Locked In with Ian Bick - Ex-Gang Member Reveals How Texas Max Security Prison Gangs Really Operate | Donnie Worley

Episode Date: October 29, 2024

Donnie Worley, a former gang member, breaks down how prison gangs operate inside Texas maximum security prisons. He shares first-hand insights into the structure, rules, and power dynamics that govern gang life behind bars. In this episode, Donnie discusses the realities of survival, the relationships between different groups, and the challenges inmates face in this high-stakes environment. #PrisonGangs #TexasPrisons #MaxSecurity #GangLife #PrisonStories #TrueCrime #InsidePrison #GangCulture Hosted, Executive Produced & Edited By Ian Bick: https://www.instagram.com/ian_bick/?hl=en https://ianbick.com/ Presented by Tyson 2.0 & Wooooo Energy: https://tyson20.com/ https://woooooenergy.com/ Buy Merch: https://lockedinbrand.com Use code lockedin at checkout to get 20% off your order Timestamps: 00:00:00 Donnie's First Interview Experience 00:03:17 Growing Up in a Tense Environment 00:06:52 Overcoming a rough childhood 00:10:11 From Sports to True Gratitude 00:13:21 Overcoming the Past: Choosing a New Path 00:16:32 Prison Time 00:19:52 Life Under the Bridge: A Personal Story 00:23:02 Life in Texas Prisons 00:26:09 The Cycle of Poverty and Finding Family 00:29:46 Corruption and Economics of Prisons 00:33:00 The Influence of Inmate Leaders on Prison Systems 00:35:49 National Guard Interventions and Their Consequences 00:39:03 Reflection on Life Changes and Redemption 00:42:25 The Struggle of Reintegrating After Prison 00:45:57 The Impact of Family and Faith on Recovery 00:49:05 Embracing Faith and Family in the Face of Adversity Powered by: Just Media House : https://www.justmediahouse.com/ Creative direction, design, assets, support by FWRD: https://www.fwrd.co Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

How many discounts does USAA auto insurance offer? Too many to say here. Multi-vehicle discount. Safe driver discount? New vehicle discount. Storage discount. How many discounts will you stack up? Tap the banner or visit usa.com slash auto discounts. Restrictions apply. You're great at protecting your data,

but lots of places could still expose you to identity theft. I thought it was safe. If that happens, LifeLock gives you a U.S.-based restoration agent who will stick by your side from start to finish. Phone calls, filing documentation, preparing insurance claims your agent handles it all in fact we're so confident restoration is guaranteed pour your money back isn't it nice to have someone like that on your side save up to 30% your first year at lifelock dot combs slash podcast terms apply donnie welcome to lockton man pleasure having you another episode at late cumberland recovery excited to have you on i'm excited to be here and so the audience knows this is your very first interview ever absolutely that's so cool Yeah, outside of an officer. Oh, yeah, you've got the lights on you?

Yeah, yeah. How many times have you been at a table like this being questioned? A couple. Just a couple? Just a couple inside of some men with badges. What about in the prisons when they call you into them? Did they have the lights on you? No, no lights, but one time.

I would say one time inside, even there's a prison inside of a prison. Yeah, you know, everyone when they think they're going to get questioned, like the civilians who have never been to prison, they think it's like the white lights, the table, where are you on this night and that? But the only thing authentic about that is the little recording the day to go. Yeah, they still have that, even with all the technology. They got a little smaller now, but it's totally different.

I was like watching the movies and realizing how different it actually is when all of this happens. So we're in Kentucky right now. Yes, sir. Did you grow up in Kentucky? No, no, I actually came here for treatment for my addiction, alcoholism, what it had led me. I actually came from Panama City out of where I was living at the time. Panama City, like out of the country?

No, Panama City, Florida. Oh, there's a Panama City, Florida. I'm watching Prison Break right now, so they talk about Panama every episode. Yeah, yeah, there's Panama, which, like you said, out of the country, but Panama City, Florida. But I grew up a lot there. My dad's family's from the Florida Alabama line, and then my mom's family's from Texas. So you'll hear me speak a lot where I grew up in Florida, Texas,

Florida, Texas, back and forth a lot. I've been here since April 4th, 2021. Kimberly County Recovery Recovery for treatment. Where were you born in Florida? No, I was born in McKinney, Texas, right outside of Dallas. Texas. And did you spend, like, early childhood in Texas? Yes, I would have to say probably just as much,

back and forth between Texas and Florida. I mean, addictions of my mom, also, as I ended up getting into, also, me and my sister was passed back and forth. We really, a lot of times backed in, of course, you didn't have CPS in your lives in the 70s and 80s as much as they do now, so it wasn't nothing to pick up the records of a school and then drop you off in another one, right? So that's kind of how our life was a lot. my and my sister didn't know at any time when we would be onto another school or an aunt or an uncle or a cousin or whoever we would be living with due to my mom's lifestyle.

