- [Lisa Ling] With just an hour left, the dance is in full swing. While most of the fathers and
daughters are on the floor, (man and woman laughing) one pair hangs back. - [Aziz] Trying to get her to dance. "No, I wanna stay with you." "Go play with the little girls." "No, I wanna stay with you." Seemed like she was trying to hold on and... just spend as much time
with me as she can. (gentle keyboard music) - [Lisa] For a brief moment, these 13 men can forget where they are and what they've done to get here. (audience clapping) - That was a clip from CNN's
"This Is Life" with Lisa Ling, and that episode was
called "Fatherless Towns". It airs tomorrow. I gotta tell you folks... It's worth the look. You really got to see it; but joining us now is Aziz, one of the dads in the
show along with his family, his 8-year-old daughter,
Deondra, and his wife, Tia. Hi, ladies.
How you doing? (audience clapping) I saw her.
She did. She waved a little bit. She tryin' to play me right now, but I'll have them all laughing
after awhile, don't worry. Aziz, how's it feel to
be with your family? - Man, I'm blessed, Steve. I've been gone for 17 months. They went through struggles. It was hard on them. You know... Now that I'm home, you know... It's easier for them. I get to spend time with my kids. And the neighborhood that we stay in, it's like it ain't... livable. So now I feel safe with
me being home with them. I'm able to take care of
a lotta my bills because three days out of jail I got blessed with a job as a painter. So I was able to put the TV back on so we can sit in the house,
look at cable and stuff, keep them from outside, you know? And it's just a blessing, man, you know. It's a true blessing. - Did you think the program changed you? - Oh yes. One thing they showed
me that I wasn't alone because at 13, my father died. So it was like family of 14 so I felt as though I had to help my mother best way I knew how, so... I strayed away cause I ain't had no role model other than homeless people,
drug dealers, drug users. So I gravitated towards them from 13 all the way up
to 53 now, you know. Being a convict, I felt as though that
whatever happened in life, so be it.
Let it happen. I felt as though nobody really cared. Nobody never gave me a chance. I never had no opportunity or nothing until the program came along, and... They showed me that it was important for me
to stay out on the street with my family. They gave me a reason to live. They helped me with my self-esteem, my anger, how to be a
productive member of society, you know, and I feel proud. Very proud. - [Steve] Yeah man, and you should. - And Aziz's story is so similar to so many thousands of
men who are languishing inside American prisons and no matter how hard so
many of these men try and want to become
productive members of society when they get out, so often they have to
go back to impoverished, really dangerous, drug-infested situations like the place where Aziz
and his family live now. I mean, it's a dangerous place as you'll see in our show and I have to hand it to
Aziz and his whole family for being able to stick together and his desire to wanna finally change
things for his family. It's really remarkable. - Deondre?
- Yes? - Are you happy that dad is home? - Yes I'm really happy
because we watch TV together. We watch SpongeBob. (audience laughing) - Y'all watch SpongeBob? (audience laughing) Look man, getting back out into society and working, that's a blessing after three days when most guys never get an opportunity. - And you know Steve we are a country that takes punishment very, very seriously which is why we have so many millions of people locked up in jails and prisons, but- - More than any other country. - China's a distant second and so many people in
prison and jail have kids and so we have to ask ourselves, especially when we have so many
nonviolent offenders inside, who are we really punishing? Our objective is to try and punish, you know, the offender but... the impact that one missing
man has on his entire family and generations to come is astronomical. - Well, does every nonviolent
drug-related offense require jail or does it require treatment? Does it require jail or
does it require a program? You create this program with these 14 or how many or so men. Enrich men, and you got this now. We could have done without the jail time and saved you a lot of
taxpayer monies with programs. At one point in time we gotta think about rehabilitating people and giving human beings a second chance. You know, we're doing ourselves
a real injustice here. Now Aziz, I know that your wife's
been holding down the family but we know you guys
could use some help here. So I'm a spokesperson now
for a company called Greendot and we gon' give your family $5,000 on a Greendot reloadable prepaid card. This is it right here, man. And that'll help you out. (audience clapping) Let me give you a personal thing; what I think maybe you should consider
doing with this $5,000. I would take this as
an opportunity to move. You got a job, man. You out there painting. Take your family, get them out the hood, just move them to a safer place 'cause it really struck me something as simple as
getting the cable TV turned on so they could just watch
TV and stay in the house so they don't go outside
in the unsafe condition. The average person don't even
have to worry about that. Just a safer place
where your kids can just go outside somewhere, man, in a double-unit dwelling man, and just take this money, man and turn yourself around. Your little girl is feeling you, man. I'm feeling you. I was crying so hard
watching the show, man. You can't watch this
without being emotional. Not if you a human being. You just can't. And I respect you so much, man, for climbing back up and
pulling yourself together, man. (audience clapping) I appreciate you, bro. Appreciate you coming up out that hole trying to get it right, you dig? A lot of brothers like you, man. I know a lot of them, but
you really took it serious, making something out yourself, man. God bless you, brother. Stay straight, man. Get it right. Go back and teach some
people what you learned. All right, I wanna say thanks
to Aziz, Deondre, and Tia. - Thank you, man. - Fo' sho. Thank you for sharing your story and a special thanks to Lisa Ling. Catch this episode of "This
Is Life" with Lisa Ling tomorrow night at 9:00/8:00 Central on CNN and for more information on Greendot, head over to SteveHarveyTV.com.
