A Mother Rebuilds Her Life After Surviving Abuse And Prison

We talk with Leslie Campbell about surviving abuse, being incarcerated as a mother, and rebuilding a life through education, faith, and community. We name the harm mass incarceration does to families and push for a world where Black women are believed, protected, and free to thrive. 
• Leslie’s testimony of self-defense, incarceration, and finding a way forward 
• Education as the turning point for voice, self-esteem, and reentry success 
• What Leslie sees when bringing hope and resources into women’s facilities 
• Realities of incarceration at Rikers and upstate, including prison labor 
• The impact of separation on children, mothers, and extended family caregivers 
• Reentry guilt, family alienation, and the trauma of reunification 
• Faith as survival in solitary confinement and a guide for restoration 
• Practical ways churches can support incarcerated people and returning citizens 
• Encouragement for mothers to practice grace and release perfection myths 
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Also enroll in our courses and become certified at abolitionacademy.com. 
Don't forget to become a member and subscribe to our mailing list at abolitionistsanctuary.org. 

Transcript

Welcome And Motherhood Focus

SPEAKER_01 0:05

Welcome to the Abolitionist Sanctuary Podcast, where we talk faith, abolition, and black motherhood. I am your host, Reverend Dr. Nikia Smith Robert, the founder and executive director of Abolitionist Sanctuary. We are a national coalition leading a faith-based abolitionist movement. Thank you to our audio and visual audiences for joining us on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and all streaming platforms. Let's build abolitionist sanctuaries together with this critical and candid conversation for today's episode. Welcome to the Abolitionist Sanctuary Podcast. I'm so excited about this episode for Mother's Day and a month in which we celebrate motherhood, but also raise awareness around motherhood and mass incarceration.

Meet Leslie Campbell

SPEAKER_01 1:08

We have a seen guest with us today, Leslie Campbell, who I'm excited to introduce to you. Leslie was founded a place of hope in the work that she has done with College and Community Fellowship after leaving prison. She works as a psychotherapist at the Interborough Developmental and Consultation Center's Cannarsi Clinic and has previously held roles as a healthcare homes coordinator, supervisor at Housing Works, and a senior case manager at Faces New York Incorporated Women's Support Center. In addition to running her own jewelry business, Leslie is a licensed mental health counselor with a master's degree in forensic mental health counseling from John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Her accolades include the Calvin Miles Award from the New York City Mayor's Office, Worth's Susan Hallett Reentry Ward, and membership in the Phi Theta, Kappa, and Chai Alpha Epsilon Honor Societies. Since joining the Theater for Change, Social Change in 2007, Leslie has performed at various venues, including College and Community Fellowships 10th Anniversary Gala and the WK Kellogg Foundation's Healing America Conference. Leslie is also a proud mother of two. Join me in welcoming Leslie Campbell to the show. Welcome, Leslie. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. And it just seems happens that not only are you my guests, but we are also family. We worked together at a nonprofit and didn't know that we were cousins. This was many, many years ago. And sure enough, we found out. We found out. So as you introduce yourself, Leslie, can you let us know what are your pronouns? Give us a visual of how you are presenting in this space and tell us who are your people.

SPEAKER_02 3:07

My pronouns are she and her. And I really basically representing, you know, mothers and all individuals who persevere through a struggle. And I want to represent individuals who have faced adversity and want them to know that your past doesn't make your future, basically. I really, really hope that someone could benefit from my testimony. And when I say someone, I mean everyone, basically.

SPEAKER_01 3:51

Yeah. Thank you.

Testimony Of Abuse And Prison

SPEAKER_01 3:53

And you are presenting yourself. You have blonde hair. Are you wearing a necklace? You have all the cream and black, blue sweater with a necklace and green camisol, but with a wonderful background that looks like your home. My pronouns are she and hers. And I'm presenting an African garb that is orange and blue prominently, with African earrings that are red, green, and yellow, and cowory shells in the middle, with boho blonde braids, red lipstick, and the Avalanche Sanctuary podcast backdrop behind me. So you mentioned your testimony. Tell us what is your testimony, Leslie?

