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This is Uhuru Rowe speaking to you from the Virginia prison system. This year marks the 21st year of my incarceration here in the Commonwealth of Virginia, after entering a non-cooperating guilty plea to six selling accounts.
When I first came to prison at barely 18 years old, if someone would have told me that after 21 years I would still be in prison, I would have found such a statement to be quite humorous. But spending decades in prison while I slowly transformed from a vibrant, bare-faced teenager into a middle-aged adult with a salt-and-pepper beard, is no laughing matter.
Like many others whose spirits haunt the inside of these prison cells, I had complete faith that the so-called American justice system would correct what many people feel is a great miscarriage of justice, when I was sentenced to 93 years for a robbery and murder, which I participated in, but did not possess a weapon. In prison terms, there is an unprecedented 80 years over the recommended sentencing guidelines in my case. It wasn’t until several years later when I realized that American-style justice doesn’t deal fair with people like me; the poor, Black and young.
Because Virginia abolished parole back in 1995, we must serve 85% of our sentences before release. In my case, I must serve a total of 79.5 consecutive years before I can return home to my family. Many of us in the Virginia prison system are suffering under this 85% law. Many of us are first-time felons with no prior history of violence. Many of us were under the illusion that American-style justice was all about mercy, fairness and second chances. If we all make bad decisions, but have the capacity to mature, grow and change, don’t we all deserve a second chance? And if the answer is an emphatic “Yes,” then why are teenagers in Virginia and around the country routinely sentenced to life–and de facto life without parole sentences–that will result in us spending the remainder of our years in prison?
The only chance we have of regaining our freedom here in the Commonwealth of Virginia is through an act of clemency by the governor. My current clemency petition has been pending with Democratic Governor, Terry McAuliffe, since June 2014. I ask that people who sympathize with my plight, and cause, support my efforts to have my sentence commuted. You can learn more about my case at the San Francisco Bay View’s website at sfbayview.com, my blog at consciousprisoner.wordpress.com, and my Facebook page at facebook.com/supportuhuru/. Thanks for listening.
These commentaries are recorded by Noelle Hanrahan of Prison Radio.
