May 7, 2020 • 53 mins
Covid-19 is running rampant in American prisons and no one seems to care. Learn how the U.S.A.'s favorite governors are screwing up with the lives of human beings they consider expendable.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Worst Year Ever, a production of I Heart
Radio Together Everything, So don't don't do Hi, America and
(00:22):
other places that I presume exists but cannot currently prove
the reality of. Uh, this is the worst year ever,
as you're aware of because you're living through it. And
I am Robert Evans here today with my co hosts
Stole yp There we go, Cody dot Katie, Cody dot Katie,
(00:44):
Stole dot Kate. Um, you'd both be dot orgs. I
am not. I did not register myself as an organ. Oh,
you'd better not have done with dot us because that's
a real pain in the ass. M. I don't like
I accidentally ceo dot c O. Ye, that would be
(01:07):
good at Oh and you could be if you could,
if you move to Canada, you could be Katie dot
c A. I'd love to move to Canada. Actually, right
now I'm thinking Denmark looks good. Denmark's looking good. Uh.
You know who you know who did a really good
job of handling their coronavirus outbreak? Apparently? Yeah, I mean yes,
(01:31):
A number of places that aren't where we live did
did jobs in very different tactics. Yeah, it seems like
they got a handle on it, so I know, open
air prisons. Prisons. Yeah, well we are not. We hadn't
we We had not introduced the subject of this week's episode.
(01:54):
But Cody, thank you for doing that. We speaking of
prisons was the best that's every went one accident speaking
of prisons. Let's all stop saying that our homes are
like a prison, because that is not fair to prisons
or doing justice to the situation which we are going
(02:15):
to talk about today. Yes, yes, yeah, I'm always whenever
I hear that, I'm always reminded of Um. I apologize
to listeners that one episode of The Office where they
had like a prisoner work program, yes, and everyone was
referring to the Office as a prison, and Michael Scott
was like, no, it's actually good see and everyone's like, yeah, obviously,
obviously it's not like prison. Yes, although I will say,
(02:40):
are are are the current the current terms that under
which many Americans, including ourselves, are our our social distancing.
If you were going to compare it to a prison,
you might compare it to the kind of prison that
people go to after they steal billions of dollars um
and and cause tens of thousands of people to lose
their homes like that. It's like it's like it's like
(03:02):
white collar crime prison. It's broadly like that. It's like
Jeffrey Epstein prison. Well, no, no, no, the first time around,
the first time around he went, he went to a
cushy prison place where he was allowed out every day
to go to work. Yeah, we're all experiencing something that's like,
(03:23):
like broadly similar to how Jeffrey Epstein was incarcerated the
first time. Yes, that's that's a good way to look
at it. Yeah, my experiences to Yeah, is that the
end of the episode. Are we done now? Yeah, we're done.
We've we've hit it. No, speaking of open air prisons,
Jeffrey Epstein is episode. Yes, yeah, this was this was
(03:47):
all part of our our goal of tying Jeffrey Epstein's
first incarceration, uh to the the lockdown of Gaza Um
for reasons that I think have escaped us all and
never made a much sense to begin with, And we're
always a bad idea. Thank you for listening, yep. Goodbye.
In conclusion, goodbye, Uh, Okay, are we gonna start the episode? Um?
(04:16):
I'll go because I think my section probably first, because
it's about like yeah, okay, all right, So just for
listener's sake, none of us are doing great with the
quarantine today the month we're recording this, and and so
starting this episodes a little bit of a ship show
because I think I don't want to speak for everyone else,
but this is also me starting my week, and it's
not going great. It's definitely the beginning of a new week,
(04:40):
and UM, we're all to our best, which is not
very good. No, it's not. It doesn't sound like it's
great today. UM. We so obviously, as I'm sure at
least the title has indicated, we certainly have not the
hosts of the show. UM, but we're going to talk
about prisons today and this week. We have an interview
later this week as well on this topic. UM. Because
(05:04):
if you've been reading the news, which for that, I
am sorry if you have been. Um, there's a lot
of a lot of COVID cases in prisons, UM, and
a lot of discussion about what to do about that
and protests going on. We'll we'll get into all of it,
but is generally and like I won't get into the
(05:24):
conditions of prisons in general. I think listeners and hosts
and everybody probably No, it's not not great good guests.
