People do not sometimes value the joy,fellowship and support they get from members of their families until when they are kept away from these families for a long time where they can not reach out to them at will to enjoy their love.
Listening to Willie Stokes a former Gang member as he shared his story on Redemption and as a black sheep that went in and out of prisons several times
.His reasons for joining crime could be attributed to some of the failures and challenges he faced from some family members but he did not forget the love and care he got from his mother and Aunty.
It was clear from his narration that his uncle the husband of his Aunt did not treat him well and did many other unspeakable things to him and many other relations but the love and care he got from his Aunty and mother was never to be forgotten.
Another visit to Salinas Valley State Prison and the Correctional Training Facility on Tuesday where we listened to presentations by some former Gang members and also had group discussions with them furthers shows how they missed their families,especially their sons and daughters.Their desire to reconnect with their children with the hope that these family will accept them and they too will help these children to imbide good values and virtues that will keep them away from going to prisons like their fathers .
Listening to how they expressed their stories with deep emotions and remorseful, one could see the common ground in their predicament that people can go to prison not only because they come from poor families but even those from privilege families can go to prisons when they commit a crime which they see as “mistakes”.
These regrettable mistakes have kept many of them that are in prison away from their beloveth families for many years ,but the bond of love and family tide make them desire to be with these families again ,to have good times of fun ,and to assist their children by inculcating good values on them so that none of their children will ever be send to prisons in the future.These kind of love and passion to reunite with their families is encouraging them to work hard and demonstrate genuine change of attitude so that family members will accept them again to live a better life and never to go back to prisons again.
