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Lewis A. Cruz - The Incarceration of a Man's Soul
By Christine D Patterson   
Rated "PG" by the Author.
Last edited: Thursday, March 05, 2009
Posted: Thursday, June 26, 2003

This is story # 3 A child that is lost forever. A man's soul that we all can still save. We must begin the hope with our children so this will stop the cycle of wrong doing. And most of all, we has a society keep ignoring the facts. This is a story of truth under the Three Strikes Law.

This story that you are about to read was raised up to Jesus, in hopes for the answer to truth. This true life story found its way to my desk. As I read the story, I found that it was in the same era of the lost children of the sixty’s and seventy’s. The era society turned its back on. So many of the men and women are imprisoned today because of the lack of love and trust that they should of had gotten when they where children.

These men and women are doing twenty-five years to life under the “Three Strikes Law”. Now the incarceration of a man’s soul is at stake, a child we can never bring back, but we still can save the man. Lewis Cruz was born in New York City in 1964, but before he was born his parents divorced. Going their separate ways, Mr. Cruz lived with his mother. He remember his Father only visiting on the weekends, he longed to live with him. His mother, in between boy friends, would blame Mr. Cruz for them leaving. As long as he stayed out of the way, things were fine. But the day came when his mother married, which meant that Mr. Cruz’s troubles just began. His new step-father was a Vietnam vet who did not have any problem with using his Military training on Mr. Cruz when there was the slightest provocation.Now at ten years old, this boy lost the meaning of love.

The love he would never know for the rest of his life. To escape his mother’s new husband; he found new friends. Mr. Cruz started smoking Marijuana, which turned into every chance he got. Now home did not seem so bad as long as he stayed high. He would do anything to try to get his mother to send him to his father. Finally the police brought him home to his mother one night, because he had gotten a hold to some liquor. Being drunk at the age of ten, the feelings of this child had a chance to come out. Just love he wanted from his mother where express. Even though she did not stop to listen to her son, she sent him to his father. Mr. Cruz thought that his life had a meaning when he got to stay with his father. Little did he know that that lost child was already maturing to the point of no return? He had a sickness, but at the age of ten what child would know? His father’s nightmare was just about to start, for walking in his front door was a time bomb of emotional fear and lack of trust. His father tried to deal with Mr. Cruz’s problems and so did his wife, but a time bomb is hard to defuse especially if you can’t see the fuse. His father did not know the signs of drug use or emotional damage of his own son. Even though he tried his best, he failed.

Through High School Mr. Cruz did it all, heroin, cocaine and partying. He even went so far as to rob his own friend who had drugs and money so he could get high. He never found anything at his friend’s house so he left. Walking down the alley a patrol car pulled him over. They had received a call saying there was a possible break in where Mr. Cruz just left from. Mr. Cruz was charged with first degree Burglary in 1984. He was twenty years old. Mr. Cruz did not know that it was time for God to step into his life. He took a plea bargain and got 180 days in jail and $100.00 fine and probation. Mr. Cruz did his time and what was required on his probation. But the addictions to drugs still ran through his veins. In 1990, he took a limousine from a car wash while the driver was at the change machine. He picked up all the friends he could and had a night on the town until the C.H.P. pulled him over. He was charged with first degree robbery without violence or force. He served fourteen years in the state prison, six years for Robbery 1st, five years the prior Burglary and two years for a couple of stolen cars prior to that he was found driving, and one year for not appearing in court.Out of a fourteen year sentence Mr. Cruz did eight years.

In 1998 he walked out a grown man with more thought to responsibility and consideration for his family. But in all this time served, he NEVER received any help for his drug addiction or for the mental illness of his childhood. He still went straight for the only thing that he tried to escape from “drugs”. One night at a party he got some crystal meth; he knew he was going to be late for his job in the morning so he left, and two blocks from the house he was stopped again. Only two months after he was paroled. He went in front of the same judge who put him away the last time. Now he is 38 years old doing 26 years to life.Mr. Cruz has had a life without hope.

In his story to me he states “my past is my past”. It has taken steel bars to see sober eyes. For the bars have freed him from the drugs, and free him from his nightmare of a bad childhood. He has found the greatest love of all, God the one who has been watching over him all this time. He says that God has showed him mercy when his mother would not. God says in the bible “What you sow is what you reap”. Yes this man has done wrong. But who do we blame for his wrong doings? We can turn our backs and say he got what he deserves. But how many more will be pushed into the crowded prison walls because of their childhood of pain with no hope? We have got to stop and help these people not put them into a world to where they are forced to be dead in spirit and soul. Have many children are out there right now doing the same thing that Mr. Cruz did when he was a child?

It is just matter of time before the cycle starts all over again; the only difference is the face. We have got to take notice before it is too late. Since Mr. Cruz time, he is now Secretary of the H.E.A.R.T. (helping and encouraging teens at risk.) They come into the prison to see what could happen to them. He sees in them, how he was. He says in his letter,” They don’t need to be scared to be tuff; all they need is love at home.” He is right. Do you know where your teenager is right now? We have to stop turning our backs on this. Do you think because these men and women are gone for life that things will change? There are children right now at this very minute that are about to step in Mr. Cruz’s shoes. What do you care? It’s not your child, or is it. This is why the three strikes law needs to be amended. To get the help a child needs not twenty-five years to life and forget about them.
 

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