Where was your dad in this? I didn't. My dad was in Florida. He was a truck driver. I didn't really get to know my dad until about 10 or 11 years old. Do you think if he was in your life at an early age life would have turned out a little bit differently? No, probably not. Maybe. I really don't know because it was just as intense of a lifestyle in my dad, where I live with my dad as it was with my mom. The only difference was is my dad settled down when when me and my sisters moved in.

He stopped his wildlife and tried to make better of ours. but of course we just was hard-headed, so already on that lifestyle. How old were you when you realized your mom was an unstable environment? Man, I actually acknowledged that. You know, it's hard to say. Probably older because that was just normal. You know, I didn't know that it wasn't normal. I didn't know that partying and getting high and doing all those things with your own.

mom. I registered success with my mom. It was happy, good times until it wasn't. But I didn't know what was really going on until, I want to say probably 12 or 13. How did you feel about other kids that you were growing up around who had like the two family or the two parent household, you know, the nice family, that all of that that you were, you were lacking essentially? I really didn't know nothing about that until, you know, until I got older to even realize there was outside families other than what you see on TV. Brady Bunch type stuff was on TV. It wasn't my world.

It was poverty everywhere I grew up. I didn't really, I've never been the kid that kind of got jealous about that kind of stuff. I didn't know later until I start working on that stuff that comes out that there was ever an issue there. It's what they teach you in recovery when you're working steps on getting that stuff out that you never knew even bothered you from a child. I never knew that I had issues that were as a result of that kind of lifestyle because it was just a normal thing for me until later in life, how far my addiction took me to when I really settled down with people who get that out of you to talk about it. How would your sister describe you if she was here right now?

My sister? Yeah, back then. Back then? Yeah, how would she describe you? A hateful kid. Like bully type of mean? All the way. Mean, hateful, bully.

Yeah, I was. Really bad. Where do you think that came from? Well, then I couldn't have told you. But today I think it was just because of the lifestyle that I was in that I couldn't control, watching the things that my mama went through. Now, I'll speak about my mom in a lot of things,

a lot of things that happened. But I do want to say this, because of where I've ended up today in my life. Now I totally have totally respect and love for my mother, but it took a lot of years. It absolutely took me getting to where she was to have an understanding. She was a bad heroin addict. She was a bad junkie.

There was things that I was part of as a child that traumatized me in ways that I didn't know it was. Fights as a kid that I would have to do at Biker rallies and parties. Fight other kids to get what she needed to get. I didn't know at that time. And if I didn't succeed in that, there was consequences. So I didn't realize how much trauma that was till later on in life, obviously. But I don't allow that to affect me today like that.

I just acknowledge that that's where it came from. I had anger towards my mom because I couldn't control. I wanted the success, you know, when I registered success with my mom getting high, mom, all that as a child. Me and my mom, I started using with my mom at eight years old. And me and my sister both, she's a year older than me and my sister. So that lifestyle of recklessness is, uh, just was a normal. So I didn't have anything against kids who had more than me.

Me and my sister both had a birthday. Our birthdays are the same day, exactly one year apart. She's November 30th, 1977 is mine. November 30th, 1976 is hers. We were in the stage of poverty due to addictions that our birthday and our Christmas presents were both the same. And sometimes we shared it. Not hearing about a woes me card, but that's just the reality of it. Corn flakes and sugar water and a syrup sandwich was definitely a part of my life.

Do you feel like you weren't given a fair shot at life being born into the life you were born into? You know, I maybe a lot would say that. But today, I have to say, man, I wouldn't have to say, man, I wouldn't have to. for nothing. I wouldn't. There was times it is definitely molded and shaped me to be a soldier in the right army today because I get to help others that went through what I have been through and what God has brought me through today. Anything that I've went through me and it had to happen, I don't say, I'm not like I sit here and tell you that, you know, God made that happen, but he allows things, I truly believe that today,

so that I could be here helping a family and brothers and sisters that are like-minded just like me, who has fought addiction, who's been in prison, who has been homeless, who has lost everything, who has ate out of dumpsters and cardboard boxes and who just hadn't had nothing but death, destruction in their life for many years. To have that overcome and still fight today and get to help others,

man, I wouldn't go back and have no silver spoon stuck in my mouth. I like what you said about fighting for the right army because you've been on the wrong side of that. Do you think that prepares you for the right side? Yes, yes, I do. I feel 100% for sure that everything that I've been a part of affiliated in or went through

helps me be equipped today to bring brothers out. I have real respect. He don't know me, but one of my people that I really look up to I don't know if you've heard of Brian T. He's from out in Texas. Brian T, shout out to Brian Tee, man.

Kingdom Music. He's got a real powerful message on coming from the streets and prisons and affiliations. And now he just goes and shares the Word of God and helps people and puts them up and sponsors them to get on the mic and rap and sing music. It's pretty awesome to see. So I like that, man.

I'm inspired by that kind of stuff. Yeah. That's awesome. Did you make it through high school? Did you end up graduating? No, I was really good in sports. I really had a, I had signed an tent letter with Bobby Bowden, my junior year for Florida State University. I went to Rutherford High School, 5A school in Springfield, Florida, and Bay County.

