For years, I lived in denial about my lifestyle. Due largely to the nature of my destructive, arrogant actions, I believed I had built air-tight justifications for my crimes. Fact is, I just didn’t want to take responsibility for what I had done to others–and how I, my family, and my victims have suffered for it.

My background and family history could have provided the obvious excuse for everything that I said, did, and became. After all, my mother met my dad while he was locked up in Federal prison. Soon after meeting, they were married, and were divorced before I was 5 years old.

My mother did her best to raise me the right way, but the streets became my main teacher, and “the block” became my home.

When I was young, my family moved around a lot, so the only consistency I found was in the life of the streets. Eventually my mother began using drugs, so I turned for support and guidance to the chaos, violence, and destruction that surrounded me. Wherever we lived, crime was everywhere, and wherever I lived, the Crips had become a symbol of respect.

I became for them what you’d call a stick-up kid. Put simply, I robbed people for a living.

I started off by robbing my “rival gang members”—my perceived enemies. But as time went on, my crimes progressed to “bigger and better” targets.

Eventually, I was arrested for robbing a check-cashing place with a firearm. I was charged with three robberies, arson, felony evading, and drug possession—in addition to special gun enhancements.

When all was said and done, I was convicted of one robbery and sentenced to 17 years in prison. I was 17 years old at that time.

It took me years to realize the amount of damage I had perpetrated upon the victims of my crimes—people who were innocent but just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

As I stated in the beginning, it took me years to realize the amount of damage I had perpetrated upon the victims of my crimes—people who were innocent but just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Many were affected psychologically and had to seek counseling afterwards. Such after-effects are things I never ever considered prior to committing my crimes.

My arrest devastated my family. My mother blamed herself for the way I became and started using even more drugs as a result of my behavior. As a consequence, she was badly injured in a car accident.

On top of that, my sister had really needed me by her side to help her raise her three kids. I helped her raise her two oldest kids–though I was just a kid myself. I felt an obligation to shield them from the violence and negativity we were surrounded with. But then, look what I did! I abandoned them—though it was not my intention—because of the acts I did that put me in prison, away from all of them.

Since I have been in prison, my sister caught a life sentence and one of her sons is now serving 6 years in prison as well. I see this outcome as a direct result of my committing my crime and going to prison. I also see how this kind of dysfunction goes on and on while the vicious cycle is rarely broken.

On the other hand, sometimes I think that, on the scale of things, not much was lost by my imprisonment. Looking back, my being locked up was exactly what the community needed–to be protected from my very own stupidity!

Eventually, my introduction to prison was pretty rough. I was 18 years old by that time and placed in a level 4 (Maximum Security) ward. I had a release date that was far in the future, so I joined a prison gang to get on. After all, I had been a gangbanger from a small town, so doing this same thing (so I thought) would make it easier to fit in.

But soon after my arrival, Blacks and Mexicans had a riot. Some Bloods had a problem with some Southern Mexicans. The Bloods never told the other Blacks about their conflict. As a Crip, I and other Blacks were in the dark about the dangers we were in.

Suddenly, one day when we were on the exercise yard, the Mexicans took off on all the Blacks. We were all caught off-guard by this surprise attack. As for my reaction, I didn’t have time to be afraid or to think about anything else, besides fighting for my life.

I made sure I was not separated from my homies, to stay safe. I looked around the yard that day and saw another guy who had separated from our group and was being stabbed repeatedly. By the time the chaos had subsided, 7 people had been stabbed or cut very badly and one guy was so severely injured that he had to be air-lifted out of there by helicopter.

The incident affected my psyche so much that I called my family and told them that “I may never come home!”

Needless to say, the way I had grown up made me think that I had to have a chip on my shoulder and go along with the violence that surrounded me in prison. That I had to be tough in order to survive the prison environment is an understatement!

To make it, I had to become crazy, angry, and pay no mind to reason or to the excuses of other people for what they did or said. In other words, I learned how to conduct myself in a continuously hostile manner in a continuously hostile environment. I learned to be respectful, yet stern, and assertive, and I had to have discipline (but at the same time, I was scared).

I honestly believe that for a long while after my imprisonment began, I became a worse person because I had been incarcerated at such a young age. Since I was locked up as a teenager, it was difficult for me to see a future beyond prison. I had no long-term ambitions other than living in the turmoil of the moment. I became paranoid, believing that everyone had an ulterior motive and an angle to do wrong and to wrong me.

Thus, I was forced to learn how to be a “man” from people who didn’t know how to be men themselves–people who taught me that fighting and stabbing people was normal behavior.

Unfortunately, when you’re playing the political game in prison, you have to live by certain rules. And being the rebellious kid that I had always been, I would intentionally break those rules just to prove a point.

Although I was part of a big, so-called Crip “club,” I never let anyone get close to me. For me, to let people know the real me–to allow them in–meant becoming vulnerable. In prison, you never want to show vulnerability, so I learned to become a good liar, to tell people what they wanted to hear, and never to let my true feelings show.

It didn’t take long for me, though, to figure out that I had become caught up (before I knew it) in a cycle of drugs, alcohol, and violence. And as a result, I extended my sentence by 3 years!

Because I came to prison at such a young age, I’ve never had to deal with any real responsibilities. I have always had something or someone to fall back on, whether it was my family, my homeboys, or the State.

I have never been on my own or done anything to take care of myself without an element of crime behind it. I have a long road ahead before I am truly where I want to be as a son, brother, and especially as a person.

Though I have since left the gang life and no longer engage in prison politics, I still have much work to do to make myself a better person and to put my bad history behind me. I believe that co-dependency is my greatest problem. In short, I have become a co-dependent of the State when once I had been a co-dependent on my gang.

But I know that I am getting closer each day to achieving my goals because I am working hard to put my old ways behind me. I know I have hope, and I know that I am fortunate not to have been given a life sentence for all the things I have done.

The time I was given has, in fact, provided me the chance to reflect on my life and to begin the process of cultivating a better future. This thinking may sound odd (because people should not have to come to prison to find redemption), but that is what happened for me.

Maybe if I had had the good fortune of encountering better role models in my youth, my life would have gone in a different direction.

In the meantime, I hope my story can be used as a learning tool for how not to lead your life. The block, the street, carrying glocks—these paths are not the ones to follow and do not produce the kind of life that people really want to live. Prison is full of people who think like that. I see them everywhere I go in here, and their stories always end the same way. I understand now that I don’t want that for me!

A trail of broken dreams is what can be found behind prison walls, but for some at least (and hopefully for me), there can be second chances! I like to think that there is another future waiting for me.

Eric Ardoin