i caught jack somebody when i was 16. I pulled out a gun or somebody, and i took that car. Back in the nineties, it was really automatic to be tried as an adult if you hada a car jack in a rape or a murder. And so i spent eight and a half years in, you know, prisons afcross virginia. We really have no reason to talk to children about what should be impossible for even an adult to do.
Author, lawyer, and poet Dwayne Betts talks about his time in prison and the power of reading with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. Betts is the founder of the Million Book Project, which aims to put a small library of great books in 1,000 U.S. prisons. Betts discusses his plans for the project and how reading helped him transform himself.