January 18, 2022 • 24 mins
Chris Redlitz, a successful entrepreneur and philanthropist, has made a career of capitalizing on emerging technologies, but a visit to San Quentin made him recognize another great investment, the vast untapped human talent languishing in our nation's prisons. The Last Mile was co-founded by Chris in 2010 as an organization with the goal of breaking the cycle of incarceration by providing education and career training.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Righteous Convictions with Jason Blom the podcast where
I speak with people who see the wrong in the
world and are driven to make it right. Today, I'm
speaking with an entrepreneur and philanthropist who spent most of
his life capitalizing on emerging technologies before a faithful visit
to San Quentin turned his focus to investing in untapped
human talent behind bars. Several years ago, Ron Davis, the
(00:22):
warden in San Quentin, stopped us in the ard one
day and he said, I just want you to know.
You know, because of the education programs, the incident rate
has continued to drop, but also there's a community that's
happening inside, Like people are walking around the prison yard
with coding books, and on the weekends when they're not
in classrooms, they're on a white board and they're going
through problems. His organization, The Last Mile, seeks to break
(00:45):
the cycle of incarceration through education, career training, and talent development.
Chris Redlitz right now on Righteous Convictions. Welcome back to
(01:11):
Righteous Convictions. This is the podcast where I have the
privilege of interviewing some of the people who I know
are doing some of the most innovative heroic, badass stuff
to make the world a better place, and today is
no exception. Today's guest is Chris red Lets and Chris,
(01:32):
first of all, welcome to Righteous Convictions. Thanks for me, Jason,
really appreciate my friend. And Chris. Where's a number of
different hats. But the thing that I'm so excited to
talk to you about is the Last Mile program, of course,
because it is one of the most important and transformative
programs that has made a huge impact on the lives
(01:52):
of people who are incarcerated or formally incarcerated in this
country and has had a huge impact on their families
and their communities as well. But Chris, let's go back
to the beginning. You became a wildly successful entrepreneur before
you found your what I'm gonna call your true calling,
which is this amazing program, the Last Mile. But talk
(02:13):
a little bit about, if you don't mind, your entry
point into the technology world and how you created well
a couple of different companies that turned out to be
tremendously successful. My early days, I was always involved in
sports and fitness, and I worked for Reebok when they
were just getting started, and then when the Internet hit
I was intrigued by it because you know, I had
(02:34):
experienced this high growth company in the eighties and it
seemed to me that the Internet was the next horizon.
So I was all in on that. Learned as much
as I could, and in ninety seven I co founded
a company called ad Auction, which was the first digital
media exchange, and we had a lot of venture funding
at that point, and I was really getting sort of
(02:55):
introduced to you know, early days in the Internet and
early days of commerce in the Internet, but also what
it was to start a venture back company. Over the
next couple of decades, we started a variety of companies,
and then eleven years ago I started to venture capital
firm in San Francisco called Transmedia Capital and taking all
of that experience that I had from starting companies and
(03:15):
really parlaying that into investing in companies, and we've been
very fortunate. That's really allowed me the flexibility to do
what I'm doing today. The story I've heard is that
you're sort of aha moment or is the thing about
the Godfather, I'm going to get hit by lightning or
whatever it is. Um, you had your epiphany. That's what
I'm looking for. On a visit to sam Quentin, right,
(03:38):
That's right. So yeah, the thunderbolt of Apollonia in The
Godfather was san Quentin was my Apollonia in a sense.
I had never been in prison before. I didn't really
know anything about criminal justice. But because of my investment
background and entrepreneurship, I was invited into san Quentin to
do a talk to a group of men about entrepreneurship
(03:58):
by a friend of mine who knew that I was
involved in this, and you know, she was doing some
some mentoring there was kept getting questions about businesses and
things like that, so she said, you know, can you
answer some of these questions come up and just talk
to the guys. And I was really sort of reticent
about doing it because San Quentin is a pretty ominous place.
I had never been in prison, but I relented and
(04:19):
one night I went up and I did a talk,
and frankly, it was the same feeling that I got
when I'm talking to a really young entrepreneurs about you know,
this desire and passion and determination, and these guys, some
of them had business plans, and I was blown away.
I was totally different from from what I expected, and
that really was the light and I literally went home
(04:41):
that night told my wife, who's my business partner, and
I told her, you know, we need to do something
to San Quentin. She thought I was crazy, but I
said you need to come in and see what I saw.
And she did about a month later, and we have
something called c C. I s Chris is crazy ideas,
so she said, I'm gonna go with this. We created
this entrepreneurship program initial where Beverly and I went in
two nights a week and just taught basically the fundamentals
(05:05):
of what we do and the outside with early stage companies,
and we started with seven guys. We had a demo
day in San Quentin in two thousand twelve where the
guys presented their business plans to a large audience about
three or fifty people, including media and other vcs, and
they just knocked that out of the park. So that
was really the start of the program. You know, I
(05:26):
often get this feeling when I visit prisons. I find
more humanity inside the walls than outside, and I find
more untapped potential, like enormous potential in groups inside than outside.
