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David Gaspar (Leading with Conviction™ 2021) writes, “I grew up in a world where storytelling was seen as a nice way to pass the time — not a tool for making sense of your life. My own story carried moments I never said out loud for years. I had an unstable childhood, including a medication overdose at age 7 that put me in a coma. I was shot before I was old enough to understand what danger meant and became a father at age 16. By my early 20s, a set of bad decisions led to three armed robberies and an arrest.
“In jail I learned how much power a story holds. Long before a judge handed down a sentence, a narrative about who I was had already taken shape. Prosecutors leaned on it and people repeated it until it sounded true. The court set a bail amount far beyond what my family could pay and in the end I took a plea that came with more than 20 years in prison. I became a character in a story I didn’t write and that treated my worst decisions as the full measure of my life.
“Prison prompted me to rethink my story. I started to see the parts that had been ignored, misunderstood, or erased and the parts I had never given myself permission to claim. I began spending time in the prison law library, where I learned to tell my story on my terms, including how an improper process hardened into a plea I should never have taken. I told my story in my appeal and eventually won freedom after serving 10 years.
Prison prompted me to rethink my story.
“It’s been two decades now since my release. Today I lead the Bail Project, an organization that meets people in moments of crisis, supporting them through the pretrial process and treating their stories as essential data — not disposable anecdotes. And because I know firsthand what happens when a system reduces a life to a single narrative, I’m committed to building an institution that listens differently to people’s stories. …
“Since our founding, the Bail Project has supported more than 40,000 people nationwide. Their stories — what actually happened during the arrest, what they needed to get to court, what one night in jail did to their family — form one of the most comprehensive narrative datasets about pretrial injustice in the United States. This work has informed litigation and policy, and helped communities and lawmakers understand what is at stake.
“When you listen closely, patterns emerge with striking repetition: A judge sets an unaffordable bond that disconnects someone from their home or employment; a few days in jail create a cascade of housing or job loss that can take months or years to repair; a person experiences fear and confusion in a system that offers almost no clarity when they need it most. These are not isolated anecdotes. They are indicators of systemic failure across jurisdictions, a concept well documented by narrative researchers who note that when stories are analyzed collectively, clear patterns and insights emerge.
“For stories to offer this kind of meaning, nonprofits must build a culture that treats storytelling as core program work. Leaders must model an appreciation for story. Staff should be trained to collect, share, and analyze stories, and meet regularly to discuss them. Storytelling should be done across the organization, not confined to a single communications role or left to an external media outlet.”
Thank you so much for supporting our mission here at JLUSA! Your donation helps to support our network of leaders working to dismantle oppressive systems and uplift people and families impacted by mass incarceration across the country.
All charitable donations made to JLUSA are fully tax deductible, as allowable by the IRS.
