I was meeting Mr.Lawrence Berry. I had seen him before; he had come to talk at the Season for Non-violence in February on campus. We sat at the kitchen table- Mr.Berry, Mr.Walker and myself. One of the other men was working at the kitchen. After we got started, he placed a fan near us. I explained my project to Mr.Berry, turned on the voice recorder and asked him to explain what he went through and how he experienced the change. I was a bit hesitant to say the words "crime" or "rape", but he began talking on his own, from the beginning.

The following is a summary of the conversation between Mr.Walker Gladden, Mr.Lawrence Berry and myself. I have rearranged bits and pieces so that they flow like a story, and retained some parts in chronological order even if they were disconnected. Links to the audio files of the entire conversation, as well as small excerpts are available below.

In 1984, when Mr.Berry was 17 years old, convicted for first-degree rape and conspiracy to commit murder. He was sentenced for life plus ten, which was subsequently reduced to 20 years in 1988. He felt that before the change in his mindset about crime, his life was dictated by his poor choices and decisions, and the peers that he allied himself with at the time. This mindset didn't change for his first 13 years in prison - he was involved with gangs, and resented following the rules and regulations of the system. He kept referring to his non-conformist attitude which made it very difficult to change except when the change came from within him. The turning point came when his best friend saw the things he was doing in prison, and told him: "If I had a 20 years in prison, there's no way I'd be doing the things you're doing or have done. I'm not going anywhere and I know I'm not going anywhere. I got triple life plus a 100 years. But you have the opportunity to do that which I don't have and the rest of our friends don't have -- so why don't you sit back, take the opportunity to go home and be different from those that are in society and those that you've allied yourself with in the past, just go home with a different mentality." So from 1988, he began to look at things differently. He began wondering what it would be like to live with a different attitude. He looked back at himself and thought he must have lost his mind doing the things he did. An older guy told him in prison, "Only two things are going to wake you up before you go home: either you're going to get hurt real bad in prison, or somebody real close to you has to die, like your mother or father." And that too, made him think about what he would do if he lost his mother, who had been a constant source of support.

I asked him about his family. He replied that he grew up in Washington DC, in a loving family. He "had no lack for anything". So why did he do the things he did? We all did it, he said. Crimes, armed robbery, assault, auto theft. That was just the "thing to do with this group of friends". He didn't think there was anything wrong with taking from somebody or hurting somebody. He didn't think because they all did it. Looking back, he thinks now that he wanted everybody to either love him or fear him. He said the fear part was just messed up - "the fear thing itself".

Funny thing, peer pressure. I suppose that unless we know someone who does otherwise, we never question our own acts. Why should we, when there are a thousand other things that seem important?

Was he in touch with his entire family then? Did they understand why? He replied that they were always in touch, always supportive, but they never understood. Why, even he could never answer why, except for saying that it was because of his ill-informed choices and decisions and the people he kept company with. By the time he was 15, his mother had given up on him, saying that either he was going to die on the street, or go to prison for the rest of his life. She already knew that he wouldn't listen, that he needed a "wake up call" about what would happen if he didn't pay attention to the rules and regulations. It's the same thing at home, he said. He didn't want to be told what to do -- but now he realized that if he was being told by someone who genuinely had his best interests at heart -- and they showed it, then he would comply. But it took him many years to think and feel like the way he did now.

Even the first time he was released from prison, he said, he said he still had a lot of "prison inside". He had the same non-conformist attitude, and that took him right back into prison. Only when he came back nearly six months later he began to appreciate the liberty of having his freedom, the liberty of going to the shower when he wanted. The liberty of not being told what to do. "If I'm being told what to do now," he said, "I'm being told because of those that are giving me sound advice and constructive criticism based on their observation on me and those that they know."

So what was it that caused his transformation? Was it merely the words of his friend? He replied that it was the combination of his religion (he was a Muslim), the words of those that "had his best interests at heart", and his wanting to re-enter society and show "them" that despite the odds of returning back to a life of crime, he was not going to be written off like a statistic. As I write this, I notice that the last reason is in fact also an expression of his non-conformist attitude. He discovered that the people at Rose Street were genuine and had his best interests at heart. He was effusive in his praise for Mr.Guyton - he said there was almost nothing he would not do for him or the folks at the community center, because they do so much for the community, for the kids, the parents that are struggling, the kids that may be getting into the bad ways. And most importantly, he said, Mr.Guyton tries to lead by example - even his example of being a black man. "Mr.Guyton didn't ask to be who he is," Mr.Berry said, "He is who he is because of the values that he has accepted." He said that Mr.Guyton tried to impart those values as much as he could to the men who were released from prison, to show them that "if they do these things, they see and smell the flowers."

