June 6, 2023 • 33 mins
Today's special guest is Mr. Jason Flom ,Founder and CEO of Lava for Good Podcasts and Lava Media. Mr. Flom is the founding board member of the Innocence Project and hosts "Wrongful Conviction", the hit podcast featuring conversations with people who have spent decades in prison for crimes they did not commit.
Part 1 of a 4 part series.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Jason Flamm's superpower has been his ability to hear and
amplify the voices and stories that he knows the world
needs to hear. An extraordinarily accomplished and widely renown music executive,
making his way from the mailroom of Atlantic Records to
becoming the storied labels chairman and CEO, serving as well
as a former CEO of Virgin Records and Capital Music,
(00:23):
responsible for launching superstars including Katie Perry, Kid, Rock Lord,
and Grena Van Fleet. Today, Jason Flamm is a globally
recognized leader in criminal justice reform and is the founder
and CEO of Lava Media.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
And Lava for Good Podcasts.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
A founding board member of the Innocence Project, as well
as board member of Families Against Mandatory Minimums, the Legal
Action Center, and the Drug Policy Alliance. He has also
been a leading advocate for presidential clemency, helping to influence
numerous acts of clemency for non violent drug offenders granted
by Presidents Clinton and Obama. In recognition of his remarkable achievements,
(01:02):
Lam has been honored with many personal and professional awards,
including the Innocence Projects Award for Freedom and.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Justice and the aclus.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Torch of Liberty, and in twenty twenty one was featured
in the Billboard Change Agents list of leaders who stepped
up in a year of social and political turmoil. A
leading philanthropist and champion of various causes connected to social justice.
A highly acclaimed public speaker, criminal justice expert, author, and activist,
Jason Flaum has been a passionate advocate for the unheard
(01:33):
for over forty years, interviewing and raising international awareness for
the cases of hundreds of innocent men and women, many
facing death sentences. With a lineup featuring Pulitzer, Emmy, and
Webby Award winning experts, attorneys, activists and journalists on the
frontlines of human rights and justice movements, Lava for Goods
(01:53):
number one charting lineup of podcasts and the activism they
inspire are credited with influencing exacts, honorations, clemencies, pardons, legislation
and reforms nationwide. Here to share more about Lava Media
and Lava for Good. They're internationally acclaimed and award winning
podcast lineup, the extraordinary work they are doing in the
(02:15):
realms of social justice and criminal justice reform, and to
discuss the significance of diverse and collective action.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Our very special guest, the.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Former chairman and CEO of Atlantic Records, former CEO of
Virgin Records, and Capital Music Philanthropists, globally recognized leader and
criminal justice reform, criminal justice expert, author and activist, the
founder and CEO of Lava Media and Lava for Good Podcasts.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Mister Jason Flom, I am Maggie B.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Knowen, and this is the Black Information Network Daily Podcast
with your host Ramsis jaw.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
All right, mister Jason Flum, Welcome to the show. How
you doing today?
Speaker 4 (02:58):
Now? I'm doing great. I used to be here with
you and of course with Maggie, Maggie knowing what the best.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
Yes, yes, sir. So we've been looking forward to talking
to you for some time. Obviously you're making some big
moves and we can't wait to get into your story.
But first and foremost around here, we like to start
our stories at the beginning. So for our listeners, let's
do them a favor. Let's share a bit about yourself,
a bit about your upbringing and sort of what led
(03:26):
you to the career path that you have been on
historically and indeed the one that you're on now.
Speaker 4 (03:33):
Yeah. Great, and I appreciate that because I never tell
my story without talking about my dad. He was my
hero and my mentor. And I grew up in Manhattan.
My dad's a fantastic story in his own right, little
son of immigrants who spoke no English, grew up borderline homeless,
slept on the subway, what the city college at night,
(03:55):
work during the day, and he never graduated college because
he went into the army. And this was World War Two.
He was pretty old when he had me when I
was born. And anyway, when he got out of the army,
he wrote a letter to Harvard Law School and he said,
I don't have any money, and I don't have a
college degree, but I'm the best thing since slice spread
and I'm a gi and if you let me, and
you won't regret it. And they gave him a full
(04:17):
rise scholarship and became this profoundly important lawyer in the
twentieth century, and you know, always did things in a
way that was ethical, that was moral, that was you know,
probably ahead of his time. And he told my brother
and I, he said, do whatever you want to do,
try to be the best at it, but just make
(04:38):
the world a better place because there's no other definition
of success that matters. And I was like, thanks, Dad,
you know, like I'm going to try to do that.
And so I've lived in his shadow and tried to
you know, fill at least some part of his footsteps.
And you know, for me, I was very lucky when
I failed at being a rock star and I realized
I was never gonna be the best guitar player. I
(04:58):
found my way in the music industry and I became,
you know, successful in helping other people make it to
the stage in Madison Square Garden, where I never was
destined to be. And so that was my career path.
And I loved the music business and I was very
lucky to have some great success in it. But you know,
(05:21):
most importantly, you know, whenever I when to give very
gift talks, I always say, you know, this is the
story of my crazy journey from want to be Jimmy
Hendrix to chairman and CEO of three of the biggest
record companies in the world. But more importantly, from being
a drug addicted college dropout to a pioneer in criminal
justice reform. And that all started when I was thirty two,
So thirty years ago I saw a story in the
(05:42):
newspaper that just picked me off. And it was a
story of a kid who was serving fifteen to life
for a nonviolent first defense cocaine possession charge and a
maxim security president of New York State. And I couldn't
believe I was reading. I didn't know anything about the
drug laws, but I knew that it could have been
me because I had had all sorts of issues with
substance abuse when I was when I was a young man,
and you know, because of the color of my skin
(06:04):
and the zip code that I grew up in, I
never went to jail. I went to rehab. And this
kid had been in for eight years. I'd been sober
for almost eight years. He was thirty two. I was
thirty two. I was like, damn, that could have been me.
And so, not knowing anything about the issue or the
laws or what to do, I decided I had to
figure out a way to get this guy out of prison.
(06:25):
And I did. And I had the incredible experience of
sitting in the courtroom holding his mother's hand when he
was brought in in shackles like he was a mass murderer.
Right his legs were chained together, his hands were chained
to his waist. I was like, this is a non
violent first offender, Like, what are we doing here? You know?
And the judge ruled in our favor. Had gotten this
attorney to take the case, pro bono's attorney I knew
(06:48):
from the music business two of my artists done Tuble
Pilots and Skid Rother. He representive We're getting arrested, like
felt like weekly back then, and so I had him
on speed down. He took the case pro bono and
he won, and you know, they freed the kid, and
I just was like, oo kid, he was the same
age as me. And that was my moment. You know,
it just hit me so hard. I was like, oh
my god, I have a superpower and this is the
(07:11):
greatest feeling I know. And I can live up to
my dad's you know words, and make the world a
better place by helping to free people who don't belong
in prison. And so I've been on this this path
and this journey and this mission we're going to call it.
