A Life Interrupted, A Cycle Broken

Once caught in a cycle of addiction and jail, Michael is rebuilding his life – thanks to a second chance.

Michael had been in jail for twelve days when his wife, pregnant with their son, finally found a way to reach him. She had spent those days calling bail bondsmen, trying to put together enough money to get him released. Each time she was told no. His record, marked with failures to appear in court – some for little more than being late to court, others because he was stuck in one county’s jail while scheduled to be in another – was enough for bondsmen to dismiss him as a “flight risk.” 

He sat in a cell, watching his life slip away, until his wife discovered an organization he had never heard of before. “I’ve been in and out of jail all my life and I’ve never heard of any bail projects,” he said. “My wife found y’all online, I guess when she was looking for bondsmen. Y’all acted immediately for me and it was just such a blessing.”

Bail disruptors working with Michael and his wife learned that he wasn’t actually likely to flee to evade the court. That just wasn’t his actual history. He simply needed support through the process, reminders to appear and other support.

“When I got arrested this last time, I was at a point in my life where I had just had enough.”

Michael has been clean and sober since The Bail Project secured his release. He talks openly about his past: decades in and out of jail and prison, more than ten years of his life spent behind bars. “I grew up doing drugs and that type of lifestyle,” he said. “When I got arrested this last time, I was at a point in my life where I had just had enough. I mean, I was almost 40 years old. I’d had enough of that lifestyle. I found a good woman… We got clean together and we had a kid. And when y’all stepped in, she was pregnant with our son. I was already ready to change my life and I was on the way. I had just back slid a little and got caught up.”

Being in jail, Michael explains, is often misunderstood by those who have never been there. “It kind of depends on where you’re at on the street, where your mind space would be when you get locked up,” he said. “If you’ve got everything going for you, you’re staying out of trouble and you got a good job and you’ve got a mortgage, then it definitely weighs a lot more on you and you got a lot of things to lose.”

What changed his life was the opportunity to enter drug court, a diversion program available in some jurisdictions where defendants are offered drug rehab instead of incarceration. He had never been offered it before. “It’s basically an extensive outpatient rehab that you have to go to three times a week,” he said. “You’re randomly drug tested up to every day, four or five times a week. They give you a lot of chances if you fail a drug test, they’re not just going to lock you up. They understand that addicts are going to mess up. Versus probation, you fail one drug test, you’re going to jail no matter what. Drug court is really lenient on you as far as giving you the help that you need instead of just locking you up.”

He completed the program last November. “I successfully completed drug court, completed my probation, paid all my fines, everything. And I haven’t had any kind of trouble since.”

Michael and his wife now live in Jay, Florida, on land owned by her grandparents. “They gave us a couple acres and we put a down payment on a new four-bedroom mobile home and put it out here on their land,” he said. “We’ve been here about a year and a half now.”

Looking back, he recognizes how close he came to losing it all. Without help, he says, he would have been stuck. “My wife tried and tried all 12 days trying every bondsman. They wouldn’t because of those three failure-to-appears and I was stuck. We were fixing to lose everything.”

Michael is aware of the criticism that bail reform makes communities less safe. He disagrees. “I don’t think so,” he said. “I mean, they arrest people for so much ridiculous stuff it’s not even funny. And there’s a lot of people that just can’t afford to bond out.” He believes the system should do more to consider the whole person. “I would want them to take a look at the whole life a little bit better, and sentence according to the path that they’ve been on, the path that they are on.”

“I’ve done over 10 years of my life behind bars,” he said. “But I’ve been clean and sober and out of jail and everything ever since y’all bonded me out.”

When he talks about his life now, it is with a quiet pride. “I’ve done over 10 years of my life behind bars,” he said. “But I’ve been clean and sober and out of jail and everything ever since y’all bonded me out. Y’all have been such a blessing. God sent y’all right at the right time.”