Remaining Positive: A Journey of Choices and Redemption

When James Borders was 27 years old, he got a life sentence for conspiracy as a first-time, non-violent drug defendant. No drugs found, no criminal history. Just hearsay and the wrong crowd.

He spent the next 21 years learning how to survive in federal prison, from county jail hell to maximum security, through sentence reductions and transfers across the country. When I talked with James, I could hear how that journey changed him. Not just the obvious ways, but in the small details that most people never think about.

Growing Up with Nothing in Haytown, Missouri

James grew up the youngest son in a family of 16 children in Haytown, Missouri, a small town south of St. Louis. “We had dirt roads, outhouses. We didn’t have running water,” James told me. “That was normal to me.”

His mother raised all those kids after his father died when James was one year old. She was firm, not sensitive. Had to be. “My mother, she was very firm. She wasn’t sensitive. And so being raised around a mother that wasn’t sensitive and didn’t show love, that’s how you became,” James explained.

They chopped cotton for $20 a day in 100-degree heat. The money went toward school clothes. His mother had stopped school in fifth grade to work the fields, so education didn’t seem important in their house. James graduated high school, tried welding school, moved to Kansas City briefly. But there weren’t many opportunities back home. “There were no jobs. Where I was from, probably had one factory in my little town. And you really couldn’t get a job because you just didn’t quit that job. Because you didn’t have nothing else to go to.”

So you had to create opportunities. And that’s where things went wrong.

The Arrest That Changed Everything

In 1998, James got arrested because of some guys he knew. Got out because they didn’t have anything on him. He moved away, went to Georgia, then Kansas City. Met his wife. They got married. She was pregnant.

Then the feds came.

“They found me guilty, gave me a life sentence. My wife had a miscarriage. Three years into my incarceration. She and I divorced,” James said. Life without parole for conspiracy. No drugs, no violence, first-time offender.

His representation was terrible. “These lawyers, defense attorneys, they go to school to defend you. But in the courtroom, they’re prosecuting you. Yeah. But you’re the only one that don’t know that they’re prosecuting you because you don’t know the law.”

County Jail: The Worst Time

James spent 11 months bouncing between county jails before getting to federal prison. “That was the worst time ever. Being in a county jail because you can find you can’t move.”

Small cells, terrible food, no rights. They’d wake you up at 3 or 4 in the morning, tell you to pack up, move you somewhere else. You knew nothing about where you were going or when.

“You like stripped of your manhood. Yeah. You no longer a man now. Yeah. You have no rights. The rights that you do have are so small or so minimal that you really can’t do anything.”

Then came the transfer through Oklahoma City, the federal transit center where everyone in America passes through. Shackled on planes, strip searches, feeling like an animal.

Learning to Do Time at Greenville

When James got to Greenville federal prison in Illinois, he had to learn how to survive. Medium-high security with 1,500 inmates. Fights with shanks and locks in socks. Gang politics everywhere.

“I had to learn how to do time. I had to learn how to live in prison amongst strangers,” James said. “And in the childhood, you have to eat with your group. I had to eat with the Kansas City guys. Then you had the St. Louis guys. Then you had the Illinois guys.”

Older guys from Kansas City taught him the rules. Who you could sit with, how to stay out of trouble, how to survive. He started going to the chapel, found some guys who were trying to do the right thing instead of just getting by.

But even in church, guys carried knives in their Bibles. Cut holes in the pages. Had shanks in their boot soles. That’s how serious it was.

James thought about suicide in those early years. The divorce, the life sentence, the hopelessness of motion after motion getting denied. But his faith kept him going, even when it felt impossible.

Transfers and Sentence Reductions

In 2009, changes to federal sentencing guidelines reduced James’s sentence from life to 30 years. His custody level changed, so he transferred to Englewood in Colorado. Old reformatory building from the 1940s with no heat. “If it was 20 degrees outside, it was 10 degrees inside.” They slept in coats and hats.

More guideline changes dropped his sentence to 24 years. He requested a transfer closer to home and ended up at a federal prison in Louisiana. That was the worst. “This mentality was insane. Dangerous. Very dangerous. Cause that’s all they talked about was killing, shooting. That’s, they, nothing positive.”

Finally, he got transferred to Leavenworth camp.

The Greyhound Bus to Freedom

In 2012, after about 14 years inside, James got released to the camp at Leavenworth. They gave him $242 and put him on a Greyhound bus with street clothes for the first time since 1998.

“Everything was moving so fast. I was constantly looking around. I think somebody’s gonna sneak up on me and. And people were just different. The things looked different. Everything was different.”

He stopped at Church’s Chicken near the bus station. Couldn’t figure out how to order food. All the options, the upselling, the questions. Finally asked the worker to order for him. Ate fast like he’d been trained to do in prison.

Toilets that flushed automatically. Soap dispensers that worked by themselves. Lady on the bus swiping at her phone. The world had changed while he was gone.

Finding His Way Back

The camp felt like too much freedom after years of restricted movement. James had to adapt again. Learn a different way of doing time where people had cell phones and moved around freely.

He reconnected with his ex-wife during those final years. Not romantically at first, just communication. He didn’t want to be a burden or complicate her life, but that connection to the outside world mattered.

James finally got fully released from federal custody in March of this year. After 21 years in the system, including halfway house and home confinement, he’s free.

He’s 50 now. His twin boys grew up without him. His mother is 89 and still drives to McDonald’s for coffee. He missed decades of their lives, but he made it home. Sometimes that’s the only victory that counts.