Darryl Headbird already has a job already lined up after his release from prison. But not all incarcerated people have that luxury, a fact that the Second Chances 5K inside Minnesota Correctional Facility-Faribault on Saturday morning was meant to raise awareness toward.
“I think every facility in the system has a restorative justice council that plans an event in the summer months to bring attention to restorative justice and second-chance opportunities,” Minnesota Department of Corrections Commissioner Paul Snell said.
The program was born out of the advocacy by Prison Fellowship International, a Christian nonprofit that advocates for prison reform and restorative justice for people who have been incarcerated.
The idea behind the 5K run/walk is to bring attention toward restorative programs that have been implemented to help incarcerated people become positive, contributing members of their community again.
“I think there’s many (barriers to reentry),” Snell said. “First and foremost, in many cases they have to overcome people’s perception that, just because they committed a crime, they aren’t worthy, they aren’t trustworthy, they can’t fulfill the obligations of working a job.
“Yet, we have many employers who regularly provide second-chance employment opportunities and find that second-chance employees are among the best employees that they have. Because I think for many of these people coming out, they know that when somebody gives them that opportunity, it is really important to double down. They work very hard, and there’s a level of obligation they feel to that employer.”
Snell said helping formerly incarcerated people succeed upon re-entry to society keeps communities safer.
“At the Department of Corrections, we recognize that our work has to be about the transformation of these folks that we serve,” he said. “Ninety-five percent of the people in prison are going to return to our communities, and we want them to be better coming out than when they came in here.”
Headbird was convicted of second-degree murder as a juvenile and has slept behind bars every day of his adult life.
While he said his decades-long prison sentence will finally come to an end in “three years and some months.” Though if an upcoming hearing goes well, he said he might get out in as little as three months.
“I’m definitely nervous,” he said of getting out. “If I do get out, I’m more or less getting out into a world that I really don’t much familiarity with because I grew up in prison.”
Headbird has earned a GED, taken some college-level courses and various workforce training, like forklift certification, that he said have helped prepare him for his release date. He also has a job waiting for him at a meat-processing plant his friend was able to secure for him.
While opportunities exist in the prison system, he said some people simply don’t take advantage of them.
“I think a lot of people don’t have the impetus to put forth the effort,” he said. “What I’ve seen over the years, there’s a lot of kids coming into the system. You don’t really see a lot of old guys coming again and again. It’s more kids that are just screwing around. Young guys getting high, getting drunk and messing around with gangs. And it’s sad to see that.”
While he said he has worked hard to improve himself, he is still scared of being sent back to prison.
“I’m just worried I’ll have to come back for accidentally running a red light or something. I am completely terrified,” he said. “I put all this effort into getting out, but there’s a fear in the back of my mind that if I sneeze too hard, I’ll end up back here.”
Headbird said the biggest issue the prisons are facing is staff shortages.
“In order for us to have programming to give us the tools to succeed, you have to have officers here to have access to the areas we need to get to,” he said. “Unfortunately, right now, that’s not the case.”
Jermaine Wilson was the guest speaker at the 5K event.
“During my time of incarceration, I actually went through the Prison Fellowship program,” he said. “They gave me the tools that I needed to become a better person, helped me to develop my character and see that I’m a person with a purpose instead of a felon, failure or mistake. Also during my time of incarceration, I gave my life to Christ.”
Today, he is the mission ambassador for the Prison Fellowship program and lobbies governments to reduce barriers to reentry, works with Prison Fellowship International as a motivational speaker and even became the mayor of his hometown, Leavenworth, Kansas.
Headbird feels a lot of prisoners are trying to be a positive force, like Wilson.
“We want to possibly make the world a better place,” he said. “We’re not all drug-pushers or whatever. A lot of us are actually trying to be a positive force in the community.