And I've known some people who have gone from last
mile from being in prison maybe even having been in
(05:47):
gangs and then coming out with advanced coding, you know,
experience and knowledge and then getting fantastic jobs and moving
up in the world. And you know, I did an
event with Stand Together recently and one of the who spoke,
I think he may have been somebody who participated in
one of your programs, and he said, you know, you
guys often refer to it as second chance hiring. He
(06:08):
goes for me, it's first chance hiring, because where I
came from, there was no chance. James Cavott was the
one that was on your program with Stand Together and
he did a spoken word for you. He was actually
in our first class. So he was given a life
sentence at seventeen years old, and he was part of
our program, our Entre membership program, and he's gone on
to be phenomenally successful. He got his bachelor's, he just
(06:30):
got his masters, and now we're starting his doctorate program.
So here's a guy who had literally no education bettered
himself over I think it was seventeen or eighteen years
I believe in prison. He has a family. Now he
has a wife and a kid, and he's doing phenomenally well. So,
you know, that's a great example, and he was one
of the guys that really helped us get it started.
(06:51):
We've had a lot of success I think. You know
example you mentioned, you know someone who has been really
successful that came from a gang. You know Jason Jones. Know,
he was incarcerated for almost fourteen years. He was in
our entrepreneurship and coding program. He got out, got an
internship at a company called Fandom, and then we hired
him and now he sort of progressed through an organization.
(07:14):
He was the head of our remote instruction. He's a
very accomplished coder, and now he was just promoted to
our senior partnership manager, working with companies on the outside
to hire our graduates. But here's a guy who was
in foster carried eight years old, joined a gang of
eleven years old, read his first book in prison, and
now he is extremely successful. He just bought a home
in Santa Rosa. He has a family. You know. One
(07:36):
of his lines is, you know, I was used to
be the property of the state. Now I own property
in the state. There are many, many stories, but he's
a great example of sort of what you were talking
about coming from a really difficult background and never having
a first chance. And you know when I first started
this with Beverley and I was saying, hey, guys, you know,
if you really do your work, you're gonna get a
job in Silicon Valley. And they're looking at me like
(07:56):
you're full of ship. But now you know, we have many, many,
many examples of success. So when people come in, they
know there's something at the end of this. So which
states are you in now? Which ones are you looking
to expand to? Yeah, so we're in seven states now,
we're in twenty three classrooms. Our goal over the next
couple of years is to be in fourteen states and
(08:17):
fifty classrooms. And you know, COVID really sort of put
a damper on our expansion, but we built an infrastructure
that really supports scaling. So everything we do today is remote.
Every student logs into a learning management system. All our
instruction is live stream to the classroom. So how do
you identify the people that are going to participate in
(08:39):
the program and what's your success rate? As far as
people qualifying, the biggest thing is being totally committed. We're
not looking for educational background because many of our successful
students and graduates have not had any formal background. It's
more like, what's your desire, what's your plan? And you
can't have an infraction inside two years prior to applying,
(09:00):
which is a big deal. So you've got to really
take that straight, narrow line and be part of the community.
We have had a great success rate of lack of recidivism.
You know, we haven't added boddy reoffend over this period
of time. And we're really building on something called the
Impact Index, which really not only looks at recidivism or
the lack thereof of our graduates, but also salary levels,
(09:21):
continue education, community service. We're building basically an index and
a benchmark of what success is beyond recidivism. A sense
(09:47):
of acceptance and belonging that a gang somewhat represents, really
exists for those that are part of a community, you know,
and you know we've seen that community happenings. I'd like
I keep using San Quentin as example. This is this
parlays into other facilities, certainly, but you know, several years ago,
Ron Davis, the warden, stopped us in the art one
(10:08):
day and he said, I just want you to know,
you know, since the Last Mile started and because of
the education programs that happened inside San Quentin. The incident
rate has continued to drop because I mentioned good behavior
is one of those things, but also there's a community
that's happening inside, Like people are walking around the prison
yard with coding books and on the weekends when they're
not in classrooms, they're on a whiteboard and they're going
(10:31):
through problems. Right. Yeah, and San Quentin, you know the
way the staff there has embraced this program, and Raphael
Cassal deserves credit, I think as well. It's a wonderful woman.
But but mostly the credit belongs to the people themselves
who are participating in the program. You know, they're the
ones who are teaching us day in and day out
about the power of the human spirit. I have so
(10:53):
much respect and admiration for people who have come up
out of that environment and managed to succeed. Whether they
went through the prison system and came out through the
last mile or another program, or whether they managed to
find a way out at all, is really remarkable. You know.
I hate to admit this, but I bought into that narrative,
(11:15):
you know, because I spent the first twenty years of
my or so of my work in criminal justice reform.
I was like, well, let me focus on people are
non violent drug of vendors and people who are actually innocent.
