After nearly 25 years of incarceration, Samuel E. Harris came home determined not simply to be free, but to use what he had learned to help others prepare for freedom long before release.
The first time Samuel Harris walked into a courtroom after coming home, he was nervous.
For more than two decades, courtrooms had represented something very different in his life. This time, however, Sam was not there as a defendant. Through his work with the Suffolk Public Defender’s Office, he was learning how to help others navigate some of the same systems he had once experienced from the other side.
Someone had arranged for him to meet the judge, which meant Sam would enter through the judge’s door rather than the entrance he remembered from his own appearances as a defendant.
“I was a little scared. I was a little nervous,” he later told WAVY-TV. Walking through that door, he said, “just meant a lot to me.”
There is something striking about the reversal. A man who had once stood before the court because of the harm he had caused was now returning with the hope that his experiences might help someone else find a different way forward.
Yet beginning and ending Sam’s story with that moment would miss much of what made it possible.
His story is not simply about the doors that eventually opened for him. It is also about the person he chose to become during the many years when he had no assurance those doors would ever open at all.
More Than What He Did
When I asked Sam how he would describe the person he is today, he began with perseverance.
“I am determined not to allow the bad decisions I made in my past to become the description of my entire life,” he told me. “I want to make a difference, leave a legacy, and be an asset to society.”
He also describes himself as happy, deeply rooted in his faith, and increasingly guided by a desire to serve others. “I love my life, I love the Lord, and I have a servant’s mindset,” he said. “I want my life to mean something through how I serve others.”
None of this requires Sam to erase who he once was or minimize what brought him to prison.
His story includes military service and trauma, addiction, serious criminal offenses, victims who were harmed, and nearly 25 years of incarceration. He is clear that understanding what was happening in his life at the time does not make his actions someone else’s responsibility.
“I pride myself on accepting responsibility for my actions,” Sam said. “I knew what I did was wrong, and I have never wanted to minimize that.”
He also recognizes that the consequences reached far beyond him. His victims were affected by his actions, while his daughter, former wife, family, and others lived with the consequences of both his decisions and his long absence.
For Sam, accountability has therefore become something more demanding than simply acknowledging that what he did was wrong. “To me, accountability means more than admitting wrongdoing; it means making different choices and living differently.”
Trauma is part of his story. Addiction is part of his story. So are the choices he made and the harm those choices caused. Sam does not believe he needs to deny any of those realities to also believe that change, forgiveness, and restoration are possible.
When Abstinence Wasn’t Recovery
Sam began learning what meaningful change required long before he came home.
During an earlier period of incarceration, he went approximately 18 months without using drugs. By one measure, he was doing well. He was abstinent.
Internally, however, very little had changed.
“I was abstinent, but my mindset had not changed,” he explained. Although he was not using drugs, he still wanted to use them, and many of the attitudes and patterns associated with his addiction remained intact.
Over time, his understanding of recovery became much broader. “Genuine recovery came to mean more than the absence of a substance,” Sam said. “It meant changing the attitudes, thinking, selfishness, and self-centeredness associated with my addiction.”
It also required him to begin thinking differently about the people around him. Addiction had made much of life about what Sam wanted or needed in a particular moment. Recovery required him to consider his family, his relationships, and the impact his choices had on others.
Rather than measuring recovery solely by the number of days since he last used a substance, Sam began to understand it as an ongoing transformation in the way he lived and related to other people.
The relationships he chose during incarceration became part of that process. Sam intentionally surrounded himself with men he considered people of high character, including some who were serving two or three life sentences. Their circumstances differed, but they shared a desire to hold one another accountable and continue becoming better people regardless of how much time remained on their sentences.
Faith also became increasingly central. Sam rededicated his life to Christ and began thinking seriously about what it meant to live out that faith within the environment he was in. He wanted the change to be evident not merely in what he said he believed, but in his conduct, work ethic, relationships, and daily choices.
Along the way, there were also people who saw possibilities in Sam that he had not yet fully recognized for himself.
Someone Saw Potential
Around 2003, Sam arrived at a prison compound and began working in the wood shop. Another incarcerated man watched him during the interview and orientation process and continued observing his work during his first weeks on the job.
Eventually, the man approached him. He had noticed Sam’s work ethic and offered to train him as an office clerk so that Sam might eventually take over his position.
