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Released early, in 1990, Aitken recalls his time in jail as a positive experience because of the dramatic change it produced in his life: “It got me away from drugs. I used to sell dope, use dope, and drink a lot of booze. It was a point in my life where, really, I was tired of that, but it was hard to get out of it. A lot of people get trapped and it’s hard to get out until something traumatic happens in their lives—something has to break that grip, that stronghold that’s on them and jail was it for me.”
The words of an ex-inmate, visiting the prison with a prison ministry, initiated the transformation of Aitken. He remembers the man’s testimony fondly: “An ex-inmate shared his testimony about what God did in his life and I said ‘man, if God can do it for him, He can do it for me.’ I owe a lot to him for him just giving his time to go back into the jails and minister to the broken men that really do need some help. Years later, I got to met him at a Coalition for Prison Evangelists Conference and I told him I am doing the same thing he’s doing.”
It was the word of God that sustained him while serving time. “I remember when I was in maximum security reading the Bible one day,” says Aitken, “in the Book of Daniel ‘Some of the wise shall fall, so that they may be refined’ [Daniel 11:35]. It was through the prison process that I was refined to be restored back to society. When I read that, it just overwhelmed me with goodness. I started crying, but they weren’t tears of sadness they were tears of joy. It’s going to be all right. It didn’t change my 15 year prison sentence, but in my mind, in my heart, I had a peace that I could walk with confidence and comfort that I hadn’t experienced because I was in that other prison, of bondage, of that lifestyle. I’m not looking over my shoulder anymore—that’s a good peace to have.”
“People can be in prison outside,” says Aitken, distinguishing between spiritual and physical bondage, “A lot of people are in that prison right now, right in this area right here. Once I gave my life to the Lord and I felt the freedom of his love in my life—I was free. Even though I was still locked down I had a peace.”
“He who opens a school door, closes a prison.” Victor Hugo
“When the warden told me I was getting out I had to ask him three times because I didn’t believe him,” says Aitken about his release on April Fools’ Day, 1990. Shortly after, he began his prison ministry at the Stockade near Lake Olmstead: “I went to the Stockade weekly, on Saturday nights; and we would do a couple special events a year, a Christmas program and a spring concert out on the yard for the inmates. We had about 30 volunteers for those special events. I brought in a singles ministry a few times and a few churches.”
When he was pardoned in 1997, Aitken was then able to move the ministry over to the county jail; and was dismayed that inmates are not educated on the pardoning process for felony offenders: “Someway we need to help people understand that there is a process you can go through. In District 1, especially, a lot of people I run into don’t know about the process you can go through. In Georgia there is an application process to get your rights restored. I went through that process. I had to put together a life plan and letters of recommendation, from the pastor, and community leaders, and arresting officer, chaplain of the jail and my boss.”
He feels privileged and awed that he is able to go back and make a difference: “Sometimes I had the whole jail out, it would be about 75 people. I had never spoken in front of or read in front of anyone. I would just read the Bible and break it down with what I knew. My testimony, with me coming out of where I came from, really resonated with people.”
“It is all one to me if a man comes from Sing Sing Prison or Harvard. We hire a man, not his history.” Malcolm Forbes
“When I got out I made my mind up” to “break away from all of it totally and trust God,” says Aitken, who can identify with released inmates that have little to look forward to on the outside: “They don’t have a job. They don’t have a network of people who love them outside of what they know, and the people there look worse than [before they went to jail].”
Aitken believes strongly in focusing more effort to assist ex-inmates in rebuilding their lives. He mentioned the coming construction of the TEE Center (the Trade, Exhibition, and Events Center) as a possible way for Augusta to improve aftercare: “Some way we have to create chances for men coming out. With the TEE Center being built, I have asked the companies in charge of the construction if we could give men that are qualified a chance. We have a transition center right around the corner and men are looking for work; and they are in a controlled environment that will help them transition into construction jobs. When I got out of prison, that’s where I started out, in construction.”
As a city commissioner, Aitken hopes he can improve the lives of all in District 1. His experience, on both sides of the bars gives him the compassion and the knowledge necessary to be an effective leader. Though, as he notes, it takes more than one man to get the job done. Aitken continues his full time job outside of serving as a commissioner; working diligently in local ministry and serving as a member of The Coalition of Prison Evangelists. But, at the moment, every constituent in the district can look to this new leader and find renewed hope that anyone can find hope and reinvent a new future.
“In prison, you get the chance to see who really loves you.”
Suge Knight
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