We hope you have enjoyed and learned from the "In Their Own Words" essays series we've shared this year. Our advocacy is made stronger when we listen to and amplify the voices of those who are directly impacted.  As explained in the Nothing About Us Without Us Act, enacted this year, people with direct lived experience are experts in their own lives and are in the best position to find solutions to the issues they face.

We close this essay series with an essay from incarcerated writer David Jackson, written especially for this newsletter. The essay is a call to action—a call to recognize the humanity of us all and to work TOGETHER to change our society for the better.

"Society's Pen Pal" by David Jackson

I want to change the world, but will you allow me to? Do you see the value I posses, or am I just an amalgamation of years of fear mongering and political selling points? Can you see past my background check to my future's forecast—or am nothing more than the title of felon, bestowed upon me by an unforgiving penal system? Am I just in my belief that no person is defined by solely their best or worst moment?

Humans by design are dynamic, defined by a collection of the life they lived, people they loved, and communities they affected. To which most cases begin to heal the wounds of prior bad acts. Understand this is in no way a justification, or even a pacification, of the criminal element. Rather a sonnet to the restorative nature of mercy. If I may submit for your consideration, having been given your forgiveness, I could effect change on a massive scale if only society would believe in who I am, and not who I was a decade ago.

Healing is a process in which we all most don active roles. No one person can sit idly by while a community is overcoming collective traumas. People must, by the laws of nature, react to change. We must allow that change to emphasize compassion and redemption, over subjugation and otherism.

You are uniquely positioned in this moment to take an active role in the healing of not only those with lived experience, but the community at large. Allow me to stand as proof that liberation can be found in the halls of prisons across this nation. Freedom abounds in the confines of prison cells, because that is where healing is birthed. It is in that healing that we, who are soon to return to your communities, ask you to believe in. Better yet, we ask that you cultivate it. Believe that I, and others like me, have value and that my value isn't fleeting, but is sincere.

Once you believe in my value, we—together—can see change in communities across our region. When you not only believe in my purpose, but support it, then I can influence change with unparalleled efficacy. It all begins with a decision. A decision to believe that what was meant to disqualify me is, in fact, the very qualification that makes me best suited to usher in hope to hopeless communities. Will you be the one to make the decision to believe?

Say you did make the decision to believe. You picked up this very newsletter seeking answers on how best to support someone with lived experience. The answers, while simplistic, remain mired in complexity that often scare even the most devout of invested persons. This complicated process finds itself nearly insurmountable to the uncommitted. Your reading of these words has propelled you through the first step. My challenge to you is that you continue to take another.

Explore the biases that remain latent within your subconscious, challenge the trauma-filled responses that blind you to the humanity of all regardless of condition. I challenge you to assume positive intent, trust that my state-sanctioned conviction has defined my heart's convictions to bring forth restorative healing to communities everywhere. Continue to step through the fear and doubt sown by years of legal system propaganda, systematic dehumanizing of justice-impacted persons, and commercialized sensationalism sold through media across this globe. When you reach the precipice of this journey, you will be met with a choice. A choice to continue blind to the wonders of those forgotten en masse by the justice system—or to become a vested advocate, not just for those who are healing, but for those who remain broken.

When your choice has been made, and you begin to question where your voice can be most loudly heard, the answer is simple. In the quietest room. Seek spaces in which nobody looks like you, shares your experiences, or speaks with your vernacular. Identify an ally in restoration and move diligently in companionship with them to move healing further. Use the authority you have been afforded by way of nature to break the traumatic cycles that meticulously ensnare us all.

I want to change the world, but will you let me? Better yet, will you help me?

It is with fervent sincerity I request you seek someone with lived experience, and invest in their dreams. Invest in the freedom they foster within themselves. Invest with your time, attention, compassion, empathy, ideas, guidance, criticism, love, and trust.

Although this process seems daunting, the ramifications of achieving it are indefinable. I will change this world, but WE will change history.

In service,

David Jackson

If you are interested in learning about the peer counseling, trauma, or reentry work I am currently engaged in, and would like to get involved, please contact me via the Securus platform, or through standard mail at:

David Jackson

387627 MCC - TRU

PO Box 888

Monroe, WA 98272

David Jackson is a relentless visionary purposed with the creation of opportunity for all who feel they are disqualified from society. David has worked in community for years to minimize the divide between society and those with lived experience. His passion for curing the trauma of justice-impacted persons has enabled him to create the first Peer Resource Center within the Washington penal system. This transformative peer counseling space will become operation in early 2025.