And I lost that same year. But I'm glad of that too. I think that. And you say, why is that? Well, because I wouldn't have today what I have. I wouldn't have the gratitude and gratefulness for what I do got and not what I don't got. And so it's just I have a true understanding today of what is of value, which is real love, man. It's just real care and concern for one another.

And if I had millions of dollars and become a football player, what have you. Who knows if I will, who knows really is your friends or your loved ones, man? I don't know. Maybe I'm not seeing that right, but that's the way I see. what I got today you can't put a price on it. True love with my wife for eternity. Couldn't trade that in, and it sure ain't because of my Benjamin Franklin's.

Amen. And I have a family that are like-minded. I can call on. With late-common recovery that God has led me to, I just can't put in words to express the importance of what that does. So that's why I get up today, and I get to do these things. We talk about it.

We don't have it. It gets stressful, and it gets weary. And it gets tired, but it is well worth it, man. When you see people's lives transform around coming from where I've come from of hopelessness and the dumpster and affiliations and gangs and prisons and to feel like you have no other option and nowhere else to turn and you give up on yourself, but to have others just to reach down in and just love on you and love on you and you can't understand it. And then all of a sudden it starts to just develop a new person that you become

and you have a light that clicks on inside of you, and then you start to have a fire that you start burning and you want to help others, and then you start to see where the true riches of glory comes from from inside, that you start pulling off into others, and then it just becomes an addiction because I told you I'm an addict. And so I want more of it. Now, that may be with the wrong motive, but at the same time, God's going to work it out because we get to help others. And man, you can't order that from Amazon. You can't order that off the shelf of Walmart. You can't. You can't buy it, brother. Well, and you know, here's the thing.

Prisons and gangs don't disappear overnight tomorrow. No. So you have been through that life. Yes. You could be preventing by talking about it openly and honestly, that next young person that finds himself in a penitentiary. Absolutely. And has to join a gang.

Absolutely. So you could prevent that. Even brothers that sit down on my couch in my office, man. It's been awesome to see. I've had brothers said I get to be a chaplain today. So at the facility that I'm at, brothers come to me because they hear me testify, and they say, brother, I need to talk to you.

So we'll sit in my office and they'll say, man, how do I not go back to that life? How do I lay down my flag? How do I lay down my colors? And I tell them the truth. The truth is, man, if you keep doing their next right day and you keep moving forward, God will make a way. You don't have to worry about, you know,

your family, your organization, or whatever you were affiliated in. Coming after you, man, it's just, from my experience, you just keep doing the right thing, and it just happens, man. Brian T. 7 from Cali, many more sing about it, talk about it, and even I went back to the streets of Texas to me and my wife took a vacation last year, and to get to go back to those streets and the bridges and the streets where you're from and hand out love.

Like, man, and love never fails, man. So when you bring joy and happiness to somebody, man, How do you, you know, the enemy don't want to know part of that. You know what I mean? Everybody wants some love, man, whether we admit it or not. Like, you know, we grow up in the streets that we become a product of. Become a product of it because we don't know no different. We become institutionalized because that's all we know.

Like, and we become part of something and we feel like somebody. And I know I was right there. Almost like I didn't want to, like I almost felt like I needed to catch a charge to go back, right? Because inside I feel like somebody out here. in society. I can't seem to keep a job because I'm also an addict, you know, and catching charges. You know, so, and then it got to where, man, me, for me and my addiction, like I said, I couldn't trust myself. So anything, I didn't want a part of nothing because I knew I would just be, I would definitely probably not be alive because I would definitely do wrong. So I just used my hustle and all just to get, man, I become a real bad alcoholic.

junkie. Dway and I wouldn't want to deal with them. Now, not every addiction story leads to prison, but yours did. What were kind of some of the steps that happened? Well, I want to say that, so my addiction, driving, ironically or not driving, led me to prison the first time. Not, you know, it didn't get caught up in nothing. I'm not bragging about it or nothing, but my mom,

trained me pretty well and not how to get caught up in anything as a kid. My mom taught me about an interrogation room as a child. My mom was, she went to prison twice in Gatesville, penitutes in Texas. So I was always real paranoid, and I didn't trust nobody. So that kept me out of that kind of life as far as being arrested for anything that I was doing any crime.

So it was actually driving DUIs because of my alcoholism. I've become a blackout drunk. We'll just wake up in jail and wake up in jail. Wake up DUI after DUI. And then, of course, didn't get caught driving on suspended license with a DUI. My drinking just progressed, progressed. I was always into other things, of course, you know. The oxies I became real bad on, oxy cotton's real bad.

And I was in Florida, too. It was my second time that I went to prison for, I went for strangers. You know, peed and breath, strengulation in Texas. So it's not really been no kind of organized crime that ever got arrested for in charges. But those addictions kept taking me to the point. Great things come in pairs. Dr. Matthew Nykel brings you breasts by design. Custom natural looking results from breast augmentations tailored just for you.

