Reasons To Be Cheerful · 5 days ago

Formerly Incarcerated Mentors Are Changing Lives in California

Allen Burnett spent 28 years in prison believing he would die there, sentenced to life for a crime committed as a teenager -- but instead of surrendering to despair, he found purpose by helping other incarcerated men confront their trauma. At California State Prison, Lancaster, inmates created their own honor yard long before state initiatives, a space where men serving life sentences walked laps together for hours, held one another accountable, and built a culture of healing that Burnett describes simply: "Hurt people hurt people, but healed people help people." Today, as co-founder of Prism Way, Burnett trains formerly incarcerated people to become certified peer support specialists, transforming decades of lived experience behind bars into mentorship that reaches people in ways traditional counseling often cannot. The work reveals something both practical and profound: that those who have survived the deepest struggles may be best equipped to guide others through them, turning what society deemed worthless into lives of quiet service.