Photo Credit: Tom Jenz
Imagine yourself in this situation. You are 15 years old and a new member of an inner city Milwaukee street gang. To prove your manhood, you shoot and kill a rival gang member. For your crime, you are sentenced to life imprisonment. Through the long period of incarceration, you become a model prisoner. Twenty-seven years later, you are released on parole. The outside world has gone through significant changes. What do you do now? Forty-four year old Dominee Meek, advocate for juvenile justice, is the living example. Five months after he got out of prison, we talked.
Dominee, what happened to you? Tell me about yourself.
I’ve only been out of prison since September of 2020. Been in prison since I was 15. It’s been an adjustment. I’d never learned to drive. That was the first challenge. I just got my car in November. I’ve been doing everything I can to make connections so I can help young men who are making their way after being in trouble like I had been.
You were involved with the Black activist Hamid Abd-Al-Jabbar who did so much to help mediate violence in the inner city. Sadly, he died of heart failure recently.
I met Hamid in prison, and he got me interested in non-violence as a way to help with inner city crime issues. I am aligned with the Wisconsin Alliance for Youth Justice. We are helping juveniles who get out of prison to successfully integrate into society. While I was still incarcerated, I worked with youth intervention groups. My heart is with the juveniles.
You grew up in the inner city. How did you end up in trouble?
I was physically, emotionally and sexually abused as a child. I was a troubled kid, a quiet but angry kid. I either stayed with my mother or my father. We lived on the north side of the inner city, 36th and Clarke, and later at Fourth and Clarke on the east side. My father had custody of me, but when he was getting treated for his alcohol and drug abuse, I stayed with my mother. When I was a preteen, I got some good whuppins. But whuppins were normal for that time in our community. Still, no excuse. The physical abuse came mainly from my father. He used a belt, an extension cord, even a tree branch.
Those whuppins left physical marks on me. The emotional abuse was from my father’s girlfriend and my mother’s boyfriend. They’d call me Stupid, Problem Child, Worthless, those kinds of put-downs. My Father’s girlfriend didn’t even want me around. Sexual abuse was by an older male cousin while I stayed there briefly. This all got me down after a while. Really hurt. You don’t want to accept you were abused. It took me several years after being in prison to learn to love who I am.
How did you end up in prison for murder?
I went to West Allis Nathan Hale for high school, but I was always in trouble. I was a smart kid, but I never did the homework. When I was 14, I joined a gang. I was trying to be tough, but became a bully. I was fighting, harassing other kids. My gang did deal drugs, but my role was as a gangbanger. I hurt people. When I was a freshman, I got expelled for a gang fight. Not long after in February 1992, I shot and killed a man, a gang killing. There was this guy who was a rival gang member. He and I had gotten into fights, mainly over females, girlfriends. One day my friends and I were driving to a store when we spotted the guy and his friends in another car. We got out of our car and surrounded him, and I gave him a good beating.
When we got back in our car and were driving off, one of my friends said somebody ought to kill that guy. I agreed to do it ‘cause I thought that would make me a man in my gang, get respect. That friend got a gun, and we found the rival gangbanger down the block. He was surrounded by some friends checking out the injuries I’d caused him. I got out of the car, walked through the crowd, pointed the gun at his head and pulled the trigger twice. But I missed him, instead killing one of the other bystanders. I ran, spent two weeks on the run, couldn’t stand the stress, then turned myself in. I was 15. I was given a life sentence and sent to the Green Bay Correctional Facility.
That had to be depressing, so young and facing a lifetime behind bars.
I went into prison with the attitude I wanted to become better, to not live a street life anymore. I left the gang and started transforming myself. A lot of self education, introspection. I read a lot of books. I did eight years in Green Bay. After I got transferred to a prison in Minnesota, I got into AODA and anger management therapy groups. I opened up, admitted I’d been abused as a child, and I shared that with others. Healing was a long process and it still is a process.
Where are you living now?
I am living with my father. Thankfully, he agreed to take me in. He provides the safety net while I learn to live outside of prison walls. Right now, I am making an alliance with Youth Justice Milwaukee and the Urban Underground, trying to find opportunities to speak to children.
What about the activist Hamid Abd-Al-Jabbar? What was his influence on you?
I met Hamid 10 years ago. We both had a love for learning, for books, for changing, and advocacy. We wanted to give back after all the harm we’d done. Through our conversations, we built a friendship, a brotherhood that lasted until my release.
When he got out, Hamid had become a strong activist who helped with heading off violence in the Black community. He wanted me to join 414Life when I got released. But before I could begin working with Hamid, he died.
Hamid Abd-Al-Jabbar was 51 when he died of a heart attack. He had been working with 414Life and the City’s Office of Violence Prevention. His focus was on fixing the city he felt he had wronged in his youth. I’d found a powerful quote from Hamid: “Children being shot, people being killed, it’s all of our problem. I, myself, went to prison for homicide. I’ve been a victim of violence and a perpetrator of violence.” Hamid’s goal had been to stop that violence, and he’d done a number of interventions.
I guess you could say that Hamid was your mentor.
Hamid supported me. In prison, I could turn to him and talk about my deep, personal intimate matters, fears, concerns about my future. He was integral and influential in that stage of my life. We both had done harmful things. I can’t undo the harm I did, but I can make a positive change for somebody young and in trouble.
What has been your biggest adjustment since coming out of prison?
First, adjusting to the new technology, learning the updates in software, how to use an iPhone, social media, the complexities of the internet. In prison, we were way behind with technology. Second, relearning the Milwaukee area, which had changed so much since I went into prison. Third, time management. So many options to keep track of, you know, the where’s and when’s. In prison, time is managed for you, your choices limited.
What can concerned white people do to help with the inner city social problems?
In my eyes, being white doesn’t matter. You can be a potential partner in this advocacy work. Just because you didn’t grow up in the inner city or were a gang member doesn’t mean you can’t reach out and help, go to meetings, volunteer. Just get involved in some way.
