Sunshine Firecracker: Fighting for Prison Reform and the Right to Sight – A Born Again Behind Bars Story

When people talk about prison reform, they often focus on sentencing guidelines, overcrowding, or the endless cycle of incarceration. But prison reform is also about something far more basic: human dignity and the right to medical care. Today, I write not only as Sunshine Firecracker, a voice for accountability, but as a daughter fighting for her 70-year-old father’s sight.

Born Again Behind Bars

My father, Byron Thomas McCollum, is a federal inmate in Jesup, Georgia. He is 70 years old — a man who, like so many others behind bars, has faced his mistakes, lived with the consequences, and found strength in his faith. His walk is the story of a man born again behind bars, clinging to hope in a place designed to break the spirit.

But right now, hope alone cannot save his vision.

Going Blind in Federal Prison

My dad has lived with blepharitis, a condition that causes chronic inflammation of the eyelids. In most cases, it is painful and irritating but manageable. In his case, it has spiraled into something life-altering. He has already gone completely blind in his right eye, and his left eye is deteriorating fast. He now needs help just to walk from one place to another.

This is not simply about an eye condition. This is about a prison system that too often ignores urgent medical needs until it’s too late. Ointments and superficial treatments have been handed out for years, but no one addressed the underlying problem, and now my father faces the terrifying reality of total blindness.

Why Prison Reform Matters Here

When society talks about prison reform, it isn’t just about justice in sentencing or reentry programs. It’s also about access to basic, lifesaving care. The Eighth Amendment prohibits cruel and unusual punishment, and courts have repeatedly said that deliberate indifference to medical needs falls under that definition.

So how do we reconcile that constitutional protection with the image of a 70-year-old man going blind in a federal facility because no one took his condition seriously?

This is the heart of the fight.

Sunshine Firecracker’s Call to Action

I built the Sunshine Firecracker platform to shine a light on injustice — not just in my hometown, not just in my story, but everywhere people are ignored, silenced, or pushed aside by the systems meant to protect them.

Now that fight is deeply personal.

My father is not asking for special treatment. He is asking for an ophthalmology exam, appropriate lab work for vitamin deficiencies, and timely treatment that could save what remains of his sight. In other words, he is asking for what any free citizen would receive as a matter of course in an emergency room.

But behind prison walls, urgency becomes bureaucracy, and bureaucracy becomes delay. And delay, in this case, equals blindness.

Prison Reform Is Human Reform

We cannot talk about prison reform without talking about healthcare reform inside prisons. We cannot separate questions of justice from questions of humanity. And we cannot allow age or incarceration status to become a justification for medical neglect.

My father, at 70 years old, has found God and peace behind bars. He is living proof that redemption is possible — that you can be born again behind bars. Yet he may lose the last thing he has to see the world around him if the system continues to stall.

Final Word

I am fighting for my father’s sight because I love him. But I am also fighting for every family with someone locked away who deserves dignity, care, and the chance to live, not just exist.

Sunshine Firecracker isn’t just a name — it’s a movement. It’s a spark meant to ignite awareness and action. If we want true prison reform, we must demand a system that values life, health, and redemption over indifference and neglect.

Because in the end, the measure of a society isn’t just how it punishes — it’s how it treats those it has already judged.