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Discover the new Somervidic allura. Visit somervidic.com today and experience the difference. Where I would make reckless mistakes. Now, during this time period, are you rolling with anyone, or are you kind of just by yourself? No, at this time, I'm just, I mean, yeah, I would do things. You know what I mean? Nothing seriously organized, though.

No, I didn't really start getting back into doing things as I was a part of growing up until I went to prison again in Texas. Isn't it kind of crazy that prison, like you could go to prison for, say, like a DUI or anything, on your own, you do that solo and you get there, and all of a sudden you're a part of something bigger than yourself. Right. That's even worse than what you got into prison for. Right.

Well, it's real political. at least I know the prisons in all through Texas or it's like California. So pretty much everybody in prison is affiliated some sort of way. Pretty much everybody, unless you are either in protective custody or you much a servant. Let's just say that in a nice way. And you're meaning like a bitch kind of. Right. Yeah.

It would be straightforward, you know. So either or. And that's all the way to the ward. And I'm just being straight and honest. I mean in... What do you mean by the way? to the warden. All the way to the warden.

So in other words, I'll tell you this, like being powerful people, man, we will do whatever it takes. So we'll go to school as affiliation to be able to guard

so that we can bring our people things. And that's how we all can operate. So I could be in a segatory with the phone and what stuff as I wanted

and never could even get out of the cell. We're going to all do whatever it takes, right? So that's what I mean. Like, people don't have to wear patches or to be affiliated right to be a part of and what's it mean to be affiliated in prison

well generally well generated affiliated um patched out or or are part of families you have you know families in prison um every organization has a family you have street prisons games and you and you have penitentiary prison games and you have organizations man there's just so many branches of it it really is um just depends on where you at um so you start um so you start start off up here in the penitentiary prison gang, get out and start running and doing stuff and shock calling and doing things and have it kind of somewhat together.

But if you become an addict like myself, then you end up like just filtering away because you're living under a bridge like I did. You know, and so that's just how it ends up. And what about patches? What exactly is a patch? It's not like an actual patch. Like so, you know, like a GI for instance,

It's okay, a gang intelligence officer. When you come into prison, they usually strip you down, and they go over all your tattoos, and each tattoo is significant in some way. If you didn't, if you've got them. Like, I don't have none on me that come from a tattoo parlor. I've never had a real gun on me. They're all homemade, and they all have meaning.

I earned them in some way, or they have some sort of meaning. Not that I'm all, like, I'm not jacketed out or sleeved all the way or nothing, but each one of them has a certain representation of my life. And so Patches is something like, I'll just give you a prime example. If a person wants to come and get affiliated on the inside, they prospect for a couple years. But they first got to go through a heart check. And a heart check means pretty much, and being straight up, is you pretty much see how much of a beating you can take without pussy and out.

That's just basically what it is. And if you can continue to want to get up, then you earn some eat. And they also do like send off missions. Do they do that in the state in Texas? Yeah. Where they're like saying, hey, you got to go do this and this is how you earn your stripes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Now if one of these guards, like when they strip you out and you're coming in for classification, do they know off the bat which each patch is? And what happens? They're trained in that. And what happens when you're found with a patch on you? It depends if you got a number. It depends on what's your record.

If you've been through there again before, some people don't go to population. and you go straight to segatory and you live your life there and your wreck is in a cage. And that's usually on the ranking rank of your affiliation. Now, these Texas prisons, we're talking about like maximum security type prisons.

What are the most common gangs and groups in these prisons? Oh, man, there's many. There's many. Obviously in Texas, you know, I have the Mexican mafia, Aryan Brotherhood, Aryan Circle, in Texas, Texas Pecklewood, Tongue Blas, gangster disciple, blood, cribs. That's just a rundown pretty much the top ones,

the main brothers that are in there that are affiliated. What do you think are the biggest differences among each of them? Is it more of like a race thing? Is it a belief? You know, I have found in my life today, to know that it's just political, man. For instance, there's a brother there on the yard that whenever I was locked up in Michael's unit, 48-cell Michael's unit in prison in Texas.

I was doing Seg with a cellie, which is called G5, G5 and G4 and there's SEG. But I was G-5ed at this particular time, and I developed a personal relationship with a different family member. It was obviously different than me, but we had to meet out there and talk about and things for our people, for our brothers or our affiliation brothers, whatever. I developed a relationship with him, man, but politics says that I can't eat with him, talk with him other than that right there, because we're different. And I don't know, man, it just in my life developed to be. I just didn't like it.

You know, I knew something, I knew that, you know, of course, inside, that's the way it's got to be, man. It's just the way it is. It ain't going to change. but outside here today, I don't have to live like that. Why do you think these politics were created? I have to say more for buy, sell, and trade and product, man, just to have, just, I do know that I think back, if I put it in the way that I see it today,

biblically, I would, I resort, I've done a lot of history on each organization that I've got interested in, and I can resort it back to the Bible, Christian crusade. the different filations that go off. And a lot of them resort back to the Bible. I won't get a detail of some of them, but some of them go back to King David. And King David is who they will find their history and their colors from. And then some go in a Jewish star.

