white collar advice
Jennifer Myers
Female Prison Consultant
Jennifer is an author, speaker, and prison consultant whose fervent desire is to bring an end to our country’s mass incarceration problem, and to find alternatives to imprisonment. In 2009, Jennifer founded LA Myers Consulting, a prison consulting business where she supports people affected by the criminal justice system, and their families.
More About Jen
Jennifer Myers grew up among the cornfields of Ohio. Graduating from the Ohio State University in 1991 she moved to Chicago where she began a career as a Modern Dancer. Performing and choreographing for the next seven years in Chicago and through out the Midwest, she eventually became artistic director of her own company, Structure. In 1996, the sudden death of Jennifer’s dancing partner prompted her to question life, catapulting her on a spiritual search. She traveled to India, Germany, and San Diego, where she participated with a spiritual community helping to produce self-growth seminars.
In 2002 she began a career in Real Estate, yet could not escape a part of her past and poor decision-making. On April 23, 2003 she was arrested by the Federal Government and indicted along with twenty-nine other people for her participation in a marijuana trafficking ring. For two and half years Jennifer waited to be sentenced. She continued in real estate while she was bribed and stalked by other members of the drug ring.
It was only by having the tremendous support of her family and friends, and a steady spiritual practice, that Jennifer was able to make it through her two and a half years on pre-trial, awaiting sentencing—her future unknown. Once she made the choice to surrender to her experience, she began to built fortitude, strength and a deeper reverence and trust for the process of life. On November 22, 2005 Jennifer was sentenced to three years in a Federal Prison Camp.
Her seventeen months incarcerated, though challenging and difficult, gave her many gifts as well. In prison she created relationships she valued. She was stunned at the large number of women locked-up for non-violent crime, most on lengthy drug sentences, and most mothers, sometimes leaving two or more children behind. When she was released she made a vow to give back from her experience and upon her release in 2007 founded LA Myers Consulting. Since, she has come to realize the power of adversity, the magic that happens when we share our stories with the world, the importance of restorative justice, non-violence and forgiveness.
How Jen Can Help You
Jennifer is an author, speaker, and prison consultant whose fervent desire is to bring an end to our country’s mass incarceration problem, and to find alternatives to imprisonment. In 2009, Jennifer founded LA Myers Consulting, a prison consulting business where she supports people affected by the criminal justice system, and their families.
Her passion to be an advocate for women in prison and youth with incarcerated parents led Jennifer to co-found R.I.S.E. to Empower, a nonprofit dedicated to empowering girls and women to make positive choices. Their work with At-risk, teen girls led to their program being accepted into San Diego U.S. Federal Probation’s reentry initiative, where they facilitate high-risk women recently released from Federal Prison.
Jennifer’s memoir, Trafficking the Good Life, was a finalist in the 2014 San Diego Book & Writing Awards. Her writing has received accolades in the PEN Prison Writing Contest, and has been published in Salon Magazine, the anthology Razor Wire Women, and The Huffington Post.
Jennifer has spoken extensively to teens about making good choices and has appeared as a Prison Consultant on Inside Edition and Lifetime’s special, Abby Tells All.
The last two years Jennifer has journeyed back to prison to help produce San Diego’s first TEDx events inside of a prison. Working on the TEDxDonnovanCorrectional Core Team has intensified Jennifer’s desire to change the paradigm of our criminal justice system. She is deeply affected by the men she meets locked up on life sentences. Their big hearts, and willingness to transform, continue to inspire Jennifer, weekly, and confirm to her that some of the most courageous people live behind bars.
When not delving into her work to empower girls and women, Jennifer enjoys yoga, meditation, hiking by the sea, painting, and writing books for children and young adults. She is hopelessly devoted to her Tabby, Otis, and has been known to profess, she is ‘addicted to prison’.
Jennifer has spoken extensively to teens about making good choices and has appeared as a Prison Consultant on Inside Edition and Lifetime’s special, Abby Tells All.
The last two years Jennifer has journeyed back to prison to help produce San Diego’s first TEDx events inside of a prison. Working on the TEDxDonnovanCorrectional Core Team has intensified Jennifer’s desire to change the paradigm of our criminal justice system. She is deeply affected by the men she meets locked up on life sentences. Their big hearts, and willingness to transform, continue to inspire Jennifer, weekly, and confirm to her that some of the most courageous people live behind bars.
When not delving into her work to empower girls and women, Jennifer enjoys yoga, meditation, hiking by the sea, painting, and writing books for children and young adults. She is hopelessly devoted to her Tabby, Otis, and has been known to profess, she is ‘addicted to prison’.
Other Works
Jen’s TEDx Talk At TEDx Wilmington Women
From All-American girl to her incarceration in a federal prison camp, Jennifer Myers gives a TEDx talk
about her journey to becoming a prison advocate, the power of re-entry work, and the importance of
restorative justice.
Concerned with the thousands of children whose mothers are locked up— and a
700% increase of women incarcerated in the U.S. during the last 15 years, Jennifer offers the idea that
empowering women inside prison—before they are released, can reduce recidivism and ultimately,
reunite mothers with their children.
Jen’s Books
An all-American, midwestern farm girl, Jennifer Myers had worked hard toward a successful career as a dancer in Chicago. But just as her star was rising, she fell for the kingpin of a drug trafficking operation.
Drawn to his life of excitement, she soon acquiesced to driving marijuana across the country, making easy money she stacked in shoeboxes and spent like an heiress. Steeped inside moral ambiguity, she sought to cleanse her soul with the guidance of spiritual gurus and New Age prophets to no avail.
Only time in a federal prison made her face up to and understand her choices. It was there, at rock bottom, that she discovered that her real prison was the one she had unwittingly made inside herself and where she could start rebuilding a life of purpose and ethical pursuit.
publications By jen
“A particular sense of peace sits softly and silently inside.
A piece (Peace) of you.
A part of me.
The walls we build around ourselves keep us locked inside
the Prisons we build,
And the Prisons we build become a reality as we lock up
the non-violent, innocent women who have no home….”
Jen Myers Coaches Abby Miller
“In a Dance Moms: Abby Tells All special, Abby Lee Miller was just days away from beginning a prison sentence of one year and one day for bankruptcy fraud. While the Dance Moms reality star maintained that had she disclosed all her financial actions to the court (and that she was not a bad person), she was still found guilty. So Miller went to see Jennifer Myers, a prison consultant, to help her with her khaki-colored future….”
publications By jen
“I was as blond and naive as Piper Chapman, the WASPy, Smith-grad heroine of “Orange Is the New Black,” when I surrendered to federal prison in 2006. Like Chapman, I was busted for trafficking drugs (marijuana, in my case). Before that, I’d never been in trouble with the law aside from an occasional parking ticket…..”