Marcellino Ornelas had been in and out of juvenile hall seven times by the time he finally went to prison at the age of 19 for assault with a firearm. He'd already been kicked out of high school and was working, he says, as the "local drug dealer," with a side gig at a Ross department store. In the past, every time he got out, he'd start dealing soon after. "It was like, this is how I make money. This is who my friends are," Ornelas says. "That always brought me back to the same situation.

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