Transcript
No Title My name is Sheldon Bush, I am twenty one years old, I have been incarcerated for the past four years of my life. I am currently serving out a ten year sentence for a armed robbery, that I will have to serve eighty five percent of before I am eligible for parole. I am currently at SCCC, which is a level five maximum custody prison. I chose to get involved with the APWA because I saw it as an opportunity to share my experience inside of prison, in hopes to influence my peers and anyone else to make better life decisions. As I read over the APWA permissions questionnaire, I was stuck on the third question, giving me the option to use a pen name. I chose not to, I have nothing to hide and at worst, someone from my past would find this and take it out of context. First I would like to clarify, that I've done wrong and won't pretend that I'm better than anyone, everyday I'm learning to be a better person than I was yesterday. I wake up everyday and feel like today is another chance to prove that I'm not a failure to society, that I'm a leader to those who needed to lead, and a great listener to those I have to follow. These walls don't define who I am, nor do the mistakes I made. This place is a mental warfare; homosexuality, predators, racism. Any of your worst fears will come at you, but you have to be strong to get thru it. My life didn't start in prison, but sometimes I feel like anything on the other side of the barb wired fences may be foreign to me. I know thats not reality, but somedays I get so caught up in staying on top of my game that anything else is obscene. There could be corrupt C.O.'s but I haven't seen any, the ones here have too much of an do what I want and get away with it attitude. There's no corruption in that, I'm a person that made a mistake, but all they see is the mistake that I've made, everyday they talk to me and treat me less than a repeat con man. They look down on me and stretch their holy laws and rules to the fullest extent, trying to break me and every other offender, instead of trying to reform me. But, then again I have to be the one responsible for reforming me. I have a golden chance, and I'll do everything that I have to do to set an example for me. Nothing will change unless I put in a positive effort to make a difference.
