Introduction to LifeLines

audio

Avis on women serving DBI and legislative advocacy

Dawud statement

Avis’s Bio

Name: Avis L. Lee

Age: 54

Born: Altoona, PA

Grew up in: Pittsburgh, PA

Marital status: Single – celibate

Children: none

Siblings: 3 (1 sister, 2 brothers) living, one brother and one sister deceased.

Places visited: New York, New Jersey, West Virginia, Maryland, Washington, D.C.

Places like to visit: Miami, Key West, Puerto Rico, Haiti, Louisville, KY, New Orleans

Favorite pets: cats

Favorite animals: Peacocks and zebras

Favorite foods: Fruits, vegetables, lamb, turkey, and cheese

Favorite beverages: Coconut water, grapefruit juice, and Welch’s grape juice

Likes: Unity, peace, love, freedom

Dislikes: Chaos, discrimination, prisons

Conviction and time served: 2nd degree felony murder, 35 years.

Education: ABS Accounting/Business mgt, Certified Braille Transcriber

Hobbies: Genealogy, knitting, crocheting, gardening

Mechie’s Bio

My name is Marie Scott. My friends call me Mechie. I nicknamed myself after my best friend, Peachie, whose real name is Sharon Wiggins. She is deceased now, but as a teenager I always wanted to grow up to be like her. Because of Peachie, today I am proud to be who I am. I have two children, a son and a daughter. In 2008, I lost my son to a motorcycle accident. I thought I could lose my mind because we always thought that I would be released one day to share time with both of my children. My daughter’s name is Gretta.

I was born in Harlem, New York. Growing up I was constantly molested and raped until I was fifteen. Behind it I became severely codependent. The kind who could not say “no.” I felt if a man took me to a movie, that he was in love with me, so if he took me to dinner afterwards, he wanted to marry me. Love had been distorted in my childhood.

Codependence is a disease that brought most women to prison. Because codependency is a disease, I had to treat it as such. It is what cause me not to be able to say “no” to a guy who saved my life during a robbery that took place at the store I was employed b. I felt I owed my life to this guy after saving mine. How could I say no to a request to be a lookout in a robbery? Albeit, I had never robbed or stolen from anyone, my codependency just would not let me turn down the chance to help him back. Although I did not pull the trigger, I am just as guilty as my co-defendant. However, what is not fair is that because of the Miller decision, if the U.S. Supreme Court rules retroactivity, he will be set free, and I will be left to die in precision. Not that I want him to die with me. I have forgiven him because I am an intelligent adult now who knows that as a teenager, our minds are not fully developed. The sad part to me is that my brain was no more developed than his. He was 16 and I was 19. So why should I be cut off and left to die in here!

Today I am an editor with a degree. I am currently working on a book of fiction. I love writing. I am also a pianist in training. My life does not stop because of my circumstances. Albeit, I have become infamous, one day I will turn that around with my love for writing.

Phill’s Bio

I am Felix Rosado, known as Phill, and have been fighting a death by incarceration sentence for 20 years since age 18. I was raised in Reading, PA, where I got sucked into the street life in my early teens. Before that, I was a straight A student and projected to be the first in my family to go to college. To everyone’s disappointment, however, I went from high school to the pen, where I spent the first decade of my confinement in and out of the RHU (or Restricted Housing Unit, also known as solitary confinement), still engaged in behaviors that led me here.

Then, finally, came my awakening. I built a relationship with God and began to participate in activities that got me to take the focus off myself and put it on helping others, which gave my life meaning. I’ve never looked back. Currently, I coordinate and facilitate restorative justice and Alternatives to Violence workshops; I am a member of the Inside Out Prison Exchange Program Graterford Think Tank and a Lifers Inc. subcommittee, Right to Redemption; and I am a few classes away from earning a Bachelor of Arts degree from Villanova University. Most importantly, though, I’m happily partnered (or as we like to say, “stuck”) with the most amazing woman in all the universe, my Barbie. She’s my other half, keeps my focus where it needs to be, and stretches me beyond my limits.

Terri’s Bio

Name: Terri-Joell Harper (birth name, but I don’t like Joell)
Age: 46 (January 4, 1969)
Born and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (spent my formative years in South Jersey)
SINGLE SINGLE SINGLE
No children by birth.
Siblings: Little sister Cashmere, whom I helped raise. Half-brother and sister from my father Torry and Lakailah)

I’ve been to a lot of cities up and down the Eastern Seaboard, and spent a summer out West. The one place on this planet I feel I need to visit most is Italy, but I also want to see Africa. Pictures I have of trips my folks have been on make me want to see so many places that I just wish for any opportunity to travel, because there is so much to see.

I absolutely love to cook, write, read, and laugh. I love big dogs, blue skies, and watching the seasons change. As the seasons continue to change on my life and the lives around me, I want to know that I am actively doing all I can to change my actions and the outcome of such, so the world around me and at large can be better in some way. For every little bit of success I achieve, we all are safer and happier.

My second degree murder and 24 years does not define the whole of who I am. It signifies what I did, and what I am trying to make amends for, and this LifeLines Project through Decarcerate PA is a great way of helping me do exactly that. It’s doing good work… good work, and we have to keep going. We owe it to our victims, our supporters, our futures, and to change.

Clinton’s Bio

My name is Clinton Walker. Some may also know me as Nkechi, which means “Loyal.” I am 34. I’m from Philadelphia and have been in prison for 17 years. I am a Juvenile Lifer, which is one who is serving a Life Sentence given to them for a crime they were directly involved in when under the age of 18. I’m a writer, a reader, and a self-proclaimed singer, though many of the people who has heard my vocals would strongly oppose the statement of me being a singer, for reasons I can’t quite put my finger on. I’ve become a strong man in prison and strength can be viewed in many ways but in this instance, I refer to my mental strength and character. The horrors, hardships, assaults and insults that’s molded in prison and its system, has forced me to focus and cultivate the best of me in such a way as to stay human, versus becoming a bitter shell of what human is. Albeit, I have little academic achievements, yet I take great pride in my achievements of disallowing the diseases of prison to become chronic ones.