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Archie Price’s voice is warm and lilting but cracks with appreciation every time he calls from prison. He has now served nearly 25 years of a 40-to-life sentence, and it is hard to imagine the 17-year-old child who committed the crimes that led to his incarceration all those years ago.

Back then, he was selling drugs to put clothes on his back and food in his mouth, having lived his short existence in such chaos that his friends “ain’t never seen anybody grow up like” him. His kitchen table was littered with crack; his home was filled with people trading sex for their next fix; his neighborhood was consumed by drugs and violence. He succumbed to the same.

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But the man that I know is far from that scared, rash child who reacted to the chaos by creating his own. Archie may have entered prison “lonely, lost and uneducated,” but the Archie I know is introspective and searching — in college, through programming, in his renewed relationships with family — for purpose in the face of a sentence that could otherwise feel like death. I honestly believe that if I were he, I would have crumbled, and at times he did. But he also rose to the occasion, finding art, embracing his faith and building confidence in the grown adult he's fought so hard to become.

Archie’s trajectory is remarkable, but he’s not unlike others sentenced to almost assuredly die in prison for crimes committed as children or young adults. That’s despite brain science, social science and everyday common sense informing us that young people, even those who have made grave mistakes, have incredible capacity for change.

Across the country, more than 8,600 people are serving sentences of 50 years or more, including life without the possibility of parole, for crimes committed when they........

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