I'm like an atheist with a calling. You know, I've
been doing this ever since yeh sure.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
You know. I'm a big fan of a gentleman by
the name of Brian Stevenson, who has an organization called
the Equal Justice Initiative, and he does more or less
the same thing. He takes on the we'll call it
unfair criminal justice system in this country. And he has
(07:56):
a statement that I think echoes your reality. We have
a criminal justice system in this country that treats your
treats you better if you are rich and guilty then
if you are poor and innocent. And h. He goes
on to make a point saying that wealth, rather than culpability,
(08:19):
uh shapes many outcomes for people in the streets. And
so kudos to you for not only you know, being
moved by that story, but also taking the initiative and
doing something about it. And and I'm sure you've found
meaning and purpose in your calling. And that's what I
want to talk about now. So tell us a bit
(08:39):
about your organizations, Lava Media and Lava for Good. Let
us know about the missions and the visions and so forth,
your own words.
Speaker 4 (08:48):
Yeah, and I want to just you know, add my
sort of admiration for mister Brian Stevenson recently is a
hero among heroes, and he has so many incredible things
to offer, and his list of accomplishments are just extraordinary.
(09:12):
And I love what he says when he says, I
believe everybody's better than the worst thing they've ever done.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (09:17):
I think that's something that I hope our audience, you know,
really takes in because everyone can think back to the
worst thing they've ever done and go, man, what if
that was the day? That was your day that the
criminal legal system caught up with you, and then forever
we looked at you and went, oh, yeah, you're a shoplifter,
or you're this, or you're that, or you're a guy
(09:39):
who got in a fight or a person who got
in a fight in a bar. Whatever. The thing is
that your most you know, the least proud moment. You know,
we have so many thousands of laws in this country
that we can you know, it could have been your outcome,
could have been different unless you're I mean, there's very
few people who have never done anything wrong. So I
don't know. Maybe there's somebody listening who's like, yeah, I've
never done anyone, but I don't think so anyway, But
(10:02):
back to your question. So for me, you know, as
I got deeper and deeper into this work, I learned
about an organization called Families Against Mandatory Minimums now called FAMM.
I encourage everyone to look up FAMM dot org. They're
doing extraordinary work eliminating mandatory sentences, which are an insane,
(10:25):
uniquely American creation that locked people up for decades and
decades for crimes that maybe shouldn't even be crimes in
the first place, or crimes that might be treated much
more humanly. And then that led me to the Innocence Project,
where I became the founding board member there. So as
the first board member at both of those incredible organizations,
(10:48):
and I'm not the founder of the project, that's Barry
Scheck and Peter Neufeld. By any means, I'm not the founder,
but well be clear about that. I have been there
for I don't know, twenty seven years or something like that.
And so to lead into your question, what happened for
me was that as I got to be around these
(11:08):
extraordinary human beings, these people who are actually innocent of
crimes that they were convicted of, many of whom I
visited in prison or recorded podcasts with in prison. Of course,
I have my show Wrongful Conviction on iHeart, which has
been downloaded now well we're actually just about to hit
fifty million next week total downloads. I'm very excited or streams,
(11:32):
but we'll be celebrating that, of course. But the.
Speaker 5 (11:38):
Experience of being around these incredible human beings who almost
to a person, have no bitterness in spite of the
fact that they have every right to be bitter about
because they've been felt the worst hand of cards you
could possibly have.
Speaker 4 (11:52):
Right, I don't know what could be worse. Most people
can't imagine anything worse than being convicted of a crime
you didn't commit and sentenced to death. Again, the only
Western country that has the death penalty, we still have it,
generations after every other Western country has abolished it and
many places in the rest of the world. Sierra Leone
just abolished it, abolished it. What the hell are we doing?
So I don't even know if I'm pronouncing that right,
(12:14):
sier E Leone. But so my thought was with the
podcast when when you know, we created it back in
twenty sixteen, I wanted to create a platform for the
people who have these lived experiences, these incredible souls who
(12:35):
look at the future, you know, and not the past,
who have this almost otherworldly grace about them, Right, in
spite of the fact that they've been Like I said,
they've been sent to these insane quint they've been sense
to spend decades or the rest of their life or
(12:55):
sends to death for crimes they didn't commit. Some of
them have already been released because they've been proven in US,
and other ones are still fighting to prove their innocence.
But we know their innocence because we have evidence. I thought,
if we can share these stories with a large group
of people instead of me just talking about it to
people one at a time or giving speeches, then we
have an opportunity to change hearts and minds and hopefully
(13:16):
be able to free some of the people whose stories
we're telling. Because, let's face it, pressure breaks pipes. You
guys know that, and it's probably part of the reason
why you're doing this as well, and maybe influence policies
because at the end of the day, people respond to
individual stories. Right, we consider in rattle lof statistics all
day long, Right, I mean, I don't think most people
(13:38):
know that we incarcerate black people in America at a
rate that is much higher than South Africa during apartheid
per capita. Like you know, you look at those things
and it sounds You're like, wow, that sounds crazy, that's crazy.
But even still, when you hear the individual human story
of Billy allen Right or so many of the other
extraordinary people that we've interviewed that I've interviewed and our
(13:58):
guest hosts have interviewed, it really does I hope, helped
to roll back this knee jerk reaction that too many
people have and that you know, unfortunately, some of the biggest,
most popular television shows, the crime shows, you know which
ones I'm talking about, have led people down this path
(14:20):
of thinking, well, the cops are, you know, doing their
jobs and doing a fantastic job catching the bad guys,
the prosecutors or doing whatever they need to do to
make sure these people get the penalties that they deserve,
the bad guys going to prison, and we're all safe
and can sleep at night. And you know, I want
to restore the principles of innocent until proven guilty. Obviously
(14:45):
I can't do it myself, and the podcast is not
going to do it by itself, but I want to
be a part of a movement that restores the bedrock
principles of innocent until proven guilty. And beyond a reasonable doubt.
And I think by virtue of the fact that we've
had so many people listen to our show, it's inevitable.
I'm a statistical person that today, in a courtroom somewhere
(15:05):
in America, in a criminal trial, there's a juror who's
a fan of the show, right, who's heard multiple episodes,
who's going to be in that jury room, and it's
going to go, no, No, I'm not buying this because
I've heard and seen this too many times on the
Wrongful Conviction podcast, and I'm not falling for it just
(15:25):
because somebody is saying this that the other thing. I'm
not convinced. And if you're not convinced, you can't vote,
you can't feel guilty. It's beyond a reasonable doubt. And
yet we have these case after case when you listen
to our show and I'm sure you've probably heard someone, well,
you sit there and go reasonable doubt. It's an unreasonable doubt.
