I never thought I could feel sorry for a murderer. But, sitting across from Anthony, I did not see a convicted killer. Instead, I looked into the haunted eyes of a forgotten kid trapped in a perpetual cycle of abuse, drugs and violence. I saw regret across the face of a young man who, as a scared 16-year-old, had made a colossal mistake. Molested as a child and brought up in a family of drug dealers and gangs, the world had done Anthony no favors. When he was found guilty of manslaughter in an accidental car shoot-out, Anthony began to serve his sentence at San Quentin, which is a maximum-security prison and one of California’s oldest and best-known correctional institutions. During my sophomore year of high school, I visited this prison. The experience fundamentally transformed my perception of incarceration and highlighted the perilous cracks in the justice system. I realized that we ostracize and stigmatize prisoners to such an extent that we no longer see them as human beings worthy of dignity or respect. Consequently, I began to see the ramifications of Americans’ misguided and preconceived notions of “scary” populations. I saw these “hopeless” populations as men in dire need of rehabilitation, rather than purposeless punishment.