My name is Sunshine, and my father, Gary William Miller, died in February 2011 inside Allegheny County Jail.
To this day, I still don't know exactly how or why. No clear explanation. No compassion. No closure. Just silence. Just death. Just another addict written off by a system that punishes struggle instead of protecting life.
Yes, he was an addict -- but he was also my father. He was kind. He was supportive. He was human. That humanity didn't disappear because of addiction.
He needed help. He needed care. Instead, he was locked away in a facility with one of the highest in-custody death rates in the country.
And I need the community to understand: When someone dies in jail, the punishment doesn't end there. Their family carries the sentence for life.
My dad was more than a statistic. And when someone dies in jail, the grief doesn't stay behind bars. It ripples. It hits their children, siblings, parents. It rewrites entire lives.
I'm one of those ripples. His death shaped my life in painful, lifelong ways -- PTSD, depression, anxiety, trust issues. And an ache for justice no system could satisfy.
Criminalizing addiction instead of treating it.
Locking up nonviolent offenders without support.
Ignoring mental health needs and clear warning signs.
Burying deaths with no transparency or accountability.
That's not justice. That's neglect. That's cruelty in uniform.
We're told not to do drugs -- while the same system lets predators walk free as addicts rot. It criminalizes the coping, but excuses the cause.
Oversight and independent investigations into all in-custody deaths.
Diversion programs that treat addiction as illness, not crime.
A system that supports the struggling -- not buries them.
And my father's death isn't the only one I carry. My mother died, too -- not in jail, but in a care facility that treated her like her life didn't matter. I wasn't allowed to say goodbye to her either. Two parents gone. Not from fate -- from neglect. From systems that saw their pain as inconvenient instead of urgent.
So does every person still locked away, wondering if they'll make it out alive.