Photo by Michael J. Gallegos / Tribune

In this 2006 file photo, Michael Brown heads back to his cell from his job folding and packaging plastic trash bags at a prison near Grants. He's paid 50 cents an hour, one of the best wages in prison. "This is the biggest wake-up call you can get," he says. "And it took losing the life of my dad's parents, my grandparents, to realize that."