“I didn’t go to prison because I was a saint. I went to prison because of my lifestyle. Since the age of 13 I was a gangbanger, and did what gangbangers do. I’m 49 years old now. After 20 years of a life sentence, I got paroled. That was a year ago. My name is Troy Williams and this is a diary of my first year as a free man.”

The following is a photo essay of Troy Williams’ life both inside and outside the walls of San Quentin State Prison:

Outside the Walls was produced by Kaitlin Prest and Troy Williams and edited by Nancy Mullane with production assistance from Kirsten Jusewicz-Haidle and Jonathan Hirsch. Howard Gelman was our engineer.

Banner photo credit: Elisabeth Fall/ fallfoto.com

Life of the Law is published by Panoply network of podcasts. We’re a non-profit project of the Tides Center. This episode of Life of the Law was funded in part by grants from the Open Society Foundation, the Law and Society Association, the Proteus Fund and the National Science Foundation.
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