And some go in the crazy things I've learned is it all goes back to real love. It really does. I've got to be able to see and get some real knowledge about that today that I didn't have. I just wanted to be a part of growing up and I was mean and angry. And I had a lot of hate in my heart, man. So I just fit in right where you get in where you fit in,

they say. But the lifestyle I was in with my mom, that was where I was at, pretty much a segregation type. You know, I mean, you get where you fit in when you go. Do you think that these prisons can operate without gangs? Is it possible?

Never. Like even like 20, 30, 50 years from now. And why do you think that? Because it starts in the streets. it starts in life. Mostly, man, because of poverty, a lot of us end up either homeless, a lot of us end up. A lot of kids grow up, man, they don't have nothing, you know.

And what they do find, they find it in those games. They find family and they find real love. And it may end up being love that has conditions on it to what you can do or can't do for them. But it starts off with being accepted and being a part of whenever you feel like you did. People are kicked out, don't have nothing. No family. I don't know how to, or they may have,

put in a position to provide for their family, and that's the way they find it, and that's what they become a part of, and that becomes their family, and then they're providing for their mom or their sisters who are hungry and starving, and that's the only thing that they can do, and so that's where they find, when they've been shunned or the jobs that they don't have the education for, or the schooling that they wasn't able to be able to afford, and now that's what they find is life for them. So that'll never stop,

when we're not just going to all of a sudden make poverty go away. I mean, that's just not a reality. So that carries on to find a family to accept you in and wherever streets or what it's said you are born and raised in, that's what you get accepted in, and that'll carry out throughout your lifestyle until you get older, until you get wiser.

There's many OGs in the penitentiary. He'll never get out. I bet a lot of them. And their life has changed, because they found God, and they got older, they got tired, and they got happy to find life inside. And they tell young jitterbugs like they used to tell me, man, you ain't got to live that way no more.

There's a different way. And they've survived a lot of deaths, a lot of gangs, a lot of shanks, and a lot of things they went through to get where they're at. And they're old, and they want to testify and tell brothers they're young to change your ways. And just like me, I didn't listen. And just like me, I didn't take heed to it. but I've lived now. God has made a way for me to come out of it.

And now I get to do the same thing. And so I can only pray. That the brothers are listening to me. They're young that come into our facility. They want a different way. Life not only had a gangs, but for addiction and things that you become a slave to, that you can make a different way for yourself

with the help of others in life. And that's what we get to do today. And so you asked me earlier if I would change anything, and no, I would not. When you were in the actual prison and you were a part of that life, when you saw newcomers, youngsters that were once in your shoes come in, how did that make you feel? Well, I'm going to be honest.

I got out of prison December 29, 2014 from the walls in Huntsville. That's where Texas Chainmaster died. And at that time, man, that was the last prison since I've done. At that time, my life hadn't changed enough to tell them anything except for to bring them in. and heart check them and create a soldier out of them. I wasn't the wise old man yet at that time. I can't take no credit for that. I probably help hurt a lot of people in the wrong way.

And I know I did. My mind hadn't changed at that time. Were there wise OGs you could say in there that were trying? Yes. And a lot of them, you know, I would have found myself wanting to do a prayer circle. You know, I'd find myself, calling myself to make sure some young kid that was a weaker,

didn't get picked on, you know, even if he didn't want to be affiliated, if he didn't want to be patched out, I still didn't, I never, I didn't like praying on a week like that. And so I would try to help them out. Of course, in my

brothers in that area, too. But I still had a lot of hate me. And so I wasn't a big help to them on the whole, you can do different type lifestyle yet. How much now like the U.S., the news, law enforcement, they are very on the streets, anti-gang, cracking down, politicians are on that. But in prison, in my opinion, I feel like,

I feel like the wardens, the officers, they promote that in a way, whether directly or indirectly. Well, there's a lot of money to be made in the prison. Yeah, that's a problem. a lot. A lot of green cards, people go in and come out, a lot of richer than they went in, even as convicts and as inmates. Inmate and convicts, you'll hear there, a lot of people say there's a difference between being an inmate and a convict. Inmate is just getting started. Convict's been doing it a little while.

Do you think that there could be a way where if the guards weren't in the picture, the prison would even operate better? Do you need the guards to maintain order? Yeah. But what about the corrupt ones? Don't they do more harm than good? Well, you've got to look at it in a political standpoint, right? For instance, man, there would be days that our people would come on shift, and then we get what we want, and then we got to wait a couple of days while other people's people would come on shift.

So it's just like a factory. It's a factory. And without the guards, a lot of times it won't, you know what I mean? and money talks, it always has, the product, you know. And then also, man, unfortunately, people's families get threatened there too. So either you're going to do it or get a different job. Do you see a world where there's no corrupt prison guards, knowing everything you know now?