This this whole like gang member thing, right that we've
turned into this bogey man, right, it's not a hundred
percent bullshit, but it's pretty close. We have many many
(11:38):
folks in our program that we're part of gangs. Growing up,
there was nowhere else to go. Right now there's a
place to go, and so I think the ability to
replace that with something positive, I think it's really part
of the success of that. And that's why we're trying
to have this sort of alternative path, you know, pre
incarceration where you're that why in the road and you
(12:01):
make the right decision. You know, it hasn't really been
announced yet, but working with some major organizations to do
some outside coding programs for youth after school programs, because
if there's a place for them to go, they can
be successful. You know. One of the things that we
just implemented is a scholarship fund for the children of
our graduates. So you know, Beverly and I and now
(12:22):
the first part of that, and then you know, we
have other donors that are giving scholarships for secondary education
for those children, because the long term goal is to
break the generational cycle of incarceration, not just work on recentivism,
make sure that those future generations don't go down the
same path. I also wanted to give a shout out
to Michael Harris. Michael got out recently. You know, you
know Michael, and you know he's one of the guys
(12:43):
that helped me start the last month inside San Quentin,
and fortunately he was commuted and now I'm working with
him to do some of the same things we're talking
about about prevention, you know, and breaking this generational cycle.
So definitely want to give a shout out to him too.
But this is a long goal for us, Everle and
I've committed sort of a life journey for this, and
we're growing in and you know, this is gonna be
(13:04):
decades down the road that we're going to continue to
do this. Is there one story that you let's say
you meet somebody randomly or at some event and they're
asking it, what is the last mile? And is there
one story that pops in your head and you go
that one really touched me. Yeah, you've experienced this too,
when you're at the gate. There's nothing like being at
the gate right when someone is getting out. And and
(13:24):
the one that really hit me, I think initially fairly
early on was Darnell Hill. Darnell served twenty four years
in prison. He actually committed crimes with his dad. His
dad had him commit crimes with him. They were actually
incarcerated together and cell mates in San Quentin in the
early nineties. And Darnell was married when he went into prison.
(13:47):
You know, he was serving seven to life. But he
served twenty four years and went a fell of pro
boards six times, and every time he went in from
the pro board he was denied. The next time he
actually pitched his business idea that he did in the
last mile, and he's convinced that that's what got him
his suitability and he got out. So we stand at
the gate in San Quentin. It's very dramatic, and we're
(14:09):
standing with Snya, his wife and the thing that she
had waited for him for twenty four years to get
out for that moment. You know, I don't care who
you are that that will touch anyone, you know, that
type of thing. There's nothing that describes that. I mean,
you can have great business success, but to see that
(14:29):
life change and see that commitment from both of them
to that point is amazing. And you know it's funny
because they'll send me photos on text of the vacation here,
vacation there, and you know, they just love being together
and they're like on a honeymoon now. And I just
give him credit because he's endured that, you know, being
in present with his dad, but also just being a
(14:49):
positive person throughout his time in prison and then just
translating that to positivity today. It's just amazing. Is this
the best thing you've ever done? This podcast? Yeah? Absolutely.
You know, we are expanding really horizontally our our education platform.
(15:21):
You know, it's been software engineering and entrepreneurship, but now
we're launching a music and video production program in San
Quentin and in Huddonville in Indiana. So that will give
the skills for people to be audio technicians and video editors.
So that opens up a whole new potential area of employment.
And you know, we're, as I mentioned Jason as part
of our team, to to do outreach into all the
(15:43):
communities we're in. You know, we've had great support from
Silicon Valley companies like Zoom and Slack and Square and
Dropbox fandom, you know, Pivotal and and a lot of
companies that have hired our graduates of software engineers. We
need to continue to expand that you know, hiring I'm
really incarcerated. Their desire and commitment is huge, and people
(16:05):
come back to us and say, wow, I was a
little reticent before, but man, the dedication and commitment of
those that we've hired has been phenomenal. So we want
to continue to support and that goes to our you know,
our funding partners, to you know, CDCR in California and
Calpa a Calpia prison industries have been hugely supportive. Chuck Matilla,
who was the GM for a long time, help us
(16:26):
get this started. But Google dot Org, chancez Zuckerberg, you
know you mentioned Stand Together, Bank America, Simon family. I mean,
we've got a lot of funders that have really helped
us a lot. Steven Simon has been a fantastic supporter
of our work. He helped get the compensation bill passed
in Indiana, which was so meaningful. You know, we had
(16:46):
an Indiana case, Christine Bunch, that I think really touched
a lot of people in the halls of power in Indiana,
and Steve was able to bring attention to that particular
episode in that case and this cause, and he has
obviously a big porter of your work and he's become
a great friends. I just want to give him credit
for his work as well and his passion, his new
(17:07):
passion for this particular cause, which is amazing. Yeah, you know, Steve.
Obviously they've been very successful in their business. They also
own the Indiana Pacers, and the Pacers has been a
great partner for us. Steve is a great friend and
supporter as well. And we're on the early stages of
you know, doing some really cool things with the NBA
that we'd love doing now later on, but you know,
Steve is definitely leading to charge on a lot of
(17:28):
those things. Okay, Steve, I hope you're listening, and I
hope you're blushing right now because you should be. UM.
