Life after prison: Jailed at 16, a Boston man returns home | “Don’t Judge Me” documentary

What’s it like to go to jail at age 16 and then – 12 years later – return home? Watch as a Boston man works to launch a music career, find stable housing and – most importantly – avoid the parole violations that land many returning citizens back in jail. “When I first came home, I was lost, and I was born and raised out here,” said rapper Onyx White. “And the scary thing about parole is I don’t have to do a crime to go back to jail - being around the wrong people or they can think I’m around the wrong person. You violate, you’re going to the maximum security." White has a curfew and is monitored around the clock via an electronic ankle bracelet. According to Massachusetts parole officials,1,342 individuals lived on active supervision by parole as of April 2024, and 447 of them lived in the community with GPS monitoring. Individuals wearing ankle monitors need to display “a sustained pattern of success in the community” in order to have their bracelet removed. As White put it, “on one side I’m attached to chains, on the other side I’m reaching and trying to fight to get to this goal.” White went to jail in 2010 after he was arrested in the murder of 71-year-old Geraldo Serrano, a beloved convenience store clerk in Boston’s Dorchester neighborhood. White was 16 years old at the time of the shooting. Due to a protracted legal dispute over evidence taken from his cellphone that went all the way to Massachusetts Supreme Court, he was incarcerated for seven years before his case went to trial in 2017. During that time, White says a childhood passion for hip-hop grew into an escape and a source of strength. “Without me writing while I was locked up, I think it probably would have institutionalized me a little bit more,” he said. “It gave me a chance to sit still and see things in a different perspective.” He ended up taking a plea deal that allowed him to be released from prison at 28, placing him among some 1700 people with criminal convictions released from Massachusetts prisons in 2022. Their experiences – rarely told and often hidden from public view – are the focus of the GBH News reporting project Life After Prison. This video is part of that series. GBH News spoke with one of Geraldo Serrano’s relatives who requested anonymity but said the family bears White no ill will: “He needs another chance … he’s learning from his mistakes.” Don’t Judge Me is the title of this short documentary and the name of a song White wrote when he was facing life in prison. In the film, he performs the song with Boston-Based choral artists collective Voices 21C. Learn more about GBH News’ "Life After Prison" series here: https://www.wgbh.org/news/series/life.... Learn more about Onyx White here: https://linktr.ee/onyx_white Learn more about Voices 21C here:    / @voices21c12   GBH News is a premier source for in-depth local news and original story telling based in Boston, Massachusetts. Subscribe to the GBH News YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/gbhnews?sub... Follow GBH News on Instagram:   / gbhnews   Like GBH News on Facebook:   / gbhnews   Follow GBH News on X:   / gbhnews   We can’t do it without you. Support our award-winning community journalism by donating today: https://bit.ly/SupportGBHNews