Good guests would be not great. Um, but just in
terms of this pandemic and the things that we all
need to do, like social distancing. Um, the inmate population
(05:45):
federal prisons exceeds their rated capacity by twelve to Yeah,
if I can interject, I found a startling statistics. So
California has one of a really bad problem with current
virus and its prisons. Ten years ago, a federal court
ordered the state to reduce its in mate population and
(06:06):
they were required to reduce it to less than a
hundred and thirty seven point five percent of capacity. So
they were they were above a hundred and thirty five
point seven percent capacity of their prisons. Um, there are
today a hundred and fourteen thousand people housed in California's
main prisons, which were designed to support eighty five thousand people.
(06:28):
So just like, and that's as Cody saying, that's a
nationwide thing. I just picked California because it's kind of
like the starkest example. But um, that's like, that's like
say your your local concert hall is supposed to fit
three hundred people and they fit five hundred people in there.
You're not going to be happy about that for a
(06:50):
variety of reasons. And I actually do think it's maybe
a good idea just to quickly say some of the
things that are are wrong with prisons in general, even
outside of coronavirus, their existence, their existence, sure not the
whole conversation as well. But you know, it's not cleanly,
it's not safe. Uh they as you mentioned, you know,
(07:12):
overcrowding of prisons is a real epidemic, and it's a
real problem, and there's a lot of social issues and
reasons why it is that way. But it's impossible for
prisoners to keep distance from each other. It's impossible to
even maintain a bare minimum of cleanliness that is required
to survive this pandemic. You know, they don't have to
(07:34):
water like we do, or soap. Yeah, they can't. They
aren't allowed to have antibacterial soap because there's alcohol in
it and so they could drink it. Um. So that
was an initial problem. Another major problem is that nationwide
and estimated, incarcerated people in jails and prisons have at
least one chronic medical condition, which renders them significantly more
(07:55):
vulnerable to COVID nineteen UM. Thanks thanks for participating. By
the way, a Katie, in this long hijacking of Cody's
train of thought, you should return things to Cody now.
I mean it's all nested in the whole point, um,
which is that even if like let's say, even capacity
was down and uh that's not good. Uh that's not ideal.
(08:17):
No reason one likes to be on a full plane flight, right, Um,
like this wouldn't be an ideal situation to implement any
of these things anyway. And it just so happens that
it's much worse than that. Yeah, if the problem were
less bad than it is, it would be a problem, right, cool,
(08:40):
Very cool. Yeah, it's just it. It's happening everywhere in counties.
You'll see here is all these reported cases in this county,
like Brazoria County in Texas, cases were reported. Five of
those were from their facility. It's just over and over.
Last week, the majority of inmates hadn't been tested. In
(09:02):
Cook County Jail in Chicago, even though the majority had
not been tested, they still had two hundred and thirty
inmates and one fifteen staff members testing positive. In Ohio,
the Marrying Correctional Institution had two thousand, eleven inmates testing positive,
which is eight percent of their prison population. UM. Again
(09:24):
speaking of staff, on d fifty four of fifty staff
UH tested positive. UM. And also NPR reported that, Uh
these tests were two thousand eleven inmates were testing positive.
They didn't even get to see the results of their tests. UM.
They like, the tests were done and they found out,
oh this many prisoners here had are testing positive, but
(09:49):
the individuals did not get informed of whether or not
they tested positive. UM, which makes all of the things
that we need to do harder. UM. Again would to
been easy, but they made it harder. UM. There's a
lot security prison in San Pedro called Terminal Island UM
and nine cute name, a great name for the current situation.
(10:13):
Terminal Island, my god, Uh, six ninety three of its
one thousand, forty two and sixty of their prison are
testing positive. UM and nice yeah, really close to being nice. Um.
But it's just case after case of this kind of thing. Yeah.
(10:35):
And there's the uh speaking of like funk ups in prisons.
