He has prison in his past. Now he hopes law school is in his future

Austin O’Campo went from prison to graduating from UC Berkeley, while living in his car. Now  the 29-year-old San Jose resident is studying for law school while completing a fellowship designed to help young people like him find careers. 

The fellowship is through a nonprofit called CURYJ. Pronounced “courage,” the acronym stands for Communities United for Restorative Youth Justice. Among other things, it administers internships and fellowships for young people who have been involved in the legal system — either criminally, as a foster kid, via immigration or because of school discipline issues, said George Galvis, its executive director.

O’Campo was homeless during his childhood and his grandmother took him in when he was 17. By then he’d spent time in juvenile facilities, abused drugs and alcohol — he is sober now — and later served time in prison for receiving stolen property, parole violations and dissuading a witness, he said.

He was released in 2017 and went to college but still struggled, until a friend told him about CURYJ, which operates Homies 4 Justice internships for teens and Dream Beyond Bars fellowships for adults under 30. 

As a yearlong Dream Beyond Bars fellow, O’Campo is paid $25 an hour and works 20 hours a week, learning community organizing and advocacy. Fellows get experience in event planning, graphic design, public speaking, communication and soon cybersecurity skills, Galvis said, as well as support from the program’s life coaches and healing circles.

“You can’t just give them a job; that’s not enough,” he said. “They have to have support for their healing journey. There has to be some stabilization.” 

I spoke with O’Campo recently about the fellowship, his community service and how he looks at his future after such a challenging past. His responses have been edited for clarity and length.

Q: Why are you involved with CURYJ? And are you really going to law school?

I’m going into a joint MBA-JD program, hopefully. So right now I’m studying for my LSATs, trying to get my score up, and I’m accumulating work experience. 

CURYJ has instilled a good amount of confidence in me, I’d have to say, because when I was in prison I never really thought college was an opportunity. Then I got into San Jose City College … and was kind of just there floating around, and I ended up getting into Berkeley. And I didn’t really think I belonged there. But lately, since CURYJ has been talking to me and … I got really good grades in college, I’ve managed to maintain those really good grades while working two jobs or more the entire time, not living under the best circumstances. And, honestly, now I think I deserve to be in the top programs in the country, and so now I’m trying to come full bore. I want to come with work experience, with the scores, with the grades, with the knowledge, and I want to have my best foot forward.

How did you come to be where you are now, from prison to trying for law school? 

I mean, broken families and trauma … for sure. I started going to jail before the jail was even allowed to hold me — for little things like running away, stealing, fighting. I got kicked out of damn near every school I went to until I went to prison … Even while I was going to school, I didn’t have no purpose. I didn’t have no sense of community. I didn’t have no real reason why I was doing everything I was doing.

So I feel like everything that I have right now, everything that I’m doing, a lot of that stuff changed because of CURYJ … I was the Students for Prop 6 campaign manager. I was in charge of going to college campuses across California and just educating, getting kids aware, seeing if they wanted to … start up their own forms of activism. That was a very, very big thing for me. 

Right now, one of my biggest life struggles is I help take care of my grandma and my sister. My sister is disabled. She’s got … a rare form of paraplegia. And my grandma’s a breast cancer survivor … (and had a) triple bypass not too long ago. 

What are you doing in the fellowship now?

I’m actually a member of the (CURYJ) community now, like a member of the family. I show up to people’s court days that are going through it, or, if they used to be going through it, I help them sign up for school and just show them …  encouraging them to just come and find community … because that emotional intelligence has a lot to do with how we act within our communities. And if we don’t have that, it severely affects us in our daily life. 

What do you mean by emotional intelligence? 

I think emotional intelligence has a lot to do with vulnerability. And people like me, typically, we don’t allow ourselves to be vulnerable, especially around people we don’t know. This could cause us to lose relationships or not even to start relationships … which essentially cuts us out of society. And when you’re cut out of society, you’re much, much more likely to do things that are outside of society’s scope.

Coming to CURYJ and having those people that truly care about you and, even if you don’t say something, they’re going to do something for you to make it known that you’re welcome here … They’ve been paying attention and they’re trying to help. That’s what I’m saying about emotional intelligence. It opens you up and allows you to start that dialog, to grow yourself.

Why did you start community organizing?

Proposition 6 was one thing that affected me when I was in prison. I was a kitchen worker and so, instead of being able to go to college or be able to go to programs, I was told I had to wipe those kitchen tables. 

If you get an inmate assignment, and if any of those work times contradict class times or program times … you can’t go to anything that contradicts work. The number one priority of prisons is work … which is why I probably came back to jail multiple times after I got out of prison, because I was never allowed to work on myself. 

At CURYJ we have coalitions of other nonprofits that are trying to meet with lawmakers … to teach people … For six months I did those coalition calls and learned about Prop 6 and what it means to pass laws. We’d go and rally at the state …  I’ve been trying to get involved in any capacity that I can, because I’ve never been exposed to work like this. It’s something that my experience directly relates to and actually helps me work through. 

I’m not just trying to stay out (of prison) now. I’m working on myself while trying to better my life. 

What’s the most surprising thing you’ve learned in your fellowship?

The most refreshing part about CURYJ was everybody that’s in our fellowship is labeled … we’re all called criminals; we’re all called bad people. But when we come together, that’s not who we are. We are the community. We’re handing out food. We’re handing out information. We’re handing out clothes. We’re handing out resources to help these people be successful. And that doesn’t just solidify their success; it solidifies ours. 

Financial support for this story was provided by the Smidt Foundation and The James Irvine Foundation.