So is it difficult to adjust to a totally different life? Doesn't even the thought arise to just resume a life of crime? He replied that it's hard, of course it's hard. He even found adjusting to a cell phone and the microwave difficult, because they didn't exist when he went into prison. Mr.Walker later added that they removed the TVs in the prison to keep the prisoners isolated from the world, but it actually makes the readjustment much more difficult once they are released from prison. Mr.Berry said he hadn't driven a car since 1980, but that didn't mean that he would drive away in Mr.Walker's car. Because now he knows the domino effect it would have on his relationship with everyone else, and he didn't want to be judged that way. It would affect his relationship with Mr.Walker, Mr.Guyton and everyone at the Rose Street Community center. It's difficult, he said, but not hard. Maybe 20 years ago, he might have found it difficult to have only 11 cents in his pocket, but now he appreciated his freedom, and his ability to go about, earn an extra dollar by doing overtime. He understood aspects of the system, like how capitalism works, how it is based on the concept of buying and selling. That it is generated by the working class people, by those that are consumers. It's based on give and take. So if he wanted a pair of shoes, he can't just walk in and pick up a pair, because he knew what would happen -- he would be caught and sent back to prison for another 20 years -- now he weighed the things that are on his behalf and those that are not in his behalf. More things weighed in his behalf, he said, if he just conformed. But he didn't want to conform in the sense of being dictated by the system, but he wanted to conform because those things are right. He gave the example of speed limits: "I'm driving a car, speed limit says 25, I wanna get home a little quicker. Let's do 50 miles an hour. Ok yeah, I can do those things. [....] the others don't care about that, the same way that I want to go home quicker and see my family. You wanna go home and be with yours, so you gotta be patient. The law says wait, so okay I'll wait. I don't wanna wait but the law says wait. what happens if I wait? There's the possibility greater than none, that I'm going to get to see my family. You'll get to see yours. You'll get to see yours. So I'm patient, I'm tolerant, I didn't have those feelings years ago, this is something that developed with me over time." Besides, many people had expectations on him : his best friend who's serving a triple life sentence (and recently had committed another murder in prison!), who told him that he would "kick Mr.Berry's ass" if Mr.Berry showed up back in prison. Mr.Walker, Mr.Guyton, his family, everyone had expectations of him that he could not let down. These expectations, he said, are out of a genuine concern and unconditional love, and it's only right that he gave it back. He also realized, he said, that he would fall short - but he would fall short only after doing his best, and he refused to fall short out maliciously or to hurt someone.

By this time, the person working behind us in the kitchen had given us all a glass of some green fruit punch. The cold drink was refreshing in the hot weather. After a few minutes, Mr.Berry tried to pour the cold drink from the glass into a bottle, spilling a part of the drink onto the table. Throughout, in the background, we could hear someone on a noisy moped circling the block.

I turned to Mr.Walker and asked him what Mr.Berry was like when he came home from prison. He replied that Mr.Berry was still in that mindset, and that Mr.Berry had to learn to do things the right way. He said how living in prison has a way of forcing a forceful physical and subtle mental adjustment on you. I asked him what the subtle part was. He replied that it was the mental adjustment of "knowing you can't leave". And the physical confinement and having to follow someone else's rules and regulations causes a mental strain on the individual as well as the obvious physical part. Mr.Walker said that this kind of confinement is "not normal for a free thinker".

At this point, Mr.Walker gave the example of how the ex-felons were a powerful influence on the children of the community. It was almost like a chemistry that was ordained to change the lives of the children -- that when the ex-felons like Mr.Walker and Mr.Berry spoke about their life and experiences, and their subsequent transformation, it left a powerful impression on the children. Moreover, both of them agreed that they could see which children were going to get into crime and drugs, and which ones wouldn't, because they had been through these things themselves.

I asked them about life in prison. Do they have any rehabilitation programs in prison? They did, at one time, years ago. Now they make the prisoners clean the city trash. That way, Mr.Walker said, society would think they are doing something useful, but nothing is actually changing in the minds of the prisoners. Now in prison they may have an acupuncture program. I suppose the surprise in my face was obvious, and Mr.Berry said, "Look at the look on your face!" and laughed. Mr.Walker said that what was needed was some kind of mental healing, something that would be productive for the lives of the prisoners. And in high security prisons, there's nothing. They just put you in solitary confinement.