(15:46):
I mean, this person is clearly innocent, and yet there
they are sitting as we're sitting here now having this conversation,
you know, twelve forty five on a Wednesday afternoon. These
people are sitting in a prison cell, you know, a
basic dungeon, you know, soffering every minute in draconian conditions
that would make anyone else in the Western world, and
(16:09):
probably many Americans if they were aware of it, feel
really pretty sick if they knew.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
Sure, we are here today with the former chairman and
CEO of Atlantic Records, former CEO Virgin Records, and Capital
Music philanthropists, globally recognized leader and criminal justice reform, criminal
justice expert, author and activist, the founder and CEO of
Lava Media and Lava for Good podcasts, mister Jason Flam
(16:38):
learning about Lava Media and Lava for Good. They're internationally
acclaimed and award winning podcast lineup the extraordinary work they're
doing in the realms of social justice and criminal justice
reform and discussing the significance of diverse and collective action
in these arenas.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
And you know, I'll add to that. The effect of
that is that the families of these folks suffer as
a result of their absence and their imprisonment, and then
the communities suffer because these things tend to happen in
mass when it comes to black and brown communities. And
(17:17):
so the ripple effect goes well beyond that individual's suffering,
and that's something that a lot of people may not consider,
as you mentioned, you know, in this culture. Actually, I
did a study on my show. I did some research.
I have a radio show as well called Civic Cipher.
(17:37):
I did some research into what's called kapaganda, and the
origins of copaganda comes from a show called Dragnet, where
in exchange for real police stories, because that was the
selling point of that show, in exchange for those real
police stories, the police were able to have final approval
(17:58):
over their scripts, which always saw that the police were
the good guys. Of course, which is fine if it's true,
and I believe most of the time it might be.
But critically how the police were seen as never making
mistakes and things like this, that started to cultivate a
(18:24):
relationship between Hollywood and police stories, and that had an influence,
a profound influence on the American public and the viewing public,
because people tended to adopt this attitude that police were
always right and that the bad guys were always lying
(18:45):
or trying to weasel their way out of the consequences.
And so that's what created a need for efforts like
yours Couple that with the War on drugs. This is
just my interpretation of the study I've done. Couple that
with the war on drugs where we indeed criminalized drug
(19:06):
use rather than making a health issue. Like as you
mentioned earlier, you were able to go to rehab, but
black and brown people were sent to oftentime the vast
majority of the time to prison, right or what is
by all accounts a health issue. Then you end up
with this sort of runaway quote unquote criminal activity that
(19:31):
largely affects black and brown communities. Where there's an economic
institution now introduced so people can make money, and then
there's a way to escape, you know, the all of
the things that create your reality that might be might
have a significant impact on your mental health. And so
drug use tends to go up when you know there's
(19:54):
nothing to do. There's no mobility, social mobility, or economic
mobility so forth. And this is true across human and
beings and indeed other mammals, because this was proven in
an experiment with the rats. I'm sorry, you know, I've
done a lot of research with this stuff. So again,
a very meaningful conversation to have with a person like
you was actually on the ground biting for this. You know,
I sit behind a microphone and I try to share
(20:14):
with the listeners, but my hat's off to you and
to you know, it's very rare that I get to
talk to someone who has actually taking this information and
been able to implement it in a real way in
real people's lives. And so this is this is something
that's very meaningful for me. Now, let's make sure that
we get you back on the microphone before I take
(20:36):
up all your time. Oh, go ahead.
Speaker 4 (20:40):
So I was going to say, you just dropped a
lot of knowledge in one little rant, which I appreciate,
and I think there's so much good. Maybe people could
rewind and just listen to what you just said again,
because I'm going to when I listened to this episode,
but I want to touch on a couple of the
points you just brought speak copaganda. We got to talk
about copy again. It's such an important concept. But also
(21:03):
the you know, the war on drugs. You know, we
have a podcast out now called The War on Drugs.
We did in conjunction with the Stand Together Foundation, again
distributed by iHeart, our great partners at iHeart, and I
learned so much listening to the War on Drugs. I
don't host that show, I just exactly produced it. And
one of the things I learned, which I thought was fascinating,
(21:23):
right and talks and it goes to a point that
I really want to hammer on. Right, And my point
I'm going to get to is that what causes crime?
This is This is my theory, right, and I believe it.
I don't think there's a counter theory that makes any sense.
I've never heard one. What causes crime is desperation, and
(21:43):
what prevents crime is hope. And you know that might
sound a little eric Berry, but it's not. The truth
is that people no one's born wanting to commit crimes
and desperation. People say, well, what about mental illness? I
consider that a sub category of desperation.
Speaker 3 (21:59):
Right.
Speaker 4 (21:59):
People get to a place where they act out in
a certain way because of things in their life that
have led them to that point. I'm not saying that
all criminal behavior is excusable, or I think there's some
people that, you know, we have to figure out what
to do with. I think we could safely release at
least eighty percent of the people in prison in America
today and have no increase in crime and actually a
(22:22):
benefit to public safety. But I'm not a pure abolitionist.
I don't think that we could just allow everyone to
go for you, because I think there's some people that
are just so prone to violence that society does have
to be protected from them. But I think it's it's
you know, it's less than twenty percent. I'm just being
generous and saying we release I'm being I mean circumspect
(22:43):
and saying we could release eighty percent. But in the
War on Drugs, you reference the rat experiment, and I
think there's there's I was shocked to learn about the
rat experiment because we all heard about it growing up. Right,
there's the famous experiment that was done one hundred years
ago where and again this is in the War on
(23:03):
Drugs podcast, so I encourage people to listen to. There's
so many other great tidbits in there. But the War
on Drugs pockets, So I'm sorry. So the experiment with
the rats, so they famously took one rat after another
and put it in a cage under bright lights, and
in the cage was nothing except for two spigots. One
had water and one had water that was laced with
heroin and cocaine and then they watched, they observed, and
(23:27):
they found that every rat within two weeks was dead
of an overdose. They just kept hitting the cocaine spigot
until they eventually overdosed and died. And the conclusion that
was drawn was, well, if you let people have access
to drugs, they're going to overdose and die. So fifty
years later or so, a guy comes along and goes,
let me get this straight. You idiots took rats and
(23:52):
put them in a cage by themselves under bright lights
with nothing to do all day. The rats are social animals.
They need stuff, right, They're like humans in that sense, right.
They need certain things to keep them okay. They need
other rats. They need stuff to climb on to, you know,
(24:12):
things to do right. They need things to do right.