There was just like, Michigan has the highest death rate
of any UH state in terms of like prisoners dying
of COVID nineteen and a story just dropped a few
days ago that three inmates who were infected were sent
to one of Michigan's prisons that had no coronavirus cases
just because up and testing, which is craft. But it
(10:58):
wasn't full of mirth or away. And yeah, like you were,
you were alluding to, like a lot of them, A
lot of prisoners have pre existing conditions and certain extreme cases.
Um and Uh, there's what Federal Medical Center in Fort Worth,
which is where a lot of them go. Um, there
are at six cases there out of four sixty three people. Um.
(11:24):
It's because of the conditions of not only the facilities,
but also of the inmates there. Um and so it's
just there's so many everywhere, and it's it's clearly a
problem these kinds of places specifically. Um and there. You
know prisons, we all we all know co hosts and listeners,
(11:47):
everybody of the problems with prisons in general. We've talked
about it on the show. Um. But there's just so
many people there that are elderly that have these can
auditions and problems, that have been in prison for decades
and probably don't need to be there anymore. Like there's
(12:08):
a study from the Brennan Center for Justice that found
no compelling public safety reason to incarce rate thirty nine
percent of the inmates in state and federal prisons. It's
about five seventy six thousand people. Elderly Americans are especially
unlikely to commit further crimes once released. The United States
Sentence and Commission found in twenty seventeen the defenders over
(12:28):
the age of sixty five had just a thirteen point
four percent chance of being re arrested in an eight
year period after release, compared to a sixty seven point
six percent chance for those under age twenty one. UM.
So these are people who have been in prison for
decades and decades for things, you know, ranging from uh,
it could be a violent defense, it could be like
a tax thing, it could be any like having like
(12:51):
a little bit of weed on him, who knows. Um.
But they're over sixty five, and if you release them
into the public to get them out of this situation
that they're not in there for this, they're not in
there to die of this virus UM, then it's not
like an immense threat to public safety to release them.
(13:12):
And it's very frustrating because, um, if you if you
try to lay out the actual facts of incarceration in America. Um,
you wind up like like ian like okay. So one
of the arguments you'll hear for people who will complain
about how many people are incarcerated is the number of
(13:33):
non violent drug offenders, and that is a problem. But
the the reality of the situation is that most people
who are incarcerated in the United States for long sentences
have committed some sort of violent crime. UM. The numbers
are that about fifty of federal inmates something somewhere around there,
a little over half are on some sort of drug offense.
(13:54):
But that's about ten percent of the incarcerated total UM.
And more than half of people who are incarce aided
in state prisons have some sort of violent offense. Now
that's even more complicated than it sounds for a number
of reasons. One of them is that when you like
the data that we have that determines like whether or
not somebody's you know, doing time for a violent or
non violent defense, it is based on what is marked
(14:16):
down as their most severe UM charge. So in a
lot of cases that means that someone who has domestic
violence and a heroin charge might look like a non
violent heroin offender, even though no, that's a person who
actually did commit a violent crime. It's just that our
system considered the heroine crime to be a more severe crime. Um.
The second factor in that, though, is that a lot
(14:36):
of people who commit crimes like robbery and burglary that
may not have involved a violent crime but are considered
violent crimes get written down as violent criminals. Um. But
the broader issue is that this leads to a situation
wherein a lot of Americans, if if they find out
someone has a violent crime in their history period, um,
(14:59):
then they suddenly have no desire in You know, a
lot of Americans have gotten on board the idea that
like drug offenders should be let out and consistently, when
people are asked to estimate what percentage of the prison
population are non violent drug offenders, they vastly overestimate how
many Americans are just in prison for a drug offense.
But when and so when people find out like like
(15:20):
like like so when you you've looked at the way
governors have approached talking about releasing because like in New
York and in Californian and Michigan, in a number of
states Washington, UM, you have had governors releasing at least
temporarily non violent offenders, but they all point out that
they don't want to release violent offenders and that this
will not affect violent offenders. And as Cody notes, for
one thing, it is incredibly unlikely for elderly offenders to reoffend.
