Man Is Set Free After Spending 22 Years In Jail For a Crime He Did Not Commit

Nicholas Is Free, After 22 years on Death Row

I've known Nick for over 28 years. He was incarcerated in Huntingdon and Greene Prisons in Pennsylvania. He was incarcerated for 22 years, in Solitary Confinement on Death Row. He was charged with Rape and Murder. His experience in prison was horrible, on the verge of a mental breakdown and depressing to the point of wanting to die. The effect of his incarceration was two-fold. It did help him get off drugs and better educate himself, but it also destroyed him emotionally living every day with the thought of dying for a crime he did not commit. In this case, incarceration was most definitely not the right choice. Rehabilitation for drugs would have been more successful and prevented him from doing time for the capital offense he was wrongly accused of.

Nick is a 45 year old white male. He was a typical kid growing up in the Southwest Philly-Darby area. Nick was not an angel. He was a victim of a changing society, influenced by drugs, crime and lack of an education. He was just like the rest of us, caught up in the world of narcotics. As the "War on Drugs" progressed, so did the destruction of our neighbors, friends and relatives. Instead of moving into treatment programs that were not available, most moved into prison that changed their lives forever. Angela Davis, in her book "Are Prisons Obsolete?" describes how treatment programs should be offered instead of prison sentences to truly reform and rehabilitate drug offenders. "...proposals to decriminalize drug use should be linked to the development of a constellation of free, community based programs accessible to all people who wish to tackle their drug problems...anyone, regardless of economic status, who wishes to conquer drug addiction should be able to enter treatment programs." If Nick had found himself in a treatment program at an early age, and was able to combat his addiction to drugs, before he was ever arrested for anything, he very well may not have been involved in the situation he was in, that almost ended his life.