So people want to go to learn more about it.
The website is the Last Mile dot org, and then
we do have a newsletter as well. You can sign
up on the website. You know, there's always a donate
button there if you'd like to give. Donations of up
to a thousand dollars are matched by Stand Together Foundations.
(17:51):
So if someone's listening it feels inspired to donate, we'll
put all the links in our bio obviously, and you know,
hopefully people will be moved to support or it involved
when another part of it is also volunteers. You know,
we have people that volunteer to mentor post release, to
volunteer to do guests presentations in our remote instructions. So
(18:12):
you know, there is a form on the website if
you want to participate, you can you send us a
note and see what your level of interest and participating is.
We have a staff of thirty, but you know, we
feel like we're a lot larger because we have such
a great volunteer group as well. There's very few things
I think you can do with your money or time
that would be more impactful and personally rewarding to you yourself.
(18:33):
So now my favorite question is if you had a
magic wand and could wave it and get one wish granted.
What would it be if we could wave the wand
and this issue would go away and we'd all put
ourselves out of business and resolve incarceration. That would be incredible.
(18:54):
There are sort of many ones, you know, breaking the
generational circles one and bridging the prosperity gap or those
type of things. But maybe the part of the WAND
is just making people aware because this is all of
our problem. It's not just those that are inside their problem,
it's all of our problem. So the WAND would just
make people understand and will help contribute to resolve these issues. Yeah,
(19:18):
and you know, maybe instead of our crazy obsession with
punishment over rehabilitation, we could you know, accept, in the
most extreme cases, offer as an alternative incarceration, the opportunity
for people to participate in a program like the Last Mile,
basically redirecting young lives in a positive and productive direction
instead of burning hundreds of billions of dollars in our
(19:40):
failed system of mass in carceration with nothing but pain
and suffering to show for it. And now before we
go to our closing, I want to invite our audience
to tune in next week when we're gonna be speaking.
Was a thirty year veteran corrections officer, and you need
leader who has made it his mission to try to
find the lasting allusions to the most elusive problems of
(20:03):
our cars row system. His name is Andy Pottery. And
now the closing of our show is called Words of Wisdom.
Were First of all, of course, I thank you for
joining us. Thank you to the audience as well. This
wouldn't be worth doing without you. And then I'm going
to turn my microphone off, leave my headphones on, kick
back in my chair, and just listen for anything else
you feel is left to be said. Okay, well, I
(20:24):
appreciate that, but before I start, I just want to
say how much I appreciate what you do and the dedication.
I don't think people realize how much time and effort
you spend on this, and you could do like I
could a lot of other things, and you've been hugely successful.
But I just wanted to give you that shout out.
And I know I've said this to you before, but
(20:44):
you know, what you're doing is incredibly important. So you know,
before you shut your mic off, I just want to
make sure that people understand that this is not just
a podcast. This is an all in commitment from Jason Flow.
Thank you, and now I blush. Okay, um, you know
the Words of Wisdom. I think really it goes back
(21:07):
to very early time when we first you know, a
set foot in prison and as we talked about before,
the realization that this world is a world where people
need opportunities and it may sound sort of counterintuitive, but
deserve opportunities. And the one thing that I've seen over
(21:32):
time is that you never know when life changes may
happen that happens to us in the world, but it
happens in prison in a growing number of cases. You know,
there's something called a life sentence, and a life sentence
doesn't mean that you serve your lifetime in prison. It
(21:54):
maybe tend to life. It maybe twenty to life, it
maybe thirty life. But there is an opportunit unity two
start a new life if you go down the right
path while you're incarcerated. So you know, when we started
the Last Mile, there are very few people that were
lifers were getting out in previous administrations prior to Jerry
(22:16):
Brown in California especially, I think it was less than
five percent of people getting out. Today, many, many people
who are serving life sentences are being found suitable and
getting out. So my message has been from day one,
never ever give up, keep on a path, do whatever
(22:38):
you can, study hard, be a good citizen, be focused,
because you never ever know when you're going to be
given a chance. And you know that works for all
of us to keep you know, focused and really strive
for something, but especially those who are inside you know
there's hope and never forget. One of the guys in
(22:59):
our early classes came up to me after class and
he said, Chris, I know that you're trying to get
us employment, ready to get a job. Even if I
don't get a job, for the first time, I'm being
treated like a human being. I have hope, so never
give up. Continue having hope and success will be there.