They need rat stuff to do. And if you take
all of that away, you're driving that rat crazy. And
then you're wondering why it's doing drugs, right, Well, it's
choosing drugs. Well, let's try this experiment again. And he
created what he called rat Park. So he recreated the experiment,
(24:33):
but this time the rats had other rats to play
with it. They had, you know, different things to stimulate
them in different ways. Right, that if they were colorful
things and maybe a little hill to climb on or
whatever it was in there, right and lo and behold,
not one of these rats. They all tried the water
that was laced with the drug, but none of them
(24:54):
went back to it, right, none of them overdose. They
preferred the regular water because they were okay, And that
proved in the rat you know Kingdom, that they're not.
They're kind of like us, right, we don't. Yeah, we
like to do drugs recreationally and some people get addicted
to them for various reasons, but a lot of people
have no real problem. They just do drugs and it's okay,
(25:16):
you know, like drugs are not all drugs are bad
and not everything, you know. So it's like our approach
to the war on drugs, as we say in the podcast,
the war on drugs is completely wrong. It's now one
hundred years, it's a trillion dollars, right, We've tried, and
the fact is that drugs are more readily available and cheaper,
and there are more overdose deaths now than ever in
(25:37):
the history of this entire failed social policy disaster. So
that ain't that ain't the way to go. Not if
you care about public safety. Now, speaking of public safety,
one more thing on this rant is that let us
not forget that when we go along with this program
that we've been spoon fed since Dragnet and John Oliver
did that fantastic episode on Law and Order. I encourage
(25:59):
people to watch that. And I know the head of
one of the innocence projects around the country told me
that they watch one of these major crime shows. I'll
let you guys figure out which one I'm talking about.
They have a drinking game and they this is one
of the local innocence projects around the country. They're drinking
game is every time there's a constitutional violation in the show,
they take a shot, and by the first commercial break,
(26:21):
everyone's out cold, you know what I mean. So that's
one thing. But I want to get back to copaganda.
So glad you referenced that. And you're really you're really
well versed on this stuff, which is, you know, fantastic.
You're a real student of this, and that gives me,
you know, hope for our future, our collective future, to
know that people like you out there are really so
(26:42):
so you know, just sort of steeped in the real
knowledge about this stuff. So copaganda. It sounds like a
funny word. It's not right. It's copaganda is exactly as
you described it. And the person who I think is
really doing the most most important work in informing the
(27:04):
public about this copaganda which pervades every news outlet, every
single one. It's not just the TV shows, it's every newspaper,
every every news site right the New York Times, everywhere.
And the guy I'm talking about local TV all over
the place is Alec Carr Katsanas. Do you know who
(27:24):
do that name?
Speaker 3 (27:25):
This is? This is new for me, so please okay.
Speaker 4 (27:28):
So Alec A L E. C. And his last name
is a tongue twister, but it's k A R A
k A T s A n I S Alec Carr Katsanas.
I talk about him all the time. I think that
he is arguably the most important figure in the entire
world of criminal legal reform. He and his organization's civil
(27:49):
rights core have been the driving force behind bail reform.
He has sued and won, and he's won lawsuits in
cities and counties all over the country, including as recently
as about a week ago in la where they a
court ruled in a very strong ruling that cash bail
(28:10):
is unconstitutional, and it is sure. It's a violation of
two amendments. It's the fourteenth and either the sixth or
the eighth. I get whatever equal detection and due process right.
You can't have a system where two different people have
exactly the same charge, but one goes home and one
goes to jail just because of their wealth status. It does.
It's unconstitutional. And so he's one in the most conservative
(28:35):
places in the country, and he's one in some non
conservative places. I don't believe there are very liberal places
left in this country. But anyway, so his work has
resulted in incredible outcomes where it's not even tens of
thousands anymore. So it's hundreds of thousands of people have
been spared the horrors of going to jail just because
(28:59):
they're poor while they await trial for a client they
may or may not have committed. And we know that
percentage of innocent people in prison in America is probably
around ten percent, but the percentage of anage and people
in jail is much much higher because think about it,
they haven't even gone to trial yet, they've never even
given it. It's just somebody who got arrested, and so
(29:20):
maybe it's twenty five percent, maybe it's more. I don't know.
But these and jails people forget are not only more
dangerous and violent in every conceivable way than even some
of the worst maxim security prisons in America, there are
also places where you are stuck. Oh, I'm starting to
(29:42):
say that there are also places where the cost of
keeping people there who haven't been convicted of anything is
even higher than it is in jails and prisons around
the country. I just saw that average price to keep
someone in jail in prison, I'm sorry, in America's sixty
two thousand dollars a year, But in Riker's eyel and
sixty two thousand you could send them to Harvard for that.
(30:02):
Right in Rikers Island, it costs five hundred and sixty
five thousand dollars a year to keep someone locked up
in Rikers Island, about three or four miles from where
I'm at right now. Wow, you could think about what
you could do with that. You could put them in
the Ritz Carlton in a suite with room service and
parking whatever. Like it's nuts. That's like how you came
(30:25):
to do the math and how much that is a day.
That's a lot of US fifteen hundred dollars a day.
Whatever it is, it's insane to keep somebody records island
where twenty one people were murdered or died died. They
didn't die of natural causes in Rikers Island last year.
So so I encourage everyone to subscribe. There's something called
Alex Copaganda Newsletter. It's Alec Plastrovis Copaganda Newsletter. Subscribe to that.
(30:51):
It's free and you will learn stuff that will absolutely
blow your mind. And I think the or we can
spread the messages that Alec is putting out there before
we part today. And I've got all the time in
the worldview, But but I want to make sure I
read a paragraph from his seminal work. I read it
(31:14):
on Rogan, I'll read it everywhere I go because it's
so important that people understand what's really going on and
Alec speaking the truth.
Speaker 3 (31:21):
Sure, sure, we'll make sure we do that. Excuse me,
I wanted to touch on something else before we move on
from here. You mentioned how the number of innocent people
might actually be higher. Well, ten percent is an astounding
number of people to be imprisoned wrongfully, but the number
(31:41):
might be higher for those in jail, and I want
to mention that, based on the way the criminal justice
system works in this country, there are people who will
admit to committing a crime that they didn't actually commit
(32:03):
because that's actually an easier path to their freedom than
staying and fighting their case. And that has a disproportionate
impact on people who have less wealth because of the
fact that being incarcerated or being locked up while awaiting
(32:23):
trial puts you in a weaker position in terms of
fighting your case. So for many folks, they're not in
the strongest position to fight a case, so accepting a
plea that may affect their employment opportunities and they're housing
(32:45):
opportunities and their mobility throughout society, just so that they
can get out of those conditions. That affects countless lives,
and often those are disproportionately black and brown folks as well,
and so I want to make sure that that's stated
too while we're hearing before we move on.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
This concludes part one of our three part conversation with
former chairman and CEO of Atlantic Records, former CEO of
Virgin Records in Capital music philanthropist Globally recognized leader and
criminal justice reform, criminal justice expert, author and activist, The
founder and CEO of Lava Media and Lava for Good Podcasts,
(33:26):
The one and only our incredibly special guest, mister Jason Flab.