(15:45):
It very very rarely happens. Just to interject like, isn't
that the point? Like, yeah, it should be like that
people emergeformative restorative justice, like people should be the point,
and it would be the point, and it it it's
it's this we have this difficulty. So there's another study
(16:07):
was reading about where they they asked people to imagine
one of their um, their relatives, a loved one, a
family member was murdered, and what sentence they think would
be effective, would be fair for the murderer, And people
pick obviously very very harsh sentences. They want they want
the book thrown at the person who took their loved
one away from them, which of course makes sense. But
(16:29):
when people are asked to imagine that a loved one
committed one of those crimes, um they consider the recommended
sentence to be considerably more lenient. Because when we think
about people we care about it's easier to imagine even
if they did something horrible, Um, we can imagine them
redeeming themselves because we see them as complete human beings
who may have done something terrible but that aren't washed
(16:50):
out and so like that. This is part of the
complexity of communicating the issues that we're having with incarceration
to people. I've had a really interesting article hole in
um a Washington. It was like a Washington conservative radio
uh jock kind of piece of ship, Jason Rants, who
was complaining that Governor Insley had released about a thousand prisoners, um,
(17:14):
which is is was uh not a lot of prisoners.
So this guy was pointing out that like, well, we
said on the right when they said, you know, we
conservatives said that when they started releasing prisoners, was gonna
go bad. And sure enough, just a couple of weeks
after he released these prisoners, you know, a bunch of
them have reoffended. And then you get through the article
and it turns out that three people have reoffended, and
the three re offenses out of the thousand, what's the
(17:37):
legal definition of a bunch? Yeah, yeah, he says that,
Um yeah, it's it's it's very frustrating. So and the
and the three offenses are one person like went on
a high speed chase and was charged with a felony
account of eluding police um and to misdemeanor charges of
obstructing an officer and driving with a suspended license. Um.
No violent crimes, no one hurt, nothing, nothing all. I
(18:00):
wonder when he could have renewed his license. Yeah, he's
been out. I wonder why he ran away from the
cops that he's afraid of. Yeah, it's frustrating. Another person
UM had gotten high on methamphetamines and used a crowbar
to break wooden boards that were like had been boarded
(18:22):
up over a window. Like he was just like fucked
up on meth and hitting boards with a crowbar. So again,
no real damage to poverty and no violence against the human.
And then the third person had stolen seventy dollars from
a grocery worth of items from a grocery store. Yeah, okay, yeah,
(18:42):
it's like, yeah, boy, sure would be better if they
were dying. And this is what I like. This is
why it's one of the frosting things too for me
is seeing like seeing that framing of it, and I'm
sure I'm sure that this rants fellow. Ah, if it
(19:03):
were not like a radio rant or whatever, if it
was like a published piece, they would have shown the
original mug shots of those people when they were originally
arrested as the photo that you see of them. Uh,
because they're scary. There's the mug shots are scary, you see,
So yeah, to show those, So you got to show
them people out there worst. Um, we need to take
(19:24):
a really quick break, you know, for the products and
services that you know drive this show. But then we're
gonna come back and we're gonna talk about some of
the protests we're seeing pop up around the country and
what they are protesting all that stuff. You know. Yeah,
I'm gonna reopen the gems, take some meth hit boards
with a crowbar and justify your incarceration and death by
(19:49):
a virus in doing so, and also products together, everything
we are have become returned. We are have become returned. Indeed, Um,
(20:10):
as I alluded to before the break, I'm gonna talk
a little bit about the prison protests that we are
seeing popping up and uh, to your point, Cody, Yes,
earlier on people probably have heard about how jails are epicenters,
truly epicenters for the outbreaks that we're seeing throughout America,
(20:34):
not just because of the prisoners, although everybody should be
caring about the fact that prisoners are being treated un humanely,
but also correctional officers, people that work in the facilities
and then go home and spread the virus to the
counties that they live in. So that's really important and
and hopefully you guys have seen that and you are
(20:55):
aware of the situation, just like nursing homes are also epicenters. Okay,
get off topic, but my problem is that the mainstream
media has not and has never been good about covering
protests around prisons, you know, the lamb stream. Oh my god.
(21:18):
I mean, we have seen hunger strikes at prisons in
the past, for for conditions that we've talked about, you know,
all sorts of strikes, and they never really break the
surface of of media coverage. And I find that that
is true here. I mean, there are there are definitely
little articles about all this stuff popping up, but I
(21:40):
don't see very much top down coverage of of these things.
