Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
IT HAS BEEN a long time since Kevin Shird has woken up on the inside of a prison cell.
With the end of his third stretch behind bars coming to an end in 2006, he knew that the life of drugs and crime that he had been caught up since he was 16 was coming to and end.
“I always say it was almost 12 years I did,” he tells TheJournal.ie.
“The first time I was 24 and I did two years, then after that it was three and a half years, then the last time it was seven years – so around 11 and a half years in total.”
This past week Shird has been in Dublin to talk about his book Lessons of Redemption, which chronicles his life as a drug dealer, his time spent in prison, and his transformation into a community leader.
‘They made some tweaks and changes’
One of the first thing that comes with Shird’s story are the parallels it has with groundbreaking crime drama The Wire.
Does Shird see the similarities himself?
“I’d say 110% – I knew David (Simon, the shows creator) back years ago when he was a reporter for the Baltimore newspaper,” he says.
A lot of the stuff I was doing in the street he was familiar with because west Baltimore was the area that he reported on.
Now when you look at The Wire most of the scenes originate in west Baltimore. In the western district. That’s where we sold drugs, that’s where he was a reporter. He used to ride around in the car with the homicide detectives and the drug detectives.
Shird was consulted during the making of the programme, and many of the characters were based on real-life people that Shird knew on the streets of the city.
“They made some tweaks and some changes, obviously,” Shird says, “But that’s what made his work so good. Because it’s authentic.”
‘It was unfortunate that a young man lost his life’
Today – a decade out of prison – Shird is heavily involved in community work in Baltimore at a time when, from arm’s distance, racial tensions in the United States to be hitting a high point.
His city found itself in international headlines last year after 25-year-old Freddie Gray died in police custody – an event that sparked anger and protests across the United States.
“It was unfortunate that a young man lost his life, and we still haven’t gotten down to who did it,” Shird says.
Earlier this week, Lieutenant Brian Rice – the highest ranking officer implicated in the case – was found not guilty on all charges, making his the fourth trial related to Gray’s death which failed to bring a conviction.
With the presidential election due to take place in November, Shird says that during the Obama presidency tensions have come to the fore – but that it would be unwise to think these hadn’t already been simmering in the background.
“When we elected a black president it intensified, because more people were just exposed,” he says.
“Now your leader is black. It was a different story prior to that. A lot of people got exposed. Including politicians who were racist and discriminatory – their true feelings came to the surface.”
This was brought into sharp focus during Barack Obama’s 2009 State of the Union address.
“Obama was giving his address in Congress – a congressman yelled out ‘liar’ – that has never been done in the history of the presidential address.
If a politician was doing that, imagine what his supporters were doing. I kinda thought back then that this Obama changing the world stuff maybe wasn’t going to work. That’s a heavy path to give to one man.
Despite the broader problems, Shird continues his work to make a difference in his own area – with much of his effort focusing on helping people affected by drugs.
“I do a lot of work with drug prevention. In that space I would have a lot of interaction with the treatment side,” he says.
With his background, Shird says it allows him to create a stronger rapport with the people he finds himself working with.
“That’s in anything,” he says.
If I want to become a race car driver – I want to talk to someone who has raced a car before. Like any other walk of life, it helps a lot.
Lessons for Redemption is available to purchase in Ireland through Maverick House.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Was 15C when I was heading to work at 3am this morning… mild is putting it lightly!
@Kieran Menon: Putting it mildly. :-)
Met some Ukrainians in Poland a few weeks ago and they really need a mild winter. Elderly grandparents minding their toddlers and only on hour electricity per day.
@thomas molloy: Ah Goodman pretending you care. Tell me how many hours a day of electricity do the Palestinian people have per day? Do they not need a mild winter as well?
@Kevvy kerrr: Trump will do nothing. He’s already proven a bluffer. He said he’d end it once elected. What has the done?
The slaughter in Ukraine and Gaza will continue. Anyone who believes otherwise is delusional.
@Kevvy kerrr: Russia needs to remove its forces from Ukrainian territory, it’s nothing more than thievery and a land grab by Putin. I see the North Koreans fighting in Kursk ain’t fairing too well either.
@Ger Whelan: You pretend to care yourself. You only wave Palestinians around to avoid addressing a fair point. You’ve never mentioned the Congolese, Sudanese, Yemenese, Syrian, or Kurdish people as part of your own policy of mindless whataboutery and contrarianism. These are the people who’ve been forgotten by the world. Hundreds of thousands dead, dying, starving, and exiled around the world. There’s no easy sloganeering, Internet clout, or Jews involved, though. I’m sure the Palestinians appreciate you using them a mudflap to deflect for the results of Putins’ invasion.
