Common: Our criminal justice system needs an overhaul Time to look at prisoners as human beings and eliminate life sentences for young offenders.

Common | Opinion contributor

Show Caption Hide Caption Common: Time to look at prisoners as human beings Common met with inmates during his 'Hope and Redemption' prison tour and talked about life behind bars and beyond. The hip hop icon is calling for major changes to the criminal justice system and the end of life sentences for young offenders.

Guards stood on the rooftops of California's Ironwood State Prison.

As I walked onto the grounds, I heard the hum of the electric fence, a reminder that electrocution was the likely fate of anyone attempting escape. It was July, and I was there with my crew as part of a statewide Hope and Redemption Tour.

As I heard the gates close behind us, I imagined what it must have been like for an inmate to walk into a prison for the first time: dreams being overshadowed by what was done in the past, instead of encouraged by what could be done in the future — especially tough for offenders locked up as teens.

For me to help change that sentiment, this tour was going to have to be much more than a show.

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I grew up on the South Side of Chicago, and the only other times I had visited a prison were with my mother. She took me to see an uncle who spent years in and out of incarceration.

Since then, the American prison industrial complex has led to more and more people of color finding themselves silenced by society.

I wrote songs about this subject for Selma and 13th, but writing and rapping wasn’t going to be enough. I needed to do more.

Earlier this year, I visited several prisons in California. While I performed, I also had a real opportunity to get to know the men and women behind bars to better understand the lives they led.

At the California State Prison in Lancaster, a strong windstorm forced us to cancel a performance in the yard. Instead of me rapping to them, the weather allowed us to talk to each other.

It was there that I sat in a circle with men serving life without parole. One of them introduced himself by saying, “Imagine being trapped in an act you did. Now imagine you live in that moment for the rest of your life.”

That insight struck me. In an instant, I was haunted by the idea that one poor decision could have just as easily put me in here, destined to replay a single mistake.

Joining us in the circle were Warden Debbie Asuncion, Gov. Edmund Brown's Executive Secretary Nancy McFadden, local union leader Laphonza Butler, correctional officers and other advocates. By the time it was over, we had all listened to each other, held hands and said a prayer.

For many incarcerated men and women, reaching out has become a thing of the past.

During the tough-on-crime era of the 1980s and 1990s, incarceration became less about rehabilitation and more about isolation. People who aren't incarcerated take a lot for granted: having someone to listen to us, shaking someone’s hand and hugging them, looking them in the eye and making a human connection. For us, positive interaction is an expectation. For inmates, it is a rare exception.

Most of the prisoners I spoke with committed crimes when they were adolescents. That doesn’t mean they shouldn’t serve time. But many of them aren't the same people they were when they came in, just like none of us are the same people we were decades ago.

Sometimes I thought: Wow, I’m shaking the hand of or hugging someone who has taken another person’s life. But I still connected with inmates in a way that respected the fact that they are human, and that humans make mistakes.

The assumption that prisoners are incapable of evolving and contributing to society is part of a much bigger problem that adds to the epidemic of mass incarceration: It’s easy for us to forget to show compassion to people we don’t see. How can we give them a second chance when, as a society, we've locked them away without giving them a second look?

Our criminal justice system needs to rethink policies that lock prisoners away for their entire adult lives for actions they committed before they were fully developed. And we, as a society, have to reckon with our ignorance and our stubborn refusal to recognize growth, self-improvement and remorse.

Finding purpose behind bars

We need to create programs that inspire people behind bars to lead purpose-driven lives.

Jon Grobman, who is serving six life sentences, told me he’s finding his voice by training dogs at Lancaster prison. The dogs help veterans in the local community. He introduced me to Zoe, a lab he was training, and he said that though he knows he’ll never get out himself, a little piece of his heart will be with this dog, out there in the world, helping others.

Charles Anderson was released in April. Thanks to the Last Mile coding program at Ironwood, he has been learning skills in computer science behind bars, and his greatest hope is to work at Google.

These stories should be the norm, not anomalies. But dreams like Grobman's and Anderson's can be realized only when we all open our minds to helping them come true. And in California, under Brown, it seems there are important steps being made toward rehabilitation and redemption.

What we need is a criminal justice reform that eliminates life without parole sentences for juveniles and includes bail reform and reductions in harsh sentences for juveniles, and gives kids the chance to expunge their criminal records.

These are small but important steps in the grand scheme of this mass incarceration epidemic. But redemption and rehabilitation are possible only when we as Americans make sure that people in prison are inspired by what they can do, not reminded of what they can’t.

Common is an Academy Award, Golden Globe and Grammy winning actor, musician and activist. His Hope and Redemption Tour is slated to perform on the steps of California's Capitol.