i believe in fairness and mercy. i believe in justice. we have a system that has no room for that. and that s how we have gotten into the situation. then it turns to who belongs here. and you have talked a lot about juveniles being sent to maximum security prisons. i want to look at some of the incarcerated here. were any of you sentenced here as teens? i want to talk to a couple. what s your name? john. tell me when you were sentenced here. i was sentenced 25 years to life at the age of 16. obviously, for what crime? murder. the state thought you were a man. did you feel like a man at that time? no, i didn t feel like anything. i just didn t know. my mind wasn t in the right set. i couldn t think past five minutes at that age. and you were suddenly in an adult prison. just thrown right into it. thank you for talking with us. with that in mind, even violent
things like failing to report travel plans. high profile supporters rallied to his cause including jay-z and 76 erz cohoner michael remoubin. it was getting a technical violation and losing your job, losing your house, losing your family. trying to go to work and my travel schedule got confused. i don t think that s nothing to be placeed in a cell. but the rules are the rules. if you violate, you can go back to jail. some of these rules are designed for people to fail. what have you done since getting out? we started a foundation. we connect a lot of powerful people, people with a lot of resources. we try to make change and make the system better. you re trying to change and create laws here. we want to go state by state, start first in pennsylvania
so i think we have a lot of reform work to do. we have 13 states that have no minimum age for trying a child as an adult. i m in angola prison. he killed a gcop. he was 72 when i met him. we talked to the grandson of his victim. i want to play this. because this opens up a whole other question about where we re going here. this is no parole for that. his life sentence is permanent. my mom, my uncle, our belief in the system is that it s equal justice. i don t think anybody would sit there and say that he can never be a threat again. he needs to finish doing whatever his obligations are to get the parole. if he s going to pra role, congratulations to him.
place, there s so much involved. they have fantastic ideas. we re putting thoses ideas to work. you came here when you were 16. yes, i was arrested when i was 16 and left when i was 34. how did this place change you for the better? i know it sounds crazy, but i lived in nine security prisons over 16 years. i never met a warden until i got to sing sing. they would walk the halls and talk to us. are you in school? and really push us. i remember like it was yester y yesterday. you said to me, hey, what if we did more? it s just not a normal question from a superintendent in a maximum security prison to think about doing more like college and music and theater and work to make us dig deeper into what caused us to be here in the first place. you have been out about a year? 15 months. 25 years in the system. what was it like stepping on the outside? it was wonderful. i have been dreaming about my release since the first day i slept on a prison cot.
where meek is from, there s 300,000 people on probation. we want to get a million people out of the system by 2023. we while keeping communities safe. the morning after you were released, you told me you wanted to be a voice for the voiceless. you re doing that. yeah, i brush shoulders with a lot of people who lost their whole lives to the system. i got out of there. i wanted to use my voice. i m doing the most with my opportunities. that s what i want to do. i got a chance and i m taking it. let s jump into this. we re goinged by john lelgd and by loretta lynch, who served under president obama. it was spoken out about how tough it can be for former prisoners to reenter society. also with us is is nick turner, who leads the vera institute of justice and fighting for criminal justice reform. we want to acknowledge matthew charles, who earlier this year became one of the first prisoners released out of the first step act. we re going to talk to you a little later. but i want to a