What is it like to return home after 12 years in jail? In Don’t Judge Me, a new short film from GBH News, Onyx White, an aspiring rapper, reveals the personal trials he faces as he tries to rebuild his life in Dorchester — the struggle to find housing and employment, further his music career, and the pressure to avoid parole violations that land many returning citizens back in jail.

These experiences — rarely told and often hidden from public view — are the focus of the GBH News reporting project  Life After Prison. Don’t Judge Me, a part of this reporting project, embodies GBH News’ experimentation with varied platforms and its expanding library of digital-first video, says Rob Tokanel, who produced, shot, and edited the 26-minute film. With almost 50,,000 views on YouTube, the film is resonating, he said.

“It’s a deep profile of a person whose story speaks more broadly to a societal issue,” he said. “We edited it in a way that doesn’t tell the audience what to think, but rather provides a lot to think about.”

The comments on YouTube reveal a rich discussion of what White is trying to accomplish, he said. “Different people connect with different aspects of the film — reconciling your past with who you are now or being young and in a tough situation and making mistakes that can be hard to recover from.”

In 2010, White was charged with first-degree murder in the shooting death of 71-year-old Geraldo Serrano, a beloved convenience store clerk in Dorchester. His murder trial resulted in a hung jury in 2017 and he took a plea deal to avoid facing another trial, pleading guilty to manslaughter and armed robbery and sentenced to prison. Twelve years later, he was released on parole. During his incarceration, White says a childhood passion for hip-hop grew into an escape and a source of strength. He wrote the song “Don’t Judge Me” when he was facing life in prison.

The film, shot between September 2023 and March 2024, charts his adjustment to life outside, which is framed by a curfew and 24-hour monitoring via an electronic ankle bracelet.

“The scary thing about parole is I don’t have to do a crime to go back to jail — being around the wrong people or they can think I’m around the wrong person,” says White in the film. “You violate, you’re going to the maximum security.”

Over seven months of filming and getting to know White, Tokanel said he had to tread a careful balance. “For something like this that’s really personal and character-driven, you need to build a relationship and build trust with that person and that can take a while. This piece wouldn’t have become what it is if Onyx wasn’t comfortable with that and wanted to tell his story,” he said. “As we navigated through the process, I wanted to make sure that I didn’t inadvertently create problems for him with parole or probation. We didn’t, for example, reach out to the parole folks because we didn’t want to change what would happen to him.”

He says White was a natural for the film.

“He’d done a lot of thinking about his place in the world and was comfortable sharing,” said Tokanel. “He told me what it’s like to grow up in poverty, to grow up around violence, and what it’s like to spend so much time in prison — things that I didn’t know anything about,” he said.

“I got a much better understanding of the precarity of being in his position. Returning citizens are trying to jump through a lot of hoops just to get to a stable place. There’s just so many things that can go wrong.”

Tokanel said it was important to speak with Geraldo Serrano’s relatives. One relative told GBH News that the family bears White no ill will. “He needs another chance–he’s learning from his mistakes.”

Watch Don’t Judge Me on GBH News’ YouTube channel here and learn more about Life After Prison here.