Rodney Carlos Mitchell

"you take penitentiary chances. Your life-style madness. The loved ones, you leave with sorrow and sadness. The mugging; the maiming; the dope boys slinging, the dope fiends fiending ; the gun shots ringing; the sirens screaming through the streets and the chaos repeats everyday, over and over and over again; everyday... excerpt from "Gates" 1988 rodney mitchell.

Born and raised in the District of Columbia, Rodney is a proud graduate of H.D. Woodson High School in Washington, D.C. He served as a military policeman in the United States Air Force after high school. He later married the love of his life and high school sweet heart and moved to Los Angeles. While the marriage did not work out, he has the utmost respect and admiration for his child's mother. He is a father, grandfather, brother and uncle and has a very large extended family.

Rodney is currently a practicing attorney and an advocate for the formerly incarcerated ("Returning Citizens") in the D.C. metro area. Rodney also has deep ties to South Central, Los Angeles, Ca. and experienced first-hand, incarceration, gangs, and violence on its streets.

Rodney made a life altering change in 1991; went back to school; reconnected with his adolescent daughter. He worked as a night custodian and took basic adult literacy at Pasadena City College. He co-founded an anti-gang violence organization in Los Angeles and continued his education. Rodney was admitted to study African American Studies and Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, graduating with high honors. He then went on to the George Washington University Law School where he received his juris doctor degree.

After law school, Rodney launched his career in public interest law and policy with the D.C. Criminal Justice Coordinating Council, focusing on criminal justice reform and specifically, prisoner reentry. He also was a cabinet member in the Adrian Fenty administration, serving as the first Executive Director in the D.C. Office on Ex-Offender Affairs. Prior, he served as the Coordinator of the D.C. Public Defender Service's Community Reentry Program where he ran programs that assisted disconnected District residents navigate the prisoner, reentry process.

In 2008, he founded the non-profit organization, Reentry Legal Services that assists clients with the legal, collateral consequences after incarceration. Along with reentry law, he has a civil practice under the Law Office of Rodney C. Mitchell.