Check back in with us tomorrow for Part two with
your host, Ramsey's jaw right here on the Black Information
Network Daily podcast
Jason Flamm's superpower has been his ability to hear and
amplify the voices and stories that he knows the world
needs to hear. An extraordinarily accomplished and widely renown music executive,
making his way from the mailroom of Atlantic Records to
becoming the storied labels chairman and CEO, serving as well
as a former CEO of Virgin Records and Capital Music,
(00:23):
responsible for launching superstars including Katie Perry, Kid, Rock Lord,
and Grena Van Fleet. Today, Jason Flamm is a globally
recognized leader in criminal justice reform and is the founder
and CEO of Lava Media.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
And Lava for Good Podcasts.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
A founding board member of the Innocence Project, as well
as board member of Families Against Mandatory Minimums, the Legal
Action Center, and the Drug Policy Alliance. He has also
been a leading advocate for presidential clemency, helping to influence
numerous acts of clemency for non violent drug offenders granted
by Presidents Clinton and Obama. In recognition of his remarkable achievements,
(01:02):
Lam has been honored with many personal and professional awards,
including the Innocence Projects Award for Freedom and.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Justice and the aclus.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Torch of Liberty, and in twenty twenty one was featured
in the Billboard Change Agents list of leaders who stepped
up in a year of social and political turmoil. A
leading philanthropist and champion of various causes connected to social justice.
A highly acclaimed public speaker, criminal justice expert, author, and activist,
Jason Flaum has been a passionate advocate for the unheard
(01:33):
for over forty years, interviewing and raising international awareness for
the cases of hundreds of innocent men and women, many
facing death sentences. With a lineup featuring Pulitzer, Emmy, and
Webby Award winning experts, attorneys, activists and journalists on the
frontlines of human rights and justice movements, Lava for Goods
(01:53):
number one charting lineup of podcasts and the activism they
inspire are credited with influencing exacts, honorations, clemencies, pardons, legislation
and reforms nationwide. Here to share more about Lava Media
and Lava for Good. They're internationally acclaimed and award winning
podcast lineup, the extraordinary work they are doing in the
(02:15):
realms of social justice and criminal justice reform, and to
discuss the significance of diverse and collective action.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Our very special guest, the.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Former chairman and CEO of Atlantic Records, former CEO of
Virgin Records, and Capital Music Philanthropists, globally recognized leader and
criminal justice reform, criminal justice expert, author and activist, the
founder and CEO of Lava Media and Lava for Good Podcasts.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Mister Jason Flom, I am Maggie B.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Knowen, and this is the Black Information Network Daily Podcast
with your host Ramsis jaw.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
All right, mister Jason Flum, Welcome to the show. How
you doing today?
Speaker 4 (02:58):
Now? I'm doing great. I used to be here with
you and of course with Maggie, Maggie knowing what the best.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
Yes, yes, sir. So we've been looking forward to talking
to you for some time. Obviously you're making some big
moves and we can't wait to get into your story.
But first and foremost around here, we like to start
our stories at the beginning. So for our listeners, let's
do them a favor. Let's share a bit about yourself,
a bit about your upbringing and sort of what led
(03:26):
you to the career path that you have been on
historically and indeed the one that you're on now.
Speaker 4 (03:33):
Yeah. Great, and I appreciate that because I never tell
my story without talking about my dad. He was my
hero and my mentor. And I grew up in Manhattan.
My dad's a fantastic story in his own right, little
son of immigrants who spoke no English, grew up borderline homeless,
slept on the subway, what the city college at night,
(03:55):
work during the day, and he never graduated college because
he went into the army. And this was World War Two.
He was pretty old when he had me when I
was born. And anyway, when he got out of the army,
he wrote a letter to Harvard Law School and he said,
I don't have any money, and I don't have a
college degree, but I'm the best thing since slice spread
and I'm a gi and if you let me, and
you won't regret it. And they gave him a full
(04:17):
rise scholarship and became this profoundly important lawyer in the
twentieth century, and you know, always did things in a
way that was ethical, that was moral, that was you know,
probably ahead of his time. And he told my brother
and I, he said, do whatever you want to do,
try to be the best at it, but just make
(04:38):
the world a better place because there's no other definition
of success that matters. And I was like, thanks, Dad,
you know, like I'm going to try to do that.
And so I've lived in his shadow and tried to
you know, fill at least some part of his footsteps.
And you know, for me, I was very lucky when
I failed at being a rock star and I realized
I was never gonna be the best guitar player. I
(04:58):
found my way in the music industry and I became,
you know, successful in helping other people make it to
the stage in Madison Square Garden, where I never was
destined to be. And so that was my career path.
And I loved the music business and I was very
lucky to have some great success in it. But you know,
(05:21):
most importantly, you know, whenever I when to give very
gift talks, I always say, you know, this is the
story of my crazy journey from want to be Jimmy
Hendrix to chairman and CEO of three of the biggest
record companies in the world. But more importantly, from being
a drug addicted college dropout to a pioneer in criminal
justice reform. And that all started when I was thirty two,
So thirty years ago I saw a story in the
(05:42):
newspaper that just picked me off. And it was a
story of a kid who was serving fifteen to life
for a nonviolent first defense cocaine possession charge and a
maxim security president of New York State. And I couldn't
believe I was reading. I didn't know anything about the
drug laws, but I knew that it could have been
me because I had had all sorts of issues with
substance abuse when I was when I was a young man,
and you know, because of the color of my skin
(06:04):
and the zip code that I grew up in, I
never went to jail. I went to rehab. And this
kid had been in for eight years. I'd been sober
for almost eight years. He was thirty two. I was
thirty two. I was like, damn, that could have been me.
And so, not knowing anything about the issue or the
laws or what to do, I decided I had to
figure out a way to get this guy out of prison.
(06:25):
And I did. And I had the incredible experience of
sitting in the courtroom holding his mother's hand when he
was brought in in shackles like he was a mass murderer.
Right his legs were chained together, his hands were chained
to his waist. I was like, this is a non
violent first offender, Like, what are we doing here? You know?
And the judge ruled in our favor. Had gotten this
attorney to take the case, pro bono's attorney I knew
(06:48):
from the music business two of my artists done Tuble
Pilots and Skid Rother. He representive We're getting arrested, like
felt like weekly back then, and so I had him
on speed down. He took the case pro bono and
he won, and you know, they freed the kid, and
I just was like, oo kid, he was the same
age as me. And that was my moment. You know,
it just hit me so hard. I was like, oh
my god, I have a superpower and this is the
(07:11):
greatest feeling I know. And I can live up to
my dad's you know words, and make the world a
better place by helping to free people who don't belong
in prison. And so I've been on this this path
and this journey and this mission we're going to call it.
