025: From Prison, to writing and then becoming a motivational speaker, with two-time author Lawrance A. Haskins

In Lawrence's words: 

From October of 1992 through August of 2002, I was incarcerated inside the Federal Bureau of Prisons for the crime of armed robbery. For a decade of my life, I was lost to my friends, my family and even myself because of a horrible and irresponsible decision I had made. My inmate number was 22855-086 and I was only one of many 100’s of angry, disconsolate and wholly uncertain souls I would encounter in the tombs of federal prison system.

 

I share this not to elicit sympathy or comfort from any quarter. I did the crime and it was justly and fairly my lot to serve the time handed to me under the federal laws and by the federal courts of these United States.

 

I share this solely for one reason: So others who have made horrible, seemingly insurmountable and unbearable mistakes will know that there is a path forward, that if we are willing to do the work and commit to inside out and top to bottom transformation, there isn’t a single thing circumstance that the truly determined individual can’t come back from. Period.

 

As of this writing, it’s been 15 years since I walked out of the maximum security federal facility in Florence, Colorado and since that time, I’ve started my own business, published to literary works of fiction, and have been an employee in good and respected standing at some of the biggest corporations in the world. I learned the lessons of hard time and while it hasn’t been easy for me, I want others to know they can come out and still make something of themselves, that they can have a life and that it is possible to walk in the light of substantitive change rather than in the shadow of a horrible mistake.

 

Lastly, while I will be speaking to inmates in adult detention facilities about turning their lives around, to society at large for the purpose of educating them on the American Penal system and the effects, for better or worse, it has on its inmates, my main focus will be on at-risk youth and the young men and women incarcerated in Juvenile Detention Facilities all across this country.

 

The reasoning for this focus is straightforward: The young mind is still fertile to the seeds of positive change and the young heart is more receptive to the possibility of a bright and productive future. Again, not that we won’t speak to adult offenders but we believe strongly that our resources, at least at least in this stage of the execution of our mission, are best deployed by reaching our youth.Thank you for taking the time to read this.