(23:23):
And being successful is not difficult. Many people don't have
the drive and passion and commitment to be successful. If
you do and set the bar wherever you want it
to be, and you'll achieve it. So my words of
wisdom are stay with hope and never give up. Thank
(23:50):
you for listening to Righteous Convictions with Jason plom I'd
like to thank our production team Connor Hall, Jeff Claverne,
and Kevin Warrice. With research by Lila Robinson. The music
in this production was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated
composer Jay Ralph. Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter
at Lava for Good. You can also follow me on
(24:10):
TikTok and Instagram at it's Jason Flom. Righteous Convictions with
Jason Flom is a production of Lava for Good podcasts
and association with Say About Company Number One
Welcome to Righteous Convictions with Jason Blom the podcast where
I speak with people who see the wrong in the
world and are driven to make it right. Today, I'm
speaking with an entrepreneur and philanthropist who spent most of
his life capitalizing on emerging technologies before a faithful visit
to San Quentin turned his focus to investing in untapped
human talent behind bars. Several years ago, Ron Davis, the
(00:22):
warden in San Quentin, stopped us in the ard one
day and he said, I just want you to know.
You know, because of the education programs, the incident rate
has continued to drop, but also there's a community that's
happening inside, Like people are walking around the prison yard
with coding books, and on the weekends when they're not
in classrooms, they're on a white board and they're going
through problems. His organization, The Last Mile, seeks to break
(00:45):
the cycle of incarceration through education, career training, and talent development.
Chris Redlitz right now on Righteous Convictions. Welcome back to
(01:11):
Righteous Convictions. This is the podcast where I have the
privilege of interviewing some of the people who I know
are doing some of the most innovative heroic, badass stuff
to make the world a better place, and today is
no exception. Today's guest is Chris red Lets and Chris,
(01:32):
first of all, welcome to Righteous Convictions. Thanks for me, Jason,
really appreciate my friend. And Chris. Where's a number of
different hats. But the thing that I'm so excited to
talk to you about is the Last Mile program, of course,
because it is one of the most important and transformative
programs that has made a huge impact on the lives
(01:52):
of people who are incarcerated or formally incarcerated in this
country and has had a huge impact on their families
and their communities as well. But Chris, let's go back
to the beginning. You became a wildly successful entrepreneur before
you found your what I'm gonna call your true calling,
which is this amazing program, the Last Mile. But talk
(02:13):
a little bit about, if you don't mind, your entry
point into the technology world and how you created well
a couple of different companies that turned out to be
tremendously successful. My early days, I was always involved in
sports and fitness, and I worked for Reebok when they
were just getting started, and then when the Internet hit
I was intrigued by it because you know, I had
(02:34):
experienced this high growth company in the eighties and it
seemed to me that the Internet was the next horizon.
So I was all in on that. Learned as much
as I could, and in ninety seven I co founded
a company called ad Auction, which was the first digital
media exchange, and we had a lot of venture funding
at that point, and I was really getting sort of
(02:55):
introduced to you know, early days in the Internet and
early days of commerce in the Internet, but also what
it was to start a venture back company. Over the
next couple of decades, we started a variety of companies,
and then eleven years ago I started to venture capital
firm in San Francisco called Transmedia Capital and taking all
of that experience that I had from starting companies and
(03:15):
really parlaying that into investing in companies, and we've been
very fortunate. That's really allowed me the flexibility to do
what I'm doing today. The story I've heard is that
you're sort of aha moment or is the thing about
the Godfather, I'm going to get hit by lightning or
whatever it is. Um, you had your epiphany. That's what
I'm looking for. On a visit to sam Quentin, right,
(03:38):
That's right. So yeah, the thunderbolt of Apollonia in The
Godfather was san Quentin was my Apollonia in a sense.
I had never been in prison before. I didn't really
know anything about criminal justice. But because of my investment
background and entrepreneurship, I was invited into san Quentin to
do a talk to a group of men about entrepreneurship
(03:58):
by a friend of mine who knew that I was
involved in this, and you know, she was doing some
some mentoring there was kept getting questions about businesses and
things like that, so she said, you know, can you
answer some of these questions come up and just talk
to the guys. And I was really sort of reticent
about doing it because San Quentin is a pretty ominous place.
I had never been in prison, but I relented and
(04:19):
one night I went up and I did a talk,
and frankly, it was the same feeling that I got
when I'm talking to a really young entrepreneurs about you know,
this desire and passion and determination, and these guys, some
of them had business plans, and I was blown away.
I was totally different from from what I expected, and
that really was the light and I literally went home
(04:41):
that night told my wife, who's my business partner, and
I told her, you know, we need to do something
to San Quentin. She thought I was crazy, but I
said you need to come in and see what I saw.
And she did about a month later, and we have
something called c C. I s Chris is crazy ideas,
so she said, I'm gonna go with this. We created
this entrepreneurship program initial where Beverly and I went in
two nights a week and just taught basically the fundamentals
(05:05):
of what we do and the outside with early stage companies,
and we started with seven guys. We had a demo
day in San Quentin in two thousand twelve where the
guys presented their business plans to a large audience about
three or fifty people, including media and other vcs, and
they just knocked that out of the park. So that
was really the start of the program. You know, I
(05:26):
often get this feeling when I visit prisons. I find
more humanity inside the walls than outside, and I find
more untapped potential, like enormous potential in groups inside than outside.