SPEAKER_02 4:39

I don't want to tell my age, but I want to say 1998. I was in an abusive relationship, and my self-esteem was at a low place. And I hadn't figured out what I want to do with myself. And I was involved with an individual who really didn't care about me, needless to say, himself. And he assaulted me and I fought back, and I ended up going to prison. And it was very devastating as a mom, as a woman, as someone who didn't have representation, money to defend myself. At the time, it felt like I was at my very lowest in life. However, when I look back at the picture and realized what I went through, I feel like at that time God had rescued me and brought me through, delivered me from a place where I shouldn't have been. But I learned from the experience. And after I came home, I was introduced to education. I decided to go back to school and get a degree. And my initial plans were just to get an associate's degree. And at that time, I didn't even know what it meant to have a degree because no one in my maternal family at the time had gone to college and finished. There were a few who had started college, but none who had gone and gotten a degree. There were some individuals on my father's side of my family who had and, you know, are educated, but I was closer to my maternal family at the time. When I came home and went back to school, I want to say education is what gave me my voice, gave me my life back, gave me my self-esteem, gave me the opportunity to be a better mother for my child and be a better person to myself. And once I started working and becoming educated, I wanted more for myself. I wanted more for my family. And I continued. And I started aspiring to grow and learn more from the women I was around. And I was around women who were formerly incarcerated, who had gone back to school and gotten degrees in several areas like social work, HR management, human services, accounting. And these women were doing their things. And I was very proud of them and I was very motivated. And it was something that was not even on my radar, that I it wasn't where I thought my life was going to be at the time.

SPEAKER_01 7:51

Yeah, that's quite a testimony of.

Hope Work Inside Women’s Jails

SPEAKER_02 14:59

People going to prisons, and some people learn how to be better criminals when they're in prison. Very few people come out with information and education to be a better person. But there are organizations, there are individuals, there are programs, not very many, but there are some that help people in prison. I used to go into the prisons, I used to take the message into the prisons. I used to do recruitment for college and community fellowship. I used to do recruitment for dress for success. I used to do recruitment for Fortune Society. And taking the message to these women in there and letting them know that when they get out, they can have a life. They can begin again. This does not have to define them that they ended up in prison. And one of the most beautiful things that I've experienced was a young lady who wrote me a letter after I had did a group in Rikers Island for Dress for Success. And she wrote me the most beautiful letter, and I gave it to the director of Dress for Success. And when she came out, she came to the organization and she got clothing for a job interview. But it the letter of appreciation was so beautiful. When I would be inside the school at Rose and Singers, and women would find out that I was in the building, they would all sign up to come down, and they were eager to hear a message of hope. So there are individuals in there that want better for themselves. It's just that our system is not offering it.

SPEAKER_01 16:56

Yes. And just for clarification, Rose M. Singer is the women's facility of Rikers Island. Exactly. So talk to us about your experience in

Life On Rikers And Upstate

SPEAKER_01 17:09

prison. Where were you incarcerated and what services did you need when you were inside?

SPEAKER_02 17:15

Okay, so when I went, I spent two years and I spent eight months on Rikers Island, eight months upstate in Albion, and eight months in Beacon Correctional Facility. And Rose and Singers, Rikers Island is really a detainee center. Like that's before you get sentenced and you're fighting your case. So I spent eight months there. After I took a plea, because I didn't go to trial, I was scared to death, didn't know better. I went upstate. And when I went to Albion Correctional Facility, which is one of the facilities upstate for women, they did have programs up there. And I think I did a drug program up there, ASAP, but whatever. And then I was sent down to a work camp in Fishkill near Beacon, New York. And the state of New York used the inmates to do work for them. Not only did we have cow pastures, clean graveyards, clean the correctional uh officers, living quarters, they had women working for the Department of Motor Vehicles, answering telephones as customer service reps, making braille books, and also making core craft cabinets and all kinds of stuff. Yeah. Women are being trained and men too with skills while they're in prison, but paid what, 14 cents an hour?

SPEAKER_01 18:57

Is that yeah. What can you share about the impact of mass incarceration on

Prison Labor And Exploitation

SPEAKER_01 19:04

motherhood?

