This is my Story
My name is Maurice R. Barnett Jr., and I Lived a life marked by various challenges. I have faced the struggles of mental health issues, adverse childhood events, and substance abuse. I went through criminal acts, arrests, and legal troubles that led to jails, institutions, and prison. I have lied, cheated, begged, borrowed, and stolen. I would manage to recover so I could start the cycle again. Most of my learning came from experience, and I often found it hard to believe in anything that I hadn’t witnessed myself. Although I valued education, my entrepreneurial spirit led me away from college, and I found myself on the hustler's pathway to fast money fueled by dream filled optimism. Currently, I am employed by the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health. My journey to this point has been quite enlightening, to say the least. I was born in Regensburg, Germany, on Thanksgiving Day, November 28, 1963, because my father was in the military. In 1968, my family moved to Long Beach, California, where I lived for most of my life, growing up on the east side in what we referred to as the ghetto. I have two sisters, one older, one younger, and an oldest, half-brother. Sadly, my mother, father, oldest sister, and half-brother have all passed away. My younger sister is thriving and doing well. Most of my immediate family have been involved in the healthcare field; my father was an RN, my mother, an LVN, my older sister, an NA, my younger sister, an RD, and I am a CHW and MCPSS.
My most memorable events that caused ACES are those connected to witnessing violence in my neighborhood, seeing a toddler get hit by a car, my older sister breaking her arm, a man jumping out of a window from the second floor and landing flat on his back, falling off the bumper of a moving vehicle, which required stitches in my head, all before the age of 7. Because I was getting in trouble at school due to behavioral issues, my mother had me psychologically tested, and it was discovered that I have what was described as a chemical imbalance.
At age 12, my mother and father separated, and I chose to live with my father and stepmother. I Lived with them and two older stepbrothers for approximately 1 year in the projects in Wilmington, CA. During that time period, I suffered physical abuse by one of my stepbrothers and was neglected by my stepmother for most of the year-long stay and felt powerless over the situation because no one believed me or was there to protected me.
By the age of 13, I moved back to Long Beach with my mother and sisters and shortly after, experimented with marijuana and met a group of guys who introduced me to a life of substance use and criminal behavior. I was quickly drawn to the adrenaline rush created by planning successful criminal acts and beating the incredible odds. Because I was conflicted by my fading moral compass and an upbringing that despised lawlessness, I depended on drugs that would numb my sense of values and provide the frame of mind needed to commit these acts without a conscience. Therefore, all of my arrests involved the use or possession of drugs or drug paraphernalia. The frequent criminal acts led to a multitude of arrests and convictions that eventually led to an auto-ring, organizing crime charge, which, if convicted, would expose me to a 25-year sentence. Although this was an eye-opener, the charge was later reduced to receiving stolen property and I plead to a 3-year deal.
By the age of 28, I had 5 actual prison convictions, back-to-back and a couple of violations, with no more than a few months between prison commitments. In prison, I would always focus on bettering myself, reading the Bible, working out, steering clear of trouble, and minding my own business. Although I was often recruited, I never joined any gangs and therefore, have no gang affiliation whatsoever. Although my convections were considered low-level offenses and I would usually qualify for fire camp, I have been housed in many prisons all over the state of California, including Chino, Jamestown, Tehachapi, Corcoran, Soledad, Wasco, Delano, CRC, Donovan, Folsom, Lancaster, and many fire camp sites throughout Northern and Southern California. I myself have never suffered any violence while in prison but have witnessed bullying, stabbings, vicious attacks, assault and battery, and shots fired on the yard to break up fights.
My street-like lifestyle caused many riffs in my relationships with friends and family members because they did not agree with nor condone my behaviors and criminal involvement. Most of them believed I was being influenced by the company I kept but did not realize that for most of my 10+ years of justice involvement, I was motivated by the pursuit of justice resulting from my being choked out to the point of needing necessitation, by a jailer who was working at the Long Beach police station in 1981. This resulted from being under the influence of PCP and experiencing paranoia that caused me to believe I was wanted by the police. Therefore, I drove to the police station to turn myself in. I came in contact with a couple of officers in front of the police station and when the officers realized I was under the influence, they arrested me. When I objected to being put in the "drunk tank", the jailer proceeded to use a choke hold, which caused me to lose consciousness requiring an emergency response. I was revived and released from the hospital into police custody, booked at the Los Angeles County Jail, and charged with being under the influence.
Because there were no viable ways for me to seek justice, coupled with holding a strong resentment towards the entire justice system, I chose to get my form of justice by committing and getting away with as many crimes as I possibly could. For me, this was a form of therapy, because the more crimes I got away with, the better I felt. This pursuit of justice was the catalyst to my 10 years spent in and out of the prison system. It was the cause of several failed relationships; it created distance between my children and significantly contributed to my first divorce. Although I purposely chose this as a way to deal with my feelings, it was never intended to solve the problem. It was basically a way to help me feel better, until I could come up with a way to seek justice. As time passed, the hurt and pain began to subside and drift away. Then, in 2005, after my seconded failed marriage, I sought help from God, joined a church, and became a reborn again Christian.