No, because today I live a life knowing the difference between also why that is. we have this desire as in our fleshly body that just wants to greed and hunger and power and authority and it's just something that is embedded in us. So for a guard to take his wages of being an officer to a lot different, the temptations is just can't resist, you know. Now the violence aspect of these gangs, is that necessary?

Can that be ever eliminated? Or do you think they'll always need that aspect? Well, it's always going to send a message. So in order to keep it going. Unfortunately, I wish to, I'm not sitting here saying that I'm proud of to be anything that I've been a part of by no means. Will it stop? No. And people don't even have no idea really what's going on in there.

They really don't. Unless you're lived to go through it. until in some of the prisons in some places are a lot worse than others. You've got institutions and you've got penitentiaries. You got people where there's work camps. You got people that never see the gate. You got people that will never come

outside their cell other than a cage. And they're still making shots and calls from under the door with a kind of piece of paper. And the only thing that they know is the brother that puts it back under the door that tell them what's going on. And so the life that they know is behind that door. And they think sometimes

because a lot of times, man, believe it or not, the biggest shot calls are coming from behind. Before I switched to Wealthfront, my APY was probably 0.1. Once I switched, ch-ching. With the Wealthfront cash account, earn up to 4.2% APY on your cash. I can trust. Wellfront is taking care of me. Make your money earn more.

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Hurry into your local dealer for the Jeep. Operation of Deals. Jeep has won more awards over its lifetime than any other SCB branch. Even the Jeep Grohl or registered trademarks of XIAUS LLC. A door that nobody don't ever see. It's the ones that are doing life in the shoe that are running in the prison. Yeah, from their respect. Do you think these shot callers have more pull than the wardens? I think it goes hand-in-hand.

And I say that because they can make the wardens life hell. riots inside the prison can be tremendously uncontrollable. And they call in the National Guards because it's happened several times while I've been there. National guards comes in to get the warden can't do nothing and can't control it. You know, if we want to make it, I say we,

if they want to make a point, if they want to get what they want, then they'll challenge the guards, and they usually do it on a rec yard. We ain't going back in, we're going to pop it all, or we do it in the lunchrooms or they do it. It goes down, and then they end up having to call the National Guards Office. So it can get carried away.

So that's another reason why, you know, it's an oil machine. It works better for the warden. It works better for the guards. Everybody just follow suit. How effective are riots do you think from what you've witnessed in getting what you want? Well, pretty effective. When the buildings get flooded and the fires, go and it's just so much more money than the state wants to pay for and the warden wants to

keep his job and that's why you know because like a lot of times guys get locked up in buildings back that in the shoe or something or you've got floors and racks of a segatory that um they want to get ranked back there because they're not getting out to get a shower or we're not getting out to go to wreck. You know, especially during the wintertime, guys can be locked out and never get taking a shower. So usually back there, you get handcuffed, you get taken out. Everywhere you go, you get handcuffed to the bean chute to go wherever. And when that doesn't happen for so long, after you've been taking a shower out of the toilet

for so long, after you've been not been able to make a move for so long that you want to or they shut down on you, well, then you act down. And that's when you flood, like everybody's home. Everybody's on. It's when all of a sudden everybody comes together, you know. So all colors and all patches and all games come together when everybody wants to make a point or get something traded or swap or a point across.

We're about to flood the whole thing. We're about to throw some fires. We're about to pop it off because we want to get ranked back here and we need to get some water. We need to get a shower. We need to get out to go to wreck. We need to get what we need to get because y'all owe it to us type stuff.

And so when that happens, man, then, you know, they'll do it. Now in these scenarios, is there a certain limit to how far it will be taken? Like, for example, not touching a guard, not, you know, destroying this amount of property, not doing this. Are there rules to this or not? Well, no. It just, a lot of times, sometimes it goes, and there's been times they don't always go the way. Because when the National Guard comes in, a lot of people get hurt. A lot of things happen.

Just like anything else we do, we reap what we sow. And sometimes the decisions that we make, The plan that we had didn't work out just as quite as we wanted it to do. Sometimes it does. Sometimes it don't. They don't play when they bring in the national. Now they're mad. Now they're going to, you know, they're not taking it easy on you.

And what do they use? Like rubber bullets and the pepper spray and all the above. You know, they come in with those shields, electric shields. They come in with the, yeah, they come in to make sure that you, and they bring enough with them, you know. And you guys are fighting back? Is that when you guys kind of cave in? Well, sometimes, for a little bit, it don't last long. Usually, you know, be like, okay.

But we get our point across, and the thing, you know, it does. The point gets taken, and it goes that far, and then things get addressed. And it's kind of like a roller coaster. Things go smooth, and then they go up and they go down, you know. That's just the cycle of how it is on the inside. Now, the individuals that are in these prisons, what kind of charges would you expect that you see in there? man, you got, I mean, they're just, like I said, I went to prison my first time for D.E.Ys. And you end up in a penitentiary?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I went in for a strangulation charge. I called another charge for organized crime inside the state penitentiary of Texas. Almost, the guy didn't die. Glory to God for attempted manslaughter for things that I was doing. While inside, while inside. So I went from a nice camp because in, in Texas. Texas is different.

