Building A New Life After Prison
By Sabrena Morgan
Embarking on the journey of rebuilding your life after serving time in prison can be a daunting prospect. It's a path that demands resilience, determination, and a willingness to redefine who you are.
When I walked out of prison, I had a garbage bag of belongings and a check for $60. That's the material inventory of a new life. Everything else — the relationships, the career, the sense of self — had to be rebuilt from scratch.
What I've learned, sometimes painfully, is that the rebuilding doesn't happen in a straight line. There are setbacks that feel like they confirm every dark thing you've told yourself about who you are now. There are moments when the stigma feels insurmountable — when a background check kills a job offer, or when someone you trusted disappears.
But there are also moments of unexpected grace. A person who believed in me before I believed in myself. A community that didn't define me by my worst moment. Work that felt meaningful. Those moments are what make the difference.
The White Collar Support Group has been one of those moments of grace for me. Finding people who understand — not just abstractly but viscerally — what it means to have your identity dismantled by the justice system, and who are choosing to rebuild anyway, changed something in me.
Building a new life after prison is possible. It's hard, and it's slow, and it requires more support than the system provides. But it's possible. That's what I want you to know.