Um so I've probably together something of a list here.
I want to also just really like that on that point,
like they can't get enough of covering the protests of
the people who want to go to the right exactly.
They are obsessed with the haircut people, um but they
(22:03):
can't bring themselves to do more than a minute on
like on these or even just like nurses and doctors protesting.
There's so many other protests going on that aren't just
a bunch of weirdos who want to get a fucking haircut.
Very frustrating. Yeah, they're also not covering. Yeah, yeah, there's
it's it's frustrating. Is we all agreed on that. It's frustrating.
(22:28):
It's settled. That's why we're talking about it here today.
And I assume that the majority of our listeners care
about the conditions these people are living through. But if
you don't at least care about the fact this is
this is a very compelling argument that our country will
not have this under control until we figure out how
(22:48):
to handle the outbreaks in prisons as well. Okay, cool,
So some of the places that have had protests. In April,
more than a hundred prisoners at Monroe Prison in Washington State,
um UH protested after six prisoners and five staff members
were diagnosed with COVID nineteen. From what I understand, a
(23:10):
couple of fire alarms were set off and then the
buildings were evacuated, leading the innate sitting in a field,
some of them in masks, protesting the lack of attention
being paid to the situation. Eventually, the infected prisoners were
moved to isolation units. So that's something, although also a
thing um here in California, I don't know what that means.
(23:33):
And then the official word from the prison is the
situation is under control. Okay, don't worry, we put them
in solitary. Yeah. Here in California, citizens organized a protest
outside of San Quentin um, which is personally important to me.
I do not have a family member in San Quentin currently,
(23:53):
but I have had a family member in San Quentin
in the past for a long time. It was a
horrifying experience. Uh, they were drug charges and uh, you know,
because of other things ends up there. It's a whole thing.
But anyway, that to me stood out because I have
(24:15):
spent a lot of time worrying about a loved one
who has been incarcerated specifically there. Anyway, organizers respected social
distancing by using a car caravan to demonstrate on Saturday.
You know, they would circle around, you know, hanking their horns,
protesting the conditions in there. They were also calling for
(24:36):
prisoners who are over the age of sixty to be released. Yeah,
there have been similar car protests like that all over
the states. In Indiana back in April, organizers circled Westville
Correctional Facility after a hundred and forty three inmates and
thirty six correctional officers tested positive for coronavirus. And Raleigh,
North Korean, Rolina. Just this past weekend, another socially distant
(24:57):
protest was organized. Cars circle the central prison, honking horns,
and other people marched on foot carrying signs. This is
from a local news station there. Julie Schneider, organizer of
the protest, joined the dozens of people who took part
in the social distance protests in their vehicles as others
held up signs while walking around the prison. She and
others demanded an end to solitary confinement practices and improved
(25:20):
food and medical treatment during the coronavirus outbreak. Over years
and years, what we've seen in DPS facilities is systemic
ignoring if any kind of human rights, so that happened there.
There were also similar protests also in North Carolina and Goldsboro.
In Cleveland, actually city councilmen, but shir Jones took part
in a COVID nineteen protests outside the Marian Correctional Institution.
(25:45):
They have over more than two thousand infected inmates and
over a hundred and seventy five staff members UH with
coronavirus as of early May. UH. Marian is considered one
of the hardest hit COVID nineteen hot pots in the nation.