@honey badger: I imagine that Ger, being a decent person, will condemn any and all genocides and war crimes, as I do and you, very notably, don’t.
One of the main differences between the Israeli barbarism and that in the Congo etc. is that nobody comes on here and defends the Congolese perpetrators, like you do with the Israeli government and IDF.
An Israeli view: ‘decades of dispossession and oppression of Palestinians, a policy to maintain Jewish supremacy between the river and the sea, entire Palestinian communities wiped out, gradual ethnic cleansing, tens of thousands killed, blanket impunity, apartheid – all these are hard facts, backed by repeated reports of journalists, diplomats, UN experts and human rights organisations.’
@honey badger: Ah look at our residents Zonest Shrill. Funny how you don’t have any issue with Thomas ignoring all the other conflicts you mentioned in your comment. Why is it ok for him to just mention Ukraine and ignore the rest but you get butt hurt when I mention the Palestinians? Also where have I “deflected” from Putin’s invasion? It’s a brutal invasion that must stop. Just like Israel’s brutal invasion of Gaza must stop, something you’re not interested in.
@Ger Whelan: ***Zionist shrill *** FU you auto correct
@Brendan O’Brien: Thank you for so eloquently illustrating my point. It’s genuinely appreciated. Smh.
@Ger Whelan: Thomas didn’t mention them because he was discussing Ukraine. You are a simple contrarian, I don’t expect you to understand the difference but would hope you’d reflect on how your own kneejerk whataboutism to Palestine isn’t a valid reply to Putins invasion and it’s consequences for ordinary Ukrainians.
@honey badger: You don’t have a point. All you have is a perverse indifference, at best, to genocide when the ethnic group that’s suffering is not to your liking.
@honey badger: @Brendan O’Brien: @ Ger Whelan well tonight that god it’s them instead of you….. to paraphrase my long departed old man, there’ll be no whataboutery in this house! Merry Christmas all
@honey badger: Thomas had no reason to mention Ukraine at all though he had? Funny how it’s ok with people like you to make every article about Ukraine and then get butt hurt when Gaza is also mentioned. There is no whatabtouism about Gaza it’s been brutally invaded just like Ukraine is. But you support the invasion of Gaza. You can mention Putin all you like I’ve no support for him. If there was any justice I’m the world he’d be sharing a Prison cell with Netenyahu. Wouldn’t you agree both should answer for their illegal invasions and war crimes?
@Kevin Kerr: ol’ granny used say …”everyone’s an expert on the barstool at closing time”. Luckily weather is so mild over the festive season…..I have a half dozen ( very reluctant) enlisted participants for the Christmas morning sea swim tomorrow morning. Same to you, HAPPY CHRISTMAS everyone
@thomas molloy: The left are very selective about whom they bestow their empathy and compassion!
@Brendan O’Brien: Again, your own determination to laminate my words with your own hysterical misinterpretation is your own business. You do, however, continue to prove my original point. Thank you.
@Brendan O’Brien: Citing that left-wing bigoted rag again!
@honey badger: You don’t appear to know what ‘hysterical’ means. You want to have your cake and eat it by consistently defending the perpetrators of genocide while being irked when you’re criticised for this. It won’t wash.
Do you have any comment on the quote from Hagai El-Ad that I give above? No, of course you don’t.
@Brian Hunt: And the right spread their h@te equally.
@thomas molloy: Jesus I didnt know the brain could come up with such real life events all from sniffing glue too much
@thomas molloy: total bs . Most of the country is unaffected business as usual. Many Ukrainians here are working remotely from jobs in Ukraine while driving around uninsured with free accommodation and welfare. Total joke
Thats great thank god no snow
Fine by me. Not lighting the fire each day is great news…. (yeah thats right,… I like a fire on cold nights… stuff you green party).
First week in January snow and wind expected, Ventrysky.com has the forcast. Happy Christmas Everyone.
We can all dream of a white Christmas like Mr Bing Crosbie
Plenty of snow here in Bulgaria great skiing weather
@barry williams: Bully for you!
@Brian Hunt: Bulgaria? Toilet
A fierce mild Christmas.
So there has to be someone or some group complaining about this mild Christmas weather? It’s Ireland after all.
have your say