Since I Been Down tells the dramatic story of how an American community held captive by 1990’s punitive policies lead children into gangs, violence and drugs, and for a false sense of safety, security and prosperity, this community rushed to discard the poorest, targeted brown and black youth into prisons for life. Nearly forty years later, a model and pathway to justice and healing is led from inside prison walls. A pathway uncovering, why children turn to violence, and a model of justice to transform their lives, prisons, justice and our own humanity. This is a story told by those who live it.