And I've known some people who have gone from last
mile from being in prison maybe even having been in
(05:47):
gangs and then coming out with advanced coding, you know,
experience and knowledge and then getting fantastic jobs and moving
up in the world. And you know, I did an
event with Stand Together recently and one of the who spoke,
I think he may have been somebody who participated in
one of your programs, and he said, you know, you
guys often refer to it as second chance hiring. He
(06:08):
goes for me, it's first chance hiring, because where I
came from, there was no chance. James Cavott was the
one that was on your program with Stand Together and
he did a spoken word for you. He was actually
in our first class. So he was given a life
sentence at seventeen years old, and he was part of
our program, our Entre membership program, and he's gone on
to be phenomenally successful. He got his bachelor's, he just
(06:30):
got his masters, and now we're starting his doctorate program.
So here's a guy who had literally no education bettered
himself over I think it was seventeen or eighteen years
I believe in prison. He has a family. Now he
has a wife and a kid, and he's doing phenomenally well. So,
you know, that's a great example, and he was one
of the guys that really helped us get it started.
(06:51):
We've had a lot of success I think. You know
example you mentioned, you know someone who has been really
successful that came from a gang. You know Jason Jones. Know,
he was incarcerated for almost fourteen years. He was in
our entrepreneurship and coding program. He got out, got an
internship at a company called Fandom, and then we hired
him and now he sort of progressed through an organization.
(07:14):
He was the head of our remote instruction. He's a
very accomplished coder, and now he was just promoted to
our senior partnership manager, working with companies on the outside
to hire our graduates. But here's a guy who was
in foster carried eight years old, joined a gang of
eleven years old, read his first book in prison, and
now he is extremely successful. He just bought a home
in Santa Rosa. He has a family. You know. One
(07:36):
of his lines is, you know, I was used to
be the property of the state. Now I own property
in the state. There are many, many stories, but he's
a great example of sort of what you were talking
about coming from a really difficult background and never having
a first chance. And you know when I first started
this with Beverley and I was saying, hey, guys, you know,
if you really do your work, you're gonna get a
job in Silicon Valley. And they're looking at me like
(07:56):
you're full of ship. But now you know, we have many, many,
many examples of success. So when people come in, they
know there's something at the end of this. So which
states are you in now? Which ones are you looking
to expand to? Yeah, so we're in seven states now,
we're in twenty three classrooms. Our goal over the next
couple of years is to be in fourteen states and
(08:17):
fifty classrooms. And you know, COVID really sort of put
a damper on our expansion, but we built an infrastructure
that really supports scaling. So everything we do today is remote.
Every student logs into a learning management system. All our
instruction is live stream to the classroom. So how do
you identify the people that are going to participate in
(08:39):
the program and what's your success rate? As far as
people qualifying, the biggest thing is being totally committed. We're
not looking for educational background because many of our successful
students and graduates have not had any formal background. It's
more like, what's your desire, what's your plan? And you
can't have an infraction inside two years prior to applying,
(09:00):
which is a big deal. So you've got to really
take that straight, narrow line and be part of the community.
We have had a great success rate of lack of recidivism.
You know, we haven't added boddy reoffend over this period
of time. And we're really building on something called the
Impact Index, which really not only looks at recidivism or
the lack thereof of our graduates, but also salary levels,
(09:21):
continue education, community service. We're building basically an index and
a benchmark of what success is beyond recidivism. A sense
(09:47):
of acceptance and belonging that a gang somewhat represents, really
exists for those that are part of a community, you know,
and you know we've seen that community happenings. I'd like
I keep using San Quentin as example. This is this
parlays into other facilities, certainly, but you know, several years ago,
Ron Davis, the warden, stopped us in the art one
(10:08):
day and he said, I just want you to know,
you know, since the Last Mile started and because of
the education programs that happened inside San Quentin. The incident
rate has continued to drop because I mentioned good behavior
is one of those things, but also there's a community
that's happening inside, Like people are walking around the prison
yard with coding books and on the weekends when they're
not in classrooms, they're on a whiteboard and they're going
(10:31):
through problems. Right. Yeah, and San Quentin, you know the
way the staff there has embraced this program, and Raphael
Cassal deserves credit, I think as well. It's a wonderful woman.
But but mostly the credit belongs to the people themselves
who are participating in the program. You know, they're the
ones who are teaching us day in and day out
about the power of the human spirit. I have so
(10:53):
much respect and admiration for people who have come up
out of that environment and managed to succeed. Whether they
went through the prison system and came out through the
last mile or another program, or whether they managed to
find a way out at all, is really remarkable. You know.
I hate to admit this, but I bought into that narrative,
(11:15):
you know, because I spent the first twenty years of
my or so of my work in criminal justice reform.
I was like, well, let me focus on people are
non violent drug of vendors and people who are actually innocent.
