I woke up this morning and immediately dashed to my mother’s room and jumped into bed with her. It’s been 29 years, six months and five days since I’ve been home. When I was arrested, I was only 16. And through all those years behind the wall, one of my best memories – the one I wanted to return to so much I could taste it – was the peace I felt when I could lay in bed with my mother. No matter how tough of a dude I was out on the streets, when I was cuddling with my mom I could be just a kid.
When you ask me what it feels like to be free after so long, that is the first of many impressions from my first few days home.
Let me back track a little. On Thursday, Feb. 13, I was still in my cell at USP Coleman 1 in Florida, the high-security federal prison where I spent most of my last 16 years. Not too long before, I had been denied parole for the third time. I was among a relative handful of DC residents who was convicted before parole was abolished in 2000. Thus, I had an “indeterminate” sentence of 30 years to life, with the federal parole board deciding when or even if I got out. And with the US Parole Commission, the answer is almost always “not this time.”
Rob (second from left) and his “family” inside
Fortunately for me, DC is among 13 states (the latter is wishful thinking for DC) with a second-look law – in the District’s case, allowing individuals who were arrested when they were under the age of 25 and had been incarcerated for at least 15 years to petition for release based on maturity and rehabilitation. I applied in 2019, but despite the highest hopes of my mother and my friends, was denied due to my earlier misbehavior while still rebelling against prison life. The rejection was devastating, but it also led to founding of More Than Our Crimes (MTOC) as my “therapy” and programming. (High-security federal penitentiaries are locked down much of the time, preventing much personal development.)
Once denied, second look applicants cannot reapply for three more years. In 2024, I tried again. And this time, even the U.S. government supported my application – partial testament to the platform MTOC has become. After that, everything started happening very fast.
On Feb. 13, at about 2:30 p.m., my counselor came up to my door and said, “This is your lucky day, Barton. You’re going home.” And just like that, with barely time to shout my good-byes to the men who had been my family for so long, I was outside and in an Uber on the way to the Orlando airport. I never looked back. I knew I never wanted to see that fortress ever again.
My plane was supposed to leave at 7 p.m., but was delayed by two hours, and here I was – someone who hadn’t been on a plane except in shackles – trying figure out what all the signs meant, while hundreds of people rushed by all around me. I didn’t have a phone to check in with anyone; in fact, all I had were the sweats I was wearing and some money strapped to my leg. Fortunately, I’ve always had good social skills, so I stopped an older woman and she helped me navigate, like explaining how the whole “group system” works with boarding. It was sort of like being a child again in a sense. For somebody else who doesn’t have my social skills – and there are a lot of people in prison who don’t – It would be tough.
On the plane, the woman next to me was a bit pissed about the delayed departure, and I said, “Patience!” When she rolled her eyes, I said that I’d been forced to learn patience. She asked what I meant and I replied, “I’ve been locked up 30 years straight.” It turned out that one of her family members had been in jail, and that opened up a whole conversation about More Than Our Crimes. When you hear people’s stories, you discover your commonalities. I think that’s the power of stories – which is what More Than Our Crimes is all about.
And then I walked out of the plane, my cousin picked me up and I arrived at my mother’s home. Freedom…sweeping my mother into my arms and dancing her around the living room. Freedom…walking into a grocery store and choosing whatever the hell I want. Freedom…opening my own door and setting my own schedule. Freedom…walking outside without someone frisking me first.
Freedom. It’s been a long, tiring and arduous “freeze” in my life. I am thankful that I still have a lot of life left to live, unlike too many other people in prison who have life sentences. But it’s also true that I left a piece of me behind. I know that when I walked out of those doors, and the men erupted in cheers, they were thrilled for me – not only because we are family, but because it means there is hope for them too. There is a wealth of potential locked behind those walls who deserve to be free as much as I do.
Everything is coming fast now. I have get an ID, sign up for benefits, find a job. But my priority is working with Pam to build More Than Our Crimes into the powerhouse we know it can be. Because I will not rest until the federal prison system is the place of rehabilitation it is supposed to be, and everyone I left behind follows me out.
Because we are so much more than our crimes.
