This week’s guest in I HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY is Steven Mangual, a Criminal Justice Reform Advocate who for over 25 years has dedicated his life to Justice in Love. He shares his experience growing up in a single-parent home in The Bronx and his first encounter with the criminal justice system when he was about 9 years old. This experience anchored his views about policing. “Witnessing abuse, seeing abuse, being abused, being an abuser – being on both sides, that’s the truth – it wasn’t an illogical and unreasonable leap for me to commit a crime and wind up incarcerated for 14 years at the age of 20.” In prison, Steven found his purpose. Having experienced the torture and the trauma of a broken criminal justice system to everyone involved (from victims to perpetrators and their families), he’s a firm believer in accountability, redemption, and in alternative ways to hold young people accountable, even those charged with serious violent felony offenses. Steven’s concern is that in our society we are quick to respond to a criminal act with punishment and isolation first, instead of creating spaces that provide the appropriate support for transformative interventions to occur. He states, “I am living proof that authentic transformation is possible, but I couldn’t do it alone.”