Street roots., October 20, 2017, Page 9, Image 9

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Street Roots •
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PHOTO BY A R K A D Y BRO W N
Tyrone Rucker will participate in “Shaping a Future: Life After Prison, an event where former inmates will share their experiences with the public.
A project gives former inmates an opportunity to share their
stories o f re-entry and o f injustices in the prison system
BY SARAH HANSELL
S T A F F W R IT E R
yrone Rucker was 14 the first time he
went to juvenile hall, before he
“graduated” to prison, as he puts it. It
was the same age he first tried crack.
Jackie Whitt was 14 when she became
homeless and began learning how to steal cars
to make money.
Years later, both Rucker
and Whitt live in Portland,
clean for eight years and five
years, respectively. Rucker
works on the Integrated
he
Health and Recovery team at
When: 1 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 29
Central City Concern, and
Where: First Unitarian Church
Whitt is an electrician.
of Portland, 1211 SW Main St.
Rucker, Whitt and eight
other former inmates will
Cost: Free; open to the public
share their stories Oct. 29 at
First Unitarian Church of
Portland as part of a project
called “Shaping a Future: Life After Prison.”
Their stories run the gamut of prison
experiences, from extended stints in solitary
confinement to racial segregation to prison
guards’ abuse of power. Most of the stories,
however varied, have a common thread: Prison
does more harm than good.
Carol Imani, the organizer of the project, has
been a community college writing instructor in
Portland and Klamath Falls for 25 years. Imani
became interested in the impacts of
incarceration because she has a family member
who struggled with substance abuse and was
involved in the criminal justice system.
In 2015, she organized an event, funded by
the Regional Arts and Culture Council, where
family members of inmates or former inmates
T
IF
shared their stories. “Shaping a Future: Life
After Prison” is her opportunity to continue
creating a platform for people affected by the
prison system and a space for them to build
community with one another, this time
focusing on the challenges of re-entry after
prison.
“I thought that’s something people generally
don’t understand, that when you get out of
prison, it’s difficult in a lot of ways,” Imani said.
She facilitated five writing workshops with
the 10 project participants. They had the
chance to delve into their experiences with
prison and re-entry and share them with others
who have also gone through those challenges.
The Oct. 29 event is an opportunity for the
former inmates to share their experiences with
a public audience, to “tell their stories without
shame,” Imani said.
And this is how Rucker and Whitt tell their
stories of prison and re-entry - without shame,
but with gratitude and with conviction.
Tyrone Rucker’s story
Rucker starts his story off at the age of 14,
when he was first sent to juvenile detention
and drugs began to consume his life, he said.
“It’s funny how you think a system is
rehabilitating you,” he said. “But everyone I
was in juvenile hall with I saw in prison later
on in life. So something was going on. The
system’s broke. Not saying we weren’t doing
wrong, but juvenile hall graduated us to
prison.”
Rucker grew up in Pasadena, Calif., as one of
three boys, years apart from his older brothers,
each from different fathers. Their mother was
raising them on her own.
By the time he was an adult, he was
“homeless and broke,” smoking crack and
sometimes meth, and in and out of jail and
prison.
“Never got any information, never heard
about treatment or anything like that,” he said.
Rucker never felt like prison was about
rehabilitation, preparing him to succeed on the
outside or helping him overcome his addiction.
“I remember the time before the last time I
went to jail; I remember leaving and everybody
was like, ‘All right, man,”’ he said. “And I
remember saying, ‘I’ll be back.’ And was dead
serious, was like, ‘Man, I smoke crack, I’m
going to be back.’ I was serious. And it
happened. I went out and smoked crack and
was right back.”
Jackie Whitt’s story
Whitt grew up in an environment surrounded
by drugs, her mother a heroin user in and out
of the criminal justice system. Whitt suffered
neglect, physical abuse and sexual abuse -
trauma that remained untreated for a long
time. When Whitt was a youth, she and a group
of friends whose parents all abused drugs
vowed that they’d never touch hard drugs
(anything beyond alcohol or marijuana) and
that they would make it out.
At age 14, her mother relapsed, and they lost
their home. Whitt dropped out of school in the
eighth grade, stealing cars to make a living.
“I didn’t realize that because of my childhood
trauma, there was a lot of stuff going on inside
my head,” she said. “Depression, anxiety, a lot
of difficult things.”
At age 19, she met the man who would
See RE-ENTRY, page 11