.

- You know.

Did I ever imagine myself being in this side of the fence?

Hell no.

Because at once upon a time, almost looking at politicians that full sh individuals, you know, worthless.

Not until I really started getting into political science in college that I started learning the ins and outs of what makes society spin.

- And I think you're right, right?

My father, he was a felon.

He served his time, got out, seen all types of areas with him and the struggles that he had to go through.

And so, doing this work is really passionate for me.

It's personal and I don't think that we should, you know, limit anyone from being able to take care of their families.

- I was fortunate to at least not only have my, get two associate's degree when I was incarcerated, you know, and it took effort for me to do that.

Not because it was just being handed out.

- [Lakesha] Right.

- And despite the fact that I was able to get 50 credits, almost 50 credits, upper level credits with the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, the university still got a box banning us convicted felons.

And unless legislation is being pursued, and not only pursued, but to secure and put into the laws, this university is gonna continue to use this little box to- - [Lakesha] Discriminate.

- [Marcelo] Yeah to discriminate.

- [Lakesha] To discriminate.

(instrumental music) - When I first went to the Department of Corrections, I couldn't either read nor write in both of my languages.

My L1 is Spanish and I wasn't able to read or write in Spanish.

You know, even in my native language, it was broken.

And once I got in school and I was given that chance, I never looked back.

Then for my GED after three months, I got into college.

Two, three years later I got my first associates.

A year later I got my second associates.

Then I ended up being enrolling in the upper level courses with the University of Illinois at Danville.

I earned like 50 credits.

And at this moment I need like 21 residential credits to get my bachelor's degree.

I took advantage and I had connections and I was able to take three to five classes in the semester.

For me to be able, breaking my back, for me to be able to get my certificates and my degrees.

(instrumental music) 10 years from now will be 51 years old.

And one thing that really used to get me was the fear of aging, especially aging in a jail cell.

The fear of dying in prison, right?

My thing is that I'm always excited to come and work for Restore Justice, because I know we make a change.

And as long as I'm part of that change, I feel that I'm worth the effort.

I'm worth the people's love and caring for me.

And if I can get that energy from a human being that is that positive energy that allows me to put a smile on my face, you know?

'Cause once again I said I'm a victor, I'm not a victim.

When they say, you are a "vic".

Yeah, I'm a victor, right.

You know?

Victorious.

(instrumental music continues)