I'm like an atheist with a calling. You know, I've
been doing this ever since yeh sure.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
You know. I'm a big fan of a gentleman by
the name of Brian Stevenson, who has an organization called
the Equal Justice Initiative, and he does more or less
the same thing. He takes on the we'll call it
unfair criminal justice system in this country. And he has
(07:56):
a statement that I think echoes your reality. We have
a criminal justice system in this country that treats your
treats you better if you are rich and guilty then
if you are poor and innocent. And h. He goes
on to make a point saying that wealth, rather than culpability,
(08:19):
uh shapes many outcomes for people in the streets. And
so kudos to you for not only you know, being
moved by that story, but also taking the initiative and
doing something about it. And and I'm sure you've found
meaning and purpose in your calling. And that's what I
want to talk about now. So tell us a bit
(08:39):
about your organizations, Lava Media and Lava for Good. Let
us know about the missions and the visions and so forth,
your own words.
Speaker 4 (08:48):
Yeah, and I want to just you know, add my
sort of admiration for mister Brian Stevenson recently is a
hero among heroes, and he has so many incredible things
to offer, and his list of accomplishments are just extraordinary.
(09:12):
And I love what he says when he says, I
believe everybody's better than the worst thing they've ever done.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (09:17):
I think that's something that I hope our audience, you know,
really takes in because everyone can think back to the
worst thing they've ever done and go, man, what if
that was the day? That was your day that the
criminal legal system caught up with you, and then forever
we looked at you and went, oh, yeah, you're a shoplifter,
or you're this, or you're that, or you're a guy
(09:39):
who got in a fight or a person who got
in a fight in a bar. Whatever. The thing is
that your most you know, the least proud moment. You know,
we have so many thousands of laws in this country
that we can you know, it could have been your outcome,
could have been different unless you're I mean, there's very
few people who have never done anything wrong. So I
don't know. Maybe there's somebody listening who's like, yeah, I've
never done anyone, but I don't think so anyway, But
(10:02):
back to your question. So for me, you know, as
I got deeper and deeper into this work, I learned
about an organization called Families Against Mandatory Minimums now called FAMM.
I encourage everyone to look up FAMM dot org. They're
doing extraordinary work eliminating mandatory sentences, which are an insane,
(10:25):
uniquely American creation that locked people up for decades and
decades for crimes that maybe shouldn't even be crimes in
the first place, or crimes that might be treated much
more humanly. And then that led me to the Innocence Project,
where I became the founding board member there. So as
the first board member at both of those incredible organizations,
(10:48):
and I'm not the founder of the project, that's Barry
Scheck and Peter Neufeld. By any means, I'm not the founder,
but well be clear about that. I have been there
for I don't know, twenty seven years or something like that.
And so to lead into your question, what happened for
me was that as I got to be around these
(11:08):
extraordinary human beings, these people who are actually innocent of
crimes that they were convicted of, many of whom I
visited in prison or recorded podcasts with in prison. Of course,
I have my show Wrongful Conviction on iHeart, which has
been downloaded now well we're actually just about to hit
fifty million next week total downloads. I'm very excited or streams,
(11:32):
but we'll be celebrating that, of course. But the.
Speaker 5 (11:38):
Experience of being around these incredible human beings who almost
to a person, have no bitterness in spite of the
fact that they have every right to be bitter about
because they've been felt the worst hand of cards you
could possibly have.
Speaker 4 (11:52):
Right, I don't know what could be worse. Most people
can't imagine anything worse than being convicted of a crime
you didn't commit and sentenced to death. Again, the only
Western country that has the death penalty, we still have it,
generations after every other Western country has abolished it and
many places in the rest of the world. Sierra Leone
just abolished it, abolished it. What the hell are we doing?
So I don't even know if I'm pronouncing that right,
(12:14):
sier E Leone. But so my thought was with the
podcast when when you know, we created it back in
twenty sixteen, I wanted to create a platform for the
people who have these lived experiences, these incredible souls who
(12:35):
look at the future, you know, and not the past,
who have this almost otherworldly grace about them, Right, in
spite of the fact that they've been Like I said,
they've been sent to these insane quint they've been sense
to spend decades or the rest of their life or
(12:55):
sends to death for crimes they didn't commit. Some of
them have already been released because they've been proven in US,
and other ones are still fighting to prove their innocence.
But we know their innocence because we have evidence. I thought,
if we can share these stories with a large group
of people instead of me just talking about it to
people one at a time or giving speeches, then we
have an opportunity to change hearts and minds and hopefully
(13:16):
be able to free some of the people whose stories
we're telling. Because, let's face it, pressure breaks pipes. You
guys know that, and it's probably part of the reason
why you're doing this as well, and maybe influence policies
because at the end of the day, people respond to
individual stories. Right, we consider in rattle lof statistics all
day long, Right, I mean, I don't think most people
(13:38):
know that we incarcerate black people in America at a
rate that is much higher than South Africa during apartheid
per capita. Like you know, you look at those things
and it sounds You're like, wow, that sounds crazy, that's crazy.
But even still, when you hear the individual human story
of Billy allen Right or so many of the other
extraordinary people that we've interviewed that I've interviewed and our
(13:58):
guest hosts have interviewed, it really does I hope, helped
to roll back this knee jerk reaction that too many
people have and that you know, unfortunately, some of the biggest,
most popular television shows, the crime shows, you know which
ones I'm talking about, have led people down this path
(14:20):
of thinking, well, the cops are, you know, doing their
jobs and doing a fantastic job catching the bad guys,
the prosecutors or doing whatever they need to do to
make sure these people get the penalties that they deserve,
the bad guys going to prison, and we're all safe
and can sleep at night. And you know, I want
to restore the principles of innocent until proven guilty. Obviously
(14:45):
I can't do it myself, and the podcast is not
going to do it by itself, but I want to
be a part of a movement that restores the bedrock
principles of innocent until proven guilty. And beyond a reasonable doubt.
And I think by virtue of the fact that we've
had so many people listen to our show, it's inevitable.
I'm a statistical person that today, in a courtroom somewhere
(15:05):
in America, in a criminal trial, there's a juror who's
a fan of the show, right, who's heard multiple episodes,
who's going to be in that jury room, and it's
going to go, no, No, I'm not buying this because
I've heard and seen this too many times on the
Wrongful Conviction podcast, and I'm not falling for it just
(15:25):
because somebody is saying this that the other thing. I'm
not convinced. And if you're not convinced, you can't vote,
you can't feel guilty. It's beyond a reasonable doubt. And
yet we have these case after case when you listen
to our show and I'm sure you've probably heard someone, well,
you sit there and go reasonable doubt. It's an unreasonable doubt.
