It was a decade ago when Daniel Boccia’s future grew most uncertain. In 2011, a few days after Thanksgiving, Boccia, who had battled drug addiction since age 15, was arrested and charged with armed robbery. He was convicted and at age 22 was sentenced to 15 years in prison. For his loved ones, the years that followed would be filled with moments of great joy and hope alternating with moments of deep pain and despair.
On Aug. 15, Daniel, a 30-year-old father of an infant son, died after a relapse.
His mother, Kate Boccia, who formed the nonprofit National Incarceration Association in 2016 to help families navigate the criminal justice system, said his death has left family, friends and team members of NIA feeling more empowered than ever to focus on their goals and mission.
“When Daniel passed away, it was a hole in all of their hearts,” Boccia said. “My son is an example of the failure to pay attention to the trauma that happens to people who have been in prison.”
If you have been reading The Atlanta Journal-Constitution for a while, this story may sound familiar. Boccia wrote an editorial about the crisis of heroin addiction and the impact on her family back in 2013. A reporter wrote about her family’s journey in 2014. In 2015, Boccia shared her criticism of the criminal justice system with readers.
Her son’s addiction and incarceration would launch her into a lifetime of activism, which she has pledged to carry on in his name, but that’s a story for another day. This one is for Daniel.
As a young boy, Daniel was friendly, and a huge jokester, said his mom. He enjoyed a range of sports, liked rescuing dogs and lived for holidays when the whole family gathered together.
At 15, after dental surgery, he took 5 milligrams of Percocet, said his mother. But it turned into a habit. The first time he tried heroin, he didn’t like it, he told the AJC in 2014, but after the second or third time, he began using it regularly. He dropped out of high school, earned a GED in 2009 and enrolled in NASCAR Technical Institute in North Carolina.
Over the next few years, Daniel would try to get his life on track. He briefly attended Georgia Perimeter College and worked at various eateries. Then in November 2011, after a Georgia Tech-UGA football game, Daniel and a friend were arrested and charged with armed robbery after an altercation with a Tech student.
While Daniel awaited trial, his drug use continued and his life spun out of control. A few months after his arrest, Daniel frantically summoned his parents to his bedroom. Two girls had passed out after injecting heroin. His parents sent him to a recovery program in Union Point, but by the time his trial began, he had already relapsed.
Daniel was 22 when he went in to serve his 15-year prison sentence in fall 2012. He detoxed in Fulton County Jail and was transferred to a state facility where he underwent diagnostics.
His family wouldn’t see him again until spring 2013.
Kate Boccia was terrified during the four-hour drive to the state facility in Pelham. What would he look like? What would they talk about? Should they start a family book club to make sure they had something to discuss?
Daniel strode out to the visitation area and into his mother’s arms. He had gained weight. They had plenty to talk about, and as the year went on, Daniel wasn’t complaining as much. He transferred to another facility in Macon, where he began taking classes in everything from Braille to HVAC repair. He loved taking classes, said his mother, and relished the learning.
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But by years three and four of his incarceration, Daniel’s attitude began to change. He had been using drugs in jail. He had been pepper-sprayed, tackled by prison staff and had developed multiple staph infections. During visits with his family, sometimes they would laugh or cry or hold hands and sometimes, Boccia said, they just sat together in silence.
Daniel had become an angry young man, ready to denounce his U.S. citizenship, said his mother, but he managed to hold on to his wisecracking ways. Whenever a particularly large security guard would walk by, Daniel would intone “fe-fi-fo-fum,” sending his fellow residents and their visitors into peals of laughter, Boccia said.
After a yearlong stay at a transitional house, Daniel was released from prison in October 2018, eight years earlier than his initial sentence, thanks to the persistent efforts of his family. That day, he strode out of prison the same way he strode into the visitation room years earlier, but this time he carried a plastic trash bag with his belongings and he had a check from the state. “The excitement was real but the reality is he carried a lot of trauma and baggage with him,” Boccia said.
After years in prison, Daniel wasn’t used to simple things like opening and shutting doors. Turning lights on and off. Keeping his personal belongings in order or making decisions at restaurants or grocery stores. He applied for jobs and was denied because of his history as a convicted criminal. Still, he tried to cobble together a life for himself. He met a young woman and picked up different jobs, including one where he learned to install wine cellars in fancy homes.
In September 2019, Daniel’s girlfriend gave birth to their son. It should have been one of Daniel’s highest moments, but Daniel was having an anxiety attack. The hospital felt too much like prison, he told his mom. He had to leave.
“We didn’t understand that we had to deal with those triggers that made him feel like he was back in prison,” Boccia said.
Daniel didn’t talk much about the pain he was feeling. He only shared in Narcotics Anonymous meetings the extent to which he was hurting. He needed something that he didn’t have, said his mother, a strong arm wrapped around him from someone who understood what he was going through. It was something he wanted to give to others.
“Everyone who reached out told me that he wanted to work with these men and provide whole, not halfway houses for them. He really wanted that,” Boccia said. “He was ready to build that model.”
Daniel, she said, cared more about creating a support system for other men who were soon to be released from prison than he did about himself. He wanted to get the business off the ground for guys that he knew who would be coming home in a year, she said.
Boccia said she plans to bring their idea for Returning Homes LLC, a “wholeway” house, to life in her son’s honor.
“We all have an obligation to learn more about why we lock people up, how long we lock them up and what we do to them while they are in there,” Boccia said. “Daniel would want people to put an arm around other people who are in trouble and help them.”
Read more on the Real Life blog (www.ajc.com/opinion/real-life-blog/) and find Nedra on Facebook (www.facebook.com/AJCRealLifeColumn) and Twitter (@nrhoneajc) or email her at nedra.rhone@ajc.com.
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