So it's like they give up on the people, I said. Both of them replied that they already gave up! Mr.Walker said, "They say, look, these animals don't deserve anything! They wanna take away the television so that they can be distanced from the outside world. They take a man all ready to come back after 20 years, and these things can bring a different mindset. College is one of the greatest tools, not only do they educate themselves, to see things differently. but you're able to live instead of die. Education is like a massage for the mind it's like - what do they call it - a jacuzzi to the mind. Education actually relaxes, it teaches. But you don't want the water too hot, because it can strain too. You want it to be comfortable."  There were no books in prison, either, unless someone sent them to you.

So why do the kids get into crime in the first place? A lot of times, Mr.Berry said, the kids are influenced by things they can see, feel and touch. Tangible things. He said that a lot of times they try to emulate the lives of rappers, movies, videos -- and they are influenced by all the glamor. They don't know all the consequences that would result out of living that kind of life! They don't know, Mr.Berry said, what it's like to see the picture of the deceased, and the entry wounds and the exit wounds. They don't see the family of the deceased, the mother, the father, the grandmothers, the children. They don't think about what's going to happen to them in prison, they just don't think! Mr.Berry said, "When I talk to the children, they can see that I'm passionate about this, and that I care. And when I describe my experiences, they can feel and experience the consequences. I'm not going to glamorize it, I'm just going to tell them what is."

So do they see a life of crime as excitement? Don't they want to be on the good side? Mr.Walker replied, "They see TV, and they always see cops and robbers. They don't wanna be the cops! So they always wanna be the bad guys."

"But we see so many movies of the good guys defeating the bad guys.... ?", I persisted again.
"But see," Mr.Walker replies, "they have a certain way of defeating the bad guys. Sometimes the good goes beyond the duty of the good to get the bad. Sometimes the good becomes bad to get the bad. Instead of staying on the good side, they become like who they are after. So the mindset doesn't change. It actually shows the same way of thinking on both sides."

I was stunned by that insight. I had wondered about these kinds of things but it was far more tangible when Mr.Walker said it with the weight of his own experience. So I said, "We always believe that we want to do good but we shouldn't do bad in trying to achieve the good. If you want to achieve something, say you want to remove all crime from Baltimore -- you could arrest everybody, right?" Mr.Walker told me about the ways they try to work against homicide. They had the one dollar lawsuit in the small claims court. They wrote letters to the gun manufacturers, tried to get the city to sue the gun manufacturers. They had organized a homicide march. They had an ex-felon's workshop teaching the kids about making the right choices. All these are something good, he said, and the kids see that we are trying everything we can possibly do.

He showed me a recent newspaper report from Baltimore Sun. It proclaimed "Doctor wants to stop the epidemic of violence". It was someone from Johns Hopkins. Mr.Walker said, "Thank you doctor, because this is something that we can do now, because we were thinking about this anyway. We called the Center for Disease Control, we are asking you to classify homicide as an epidemic in Baltimore. So what happens now? The children see that this is coming from the ex-felon, they see us suing the mayor, they see us doing every possible thing that we can do to do something about homicide in Baltimore. The next step is this -- on Thursday coming, at 12 noon, we going to have a press conference at the corner of Rose and Monument where a young man was killed a few days ago. We're having a press conference, and inviting the doctor to come and let CDC know that they should classify homicide as an epidemic in Baltimore. Then we can actually have the resources that are necessary in our community so that our children can live, and declare Baltimore city as in a state of emergency."

By this time together with the noise of the moped, I could hear someone shouting on a megaphone on the street. I asked Mr.Walker what that was. It was Mr.Guyton (the founder of the center) talking about drugs and crime to the community.

Mr.Walker continued, "When you have 3-400 people killed of the same race, and 9/10 times it's being done by people of the same race. You have to look at the public school system, you have to look at the unemployment, you have to look at the drop-out rate, and you have to look at many levels, Everybody has to share the blame, the parents, churches, the school system, they mayor, the city. This year alone, think about what took place about the commission, to think that what took place to the public school system, the financial fall-out. There is a problem. They don't want to turn to those who may have some answers, because you are ex-felons. "

I replied, "But I see that ..."
He says, "You see that. But they don't see it. Nothing else has worked. So just try the advice of the ex-felons!"
"Why don't they see it?"
"It's like turning to someone who they think systematically, individually, collectively  or generally as bad, to think that that thing which you think is so bad and so wrong actually has no good in them.", he replied.