This this whole like gang member thing, right that we've
turned into this bogey man, right, it's not a hundred
percent bullshit, but it's pretty close. We have many many
(11:38):
folks in our program that we're part of gangs. Growing up,
there was nowhere else to go. Right now there's a
place to go, and so I think the ability to
replace that with something positive, I think it's really part
of the success of that. And that's why we're trying
to have this sort of alternative path, you know, pre
incarceration where you're that why in the road and you
(12:01):
make the right decision. You know, it hasn't really been
announced yet, but working with some major organizations to do
some outside coding programs for youth after school programs, because
if there's a place for them to go, they can
be successful. You know. One of the things that we
just implemented is a scholarship fund for the children of
our graduates. So you know, Beverly and I and now
(12:22):
the first part of that, and then you know, we
have other donors that are giving scholarships for secondary education
for those children, because the long term goal is to
break the generational cycle of incarceration, not just work on recentivism,
make sure that those future generations don't go down the
same path. I also wanted to give a shout out
to Michael Harris. Michael got out recently. You know, you
know Michael, and you know he's one of the guys
(12:43):
that helped me start the last month inside San Quentin,
and fortunately he was commuted and now I'm working with
him to do some of the same things we're talking
about about prevention, you know, and breaking this generational cycle.
So definitely want to give a shout out to him too.
But this is a long goal for us, Everle and
I've committed sort of a life journey for this, and
we're growing in and you know, this is gonna be
(13:04):
decades down the road that we're going to continue to
do this. Is there one story that you let's say
you meet somebody randomly or at some event and they're
asking it, what is the last mile? And is there
one story that pops in your head and you go
that one really touched me. Yeah, you've experienced this too,
when you're at the gate. There's nothing like being at
the gate right when someone is getting out. And and
(13:24):
the one that really hit me, I think initially fairly
early on was Darnell Hill. Darnell served twenty four years
in prison. He actually committed crimes with his dad. His
dad had him commit crimes with him. They were actually
incarcerated together and cell mates in San Quentin in the
early nineties. And Darnell was married when he went into prison.
(13:47):
You know, he was serving seven to life. But he
served twenty four years and went a fell of pro
boards six times, and every time he went in from
the pro board he was denied. The next time he
actually pitched his business idea that he did in the
last mile, and he's convinced that that's what got him
his suitability and he got out. So we stand at
the gate in San Quentin. It's very dramatic, and we're
(14:09):
standing with Snya, his wife and the thing that she
had waited for him for twenty four years to get
out for that moment. You know, I don't care who
you are that that will touch anyone, you know, that
type of thing. There's nothing that describes that. I mean,
you can have great business success, but to see that
(14:29):
life change and see that commitment from both of them
to that point is amazing. And you know it's funny
because they'll send me photos on text of the vacation here,
vacation there, and you know, they just love being together
and they're like on a honeymoon now. And I just
give him credit because he's endured that, you know, being
in present with his dad, but also just being a
(14:49):
positive person throughout his time in prison and then just
translating that to positivity today. It's just amazing. Is this
the best thing you've ever done? This podcast? Yeah? Absolutely.
You know, we are expanding really horizontally our our education platform.
(15:21):
You know, it's been software engineering and entrepreneurship, but now
we're launching a music and video production program in San
Quentin and in Huddonville in Indiana. So that will give
the skills for people to be audio technicians and video editors.
So that opens up a whole new potential area of employment.
And you know, we're, as I mentioned Jason as part
of our team, to to do outreach into all the
(15:43):
communities we're in. You know, we've had great support from
Silicon Valley companies like Zoom and Slack and Square and
Dropbox fandom, you know, Pivotal and and a lot of
companies that have hired our graduates of software engineers. We
need to continue to expand that you know, hiring I'm
really incarcerated. Their desire and commitment is huge, and people
(16:05):
come back to us and say, wow, I was a
little reticent before, but man, the dedication and commitment of
those that we've hired has been phenomenal. So we want
to continue to support and that goes to our you know,
our funding partners, to you know, CDCR in California and
Calpa a Calpia prison industries have been hugely supportive. Chuck Matilla,
who was the GM for a long time, help us
(16:26):
get this started. But Google dot Org, chancez Zuckerberg, you
know you mentioned Stand Together, Bank America, Simon family. I mean,
we've got a lot of funders that have really helped
us a lot. Steven Simon has been a fantastic supporter
of our work. He helped get the compensation bill passed
in Indiana, which was so meaningful. You know, we had
(16:46):
an Indiana case, Christine Bunch, that I think really touched
a lot of people in the halls of power in Indiana,
and Steve was able to bring attention to that particular
episode in that case and this cause, and he has
obviously a big porter of your work and he's become
a great friends. I just want to give him credit
for his work as well and his passion, his new
(17:07):
passion for this particular cause, which is amazing. Yeah, you know, Steve.
Obviously they've been very successful in their business. They also
own the Indiana Pacers, and the Pacers has been a
great partner for us. Steve is a great friend and
supporter as well. And we're on the early stages of
you know, doing some really cool things with the NBA
that we'd love doing now later on, but you know,
Steve is definitely leading to charge on a lot of
(17:28):
those things. Okay, Steve, I hope you're listening, and I
hope you're blushing right now because you should be. UM.
So people want to go to learn more about it.
