Portraits of a New Beginning: José Sandoval

«I have the responsibility to live an honorable life in honor of the victims I have harmed.»

For José Sandoval, his birthday is a painful date. Every September 27, he re the event for which he was sentenced to 30 years in prison: a shooting that killed a 17-year-old boy in 1993. He knows that while one mother celebrates his life, another mourns her son. He went to prison in 1995, convinced he would spend the rest of his life there. “As I got older, I became aware of all the negative things I had caused,” José says. “I listened to the victims; I listened to the mothers talk about the pain, about what they went through, having children who were killed. It gave me a different perspective on the damage I had caused and pushed me to change.” In 2008, he witnessed something that seemed impossible: His neighbor, who had been sentenced to life in prison, was released. So he followed his example: He got involved in church groups and started helping others. He says that after 19 years in prison, he began to demonstrate change and was released six years later. “I showed how I had changed and was given a second chance,” he says. He now works as the director of employment programs at Friends Outside, which helps people like him reenter society. “I have no complaints,” he says. “Freedom is everything. I see the buildings, the people ... I think about the restrictions I went through, and then even the traffic becomes wonderful to me.

^{* The testimonies in "Portraits of a New Beginning" were collected and edited by Ana María Carrano, María Gabriela Méndez, Olivia Liendo and Tamoa Calzadilla, under the coordination of Olivia Liendo and Ana María Carrano.}

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