That's both believable and wildly unbelievable. You know, this is
an enormous outbreak. Again pointing to what I'd said earlier,
(26:08):
it doesn't stay contained in the prison. It goes out
to the community. Gosh, there's so many more. They're in Portland,
in San Diego and Florida. It's just these are not
stories that many people are aware of and tracking, or
even no are happening so that they could go and
join in the protests, you know what I mean. UM,
And that leads me to ICE facilities UM detainees that
(26:32):
several ICE facilities have gone on strike to demand sanitary
supplies UH and apparently in some places, it's been sort
of effective. Federal judges in California and Pennsylvania have ordered
ICE to release several detainees who have sued UH and
there are also lawsuits happening in other states, though I'm
not clear where they stand at this point, but it's
very case by case. UM. At the Stewart Detention Center,
(26:55):
which is a privately run ICE facility in Georgia, there
have been some unsuccessful examples of impaintes protesting their treatment
during the pandemic. Apparently sick patients were being ignored, the
problems weren't being addressed. UM. And this one I'm going
to read from is from the intercept. Carlos was on
his bed feeling sick when he turned to look out
(27:17):
the window and saw a group of detainees running out
a side door leading to a recreation yard. Several correctional
officers were giving chase. At first, Carlo thought that there
was a fire, but he saw correctional staff use pepper
spray and the detainees. Daniel, another detainee whose name has
also been changed, saw it all happened from a unit
across the hall. People were asking for medical attention for
(27:39):
some of the sick people in here, Daniel said. But
because they the staff didn't pay attention, they began protesting.
They started placing sheets on the windows and doors, Daniel said.
The correctional office began deploying gas, throwing detainees on the floor,
taking them in handcuffs too. He assumed solitary confinement, or
as they called it, the whole all so in this
(28:00):
article UH, they explained that there is a special unit
of correctional officers task with suppressing detainee disturbances, akin to
a swat team. The pepper spraying unit is known as
the Special Operations Response Team or SORT. The SORT unit,
which has not previously been reported on, is trained to
use riot shields, helmets, pepper spray, and pepper ball ammunition.
(28:23):
The whole article is pretty ghoulish. Apparently, this use of
force has happened twice against prisoners protesting coronavirus UH, and
both times correctional officers have gone on and and like
celebrated their use of force and stuff on social media posts.
Also from the article, The posts and aggregate gives a
(28:46):
series of snapshots of the SORT team's actions against the
protesting detainees. In one social media post, a sort officer
said he shot all the detainees in sight with pepper
ball projectiles. It was he said, call of Do Demode,
referring to a violent first person video game series about
going to war. Um, it's pretty horrifying, way like one
(29:10):
of those times in Call of Duty where you fire
into a crowd of unarmed people with pepper spray paintballs. Yeah.
And again, so what are the things that they're protesting.
They seem pretty reasonable to me that conditions prisoners are
being held in are improved, that they have access to
medical care. You know, that they're not treating sick patients
(29:31):
or isolating them in many cases. And I don't mean
putting them in solitary confinement. I mean removing them from
a crowded cell block. And as we've alluded to, also
for the releasing of inmates to reduce the number of
incarcerated individuals, especially people that do not need to be there, um,
you know, for a variety of reasons. If we're like
(29:53):
being realistic, like do they deserve to be given a
death sentence for their marijuana charges from fifteen years ago? Yeah?
And that's why I want to that because a number
of people have had their their lesser sentences become death sentences.
And I'm about to get to that. In March, William
(30:14):
Barr actually ordered officials running federal prisons to immediately maximize
the release of prisoners to home combinement, you know, to
help prevent the spread, and you know, urged them to
focus on the most vulnerable people and facilities, uh, such
as elderly people. UM. And that's the fine, that's that's
(30:35):
a good move, you know, somewhat surprising from them, but UM,
kind of it hasn't really moved the needle. I mean,
you can push back on this, but from what I'm
looking at, uh, this only applies to about two thousand
of the hundred and seventy thousand inmates and the federal
correction system. UM. And the majority of the over two
(30:55):
million prisoners currently being held in the United States are
you know, states or or local level. UM. So that
leaves the decision of what to do with the majority
of the prisoners at the discretion of local governments and governors,
which I know you've prepared some stuff on Robert UM. Yeah,
I mean I wanted to talk in the context of
(31:17):
people having their their sentences turned into death sentences. I
wanted to talk about E from Stutson. E from Stutson.
UM was convicted for selling cocaine. Uh. He served twenty
seven years in Lompoc Prison in California, and he was
released on April one. UM. Within hours of getting off
of his bus in San Bernardino, he was hospitalized for
(31:39):
COVID nineteen and he was dead five days later. UM.
