Story

Dante Bristow

Portrait of Dante Brinston
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Dante Bristow
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Photo by Aundre Larrow/Debt Free Justice

Dante Bristow, 23, was raised by a single mother in Wichita, Kansas. As a child, he remembers his household would start to run out of food toward the end of the month, when the assistance money had been used up, and he’d go hungry. When he was 13, he and a few friends got caught trying to steal food from a store. It was his first encounter with the juvenile justice system, but it touched off a cycle that continued for years as he and his family struggled to pay the costly court debts.

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Portrait of Dante Brinston

“I was young, I couldn't pay for my ankle monitor. I went to jail, because I couldn't pay for my ankle monitor. And then they let me back out again on my ankle monitor that I couldn't pay for.”

Dante Bristow  
System Impacted Individual

Q & A

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. 
  
DEBT FREE JUSTICE: Tell us about yourself. 
  
DANTE: My name is Dante Bristow. I'm 23 years old, born in Wichita, Kansas. 
  
So I grew up in kind of a poor neighborhood, me and a group of friends. And all our moms were single parents, so we really didn't have the funds like that. We knew if we asked for something, nine times out of 10, it was going to be a no because we still had brothers and sisters to feed in the house as well, not just us. So I was just hungry. 
  
Coming from school, had nothing to eat at the house. We didn't ever have anything to eat at the house, really, unless it was the beginning of the month. You got to wait on your food stamps. So I was just hungry. Towards the end of the month, I know we didn't have anything at home. So I went in the store, and yeah, I tried to steal, and I got caught, me and a couple of friends. 
  
It was actually pretty sad for me because there was actually a man there and he tried to pay for the stuff instead of me having to go to jail, but the police officer felt like it was teaching me a lesson to put me in those handcuffs. 
  
I came into the system at 13 going on 14 years old. 
  
A lot of people don't understand, at that age, being incarcerated and being behind the walls like that without your parents, it can mess the child up. And I feel like it really messed me up long-term ever since. 
  
And I've been in the system ever since.

 
 
 
 
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