You've got to do two years on a transfer unit before you'll ever see a main penitentiary unless you get in trouble. So two years, if you don't even have that, you might not even ever see a prison, a real prison. Six months into my sentence, I caught G5. And I was off to life and sake. Do you think that the prison,

that environment fueled that anger that was building up on you? That's why those things happen. Yeah. Once again, man, I can look back and see where I was just a monster and I thrived on it. You know, that's what I had. I didn't have love, I had hate.

But I love how, I think, seven sings and songs, says I had to know the darkness before I could come to know the light. That's true. It's so true. Become broken. I had to come in order, I testified a day to, in order to know real love, man, I lived a lot of hate, you know. And it's just like it's opposite today.

It's so amazing to see how God has turned my life around from where I was once blind, deaf and dumb, living in the wilderness, as is what I say, to how I have now had my eyes unskilled, as the Apostle did. Just, man, to know what life is today. Am I foolish to think and to know that if I ever ended up back in prison, that I wouldn't be back where I was once? Yes. But I feel like I would be one of those OGs today to tell you there's a different life.

Is that because it follows you no matter what? You can never really leave that way? Well, unless I lived in protective custody. You kind of have to own it. I got ink on me that tells exactly who I'm and what I'm a part of. And inside, some people might not know what it is. But the GI does, obviously, and then my brothers do too.

I say, today everywhere I go, I meet a brother and sister. I don't, everybody is brothers and sisters to me. On the inside of prison, of course, it would be back to politics and segregation. Now, back when you were in prison, I'm sure you felt a certain way of the guys that you were just describing that would end up in, you know, SAG or anything like that? Has your opinion of them changed now that you, you know, have this new life and new thoughts on everything?

No, I love everybody and respect of everybody the way they are and the reason they became and where they're at for the life that they had to live. Like I said, I didn't have the love, I have more love, I say more respect and love for my mom today. for her little more than walking through the life of her shoes. But until I did that, I judged it, I cast stones against it. So any brother who was different than me, or maybe living their life in Segg,

or maybe it be a part of any different affiliations that I was, I have respect for them for the utmost. I don't look at them in any kind of hate like I used to, because now I see that maybe not had a choice. They made a turn for the only direction that they knew where, go, you know, and I pray for them. I pray that maybe one day that they'll be able to get out and see a different life and a different change that's possible. And I pray for the ones that won't mean, the decisions that was made in the spur of the moment. And I'm blessed to not

have made that decision to end up there forever. When you left in 2014, how hard was it to transition from, you know, these gang politics in prison to the real world? It was hard. I ended up in a back surgery six months after I got out. and or I don't know if it was exactly six months. I was, and then I found myself where I had had the desire to go to work, you know, well, now I had to make a few phone calls to make some money. So where I wanted to get out and not do those things anymore, I found myself in a position to where, you know,

I needed to bring some money into the family. So there I was, right back and doing some of those things again. Somehow, by the glory God. I ended up on a bus headed out of state back home to go see. I was going to be back around my daughter. Of course, that didn't end up that way. Every time I've ever attempted to go do the right thing, my addiction of my life brought it right back to where I didn't want to be.

Do you think the struggles and the challenges inmates face after prison creates kind of like a crossroad, a crossroad of going back to your old life that prison is supposed to meant to keep you away from? Yes, yes, it definitely doesn't fix people like it was designed to do. No, if anything, it creates you more. I guess it's because we feel like society has turned their back on us, and then when we get out, man, we have this incentive to do the right thing. Amen, I get, I'm like a dog just let out of the kennel. I'm sober.

I'm ready to take on the world. And then we end up right back where we were at. the money ain't as good as we want it to be. And we're not willing to go make it legit sometimes, or we get turned down enough by our felonies that we feel like we just lose hope. And then we're like, well, you know what? We hit that button, that F button, man.

Or we put another drug in us like I did. And then it was just, addiction has been a part of my life since I was a child. I got the most sobriety now that I've had since I was eight years old. And I got a little over 30 months, and I'm 46 years old. And I've only had nine months one time and nine and a half months another time, which was this last time

to get this 30 months I got. So my addiction is paid a part of the direction that I've ever went in my life even if I wanted to do right. I just couldn't buy her to use. What was it for you this last time? That was the change that really woke you up and said, I have to do this.

And I don't mean it like I've not had it in my family. I don't mean it like I've not experienced real love by my grandma and in my family and love in a way. But one, I got tired of dying. And I kept being surrounded. I came through here three times. And I've never went back to another place that I've tried to get help from.

The Lord kept me here surrounded by my brothers and sisters who, man, are just different in love, man. And they offered something different than just right back after a 30-day program in the streets. Like, they offer something here. now I'm a part of. I'm different than just saying, hey, man, 30 days, get sober, and then see you. We have.

We offer here an opportunity that I've never had before. Like I've been in discipleship programs. I've been in rehabs. I've been in psychiatric wars. I've been in and out of places that only offered what you had when you came in after you walk out. And that has made the difference, man. Like I said, my brother, Mikey Hampton, man, here for late coming. recovery.