SPEAKER_02 19:05

Oh my goodness. The impact it had on my child. My daughter was two when I left. And I cried day and night, day and night. Had her picture on my locker, and she was with my mom by the grace of God, no HCS case, or she just was with my mom. And I felt so guilty that I didn't even want my mom traveling eight hours upstate, bringing my daughter to come see me. So when they transferred me

Motherhood And Separation Trauma

SPEAKER_02 19:40

to Beacon, the work camp, which is only about an hour on the Metro North from New York City, again, I just felt so blessed. And my mom brought my baby to see me. It was a blessing, but it also was hard because when she came to see me, they had these picnic tables. We were able to be outside. We had a grill, we had hot dogs and stuff. But when it was time to go, they had to fry her from me because she didn't want to let me go. And it was so devastating. And when I first came home and got my first apartment, my daughter used to sleep with me every day until she was about 13 because she did not want to let me go and lose me ever again.

SPEAKER_00 20:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:32

Ever again. And we have a beautiful relationship to this day. Yeah. Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_01 20:41

I really appreciate you sharing that and the vulnerability it takes to name the separation anxiety, right? And there are cases where mothers don't have the supportive system of grandmothers, right? One, it's it's the responsibility that is shifted to the grandmother that can be very hard. And for those who don't have that support system and have to navigate going through child services and family reunification process. And what I learned also is that for women who have longer sentences, they become alienated from their families. And it's hard. Absolutely. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 21:24

I've had women tell me upon release that they would prefer to leave their children where they're at and prefer not to get custody of them back and prefer not to infiltrate their lives. And I and at the time of like, are you what? What do you mean you don't want your child back in your life? And it's traumatic, actually. I've had several women tell me that they don't want to disrupt the lives of their children because of we're They're at and they felt so guilty because maybe their recidivism in their lives were for me, it was one and done. I went to prison, I was it. You have to, you don't have to ever worry about me doing anything ever again to get locked up. But you said it's a lifestyle, it's a lifestyle, and you know, and even them. I tell people we fall down, but we get up. It does not define you. It's hard, but you can do it.

SPEAKER_01 22:31

You can do it, you know, you can do it. We are not the summation of our mistakes, right? Our mistakes, and and that's also a very religious message, too. It's this idea of restoration that we are all created in the image of God, but that we all fall short of the glory of God. And so can you share with us how does religion

Reentry Guilt And Family Alienation

SPEAKER_01 22:55

inform and help you navigate these struggles and live in the life that you have built now with successes and thriving beyond incarceration?

SPEAKER_02 23:06

Well, for me, I was in prison and I was locked up in lock. It's called the box, solitary confinement. Yeah. And I had the opportunity to read the Bible in the Quran front to back. And that was the first place that I learned to appreciate God. Really appreciate my grandmother, it was religious. Both of them went to church daily every week. Faithful, you know, I come from a religious, faithful, religious family, even though maybe I wasn't so much as a young lady, but I know that there's a God. And I also know that God has not turned his back on me. And I also realized that in that moment where I felt like I was at my lowest, that's the only thing that got me through was those conversations I had with God in the middle of the night when I was by myself

Faith In Solitary And Survival

SPEAKER_02 24:06

in that cell. When I could close my eyes and hear the rain and smell the rain and feel like the cleansing while I was in a cot in the corner and just freeing my mind because I refused to let these people break me.

SPEAKER_01 24:21

Yeah.

What Churches Can Do

SPEAKER_01 24:22

You talked about the programs that help people. What can churches do to go inside and help people who are incarcerated?

SPEAKER_02 24:31

Actually, there was a program in the church called Kairos. Um Kairos on the inside, Kairos on the outside. I actually was able to do a spiritual retreat with them when I came home up at the Passionist Institute retreat on one weekend. It was a beautiful thing. They treated about 20 of us women to a wonderful weekend where we just prayed and fellowship. It was so beautiful and they treated us so lovely. But religious organizations, there aren't a few, like I said, Kairos, that's one of them.

SPEAKER_01 25:06

A bad rap where some women think they only churches come in to lead their Bible studies, but perhaps aren't as receptive when women are re-entering society. I don't think so.

SPEAKER_02 25:17

Because I feel like the representatives that are in the prisons that are religious representatives, the women do genuinely appreciate them. That's good to know. I just don't think there's enough of them. That's excellent to know. So and I just don't think that the access, the New York, you know, the state, the system doesn't like I think at one time, out of all the New York State prisoners, there were only eight that had a college program at one point. So it's not that they're not there, it's just not enough.

SPEAKER_01 25:54

Yeah. And in addition to that, education was the leading factor to reduce recidivism, yet there were only those eight facilities with education programs. So question for this interview, and then we'll go into a rapid

Message To Mothers On Grace

SPEAKER_01 26:09

round.

