Lifers: Stories of non-violent incarceration in federal prison

Lifers is a multi-platform series about federal prisoners serving life sentences for non-violent drug crimes despite the passage of the First Step Act. This series is being published in conjunction with the Buried Alive Project, which is working on a video-driven Letters From Lifers campaign. Links to the series can be found below:

The graying of America's prisons: 'When is enough enough?'

One of Wayne Pray's earliest run-ins with the criminal justice system occurred when he was 22. He was arrested for having pills in two envelopes. At 29, he was given probation on fraud charges.

By the time he was 41 he was charged as a drug kingpin, according to court documents and a New Jersey report that detailed black organized crime in the state. In 1990, a federal judge sentenced Pray to life in prison without parole, plus three 25-year stints for, among other things, cocaine and marijuana possession and distribution. More of his story.

Nation's failed weed war turned many into prisoners and others into moguls

It was 2012, and Ferrell Scott was watching television inside Pennsylvania's Allenwood federal penitentiary when he learned that the sale of marijuana, something he was given a life sentence for just four years earlier, was becoming legal in two states.

Colorado had approved its recreational use, the inmate learned from the broadcast, and so had Washington.

Scott had been struggling with depression since he was incarcerated in March 2008. But he felt a bit of hope as he watched the framework that had put people like him away without parole begin to crumble. More of his story.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Lifers: Stories of non-violent incarceration in federal prison