And his sister says that, yeah, he told her as
he was in his last days in prison that he
started to get sick. Um. He was not released then, Uh,
even though it would have improved his chances to have
immediately been released to a hospital. UM. Instead, he spent
days sick in prison and then was released and died
(31:59):
to meeting upon coming back out into the world for
the first time in almost thirty years. UM. And there's
a number of stories like that. It's just it's horrible. UM. Yeah, yeah,
And that's I mean, that's a whole other thing. Like
even in releasing a lot of people, if we're to
do that, like a lot of them don't have those
connections in the real world anymore. So what did they
(32:21):
do and where do they go? I Mean, it's the
same thing with the story that you talked about earlier
with the few inmates that have committed crimes, stole some food,
you know, or got chased by the cops and arrested
because they didn't have a valid drivers trying to try
to get somewhere needed food like this. I mean, I'm
(32:42):
not saying we should be going and stealing food, but
you can understand it's too late. You've said it, Yes,
steal food and you know, while you're at it, hit
some boards with a crowbar while on methamphetamine. YEA, all
good calls. I wanted to talk about some of the
governors that we've we've been celebrating recently for their their
(33:02):
relative competence in the face of the COVID nineteen epidemic.
Um because like Cuomo is a good example, so he's
enjoys something popularity right now. The villain from the mask
Governor Cuomo is he wait what No, but look just
look up the UM. Okay, that makes sense because he
(33:26):
is essentially I believe he would fight. I don't know,
I don't remember. I don't remember anything about the mask
Cody other than Jim Carey's face is green and he
has that big that big comedy gun. It's like it's
like a lot, right, so it's it's smoking And wasn't
wasn't in the actual comics that it's based on. Wasn't
he like a horrible rapist murderer? Yeah, it's way worse. Yeah,
(33:47):
much darker. It's not not great in the movie either,
like most Jim Carrey movies, I guess of that era
in retrospect. Yeah, we let him get away with a
lot in the nineties. Um, but yeah, speaking of getting
away with a lot, but Andrew Cuomo, like Stanley Yell,
NAT's he is getting away with a lot. As you
(34:09):
pointed out, you know, Jim Carrey was able to get
away with a lot in the nineteen nineties. We all
as a society decided that he said, somebody stopped me,
and then we said no, no, no, no, we want
We're like, no, no, go on please. Yeah. Yeah, and
his if you rewatch old Jim Carrey movies, with the
exception of a spin cur At two, Um, they're all
they're all uh monstrous uh and and and the characters
(34:33):
that we're supposed to identify with do horrible things. And
we just let Jim Carrey get away with it because
he was really good at making that one face and
and pretending to talk with his butt, and it was
a simpler time, and we all decided that was okay.
And in a similar manner, Governor Andrew Cuomo of New
York City has been allowed to get away with some
horrific actions because he's doing the gubernatorial equivalent of talking
(34:57):
with his butt. Um in a funny ha haa movie
which is I guess talk like an adult. Um. I
don't know it breaks down here, but you know what
doesn't break down are the products and services that support
this podcast. So we're going to talk about cuomsy. But
first here's ads Ubernatorial, my brother. I've got a joke
(35:21):
gubernatorial more like goober you know, booger booger. Yeah, these
are the kind of jokes you don't get with NPR podcasts,
A bunch of hacks together everything. So we talked earlier
(35:48):
in the episode about how old people, when released from prison,
even if they were released from violent crimes, are are
very unlikely to reoffend for a variety of reasons, including
and this is like again, it's one of the things
that it's hard to get a lot of people on
board with because you hear like someone was jailed because
they're part of a robbery where someone got murdered, and
the argument is always like, okay, well that other person,
(36:09):
you know, never gets a chance for justice. And it's like, yeah,
you know, that's that's that's fair. It's an injust universe.
But is it really better to just like lock them
up for forever, um, even though like we all can
acknowledge that none of us are the same person we
were at twenty, and maybe a sixty year old who's
been in prison for forty years should get a chance
to be a different person than were at nineteen when
(36:30):
they were committed armed robbery or whatever. Um, I don't know.
That's kind of my failing on the matter. But um,
what a messed up view of the world. Robert, Yeah,
it was not. It really depends on their race, Robert,
you know, yeah, no, but it's true. Um, it was
not the opinion of of Governor Andrew Cuomo in two
(36:52):
thousand twelve, um that that older people should be released,
maybe after spending decades in prison, um on good behavior.
