Jamal Brown was raised by his grandparents in Detroit following the death of his father when he was two years old. Despite the adversity, he’s grateful for his childhood.
“I knew [my grandparents] loved me, that to me was the most important thing,” he said. “Nothing’s perfect in this world, we see that, but I knew I had that love.”
Jamal was an enthusiastic student when he was young, but as he got older many of Jamal’s friends dropped out and he lost the joy he found in school. After his sophomore year, he dropped out to enroll in a vocational school and study culinary arts.
Jamal stopped having friends over to his grandparents’ strict home and started spending more time away from their guidance. He knew his grandparents would not approve of his friends and their seemingly negative influence on him.
One day, Jamal and a friend were walking to the store when an older teen, who was well respected in the neighborhood social circle, drove by and offered a ride. After getting in, the older friend told them he needed money and planned to commit a robbery. He later picked up Jamal’s cousin.
Seventeen-year-old Jamal looked to impress the older boys and offered to commit the robbery. He and his cousin approached an individual, who they planned to steal from. The plan went south when the individual was carrying a firearm. After a struggle, Jamal took the weapon and shot the person in a panic. It was the first time he had ever fired a gun.
Jamal received a life sentence without the possibility of parole.
He noted that while his grandparents were heartbroken and disappointed, they never left his side. Jamal learned an extremely difficult lesson that most seventeen-year-olds are not prepared to process – his peers did not have his best interest in mind – and he returned to his virtues that he was previously teased for in his younger years.
Jamal pursued and earned his GED while in prison, even though there was no hope of one day rejoining society. Reinvigorating his spark for learning and knowledge, he later worked as a teacher’s aid to help other incarcerated people earn their degrees.
“I enjoyed that because I felt like I was helping people,” he said.
After spending more than 30 years in prison, Jamal’s sentence was reviewed after a Supreme Court decision banned mandatory life without parole sentences for juveniles. Jamal’s sentence was overturned and he was released in March of 2020. Since then, Jamal has gotten married and spent a lot of time with his grandmother. He smiles when he recalls taking her to see “Elvis” for her 89th birthday last summer.
Jamal has also started working to help formerly incarcerated people after they are released. He thinks of the support he received after his sentence and hopes to do the same for others.
“The first thing you need is someone there to hold your hand through steps,” Jamal said. “I think a lot of people, especially doing 25 or 30 years, they don’t have that.”
