I was released in 2015, after serving 20 years for murder in New Mexico. While inside, I worked as a baker in the cafeteria at the Corrections Department. Then, when I got out, my first job was in that same kitchen, serving green-chili cheeseburgers and burritos and chicken-fried steak. I was the first ex-prisoner allowed to work in the state system as part of something new called the Returning Citizen Program. The idea was that the Corrections Department would hire guys back after they got out.

They needed someone who would represent the new program well, and I think it helped that I had interacted with the public already, selling bracelets and earrings I’d made at a prison craft fair. I donated the profits to the Ronald McDonald House, and the program officials had let me be interviewed by a newspaper while I was still inside.

My “new” gig in the kitchen went smoothly, for the most part. A lot of the prisoners working with me were really supportive, since they hoped they might get a similar opportunity. Still, I could tell some had lost their respect for me for what they saw as “switching sides,” though they wouldn’t actually say anything since it might get them in trouble.

Then a local news station ran a story on me. I watched it with trepidation: You never know how the media might spin something. But the story was very positive. Someone at the department recalled telling the reporter that I was the kind of person she would entrust to babysit her 3-year-old daughter. That she might put that kind of trust in me made me feel a lot better.

Read the full article about job opportunities after prison by David Van Horn at The Marshall Project.