Even after his wife gave birth to twins, Jay Coleman, now 53, admits he remained enamored with the high he got from committing crime rather than being a family man.
“I hadn’t had the responsibility of having children long enough to develop that sense that, ‘Okay, I may not think about the future for myself but I have to think about the future for my children,” Coleman said in a recent interview. “I wasn’t there yet. I wasn’t there for many years.”
In 1981, less than a year after the birth of his children, Coleman was arrested for robbery and sentenced to prison in upstate New York for 25 years-to-life. It was during this separation from his family that Coleman evolved from petty criminal to a responsible father and husband.
In this series of interview clips, Coleman, who completed his 25 years and rejoined his family on October 28, 2005, talks about his first crime, his eventual incarceration and how he worked to strengthen his family ties from behind bars. In this fourth clip of the series, he talks about his emotions when he was released after serving his full sentence:
Click on the player above or download this video here. (iPhone version)
Previously in the series:
Part I: A long journey from petty criminal to husband and father.
Part II: Parenting by phone.
Part III: Watching your children grow up from behind prison bars
