Giving Compass' Take:

• Samuel Campbell tells his story of life inside a prison in Flint, MI, with no access to clean drinking water.

• How can donors better understand how the water crisis in Flint interacts with the prison system? What other industries does this crisis impact?

• Read about the entrepreneurs working to resurrect Flint.

In the fall of 2015, I was arrested in Flint, Michigan, by the FBI, for a bank robbery I committed earlier that year in California.

After a brief interview, I was taken to the “old jail” in downtown Flint to await my arraignment the following morning. Once there, they booked me into a cell where there was a paper sign over the toilet saying DON’T DRINK THE WATER.

The next day, I was passed off to the U.S. Marshals and taken to the federal courthouse, where the judge decided to change my 9 a.m. court time to 5 p.m. This, of course, was not a problem for them—the Marshals had Candy Crush to play, and there was a holding tank for me. There, the cop left me shackled, even after he’d locked the metal door with the slot that, if I’m not mistaken, was meant for me to stick my cuffs through so that he could take them off.

I hadn’t had any water in hours, but, this being Flint, the holding tank’s sink had the same paper warning sign taped over it: DON’T DRINK THE WATER. They’d given me two milks at four in the morning and that was it.

Read the full article about water crisis in flint by Samuel Campbell at The Marshall Project.