P RO L O G U E

I hadnt seen Ingrid in several years when I picked her up in down-

town Los Angeles. In her prison-issue clothes, she looked worn
and weary, not at all like when she first showed up to my house in
2007, twenty-four years old and holding the hand of her five-year-old
daughter, Simone.
As Ingrid got in my van, her once-sparkly eyes filled with tears. I
should have called you, Ms. Burton, she said.
You did call me, I said. Thats why Im here.
She shook her head. Before I was arrested. I wasnt doing so well.
Simone kept telling me to call you, that you would help me. But... I
felt Id let you down. I wasnt working because I had two babies one
after the other. I gave up my housing to move in with my new babys
father. But it was a bad relationship. I was bruised up. Her voice quiv-
ered. I didnt want you to see me like that.
As I listened, I recognized that fierce combination of pride and
shame, how such opposite emotions could consume a person, forc-
ing you into thinking you can manage, you can do it all, all by your-
self. I drove Ingrid back to my house in Watts, a working-class black
community of Los Angeles, immortalized in 1965 by racial tension
and police brutality that sparked bloody riots. In a way, Watts was
emblematic of so many of its residents. Efforts at revitalization were
continuously overshadowed by staid perceptions of violence, gangs,
xx P rologue

and crime. Even in the face of a dramatic and steady decrease in

violent crime, Watts still struggled for redemption. To me, this was a
community of perseverance.
Nearly ten years ago, in my two-story, pink stucco bungalow,
Ingrid and Simone had thrived, and Id grown attached to those
two. Little Simone, with her mothers sweet smile, knock-k need to
the point youd think one leg was gonna trip over the other. Ingrid,
with smooth charcoal skin and full lips, her effervescence belying
the many lives shed lived in not so many years. Id taken Ingrid with
me to meetings with policymakers and political activists, discover-
ing what family and teachers should have been nurturing in her all
along: she had a sharp mind and an ease with public speaking. Id
watch Ingrid stand before crowds and tell her story.
I can count the times I saw my mother sober, shed begin. My
childhood memories are filled with violence. I cant remember any
happy times, just black. Until one day, my dad came and got me, and
I lived with him for a month. He bought me toys and set up an area
for me to play. He made me breakfast every morning and took me
places, to see family, to get ice cream. I never saw him angry. But he
couldnt keep me because he had a felony record. That was the best
month on my life. She went on to describe years of group homes and
boot camp, and eventually escaping to the streets of South Central
L.A., selling drugs to get by, giving birth at nineteen to Simone, being
incarcerated shortly after.
Ingrids story pierced me so deeply because she reminded me of my
younger self, a strong-willed woman swirling in trauma and tragedy,
with so much to offer if only given the chance. Shed tell me, Every
time we go speak, it makes me want to be involved more and more. I
can see the bigger picture, and I want to be part ofthat.
Now, Ingrid was thirty-four years old. Her life had changed in a
single day, outside a Dollar General store. Having scrounged up the
money to buy Pampers and baby formula, she took her screaming
toddler with her and made a bottle in the checkout line, but left her
sleeping baby in the car, the windows open for air. Not more than
 P rologue xxi

ten minutes later, when she returned to her car, the police were
there. She was arrested for child endangerment, though the baby
was unharmed. The police impounded the diapers and baby formula
in the car, despite Ingrids pleas that the children were hungry and
needed changing. Because of her history, she was guilty before ever
standing trial. She was sentenced to three years in prison and lost
custody of all three of her daughters.
I was silent while she blamed everything on herself, how shed
been frazzled and sleep-deprived and, looking back, perhaps had
postpartum depression. Okay, I thought, but had Ingrid been a per-
son of means, had she been in a different neighborhood, had she
not been black, would she have been sentenced to years in prison?
Or would she have been given help, sent to parenting classes and
therapyresources that existed for certain people but not others?
Did I even need to ask the question?
Ingrids story could haveshould havebeen different. Same with
my own story, and the stories of most of the one thousand women
and their children whove come through the doors of A New Way of
Life, seeking safety, productivity, meaning, and fulfillment.
So I keep asking questions. Why are black Americans incarcerated
at nearly six times the rate of whites? Why are prison sentences for
African Americans disproportionately higher? Once released, why
do people face a lifetime of discriminatory policies and practices that
smother any chance of a better life?
Nearly twenty years ago, before I began looking at the big
picturebefore I fully recognized there was a big pictureI set out
to offer the type of refuge and support I wished Id had: a house of
women helping women. I came at it with only a GED earned in pris-
on, without mentors, without funding. All I had was life experience.
All I knew was there had to be a betterway.
Now, every year in South L.A., around a hundred newly released
women and their children call A New Way of Life home. In a state
where more than half of all people with a felony conviction will
return to prison, our program has a mere 4percent recidivism rate.
xxii P rologue

We assist women in completing their education and finding jobs; we

help women regain custody of their children; we provide twelve-step
programs, counseling, and peer support groups. All for less than a
third of the cost of incarceration. Our annual cost per woman at A
New Way of Life is $16,000compared to the annual cost of up to
$60,000 to incarcerate a woman.
But something bigger than I could ever have imagined happened.
As we women began telling our stories and talking about what was
going on around us, I found my voice. I could no longer shake my
head and helplessly ask the same questions over and over again. It
was time to change the answers. To do that meant tackling the many
institutional b arriersthe laws, policies, and a ttitudesthat created
mass incarceration and that continue to punish people long after
theyve served time.
The Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution abolished
slavery other than in prisonsbut it was a lie that you regained your
freedom once you left the prison gates. Upon release and for the rest
of your life, you faced a massive wall of No. The American Bar Asso-
ciation documented 45,000 legal sanctions and restrictions imposed
upon people with criminal records, a near- impenetrable barrier
denying access to employment, student loans, housing, public assis-
tance, custody of your children, the right to votein many places,
the formerly incarcerated are even blocked from visiting a loved one
in prison.
The minute I picked up a supposedly free Ingrid, these collateral
consequences stared her square in the face. The highest priority was
to get her kids back. But before she could even attempt to regain cus-
tody of her daughters, we had to get her set up in permanent hous-
ing. But she had to have money to cover rent, so first we had to find
her employment. Of course only a limited number of jobs existed for
someone with a conviction. Are you starting to get the picture? By
design, Ingrids hopes and dreams were all but snuffed out, and her
childrens lives thrown into permanent disarray, that day she made a
faulty decision outside the Dollar General store.
 P rologue xxiii

This isnt a problem thats going to go away all on its own. The Unit-
ed States has the largest prison population in the world, and most
of those prisoners will one day be released. I realized that formerly
incarcerated people had no voice, and no one seemed willing to speak
for us. As I built A New Way of Life, it sometimes felt as though a new
underground railroad was taking shape. We, the people of the com-
munity, werent going to let each other fall. We would rescue each
other, and deliver people to a lasting freedom. We would do all we
could so that women like Ingrid could get their lives back, and make
better lives for their children.
Through the network Id cultivated over the past two decades, we
began chipping away at what was once nearly impossible. We found
Ingrid a job doing intake at a womens homeless shelter. Work-
ing closely with the Department of Children and Family Services,
and with proof of her residence at A New Way of Life, Ingrid was
approved to have her children on weekends while she pursued the
longer process of regaining full custody. She was putting money into
a savings account, and working with housing agencies to find a per-
manent residence.
Ms. Burton, she said, the sparkle having returned to her eyes,
Im moving my life along.