This is the final installment of a three-part series about T.O.
I met T.O. through my private investigator friend Susan Randall. He had been a client of hers in a federal public defender case. When I first met him, it was 2017. He had just finished a six-year bid, and we sat in my car and talked about what it's like to start a new life after six years in prison. T.O. has been in and out of jail his whole adult life and before that, he was in Spofford, a juvenile detention center in the Bronx.
This is not a series about the crimes T.O. has committed, or the many crimes T.O. was the victim of as a child. Instead it’s a case study of one, about why reentry is so hard and why we live in a country with the highest recidivism rates in the world.
This last show was recorded nearly a year ago. T.O. had just gotten out of prison after a six-and-a-half year bid. It was winter. By this time T.O. was in his mid forties. He had no money, no housing and no address.
Explore the rest of the series:
- Part One: Seven days out of prison, and hoping to build a plain life
- Part Two: Building a new life after prison is harder than it seems
Rumble Strip is a podcast produced by Erica Heilman and distributed on the radio by Vermont Public. Learn more about the show here.
