In search of knowledge I found freedom.
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Robert Northman Bio:
Robert Northman Bio:
Where I was raised, things were rough.
There was a lot going on around me,
in my home, my family, and my community.
While coming up, I honored the values of my environment and consequently made choices that were of a very narrow selection of bad to worse. I grew up in the Albina section of Portland during the '80s & '90s at a time when the police, and government institutions generally, were viewed with deserving distrust. The area was grossly underserved in every way except in that it was heavily policed. Indeed, during my younger years, much of Albina was an urban warzone.
The "war on drugs" was in full-swing, and while it affected the entire community, including gang members & their families, much of the resulting rise in crime was being publicly blamed on gangs. I used to revel in the criminal credit being given to gangs since I was a member and I committed a lot of crimes, though the truth was, the gang never made me do any of it. In my environment, even people who weren't in gangs had no respect for the law. I sure didn't.
For me, the gang was family, culture, and community--an organic phenomenon--not a criminal conspiracy. As an individual, I committed crimes because they were opportunities that I otherwise didn't have. I was poor and trying to survive violence so I was game for anything irrespective of its legality. Since childhood, I've had to take care of myself and when I needed to, I did whatever I had to do to survive.
I started getting locked up when I was 11. I was on probation by the time I was 12. I joined a gang when I was 13. I went to juvenile prison at 14. Out on parole at 15. Back in before my 16th birthday. At 17, I became a father. And, by 18, I caught my first non-violent adult criminal offense for which I was sentenced to imprisonment in state prison. Along my journey, as a consequence of the hardships of the environment of my childhood, I was seldom without the company of those I grew up with, as many of them relied on the same survival tactics and strategies as I did and subsequently paid similar penalties or worse.
Since my first arrest, besides several county jail facilities I've been a guest at in a number of jurisdictions, I've also spent a lot of time in juvenile, adult, state, and federal prisons. And although I was never convicted of a crime of violence, I spent most of that time in high-security, locked-down, or solitary confinement situations.
My last release from prison (USP Victorville) was more than a decade ago in November of 2012. By January of 2013, I was attending Portland Community College where I would eventually earn my associates degree two years later. I did this while under constant police surveillance, constant police stops, never-ending suspicion, and as an investigative target of local and federal law enforcement.
By 2015, I successfully completed my three year term of federal supervised release, without any violations whatsoever. I believe my success was intertwined with the intense focus I placed on raising my children, an emphasis on education, and my work as a youth gang mentor for a local non-profit I helped organize.
I've never turned my back on the gang I joined and I've maintained the belief over the years that to disavow my gang would be to contribute to the problems we collectively experience rather than aiding in any real solution to our plight.
I recognize that the gang was never the cause of my individual actions and, in fact, the gang at its core was always a source of unity, togetherness, and belonging where there was none other available to me.
Every bit of my success has been "gang-related", though the power structures won't concede as much.
Nevertheless, my gang is who I am.
During the Summer of 2020, at a historic time of great social unrest, both here in Portland and throughout the nation, I grew emboldened, along with many others, to finally challenge the systemic status quo in furtherance of triggering meaningful social change. It was during this time I decided to resume my academic journey and enrolled at Portland State University, where I began in the Fall of 2020. Since that time, I have been involved in a number of groups and activities both on and off-campus, and with local government agencies, including the City of Portland's Office of Violence Prevention and Multnomah County's Local Public Safety Coordinating Council.
In 2022, I graduated summa cum laude from Portland State University with a degree of Bachelor of Science in Social Science with a Civic Leadership Minor. As a Ronald E. McNair Scholar my aim is to earn a PhD in Sociology and to make contributions to the social sciences that can be measured by actual social changes taking place.
Now, I'm currently a PhD student in the Sociology program at Portland State where I began in the Fall of 2024. In addition to being a published author, consultant, speaker, and activist, I remain a convict and a gang member from the urban interstices who has survived a lifetime of trauma and hardship, much of it through social and systemic failures, not my gang's fault.
Portland State University's motto is Let Knowledge Serve the City. I seek knowledge I hope then will help serve the people of the city that the city has historically ignored.
In that spirit, I aim to let knowledge serve the city streets.
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