Michael Santos
Prison Professors Founder
Areas of Focus
Contributions
Service and Purpose
I am developing this Faculty page because I believe in leading by example. I often say that I will never ask anyone to do something that I am unwilling to do myself. This page exists for the same reason Prison Professors exists: to show the pathway to “an extraordinary and compelling” adjustment.
In 1987, a federal judge sentenced me to serve a 45-year term in federal prison. I learned early that if I did not create my own record, others would define me forever by the words that prosecutors wrote about me. I made bad decisions that led me to prison.
During the 26 years I served, I committed myself to disciplined preparation. I pursued education, wrote consistently, built relationships with mentors, and documented my efforts day by day. I was trying to recalibrate, showing that I wanted to become a fully functioning member of society again. Over time, that record influenced how stakeholders viewed me and ultimately allowed me to leave prison with opportunities to build a meaningful, law-abiding life.
I founded Prison Professors after my release. I wanted others to have access to a system I did not have when I began my sentence. I designed the platform to help people pursue self-directed mitigation strategies that would help them prepare for success upon release. I wanted to give them a vehicle to document who they are becoming through biographies, journals, book reports, and release plans.
Those resources would become a body of work, helping them build a coalition of support, and opening opportunities for success upon release.
As a Faculty member, my role is to teach the methodology that guided my own journey. I focus on showing how decisions made during incarceration influence outcomes later, how documentation builds trust, and how service to others strengthens credibility. I continue to use the same tools I encourage others to use, because leadership in this space requires consistency between words and action.
I remain committed to improving outcomes for people impacted by the justice system. That commitment includes advocating for reforms, building technology that expands access, and helping individuals create records that demonstrate responsibility, growth, and readiness for opportunity. This Faculty page is part of that commitment, showing how I hold myself accountable, and teaching others the strategies that worked for me.
Foundational Contribution
My foundational contribution to Prison Professors began long before the organization existed. It began with a personal decision I made early in my sentence:
If I wanted a different outcome, I would have to change how I used my time and document that change consistently.
During the 26 years I served in federal prison, I built my own system of preparation. I pursued education, wrote books, maintained journals, developed release plans, and sought mentors who would challenge me to live with discipline and accountability. I learned the value of measuring progress, so that others can verify the growth we’re making. By documenting my progress, I built a bridge that helped me build a life of meaning, relevance, and dignity while serving decades in prison.
After my release in 2013, I founded Prison Professors to formalize that system so others could use it. Along with other members of our team, I designed the platform to give people in prison a way to memorialize their work through biographies, journals, book reports, and release plans. We wanted to give them tools to create evidence of preparation that others could review and trust.
As the platform grew, my role expanded from practitioner to builder. I worked with volunteers, technologists, educators, and formerly incarcerated leaders to turn lived experience into curriculum, infrastructure, and policy-relevant data. Every feature of Prison Professors reflects a principle and commitment to improve outcomes for all members of our community.
This Faculty role reflects that same standard. I continue to use the platform as it was intended to be used, and I remain accountable to the methodology I teach. My contribution is not defined by position, but by consistency between what I ask of others and what I am willing to do myself.
Impact Narrative
I measure the impact of my work by results, not intentions. I want to open more opportunities for people to earn freedom through merit.
What began as a personal discipline during my incarceration has evolved into a platform that now serves thousands of justice-impacted individuals across the country. Through Prison Professors, people in federal prison are building biographies, journals, book reports, and release plans that document how they are using their time to prepare for law-abiding, contributing lives. That work creates visibility where silence once existed.
Over time, this documentation has become more than individual record-keeping. It has become a body of evidence. Families, attorneys, probation officers, advocacy organizations, policymakers, and correctional administrators can now see patterns of effort, consistency, and growth in real time. That visibility strengthens credibility, supports self-advocacy, and informs conversations about earned time credits, work release, home confinement, clemency, and early termination of supervision.
As the platform has grown, I have focused on building systems that scale access without sacrificing standards. With the support of faculty members, technologists, and volunteers, we are moving toward serving more than 10,000 active users who are documenting their preparation and contributing to a growing record of merit-based rehabilitation. We built this system to remain accessible regardless of a person’s ability to pay.
We will use the stories and data that our website collects to advocate for:
More mechanisms that allow people to earn higher levels of liberty through merit.
Work release programs.
Pathways to early termination of Supervised Release
Opportunities for employment upon release.
The broader impact provides data and lived-experience insight that helps stakeholders understand what accountability and preparation actually look like over time. By replacing anecdote with documentation, we are helping shift the conversation from punishment alone to measurable readiness for opportunity.
My role in this impact is not to speak for others, but to build the infrastructure that allows their work to speak for itself. That remains the mission, and it continues to guide every decision I make as this platform grows.
Post-Release Service
After my release in 2013, my focus shifted from personal preparation to service and system-building. I committed myself to using what I learned during incarceration to help others improve outcomes by documenting effort, building credibility, and preparing deliberately for opportunity.
I founded Prison Professors to provide people in prison with tools I did not have early in my sentence. Since then, my work has centered on expanding access to education, guidance, and structured documentation for justice-impacted individuals and their families. I continue to write, teach, and develop lessons that show how decisions made during incarceration influence prospects for success after release.
My post-release service also includes advocacy and collaboration with a wide range of stakeholders. I work with people in prison, families, volunteers, funders, technologists, educators, defense attorneys, and correctional leaders to strengthen pathways to earned liberty. That work includes visiting institutions, speaking with administrators, advising on policy reform, and building partnerships that expand opportunities for merit-based progress.
At the core of my service is a commitment to consistency. I continue to use the same methods I teach: writing regularly, documenting work, mentoring others, and contributing to systems that allow effort to be seen and evaluated.
My post-release service reflects a long-term commitment to improving outcomes for individuals and to strengthening a system that recognizes growth, accountability, and readiness for opportunity when it is demonstrated through sustained action.
Teaching Focus
My teaching focus is centered on helping people develop comprehensive mitigation strategies, regardless of what stage of the journey they are in. I publish lessons throughout our website, and we make them freely available to anyone.
Participants learn how to prepare for the best possible outcome at every stage of the journey, including before pleading, before sentencing, and how to use time in custody to prepare for a law-abiding, contributing life after release. Everything I teach is grounded in lived experience and reinforced through structured practice.
I teach a methodology that emphasizes disciplined decision-making, consistent documentation, and long-term thinking. Through Prison Professors, I guide people in developing biographies, journals, book reports, and release plans that show who they are becoming rather than who they were at sentencing. I emphasize that preparation is not theoretical. It is demonstrated through daily actions that can be reviewed, verified, and understood by others.
A core part of my teaching involves showing how documentation builds credibility. I help participants understand how their written record can support self-advocacy with probation officers, case managers, attorneys, judges, policymakers, and community stakeholders. When effort is visible and sustained, it changes the way decisions are made.
I also focus on teaching service-based leadership. I encourage people to help others, build communities of accountability, and contribute positively to their environments. Teaching is not limited to formal lessons. It happens through example, consistency, and a willingness to share what works.
My goal as a Faculty member is not to motivate through words alone, but to provide a practical framework that people can apply immediately. When individuals learn how to document their preparation and align daily decisions with long-term goals, they gain agency. That agency is what ultimately leads to better outcomes.