Sam did not immediately say yes. He asked for a couple of days to think about it before deciding to accept.
It became one of the most valuable opportunities of his incarceration.
Through the position, Sam learned to use computers and programs including Microsoft Word, Excel, and Access. The man mentoring him, whom Sam describes as an experienced “old head,” taught him far more than office skills. He offered guidance about life, character, responsibility, and navigating incarceration in a way that allowed Sam to continue moving forward rather than becoming further entrenched in destructive patterns.
More than 20 years later, they are still friends.
What began as an opportunity to learn practical skills became something more lasting. Someone had paid attention to Sam, recognized something worth developing, and then invested the time required to help him develop it.
Experiences like that became part of the preparation Sam continued throughout his incarceration, even when there was little reason to assume that freedom would arrive anytime soon.
Preparing for a Future That Wasn’t Promised
Sam’s original paperwork listed his release date as May 11, 2054.
He knew what the paperwork said, but he refused to allow that date to determine whether the years in front of him would have purpose.
One of the sayings he carried with him was, “Be ready and stay ready instead of getting ready.”
That idea now sits at the heart of a phrase Sam uses frequently: Reentry Begins on Day 1.
When Sam talks about reentry beginning on the first day of incarceration, he is talking about much more than moving traditional release planning a few months earlier. He believes education, rehabilitation, recovery, personal development, accountability, and opportunities to build practical skills and healthier relationships should be available from the beginning rather than reserved primarily for people approaching a known release date.
He remembers serving alongside men with sentences far longer than his own, including men serving multiple life sentences, who were still committed to learning and growing. Whether or not freedom was guaranteed, they believed becoming better people remained worthwhile.
Sam had no guarantee that the date on his own paperwork would ever change.
Then it did.
After years of hoping and preparing for an opportunity he could not know would come, Sam received a conditional pardon from Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin. On July 1, 2024, after 24 years, 8 months, and 10 hours of incarceration, he returned home nearly 30 years before the release date once listed on his paperwork.
Some of the first moments of freedom were wonderfully ordinary. In news coverage following his release, Sam described sitting at his family’s table with fried chicken and hot sauce, asking everyone to give him a little space while he enjoyed his first home-cooked meal in more than two decades.
There had been years of preparation for this life.
What Sam did not fully understand yet was that preparing to come home and learning how to live at home would present different challenges.
Walking Out Is Not the Same as Adjusting to Freedom
“Walking out of prison and adjusting to freedom are not the same thing.”
More than two years after his release, Sam says there are still moments when everyday life feels new.
Much of the conversation surrounding reentry understandably focuses on practical needs such as housing, employment, identification, transportation, and access to services. Sam believes those needs are essential, but his own experience has convinced him that the psychological and emotional transition deserves much more attention than it often receives.
Since returning home, he has attended therapy every Monday. His therapist knew him while he was incarcerated and had once told him that if he ever came home, she would provide therapy for him. When that day eventually came, she kept her promise.
What Sam values most about their work together is her willingness to listen without rushing him.
“We’ve worked through one issue for five or six months, and she has never made me feel rushed,” he told me. She gives him space to express what he is experiencing and work toward healing rather than expecting that decades of experiences can be processed according to someone else’s timetable.
His family and fiancée have also become important parts of learning how to live in a world that changed dramatically while he was away.
Sam affectionately calls his fiancée, Keira, his “reentry whisperer.” She has patiently helped him navigate things many of us barely notice anymore, from GPS and keyless car entry to changing technology and other details of ordinary life.
There have also been moments when habits developed during incarceration have followed him into environments where they are no longer necessary. In one interview, Sam described Keira gently reminding him, “You’re not in prison anymore. Relax.”
Other adjustments have been less visible.
Sam has spoken about sitting in his parents’ garage one Friday night after returning home. He did not want to drink or use drugs, but he also was not sure what to do with himself. After fighting so hard for freedom, he found himself asking God a question he had not expected to ask once he finally had it:
“Is this it?”
He eventually began thinking more intentionally about what he wanted his life outside prison to become, including education, business, service, and the ways he could use what he had experienced to help others.
Along the way, another formerly incarcerated man offered him advice that has stayed with him: “Sam, you mastered prison. Leave that in there and learn life out here.”