(15:46):
I mean, this person is clearly innocent, and yet there
they are sitting as we're sitting here now having this conversation,
you know, twelve forty five on a Wednesday afternoon. These
people are sitting in a prison cell, you know, a
basic dungeon, you know, soffering every minute in draconian conditions
that would make anyone else in the Western world, and
(16:09):
probably many Americans if they were aware of it, feel
really pretty sick if they knew.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
Sure, we are here today with the former chairman and
CEO of Atlantic Records, former CEO Virgin Records, and Capital
Music philanthropists, globally recognized leader and criminal justice reform, criminal
justice expert, author and activist, the founder and CEO of
Lava Media and Lava for Good podcasts, mister Jason Flam
(16:38):
learning about Lava Media and Lava for Good. They're internationally
acclaimed and award winning podcast lineup the extraordinary work they're
doing in the realms of social justice and criminal justice
reform and discussing the significance of diverse and collective action
in these arenas.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
And you know, I'll add to that. The effect of
that is that the families of these folks suffer as
a result of their absence and their imprisonment, and then
the communities suffer because these things tend to happen in
mass when it comes to black and brown communities. And
(17:17):
so the ripple effect goes well beyond that individual's suffering,
and that's something that a lot of people may not consider,
as you mentioned, you know, in this culture. Actually, I
did a study on my show. I did some research.
I have a radio show as well called Civic Cipher.
(17:37):
I did some research into what's called kapaganda, and the
origins of copaganda comes from a show called Dragnet, where
in exchange for real police stories, because that was the
selling point of that show, in exchange for those real
police stories, the police were able to have final approval
(17:58):
over their scripts, which always saw that the police were
the good guys. Of course, which is fine if it's true,
and I believe most of the time it might be.
But critically how the police were seen as never making
mistakes and things like this, that started to cultivate a
(18:24):
relationship between Hollywood and police stories, and that had an influence,
a profound influence on the American public and the viewing public,
because people tended to adopt this attitude that police were
always right and that the bad guys were always lying
(18:45):
or trying to weasel their way out of the consequences.
And so that's what created a need for efforts like
yours Couple that with the War on drugs. This is
just my interpretation of the study I've done. Couple that
with the war on drugs where we indeed criminalized drug
(19:06):
use rather than making a health issue. Like as you
mentioned earlier, you were able to go to rehab, but
black and brown people were sent to oftentime the vast
majority of the time to prison, right or what is
by all accounts a health issue. Then you end up
with this sort of runaway quote unquote criminal activity that
(19:31):
largely affects black and brown communities. Where there's an economic
institution now introduced so people can make money, and then
there's a way to escape, you know, the all of
the things that create your reality that might be might
have a significant impact on your mental health. And so
drug use tends to go up when you know there's
(19:54):
nothing to do. There's no mobility, social mobility, or economic
mobility so forth. And this is true across human and
beings and indeed other mammals, because this was proven in
an experiment with the rats. I'm sorry, you know, I've
done a lot of research with this stuff. So again,
a very meaningful conversation to have with a person like
you was actually on the ground biting for this. You know,
I sit behind a microphone and I try to share
(20:14):
with the listeners, but my hat's off to you and
to you know, it's very rare that I get to
talk to someone who has actually taking this information and
been able to implement it in a real way in
real people's lives. And so this is this is something
that's very meaningful for me. Now, let's make sure that
we get you back on the microphone before I take
(20:36):
up all your time. Oh, go ahead.
Speaker 4 (20:40):
So I was going to say, you just dropped a
lot of knowledge in one little rant, which I appreciate,
and I think there's so much good. Maybe people could
rewind and just listen to what you just said again,
because I'm going to when I listened to this episode,
but I want to touch on a couple of the
points you just brought speak copaganda. We got to talk
about copy again. It's such an important concept. But also
(21:03):
the you know, the war on drugs. You know, we
have a podcast out now called The War on Drugs.
We did in conjunction with the Stand Together Foundation, again
distributed by iHeart, our great partners at iHeart, and I
learned so much listening to the War on Drugs. I
don't host that show, I just exactly produced it. And
one of the things I learned, which I thought was fascinating,
(21:23):
right and talks and it goes to a point that
I really want to hammer on. Right, And my point
I'm going to get to is that what causes crime?
This is This is my theory, right, and I believe it.
I don't think there's a counter theory that makes any sense.
I've never heard one. What causes crime is desperation, and
(21:43):
what prevents crime is hope. And you know that might
sound a little eric Berry, but it's not. The truth
is that people no one's born wanting to commit crimes
and desperation. People say, well, what about mental illness? I
consider that a sub category of desperation.
Speaker 3 (21:59):
Right.
Speaker 4 (21:59):
People get to a place where they act out in
a certain way because of things in their life that
have led them to that point. I'm not saying that
all criminal behavior is excusable, or I think there's some
people that, you know, we have to figure out what
to do with. I think we could safely release at
least eighty percent of the people in prison in America
today and have no increase in crime and actually a
(22:22):
benefit to public safety. But I'm not a pure abolitionist.
I don't think that we could just allow everyone to
go for you, because I think there's some people that
are just so prone to violence that society does have
to be protected from them. But I think it's it's
you know, it's less than twenty percent. I'm just being
generous and saying we release I'm being I mean circumspect
(22:43):
and saying we could release eighty percent. But in the
War on Drugs, you reference the rat experiment, and I
think there's there's I was shocked to learn about the
rat experiment because we all heard about it growing up. Right,
there's the famous experiment that was done one hundred years
ago where and again this is in the War on
(23:03):
Drugs podcast, so I encourage people to listen to. There's
so many other great tidbits in there. But the War
on Drugs pockets, So I'm sorry. So the experiment with
the rats, so they famously took one rat after another
and put it in a cage under bright lights, and
in the cage was nothing except for two spigots. One
had water and one had water that was laced with
heroin and cocaine and then they watched, they observed, and
(23:27):
they found that every rat within two weeks was dead
of an overdose. They just kept hitting the cocaine spigot
until they eventually overdosed and died. And the conclusion that
was drawn was, well, if you let people have access
to drugs, they're going to overdose and die. So fifty
years later or so, a guy comes along and goes,
let me get this straight. You idiots took rats and
(23:52):
put them in a cage by themselves under bright lights
with nothing to do all day. The rats are social animals.
They need stuff, right, They're like humans in that sense, right.
They need certain things to keep them okay. They need
other rats. They need stuff to climb on to, you know,
(24:12):
things to do right. They need things to do right.
They need rat stuff to do. And if you take
all of that away, you're driving that rat crazy. And
then you're wondering why it's doing drugs, right, Well, it's
choosing drugs. Well, let's try this experiment again. And he
created what he called rat Park. So he recreated the experiment,
(24:33):
but this time the rats had other rats to play
with it. They had, you know, different things to stimulate
them in different ways. Right, that if they were colorful
things and maybe a little hill to climb on or
whatever it was in there, right and lo and behold,
not one of these rats. They all tried the water
that was laced with the drug, but none of them
(24:54):
went back to it, right, none of them overdose. They
preferred the regular water because they were okay, And that
proved in the rat you know Kingdom, that they're not.
