I work in education law & labor law.
My last case as a prosecutor was a young black man from Fort Greene - where I grew up. He robbed a woman on her way to Brooklyn Hospital. Threw her down, took her Iphone.
Long story short, he was caught 15 minutes after police were called because he was in the lobby of Ingersol Projects and the phone had the "Find my Iphone app".
He couldn't take a lower plea because he had a criminal possession of a weapon conviction already so the lowest I was able to offer was 7 years.
Went to trial, got the conviction and on the sentencing date, the judge hit him w/ 10 years. His whole fukking 20s he'll be in. I had so many mixed feelings about the whole thing.
I looked over at the breh and
NEVER in a condescending way, I looked at him to try to read him. He looked at me and no lie, it was like he knew I was asking "How did you get to this point?". He looked at me with a

look and I knew he was saying, "I really don't know. I don't know."
After you get a trial conviction, everyone is congratulating you and high fiving and shyt... I never did that. No one wins in these situations in my perspective because I identified with almost every defendant that came into my case list.
I went into the bathroom and looked at myself and teared up a little - no shame.
I knew that he had been failed by society, the fukked up public education system, NYCHA, and damn near every other municipality in NYC.
That case was one of the many personal accounts that I have while I was a Black Brooklyn Prosecutor that opened my eyes to how dysfunctional our system is.
Now, I would in Education and I fight in legal hearings against the teachers in the public schools that show terrible evaluations indicating they don't give a fukk about the black and hispanic students. I'm trying to improve the institutions that fail our people which sends them on that trajectory towards the criminal system.
I've got ALOT of stories about my time in the Criminal Justice system - I plan to write a book on it.