The website is the Last Mile dot org, and then
we do have a newsletter as well. You can sign
up on the website. You know, there's always a donate
button there if you'd like to give. Donations of up
to a thousand dollars are matched by Stand Together Foundations.
(17:51):
So if someone's listening it feels inspired to donate, we'll
put all the links in our bio obviously, and you know,
hopefully people will be moved to support or it involved
when another part of it is also volunteers. You know,
we have people that volunteer to mentor post release, to
volunteer to do guests presentations in our remote instructions. So
(18:12):
you know, there is a form on the website if
you want to participate, you can you send us a
note and see what your level of interest and participating is.
We have a staff of thirty, but you know, we
feel like we're a lot larger because we have such
a great volunteer group as well. There's very few things
I think you can do with your money or time
that would be more impactful and personally rewarding to you yourself.
(18:33):
So now my favorite question is if you had a
magic wand and could wave it and get one wish granted.
What would it be if we could wave the wand
and this issue would go away and we'd all put
ourselves out of business and resolve incarceration. That would be incredible.
(18:54):
There are sort of many ones, you know, breaking the
generational circles one and bridging the prosperity gap or those
type of things. But maybe the part of the WAND
is just making people aware because this is all of
our problem. It's not just those that are inside their problem,
it's all of our problem. So the WAND would just
make people understand and will help contribute to resolve these issues. Yeah,
(19:18):
and you know, maybe instead of our crazy obsession with
punishment over rehabilitation, we could you know, accept, in the
most extreme cases, offer as an alternative incarceration, the opportunity
for people to participate in a program like the Last Mile,
basically redirecting young lives in a positive and productive direction
instead of burning hundreds of billions of dollars in our
(19:40):
failed system of mass in carceration with nothing but pain
and suffering to show for it. And now before we
go to our closing, I want to invite our audience
to tune in next week when we're gonna be speaking.
Was a thirty year veteran corrections officer, and you need
leader who has made it his mission to try to
find the lasting allusions to the most elusive problems of
(20:03):
our cars row system. His name is Andy Pottery. And
now the closing of our show is called Words of Wisdom.
Were First of all, of course, I thank you for
joining us. Thank you to the audience as well. This
wouldn't be worth doing without you. And then I'm going
to turn my microphone off, leave my headphones on, kick
back in my chair, and just listen for anything else
you feel is left to be said. Okay, well, I
(20:24):
appreciate that, but before I start, I just want to
say how much I appreciate what you do and the dedication.
I don't think people realize how much time and effort
you spend on this, and you could do like I
could a lot of other things, and you've been hugely successful.
But I just wanted to give you that shout out.
And I know I've said this to you before, but
(20:44):
you know, what you're doing is incredibly important. So you know,
before you shut your mic off, I just want to
make sure that people understand that this is not just
a podcast. This is an all in commitment from Jason Flow.
Thank you, and now I blush. Okay, um, you know
the Words of Wisdom. I think really it goes back
(21:07):
to very early time when we first you know, a
set foot in prison and as we talked about before,
the realization that this world is a world where people
need opportunities and it may sound sort of counterintuitive, but
deserve opportunities. And the one thing that I've seen over
(21:32):
time is that you never know when life changes may
happen that happens to us in the world, but it
happens in prison in a growing number of cases. You know,
there's something called a life sentence, and a life sentence
doesn't mean that you serve your lifetime in prison. It
(21:54):
maybe tend to life. It maybe twenty to life, it
maybe thirty life. But there is an opportunit unity two
start a new life if you go down the right
path while you're incarcerated. So you know, when we started
the Last Mile, there are very few people that were
lifers were getting out in previous administrations prior to Jerry
(22:16):
Brown in California especially, I think it was less than
five percent of people getting out. Today, many, many people
who are serving life sentences are being found suitable and
getting out. So my message has been from day one,
never ever give up, keep on a path, do whatever
(22:38):
you can, study hard, be a good citizen, be focused,
because you never ever know when you're going to be
given a chance. And you know that works for all
of us to keep you know, focused and really strive
for something, but especially those who are inside you know
there's hope and never forget. One of the guys in
(22:59):
our early classes came up to me after class and
he said, Chris, I know that you're trying to get
us employment, ready to get a job. Even if I
don't get a job, for the first time, I'm being
treated like a human being. I have hope, so never
give up. Continue having hope and success will be there.
(23:23):
And being successful is not difficult. Many people don't have
the drive and passion and commitment to be successful. If
you do and set the bar wherever you want it
to be, and you'll achieve it. So my words of
wisdom are stay with hope and never give up. Thank
(23:50):
you for listening to Righteous Convictions with Jason plom I'd
like to thank our production team Connor Hall, Jeff Claverne,
and Kevin Warrice. With research by Lila Robinson. The music
in this production was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated
composer Jay Ralph. Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter
at Lava for Good. You can also follow me on
(24:10):
TikTok and Instagram at it's Jason Flom. Righteous Convictions with
Jason Flom is a production of Lava for Good podcasts
and association with Say About Company Number One
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