Operation Turnaround: Turning Setbacks Into Opportunities by Mark Edgington

Some of the most important work I’ve done in my life happened while I was still behind bars.

It wasn’t part of my sentence. It wasn’t something I had to do. I just happened to be in the right place at the right time, and someone asked me if I had something to say. I did. And that one moment turned into something bigger — something I now look back on as one of the only redemptive things I had to offer at the time.

Speaking From Inside

Operation Turnaround was a prison program that brought at-risk boys — usually in their early teens — into the facility to show them what incarceration really looked like. No dramatics. No TV tropes. Just a walk through the place where time stands still.

At the end of each tour, they were brought into the staff dining hall and handed off to me.

That became my role for years — speaking to 20 or 30 boys at a time, about 12 times a year. For at least four years, maybe longer, I told them the truth. I told them what prison was really like. I shared the details of my own crime and the stories of other men inside. I didn’t need to exaggerate anything. Prison, as it turns out, sells itself.

It wasn’t about scaring them straight. It was about giving them a clear look at what this place actually was. A place where freedom is gone. A place where regret echoes every day. A place you don’t want to end up.

Becoming the “Spokesconvict”

I didn’t start out as the main voice of the program. One day, the sergeant running it simply asked if I had anything to say to the group. I said yes, and apparently I had more to say than expected. I was asked back the next week, and soon enough, I became the prison’s unofficial “spokes-convict.”

I also spoke to ladies’ groups, recurring college classes, and even press who came in wanting to hear a convict’s perspective. At the time, I didn’t think of it as public speaking. I just saw it as a way to tell the truth while I had the chance to do something useful.

I didn’t get paid. I didn’t get time off. But I took pride in it, because when you’ve done harm, the need to be of service gets loud. And this was one place where I felt like I could do something that might matter.

Did It Work?

People sometimes ask, “Did you reach anyone?” The honest answer is: I don’t know.

I only ever ran into two young men later who said they remembered hearing me speak. Both of them were incarcerated by then. I asked questions and tried to understand, but they told me that nothing I could’ve said would’ve changed their path. That’s hard to carry. I wanted to believe I could’ve done more.

But I also know this: if even one kid chose differently because of something they heard during those talks, it was worth it. And I’m convinced more than one did.

Turning Points Come in All Forms

Looking back, Operation Turnaround wasn’t just for them — it was for me too. It gave me a reason to speak honestly. It gave me a place to start making amends, not with apologies I couldn’t deliver, but with whatever insight I had to give.

It reminded me that even from a prison dining hall, you can show up for someone else. You can still serve. And that in itself is a kind of turnaround.

I still carry that work with me today. Not as a badge of pride, but as proof that even when you’ve made terrible mistakes, you can still try to leave something good behind.

This article also appears on https://medium.com/@edgington.teams