By Jared D. Childress | OBSERVER Staff Writer

It was 2016 and Leon Willis was three stop lights away from a local state prison when he pulled his 1997 Honda Accord to the side of the road.

He retched.

“I was sick to my stomach,” Willis recalls. “I’m going back to prison on my own accord?

“What the f***?”

The former felon-turned-yoga instructor chose to take his practice to the penitentiary. He volunteered at California State Prison, Sacramento, for two years.

“Some of the toughest guys were shaky on the mat,” Willis, 49, says. “I’ve been to prison before, so showing up for those guys was really nourishing for my heart.”

There are many words to describe Willis; “philanthropist” is one of them. Not only is he taking yoga to disenfranchised communities, he’s also a mentor to at-risk youth bringing arts education and movement.

But at heart, he’s an artist who has suffered for his craft. As a graffiti writer he has been convicted of vandalism five times. Today, he still paints, only now it’s with consent. His signature, “I Love You,” is graffitied throughout the city.

“My past actually makes me qualified to work with youth,” Willis says. “I was a troubled youth. And I think that’s the beautiful thing about me.”

Lessons learned make him a better mentor, but that’s not how school districts saw it. His record was a roadblock, so he got it expunged in 2021 with assistance from the local Anti-Recidivism Coalition.

“All five felonies were expunged – and everything else on my record too,” Willis says of his 20-year-old convictions. “They were bringing up my DUI and shoplifting arrests from the ’90s.”

Coalition Director Josef Gray says the stigma surrounding formerly incarcerated folks is unwarranted.

“Formerly incarcerated people come with a perspective that is extremely useful in our work setting,” Gray says. “There’s this [phrase] called ’credible messengers.’ Since we’ve been through it, we’re the most qualified ones to come back and help others with those same challenges.”

Gray is a native Sacramentan whose own record was expunged after he completed probation at 20 years old. Re-entry programs are important, he says, because participation decreases the likelihood of formerly incarcerated folks landing back behind bars.

Recidivism is the trend of former incarcerated folks returning to prison. More than 60% of people released from prison in California reoffend within three years, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

Gray named several factors that aid in successful reentry, including stable housing, employment and community.

“I say community because you need people who empower and encourage you,” he says. “It’s important to have people who can understand your challenges and can experience a positive life with you.”

A clean slate allowed Willis to expand his reach. He has a contract with Language Academy of Sacramento to bring in his POPS Arts Education program twice a week. He also works with the Sacramento County Board of Education, conducting workshops on body movement, hand lettering and screen printing.

“Part of the reason I was out in the streets vandalizing is because I didn’t have a big homie who’d been through stuff,” Willis says. “So I go to schools to provide support I didn’t receive.”

Catching Cases

Willis caught his first case as a 16-year-old in San Diego. He was at a light rail station and used a calligraphy marker to write his name on a pole. An older Black man called the authorities on him.

They didn’t catch him in the act, but the marker and the man gave him away. They took him to juvie.

Willis was raised by a single mother in San Diego. They didn’t have much, but it was enough so that he never missed a meal. He describes his relationship with his dad as “distant.” While his father may have “had a few run-ins” with law enforcement, to his knowledge, neither of his parents have been incarcerated.

By the time Willis moved to Sacramento in 1996 at 22, he had a couple of cases and was on probation.

Toting a backpack full of paint, Willis climbed to the third story of some Midtown scaffolding, near 18th and J streets. He soon heard an officer shouting for him to come down. He was arrested and taken to the county jail.

Willis had the option of being released on his own recognisance. A court order would have allowed him to get out without posting bail under the condition that he return to appear in court.

Instead, he chose to stay behind bars. It ended up being “the best thing” for him at the time, he says.

“I don’t know what really possessed me to decide to stay,” Willis adds. “I think the spirit was really moving through me.”

He was in jail nine months, spending 90 days in solitary confinement, separated from the other inmates because having his hair in locs was considered a safety hazard. Isolated, his prison cell had a mattress resting on a concrete slab with a table next to it. A sink and toilet were on the other side of the room.

“It was the first time I’d ever been alone,” he says.

One in 10 incarcerated Black men are put in solitary confinement before turning 32, according to a study by Columbia University. The study states that solitary confinement was damaging to mental health and increases the risk of recidivism. It also found that about 9% of Black men in the survey were in solitary for more than 15 consecutive days, a violation of United Nations statutes.

Willis survived solitary by fasting, drinking coffee and working out. He started doing movements he described as “slow break dancing.” He didn’t know it at the time, but these movements were the beginnings of “Alphabetex,” a form of movement he later developed combining dance, yoga, martial arts and the alphabet.

When the book cart was wheeled around, Willis picked up a few western novels, a dictionary and a Bible.

“I had the time to read the Bible. And not just read, but understand it,” Willis says. “A lot of people get with the spirit, or find God, [while incarcerated].”

Sometimes incarceration also forces people to deepen their wellness practices as a coping mechanism.

“It can make you healthy because you don’t have the option to make poor choices,” he says.

His day in court finally arrived and he took the deal – time served with five years’ suspended sentence.

Merriam-Webster defines a suspended sentence as a legal arrangement in which a person convicted of a crime is not sentenced to jail, but may be incarcerated at a future time if they reoffend during a specified period.

