This is Mr. Jenkins calling from Corcoran state prison. Today is September, the second, 2025. Today’s topic is, “Keep Your Eyes On The Prize.” The reason why I picked that is because the prisoners; we have things that we call ‘keep our eyes on the prize.’ The prize is being released. I would say, keep our eyes on the prize, it means that we are doing whatever we need to do in here to be able to be found suitable to be able to be released, to have a date to go home to your family.
A lot of guys, a lot of young men in here already have a date to go home to their family, but, sometimes they lose it. And the reason why they lose it is because of some negative activity that they do around so called other home boys, that doesn’t mean them no good, and we have to learn that. We learnin’ that everybody, everything, ain’t good for you. Everybody that say your friend, ain’t your friend, everybody that’s [unclear] from your hometown, it’s not. There’s something in prison, if we go based on what we each call our homeboy. Homeboy, in here, means if you’re from the same city or county, then you say, “That’s my homeboy,” even if I don’t know you from a can of paint. You don’t know me from a can of paint. So, what we try to do is keep our eyes on the prize, that focus to go home, to be with our family, to be with our kids, to go out there in the community, to be successful, and to be able to give back to the community.
I’m getting ready to be released in the next seven, seven and a half months, and my eyes been on the prize since I’ve been incarcerated and I’ve been doing a lot helping young men to be able to achieve their goal. I am also a mentor in here too, and I mentor about 20 people. So, my thing is this, this applies to me: the thing that you think you have it got goin on and you think you got it all together because you get out; you have to check yourself and make sure that you do. And the same way out there, sometimes we do things that we think we got it going on, we think we got everything intact but we don’t. We lack of missing stuff.
So, the communication in here, it’s the same as out there. If you don’t know what you’re doing in here, you can’t, you’re definitely not gonna know what you’re doing out there. We try to build a foundation in here to make sure we build a foundation out there. So, when we keep our eyes on a prize, that’s keeping our eyes on being released, then by our family, then with our kids, whoever we like to be around and to respect, and keeping your eyes on the prize is keeping your eyes — keeping yourself in check so you don’t have to be in the same situation that led you to get in this situation.
And so with that, my thing is that, be good to yourself, be truthful to yourself, be truthful and good to other people. So, if you want to listen to that and have any questions- prisonradio.org, you can go on prisonradio.org or you can shoot me a letter- It’s Mr. Jenkins, BM 4522 4B3RC-42 PO Box, 3481 Corcoran, California, 93212
These commentaries are recorded by Prison Radio.
