For Those Serving Long Sentences, Politics is a Lifeline
When Pedro Santiago was arrested in 2003, he didn’t know how to read or write. He was 30 at the time and had been selling drugs for two decades, first in New York and then in Maine, where, in 2005, he was convicted of murder and sentenced to 40 years in prison.
It was while he was waiting for his trial that he says his bunkmate sat him down and told him that he needed to learn to read so that he could understand evidence about his case unearthed during the discovery process. While he was in the county jail, a volunteer came in weekly to teach him.
“It was an awakening,” Santiago, 46, said in a phone interview. “That got me interested in politics.” But he says that when he was transferred to state prison after his conviction, he ran afoul of prison rules. His behavior led him to be classified as a security threat, and he was consigned to solitary confinement for about two years. In solitary, he realized he had a choice to make.
“I said, ‘Wait a minute, I can go home when I’m 65 or I can die here.’ That was eye-opening for me.”
That turning point led Santiago to politics as an antidote to despair. When he got out of solitary, he focused
