One Journalist Rebuilds His Life After Spending Time Behind Bars.

Lawrence Bartley was sentence to 28 years to life for the murder of a 15 year-old boy in the early 1990's. While incarcerated, He earned his bachelor's and master's degrees in Sing Sing's privately funded programs. Lawrence was part of Voices From Within, a group of inmates inside Sing Sing who work to end the cycle of gun violence.

“When I got home, family members would say things like, ‘Make sure you stay out of trouble, man—you don’t want to go back.’ And I would take offense to that. But I understand, they remember me from before.”

When Lawrence was paroled in May of 2018, he published his first article in The Marshall Project, and later landed a fellowship with the organization. Today, He is the director of News Inside, The Marshall Project's print magazine, which is delivered to 556 facilities in 40 states, in addition to the District of Columbia and Canada.

His transition to post-prison life was a huge success by the standards of most other formerly incarcerated people. Lawrence has a family — he has one child from a previous relationship, married his current wife in 2006, and had two more children, conceived on conjugal visits and were born while he was in prison — a good job and stable housing.

Read more of Lawrence life and his interview with Politico by going here.