They had all committed murder. 

Violent acts. Acts that ended lives in an instant. Acts that condemned them for the rest of their lives.

They had all pleaded guilty or been convicted of murder. Some served double life sentences. They recited their sentences in years – 150 years, 200 years. None of them were eligible for parole. None of them believed they would ever be free or live outside of a prison again.

They are arguably the most sincere group of people I’ve ever met.

I sat with them in a circle in a room inside a Bland, Virginia, prison back in the late 1980s. A reporter’s notebook and a pen in my hands. A correctional officer stood outside the door. 

Just me and a group of men who admitted to being murderers.

They had formed a program designed to keep troubled kids from making the same mistakes they had made. The program was fully backed and sponsored by corrections officials.

Troubled kids visited the prison or the inmates met the kids in facilities outside of the prison. The program was like Scared Straight in that the aim was to keep these kids from one day being sentenced to prison but the inmates didn’t yell or scream at the kids. They didn’t openly threaten the kids like in the Scared Straight documentaries. 

Instead, the inmates showed the kids how wrong turns can lead to dead ends. The threat was implied: Keep making mistakes and you could end up living in here with us.

The inmates told their stories. 

Hard stories, powerful stories, stories from when they weren’t convicted killers but kids who started making wrong choices, kids who became men who made choices that put them behind bars.

And while some people said the inmates had an ulterior motive. That they created and participated in this program with hopes of redeeming themselves or one day freeing themselves. Those folks were only partly right.

Again, these inmates would never be paroled, according to the conditions of their sentencing. 

But they did have ulterior motives.

The inmates had something in common other than just being convicted murderers.

They were all fathers.

Each one had children out in the free world. Sons, daughters, growing up without a dad in their lives. Most of them had no contact with their children. They were sentenced to life in prison and sent into exile as fathers.

While the inmates said they wanted to prevent kids from going to prison, they hoped and prayed somebody would help their children make the right choices, since they could not.

They didn’t say it but they hoped for karma. 

If I help this child, maybe someone will help my child.

That karma wish is what defined their sincerity.

The promise of changing lives outside of prison changed lives inside of prison.

Dean Poling is an editor with The Valdosta Daily Times and editor of The Tifton Gazette.