Coming home had given Sam his physical freedom. Learning how to live in that freedom would require another kind of work, and once again, he would not do that work entirely alone.
The People Who Walked With Him
When Sam talks about the people who have supported him, he does not describe one person arriving at exactly the right moment and changing everything. Instead, different people have walked alongside him during different seasons, each offering something that was needed at that point in his journey.
His parents remained an important foundation, while his older sister, Pam, was a particularly consistent presence throughout his incarceration. Sam remembers calling her almost every day. Around 2017, a close cousin whom he considers another sister became increasingly involved, helping him gather information and navigate the later stages of his effort to receive a pardon.
There was the mentor in the wood shop who noticed his work ethic and invested in him. There were friendships with other incarcerated men who encouraged accountability rather than complacency. His church and faith community helped shape his spiritual life. Since coming home, his therapist has given him a place to process experiences that did not disappear when the prison gates opened, while Keira has patiently helped him navigate both the practical and emotional realities of rebuilding a life.
What helpful support looked like changed with the season. Sometimes it meant advocacy or practical assistance. At other times, it meant accountability, listening, teaching, encouragement, or simply remaining present long enough for growth to take place.
Sam is equally clear that supporting someone does not require removing responsibility from them. When he speaks to families of incarcerated people, he encourages them to hold onto hope for the person they love without allowing that hope to become enabling.
The people who walked with Sam did not live his life for him or make his choices on his behalf. They helped create relationships in which growth remained possible while he continued doing the work required of him.
Today, Sam is increasingly interested in what it looks like to offer that kind of support to someone else.
Walking Back Through the Front Door
One of Sam’s roles after incarceration has been serving as a peer navigator with the Suffolk Public Defender’s Office, work that carries particular meaning because he remembers what it was like to move through the criminal justice system while struggling with addiction and mental-health concerns.
He has wondered what might have happened if someone had recognized what was happening in his life decades earlier and connected him with meaningful help before his choices escalated into the crimes that ultimately sent him to prison.
He cannot change that part of his own history, but he hopes his lived experience may help him recognize needs in someone else sooner.
His return to these spaces has also become deeply symbolic.
Sam has made it a personal goal to return to the prisons where he was once brought through the back as an incarcerated man and walk through the front door as the person he is today. Sometimes he returns to speak, using the very experiences that once confined him as part of what now allows him to connect with others.
He has said there is only one prison left on his list.
“Tackle your fears,” he has said. “Turn them around and walk back around.”
There is something powerful about returning to the same places without pretending the past did not happen. Sam does not need those buildings to represent something different about his history. What has changed is the person walking through their doors and what he hopes to do once he is inside.
Reentry Begins on Day 1
The same philosophy that shaped Sam’s preparation during incarceration is now becoming part of the work he is building in the community.
Sam is a co-founder of the Reentry & Recovery Alliance, an organization that grew from conversations about gaps facing people returning home after incarceration. Its roots, however, stretch back much further.
While incarcerated, Sam imagined an initiative called InVet that would help incarcerated veterans prepare to transition home. After his release, conversations with Keira about reentry needs in Suffolk, including the shortage of transitional housing for men, helped expand that longstanding concern into a broader vision.
Sam has a relatively simple response when he recognizes a need: rather than stopping at what is missing, he wants to explore whether there is something he can help build.
One expression of that approach is RRA Connect, which officially launched on October 1, 2026. The initiative began with 16 incarcerated participants and four people in the community and is intended to build meaningful connections before and after release through correspondence, goal-setting, reentry planning, and ongoing contact.
Sam also hopes, with participants’ consent, to introduce people to the broader community through biographical information and examples of their talents. Some participants are gifted artists, for example, and he has already begun collecting artwork he hopes to display at speaking engagements.
For Sam, this is about helping people on the outside encounter the individuality of people they might otherwise know only through the fact that they are incarcerated.
He frequently experiences this himself. People meet him today, hear him speak, and tell him that they cannot imagine him as the person he once was.
Rather than simply receiving that as a compliment, Sam thinks about the people he left behind.
“I tell them they should meet some of the friends I left inside,” he said.
His own transformation has made him reluctant to assume that who someone is at the time of an offense tells us everything about who that person is capable of becoming.
“I’m Still Human”
When I asked Sam what he most wants future professionals in Human Services, Pastoral Counseling, psychology, and other helping fields to understand before working with someone affected by addiction, incarceration, or reentry, his answer began simply:
“I’m still human.”
