Is True Crime Keeping Me in Prison?

Photo-Illustration: Vulture; Photos: Getty Images

In September 2018, I published a story in New York about the mental-illness crisis in prison. On a lark, I reached out to a producer I knew at CNN, Loen Kelley, and asked if she could help get me a segment to talk about the crisis. I knew Loen through her website, PrisonWriters.com. In 2001, when I was 24, I shot and killed a man on a Brooklyn street. I was sentenced to 25 years to life, on top of the three years I was already serving for selling drugs.