Twenty-year-old Malcolm Lattimore is the firstborn child of single mother and teacher, Sandra. He is intelligent and well educated like his younger sister, Davina. But he's also impulsive, felonious, and lost. His life is unraveling into another sad story on Chicago's West Side.

Malcolm is an outlier, the token whote kid in his predominantly black neighborhood. Fortunately, Malcolm's childhood best friend, Devontae, always had his back and helped him weave into the community's social fabric. 'Tae also introduced Malcolm to Chicago's dangerous underworld. Fast money is their motive. And stealing cars is their means.

That is, until a failed carjacking lands Malcolm back in Cook County Jail. And this time, Malcolm knows he's heading to prison. Into a racially segregated ecosystem, where he'll have to relearn white culture and reject his upbringing in the black community.

Malcolm promises his mom and sister that he will use his time in the penitentiary productively. Instead, he takes a survive-or-die approach, sending himself on a death-defying, years-long roller-coaster ride. Malcolm thought coming to prison was his rock bottom. But he quickly learns that he still has much further to fall.

Will Malcolm turn it around and make good on the promises he made to his family? Or will prison life get the better of him? Run to the Light answers these questions and many more in this gritty, compelling journey through the justice system-from crime to incarceration.