He wants professionals to listen long enough to understand the person in front of them rather than beginning to formulate an answer before that person has finished speaking.
“Too often, I can see a person forming a response before I’ve finished explaining what I’m going through,” Sam said. “They may be trying to help, but they miss the root of the issue.”
His own experience in therapy has shown him another way. He appreciates that his therapist has been willing to stay with difficult issues for months, allowing him the time needed to understand and work through them without making him feel that he should already be finished.
“Listen to understand, not just to answer,” he said. “Treat people as human beings, not simply as cases or criminal histories.”
For someone returning from decades of incarceration, healing and adjustment do not necessarily happen according to a program schedule or professional timeline. Sam’s experience suggests that meaningful support sometimes begins with enough patience to allow another person to tell the whole story before deciding what they need.
When a Second Chance Still Has Barriers
Reentry has also taught Sam that being given a second chance does not mean every barrier disappears.
After working for approximately 10 months at the Suffolk Public Defender’s Office, he began pursuing positions where he could use his peer-recovery training and certification. In the process, he encountered employment restrictions connected to offenses committed in 1999 that prevented some organizations from hiring him for work he believed aligned closely with his experience and training.
The experience has been frustrating. Sam has been welcomed into prisons, churches, organizations, and other spaces to speak and contribute, yet some similar helping roles become unavailable when he attempts to make that work part of his livelihood.
At the same time, he acknowledges why safeguards exist, particularly in settings involving vulnerable people. His concern is not that every restriction should simply disappear, but whether systems can develop ways to consider factors such as the amount of time that has passed, demonstrated rehabilitation, present character, supervision, or additional safeguards rather than treating every past conviction as permanently determinative.
It is one of the questions Sam now brings into conversations with legislators, organizations, and others involved in reentry: if rehabilitation is something we genuinely hope people will pursue, what opportunities should exist for someone to demonstrate that meaningful change has occurred?
For Sam, accountability and opportunity do not have to be competing ideas. Much of his own life has been shaped by learning how to hold both at once.
More Than a Single Chapter
When I asked Sam what he most wanted me to get right about his story, he returned again to accountability.
He does not want his victims forgotten, nor does he want trauma or addiction presented as excuses for the choices he made. He understands that his actions affected people in ways that cannot simply be undone because his life later changed.
What he does hope is that accountability can exist alongside a willingness to recognize what someone has done with the years that followed.
“No one should be reduced to a single chapter,” Sam told me.
Recently, he attended the Virginia Department of Corrections Citizens’ Academy. For nearly 25 years, Sam had been incarcerated within that correctional system. Now he was sitting in a room with correctional leadership, learning about policy and offering perspectives about ways the system might improve.
Sam describes himself as “reentry personified, second chances personified,” but he does not tell his story because he believes he is the only person capable of such change.
In fact, one of the things that seems to stay with him most is what happens when people meet the man he is today and tell him they cannot imagine him as the man who committed serious crimes decades ago. He understands what they mean, but he also knows men and women who remain incarcerated whose growth the public has never had an opportunity to witness.
His life has made him cautious about assuming that another person’s worst chapter tells us how the story will end.
That is also why Sam is careful not to promise someone living through addiction, incarceration, or reentry that their circumstances will change exactly as his did. His paperwork once listed May 11, 2054 as his release date. A conditional pardon changed the trajectory of his life, but he could not have known that would happen during all the years he spent preparing.
“I can’t promise anyone the same outcome,” he said.
What he can offer is what those years taught him about what to do when the future still appears impossible.
Prepare anyway.
Change anyway.
Hold onto hope anyway.
“Don’t ever give up. It’s never over.”
On July 1, 2024, Samuel Harris walked into a life he had spent years preparing to live. Today, much of his work is focused on helping other people begin that preparation long before someone tells them freedom is near.
Because for Sam, a second chance does not begin on the day someone comes home.
Reentry Begins on Day 1.
This article was developed through conversations and written interview responses provided by Samuel E. Harris, supplemented by public interviews and news coverage of his incarceration, recovery, release, and reentry. Harris is co-founder of the Reentry & Recovery Alliance and RRA Connect. Photos and media have been provided or used with the permission of Samuel E. Harris.
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