SPEAKER_02 26:09

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 26:10

Leslie, Mother's Day is this month, and you're a mother, I'm a mother. This episode is about motherhood and mass incarceration. Thank you for sharing your experiences. But if you could end this interview to talk to other mothers who share some of your struggles, what would you say to them to empower, encourage, and equip them to have hope beyond poverty, punishment, policing, and prisons?

SPEAKER_02 26:38

I would say to mothers to give themselves some grace, to be kind to yourself, to love on yourself a little bit more. Stop being so hard on yourselves. You know, give yourself some grace because as mothers, I think that they're too hard on themselves as parents. I think that this whole idea of the perfect parent, right? And the people writing books on parenting, and I'm a mother of two, and I love my relationship with my children, and I feel like I raised them the best I could. Even though I may have lost two years in my daughter's life in the beginning, I don't feel like she's lost anything because she had my mom, right? She had my tribe, she had people. I had to go through what I had to go through so I can learn. And I feel like I have no regrets. I have no regrets, and I feel like I've grown and learned. And some of the experiences that I had with her allowed me and prepared me to be even a greater parent for my son.

unknown 27:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:53

Not saying I treated him any better than I treated her. I love them equally. You know, there's no favorite child, and there's no perfect parenting. I would not recommend someone to buy a book on how to be a parent. I would tell them to give themselves grace and to believe in themselves and to believe that the creator is going to give you what you need. So many people want what they want when they want it. They don't want to give themselves grace. They don't want to give themselves time to allow them. And they start worrying and having anxiety for nothing. It's easy for me to say that, but I truly mean it because there's times where my pantry's going to run low, but I don't worry about it because I know that there's a God that's going to provide for me. My family, I really don't worry. Yes. Oh, I don't worry about my kids or grandkids being hungry because I know there's a God that's going to provide. But to tell that to somebody who's in the struggle, it's easier to say than to make them believe. And sometimes it hurts me when they get angry, like, whatever, Miss Campbell, okay, whatever. Oh, but I really mean it from my heart.

SPEAKER_00 29:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:18

That this too shall pass, that everything we go through is not permanent.

SPEAKER_01 29:23

Thank you for that. Not only are you encouraging mothers, but that encourages everyone that this too shall pass, that trouble doesn't last always, that we could be gentle with ourselves and have grace, and that the summation of our greatest mistakes do not define us, that God still loves us, that God sees us as God's good creation, created in God's image, and that there is a system that is designed and stacked up against us. Even when we are trying to defend our body and our dignity, we are punished. In what world should a woman be punished for trying to protect herself from her abuser? The system has to change. Societal perceptions have to change. We have to believe black women, protect black women, and ensure black women can live free and thrive in a life beyond prisons and policing. Thank you so much, Leslie. I really appreciate all that you shared with us today. This is my favorite part

Rapid Round And Closing Calls

SPEAKER_01 30:25

of the interview. It's called a rapid round. I'm gonna say a question, a word, and you give me the first thing that comes to mind. Okay, so just a phrase, just one word. Okay, just one word, okay?

SPEAKER_00 30:37

Motherhood, love, Barlow. Love favorite food.

SPEAKER_01 30:48

True. Favorite artist, Andrea Day. Favorite color, blue, favorite thing to do. Run. Figured. Greatest fear. Rat. Turn up or Netflix and chill. Netflix and chill. And finally, abolitionist sanctuary.

SPEAKER_02 31:20

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 31:21

Thank you for this conversation. Thank you. I love you, Crossman. I love you too. Thank you. Thank you to our viewers and listeners for joining this conversation on the Abolitionist Sanctuary podcast. Please download and share on all platforms. Again, I am your host, Reverend Dr. Nakia Smith Robert, the founder and executive director of Abolitionist Sanctuary. Follow us on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and download our social mobile app. Y'all on Facebook and Instagram, and y'all can be on our social mobile app. Download the Abolitionist Sanctuary Social Mobile app. Also enroll in our courses and become certified at abolitionacademy.com. Don't forget to become a member and subscribe to our mailing list at abolitionistsanctuary.org. And as we conclude this episode, remember that abolition is not only a practice, but it is a way of life. And for me, abolition is my religion. Let's lead a faith based abolitionist movement together. Leslie, thank you so much for being here. Thank you.