As Willis puts it, “It basically means, if you breathe, you go to jail.”

Penitentiary Philosophy

Recidivism is real. And Willis fell prey.

He was arrested again in 2000 for vandalism in Santa Barbara and his 1997 suspended sentence turned into prison time. He served 16 months at California Men’s Colony, a state prison near San Luis Obispo.

“That wasn’t much in terms of time in prison,” Willis says. “But it was enough to shake me and let me know that this isn’t what I want in my life.”

In the minimum security prison, inmates segregated themselves into racial groups called “cars.”

“In the brown car, there’s the southerners and the northerners, so they fight amongst each other,” Willis says. “In the Black car, there’s the Crips and the Bloods. But for the most part it’s race against race, so you just let it be because it’s about safety as a unit.”

The only commingling came by way of commerce. Willis became the “hallmark” guy in the “Black car.” Inmates began commissioning his art. Fathers would bring him photos of their children and he would draw them. Husbands would describe their wives and he’d pen a poem. He drew Minnie Mouse with a bouquet of flowers. Anything he could barter for “soups,” as ramen noodles are called in prison.

“It showed me I was capable of making money as an artist, regardless of the circumstances,” Willis says. “I could use my skills to eat.”

He turned lemons into lemonade, but it wasn’t always a sweet experience. He had some teary nights and says the experience was designed to make him “wake up.” Mental health resources including 12-step meetings and clinicians were available – although in his relatively brief stay, he used neither.

Willis’ 2000 imprisonment came in the aftermath of California’s 1995 Coleman v. Newsom ruling. The class action lawsuit found prisons to be in violation of the state constitution’s cruel and unusual punishment clause by not providing adequate psychiatric care. The federal court in Sacramento recommended several areas be improved, including staffing, screening, treatment, compliant medical records, medication distribution and suicide prevention.

The issue continues to this day, with dozens of court cases alleging prisons remain out of compliance and the docket having entries as recent as May 2021.

Although Willis didn’t seek professional help in prison, he cared for his mental health on his own by leaning into his craft and exercising.

“If you make a friend in prison, you may have someone to have counsel with where you have space to open up or ‘break down,’” he says. “As an artist, I met a lot of people. But aside from that, I kept to myself. I did a lot of processing through movement.”

Willis got out in February 2002 and after 13 months of parole, he received an honorable discharge and moved back to Sacramento.

In Plain Sight 

Willis capitalized on the skills he learned in prison. He started his own screen-printing business in 2006. He got his first taste of yoga in 2008, but started practicing heavily in 2013.

He also had another hustle. He would plan warehouse parties to jump off when the clubs let out at 1 a.m.

It was May 2013 and Willis was manning the door of one of his warehouse parties. Around 3:30 a.m. the cops shut down the underground rager. They questioned Willis, who was disguised as security.

“My alibi was that I was hired off Craigslist to be security and didn’t know whose party it was,” Willis says.

The cops asked to pat him down.

He recalls telling them to “go ahead.”

He’d forgotten the dime bag a party goer had slipped him as a thank you.

Officers, of course, found the bag.

“You’re definitely going to jail tonight,” he remembers them saying.

He sat in jail for a week. By this time in his life, Willis owned a business and had just begun working with youth.

He had a lot to lose.

“It was just time to stop making the decisions that were getting me there,” Willis says. “It took a minute, but I let go of all that stuff.”

He took a deal. This time it was a drug diversion class to get the charge off his record. Ten years later, Willis lives a clean life.

During a May 19 street festival on Del Paso Boulevard, a group of local police officers watched Willis spray paint graffiti on a large box container. The four officers rubber necked, looking at Willis, seemingly unsure how to respond.

“Remember what I said,” Willis grins while speaking to The OBSERVER while outlining “I Love You” in green paint. “The best way to do graffiti is in plain sight – like you’re supposed to be here.”

Willis was supposed to be there. He just got off on watching the officers squirm. The container’s owners know him by name and he was repainting graffiti art he previously inscribed several years prior.

Willis received hugs and hellos from passersby, including Daniel Savala, executive director of the Del Paso Boulevard Partnership. Savala says Willis’ contributions as an artist who engages youth has positively impacted the neighborhood, which consistently makes headlines for violent crimes.

“Leon has been instrumental in helping us move the community forward,” Savala says. “We’re really cognizant of giving people who live in this community the chance to participate in this organic renaissance.”

Josef Gray, director of the Anti-Recidivism Coalition, says it takes both passion and courage to serve the same streets one previously sullied.

“I’m just appreciative that he has the heart to come back,” Gray says. “Sometimes it’s not easy going back to the same environments you came out of in hopes of helping others. That says a lot about people.”

Willis paid his debt to society, but he says the system is punitive rather than restorative.

“In theory, the system is created to keep order, but once you break the law they punish you to the most extent,” Willis says. “So, no, I wasn’t rehabilitated in prison.”

Willis is a recognizable figure in the community. On any given day he can be found walking down the street, in plain sight, wearing a tie-dye shirt on the way to teach youth.

There are many words to describe Willis. “Felon” isn’t one of them.

“I was never just a felon, I was always an artist,” Willis says. “Before that, I was always a graffiti writer.”