They're kind of like us, right, we don't. Yeah, we
like to do drugs recreationally and some people get addicted
to them for various reasons, but a lot of people
have no real problem. They just do drugs and it's okay,
(25:16):
you know, like drugs are not all drugs are bad
and not everything, you know. So it's like our approach
to the war on drugs, as we say in the podcast,
the war on drugs is completely wrong. It's now one
hundred years, it's a trillion dollars, right, We've tried, and
the fact is that drugs are more readily available and cheaper,
and there are more overdose deaths now than ever in
(25:37):
the history of this entire failed social policy disaster. So
that ain't that ain't the way to go. Not if
you care about public safety. Now, speaking of public safety,
one more thing on this rant is that let us
not forget that when we go along with this program
that we've been spoon fed since Dragnet and John Oliver
did that fantastic episode on Law and Order. I encourage
(25:59):
people to watch that. And I know the head of
one of the innocence projects around the country told me
that they watch one of these major crime shows. I'll
let you guys figure out which one I'm talking about.
They have a drinking game and they this is one
of the local innocence projects around the country. They're drinking
game is every time there's a constitutional violation in the show,
they take a shot, and by the first commercial break,
(26:21):
everyone's out cold, you know what I mean. So that's
one thing. But I want to get back to copaganda.
So glad you referenced that. And you're really you're really
well versed on this stuff, which is, you know, fantastic.
You're a real student of this, and that gives me,
you know, hope for our future, our collective future, to
know that people like you out there are really so
(26:42):
so you know, just sort of steeped in the real
knowledge about this stuff. So copaganda. It sounds like a
funny word. It's not right. It's copaganda is exactly as
you described it. And the person who I think is
really doing the most most important work in informing the
(27:04):
public about this copaganda which pervades every news outlet, every
single one. It's not just the TV shows, it's every newspaper,
every every news site right the New York Times, everywhere.
And the guy I'm talking about local TV all over
the place is Alec Carr Katsanas. Do you know who
(27:24):
do that name?
Speaker 3 (27:25):
This is? This is new for me, so please okay.
Speaker 4 (27:28):
So Alec A L E. C. And his last name
is a tongue twister, but it's k A R A
k A T s A n I S Alec Carr Katsanas.
I talk about him all the time. I think that
he is arguably the most important figure in the entire
world of criminal legal reform. He and his organization's civil
(27:49):
rights core have been the driving force behind bail reform.
He has sued and won, and he's won lawsuits in
cities and counties all over the country, including as recently
as about a week ago in la where they a
court ruled in a very strong ruling that cash bail
(28:10):
is unconstitutional, and it is sure. It's a violation of
two amendments. It's the fourteenth and either the sixth or
the eighth. I get whatever equal detection and due process right.
You can't have a system where two different people have
exactly the same charge, but one goes home and one
goes to jail just because of their wealth status. It does.
It's unconstitutional. And so he's one in the most conservative
(28:35):
places in the country, and he's one in some non
conservative places. I don't believe there are very liberal places
left in this country. But anyway, so his work has
resulted in incredible outcomes where it's not even tens of
thousands anymore. So it's hundreds of thousands of people have
been spared the horrors of going to jail just because
(28:59):
they're poor while they await trial for a client they
may or may not have committed. And we know that
percentage of innocent people in prison in America is probably
around ten percent, but the percentage of anage and people
in jail is much much higher because think about it,
they haven't even gone to trial yet, they've never even
given it. It's just somebody who got arrested, and so
(29:20):
maybe it's twenty five percent, maybe it's more. I don't know.
But these and jails people forget are not only more
dangerous and violent in every conceivable way than even some
of the worst maxim security prisons in America, there are
also places where you are stuck. Oh, I'm starting to
(29:42):
say that there are also places where the cost of
keeping people there who haven't been convicted of anything is
even higher than it is in jails and prisons around
the country. I just saw that average price to keep
someone in jail in prison, I'm sorry, in America's sixty
two thousand dollars a year, But in Riker's eyel and
sixty two thousand you could send them to Harvard for that.
(30:02):
Right in Rikers Island, it costs five hundred and sixty
five thousand dollars a year to keep someone locked up
in Rikers Island, about three or four miles from where
I'm at right now. Wow, you could think about what
you could do with that. You could put them in
the Ritz Carlton in a suite with room service and
parking whatever. Like it's nuts. That's like how you came
(30:25):
to do the math and how much that is a day.
That's a lot of US fifteen hundred dollars a day.
Whatever it is, it's insane to keep somebody records island
where twenty one people were murdered or died died. They
didn't die of natural causes in Rikers Island last year.
So so I encourage everyone to subscribe. There's something called
Alex Copaganda Newsletter. It's Alec Plastrovis Copaganda Newsletter. Subscribe to that.
(30:51):
It's free and you will learn stuff that will absolutely
blow your mind. And I think the or we can
spread the messages that Alec is putting out there before
we part today. And I've got all the time in
the worldview, But but I want to make sure I
read a paragraph from his seminal work. I read it
(31:14):
on Rogan, I'll read it everywhere I go because it's
so important that people understand what's really going on and
Alec speaking the truth.
Speaker 3 (31:21):
Sure, sure, we'll make sure we do that. Excuse me,
I wanted to touch on something else before we move on
from here. You mentioned how the number of innocent people
might actually be higher. Well, ten percent is an astounding
number of people to be imprisoned wrongfully, but the number
(31:41):
might be higher for those in jail, and I want
to mention that, based on the way the criminal justice
system works in this country, there are people who will
admit to committing a crime that they didn't actually commit
(32:03):
because that's actually an easier path to their freedom than
staying and fighting their case. And that has a disproportionate
impact on people who have less wealth because of the
fact that being incarcerated or being locked up while awaiting
(32:23):
trial puts you in a weaker position in terms of
fighting your case. So for many folks, they're not in
the strongest position to fight a case, so accepting a
plea that may affect their employment opportunities and they're housing
(32:45):
opportunities and their mobility throughout society, just so that they
can get out of those conditions. That affects countless lives,
and often those are disproportionately black and brown folks as well,
and so I want to make sure that that's stated
too while we're hearing before we move on.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
This concludes part one of our three part conversation with
former chairman and CEO of Atlantic Records, former CEO of
Virgin Records in Capital music philanthropist Globally recognized leader and
criminal justice reform, criminal justice expert, author and activist, The
founder and CEO of Lava Media and Lava for Good Podcasts,
(33:26):
The one and only our incredibly special guest, mister Jason Flab.
Check back in with us tomorrow for Part two with
your host, Ramsey's jaw right here on the Black Information
Network Daily podcast
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