Central to this whole thing was whether you "gave up" on another person.

Mr.Walker shows me another document from his folder. It's a US News magazine, a magazine that none of the folks in this community read, in which Baltimore's Mayor O'Malley was quoted as saying, "Before I became mayor, nobody cared about black-on-black violence in Baltimore". Mr.Walker turns to me and says, "So what does that say about us? That we don't care?"

In the meantime i was getting a bit restless. I was torn between wanting to continue the conversation and wanting to listen to Mr.Guyton on his megaphone talking about drugs. I asked Mr.Walker how long Mr.Guyton would be outside. He replied, he may be out all night. They even slept on the street some days to discourage drug dealers from peddling in their neighborhood.

He showed me some more flyers from a group he was part of. It was the Environmental Justice Group. And he showed me some flyers of some of their events - the ex-felons workshop, the homicide march.

Mr.Berry says to me, "Let me ask you a question. What other avenues would Johns Hopkins provide to ex-felons? When can you facilitate a venue for the ex-felons to speak out about the ills of society? Could you be a liaison?"

I said I could, and in fact what I am doing was a way of taking this understanding back to my community at Johns Hopkins. He says to me that the system should provide in the curricula of high schools, colleges everywhere -- every campus in the state of Maryland -- should have a chance for the ex-felons to talk and participate -- for them to contribute their understanding. So that the kids can make healthy choices -- and stop short-cutting their lives by bad choices and making mistakes. He says to me that every time Mr.Walker or Mr.Guyton calls him to talk, he drops everything else he's doing. Because he thought this was important.

I wish others thought so too.

I asked Mr.Walker -- don't they have a liaison with Johns Hopkins? Aren't they helping out?
Mr.Walker replies, " The thing is that we don't put a burden on anybody. We want people do this out of their own desire. See the fact that you are right here, it's interesting to sit down among different minds. See you already on the right track, we already have similar views. We have some interests from a community perspective and a common ground. The thing is that we didn't call you, your desire called you. And then what actually imprinted the footsteps on your heart when we came to John Hopkins. We want to bring about change in the way of non-violence, which is a true way about bringing about freedom -- it brings about freedom at many different levels, to become a free thinker. So that change can come in the right way in the individual."

Mr.Berry asks me again about my motivations. I think all of them were wondering why I was here, what brought me here. I told him how i was really strongly affected by the event they came to at the Season for Non-violence on the Homewood campus, and how it was a window into something that I had never thought of. He replies that that is exactly how they would want to affect the children in their community.

Mr.Walker asks me whether I can come to the press conference at noon. I said I would come to see. Then as he was talking to someone else, I said to Mr.Berry, "It's curious that how when you get convicted in the system, the system doesn't care about you, much like..." Mr.Berry finished my sentence for me: "much like I didn't care about my victims."

When Mr.Walker turned back to us, he explains it to him, elaborating on what I had said. Mr.Walker replies: "That's one of the hardest mindsets that man can change. What the system does is to send out messages to society, to those they consider as citizens in society -- that these are animals. They'll never be nothing. For those who've been incarcerated, they don't give us hope, directions, resources, they don't create home ownership programs from ex-felons. It takes a strong mind to do this. Struggle identify with struggle, they actually see each other and identify with each other's struggle. The nature of struggle, it speaks to everyone equally. It speaks to you directly and tells you guess what, I'm speaking to you. The system create more struggle. Now struggle got a brother, and it's called struggle -- they're twins!" We laughed, and Mr.Walker continues, "Then they say, told you he can't make it out in the streets! It's like more struggle is dropped on top of my shoulders. You're not showing the real reasons -- and showing look how he acts! The true meaning of why you are responding is because you are entrapped and are trying to find some freedom. It's a serious process and don't mind being in it because struggle is in the same way that non-violence is -- it brings about freedom in the mind over time. Once you start appreciating struggle, you start appreciating the gifts of struggle. Once you get a gift from struggle, it becomes valuable and genuine for you. Struggle on the opposite side, it's like a diamond. The value is not on the outside, It's inside. It allows quality to be built in the mind of an individual, so that one can live in a right way."

Then Mr.Berry asks to stop the voice recording, saying that he had to go somewhere. I ask Mr.Walker if we could step outside and listen to Mr.Guyton. There were a few people moving about on the street, and Mr.Guyton was speaking on the megaphone about how people think they will never go to jail, they're smart, and they can stay out of jail. And how they should go to school, stay out of jail, etc. I took a photo of him.

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