Loved me in my last relapse when I had a walker in a catheter and I hated myself. And he said about being a chaplain, man. At the time, I hated myself. And I really didn't even like him at the time. I'm going to be honest, he can tell you. That's how we become really close. I was like I had this persona of what other people had said. It was about money and things.

And it's just like the relationship with God. If you go by what other people say, nine times out of ten, they're wrong, and they were. Definitely wrong about my brother, Mike. He has changed my life. Man, God has worked through him and this family late-come recovery. And my boss, Jessica Renner, and my wife, most importantly, above all, because I'm going to be honest. If it wasn't for my wife, man, my addiction would probably already take me back to the streets because that's all I've known.

And I would have really quickly hit that F button. And my MO says I leave without even asking and reaching out to sponsorship. I know that my family would definitely handcuff me and probably kidnap me and put me in a basement somewhere if they knew I was wanting to use or if I told them. But I've never been able to tell people like that if I ever made that decision because of the life I have with my beautiful wife today and surrounded by my family who does.

And they get in your business because that's what they're supposed to do. And they see the difference in you and they ask questions because they do care and they do love you and they are there for you and like I've never had before me and that is just now I just like me and I want to go to any length to fight to stay sober and to help others

and that's just like now I don't know it's just broke that whole chain of desire to ever want to go back to that life. Do you think that those that are in the life with inside prison would have a different outlook on life if they know what was possible out here? And you can tell us all day I say us because they are me.

And until we actually experience it, man, you've got to see and it's believing into a lot of us. You know what I mean? It sounds good for my brother sitting on the other side who seems to have it all together. But in our mind, I mean, you don't know, you don't know what I've been through. You don't know what I got to face,

and you don't know what I got to go back to. And I understand that, man. I really do. But it's while we pray for people to come in and you have an opportunity to experience it, You have to experience it. Hands on is about the only way that it will become authentically true to you. We can go and testify, and we can share hope.

And those seeds are planted, and people will have the opportunity to reach out. But until you come on the end, man, until you see that it's real, because we know on the streets, and we know inside it, real recognizes real. So that's what changes people, man, seeing, and then it becomes believing. How do you think they would respond to someone like you going back? to talk about what you're talking about. Man, you know, I've thought about that and probably more here in the last few hours

than alone just coming here to talk to you because I haven't spoke about any, a lot of this, except for to my wife, my family in recovery hear me testify about being affiliated and testify about certain things like that, but not probably as much as they've heard today. and so what it would be like, man, man, like I said, I'm just going to be that OG, man. I pray that don't have it happen.

And I pray, Lord of God, I don't ever get put in a position for that to happen. But it ain't going to be because I went and created a crime. It ain't because I'm going to be in an organized crime anymore. It ain't because I'm going to go and somebody tell me go, you know, take care of something for them. It ain't going to be because of that. it would be for protecting my family today. And I pray that I don't have to. I pray for the Lord, and he's been faithful to keep a hedge of protection around me and my family.

And we just keep moving forward because God's got us, man. He does. And he shows out every day. That's where I give it. That's who I know and trust in. What's next for you? What's your plans? What does that look like?

Well, right now we are, we'll be traveling back and forth to Florida. My wife, we just came back from vacation. My wife has got a situation with her kidney and aneurysm on her vascular side of her kidney. And so we're going to be going back and forth to that. And you know that there again, our family here supports us, got us, going to help us do it all. I'm not alone, and it ain't because my bank account's fat. Passing out the Benjamins. It ain't because of that.

It's because of real love, like I said. I've never been to a place like this before. I've never been to real authentic love like this before. I mean, we are a family that I'm not just here trying to promote nothing. Although I would say, man, if you want a different life, come on and around and try us out, man, let come and recovery of travel because, man, it's a family like no other. Absolutely, I'm going to tell you that. I wouldn't love you if I didn't.

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It's interesting that the same thing that brought you to or attracted you to the prison gangs is the same thing that attracted you to this. Yes. So it was always within you. It just needed to be directed to the right place. Absolutely. And to now,

to get to talk to brothers and, man, I feel you, man. Like, I don't want to go back anymore either. Or, man, I don't want to go back to that no more, man. I'm just tired of it. I want to lay it down. I want to, how do I do that, man? and then we just talk. And my brother, just keep moving forward, man.

Just keep pushing on, man. God's going to make a way. He will. You get you a job. You don't have to go back. I mean, you know, you ain't turn your back on nobody. You're just wanting to change your life, man. And God makes a way.

He does. Yeah. Absolutely. Well, Donnie, thank you so much, man, for coming on the show today to talk. Man, thanks for having me, man. I pray only that I reach somebody that wants to change their life. and have life and life more abundantly. And that's surrounded by love and love of family.

And God gets all the glory, my brother. Better than you expected? Absolutely. Good. I'm glad to hear. Well, save travels back to where you're going and keep doing the good work. All right.