So in two thousand twelve, Valerie Gator was New York
State's longest serving incarcerated woman. Her crime she committed a
crime when she was twenty one years old. She participated
in the deaths of an elderly couple Blues during a
(37:13):
robbery gone wrong UM, and it was a pretty horrific crime.
She was also twenty one years old, UM and over
the next almost forty years in prison, she took significant
steps to change herself into a better person. She earned
multiple college degrees, She became a mentor to other prisons.
She developed programs to assist in the rehabilitation UM and
(37:34):
her programs have like earned her a number of awards
from different national organizations UM because they helped reduce recidivism
and help other prisoners to get out and rebuild their lives. UM.
In short, how dare she you would consider her the
model of what we would hope for in our prison system.
You would hope that like this would be the goal, right,
(37:55):
that somebody who committed a horrible crime when they were
very young, over the course of thirty nine years in prison,
UH could change into a multiple degree holder who develops
programs that help hundreds of other people escape their youthful
horrors and live lives. Also, to just to interject, we've
used the word recidivism a couple of times. And just
(38:16):
in case you don't know, that is the tendency of
a criminal incarcerated person to reoffend. So she applied for
clemency in two thousand twelve, um and had a number
of times because she was an old person and didn't
want to die in prison. Um in because a hell
of a lot of people thought that she deserved another
chance after spending decades proving that she deserved another chance,
(38:39):
and Andrew Cuomo personally denied her clemency application. Um. Yeah.
In two thousand nineteen, the New York State legislator legislature
considered an elder parole measure UH state Bill to one
four four. This would have allowed incarcerated older people to
appear before a parole board for a chance at release
at age fifty five after serving fifty or more years
(39:00):
in prison. And this was also this was voted down
by the state legislature. So yeah, Miss Gator died September three,
two nineteen, So before COVID nineteen hit, she died uh
in a New York State prison. Um, having never tasted
free air again. So that's yeah, that's a bummer. Um.
(39:22):
It's also worth noting that while Cuomo did order the
release of people who were held up on parole violations,
and has released a number of of older non violent offenders. UM.
He's repeatedly insisted that people who are incarcerated on some
sort of violent crime uh not be released, regardless of
their age. UM. And he also insisted that state correction
(39:43):
officers not be allowed to wear masks until April six.
That was when the state of New York finally allowed
corrections officers to wear masks on the job, which probably
contributed to the fact that a number of correction officers
have died in the state of New York. UM so
blame the sasoning behind that. I I really don't. It's
(40:03):
very dumb. Um yeah, Like if not like that is
like it's baffling to me that that would even be
like yeah. So basically, before April two, there was a
directive from the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision that
prohibited employees from wearing masks quote unless medically necessary for
the job and the area they work in and for
(40:26):
whatever Yeah, for whatever reason, that didn't apply in a pandemic. Um. Basically,
there was a lot of quibbling going on about whether
or not every individual needed to wear a mask for
their specific point in the job, and like rather than
just being sane about it and being like, okay, well
you know, uh, maybe when there's a pandemic, everyone needs
(40:47):
to wear a mask all the time. And and they
they quibbled about like who needed to and then fifty
officer and sergeants got COVID nineteen. Yeah, it's a bummer.
It is dumb. It just seems like a bureaucratic rule
that was in place and then get released, like April
two is real late for that to that to be
(41:09):
dealt with a lot of guards and a lot of
prisoners and we'll never know how many prisoners got sick
as a result of this, um they don't even know.
So yeah, and it just it's part of this thing
like Cuomo has. There's other criticisms that have nothing to
do with the prison system to make about Cuomo's response
to COVID nineteen. But it is like really frustrating to
(41:32):
me that he's getting pointed out as like, you know,
taking this logical and fact and medicine based approach to
the virus. And that's true in some places, but it's
certainly not true of how prisons were handled were treated
in New York. Of how in New York prisoners and
guards um they were essentially like allowed to like it
(41:54):
was allowed to spread almost unchecked. The general public in
New York State received four time is the number of
tests per capita compared to inmates in prisons, even though, again,
as we've discussed inmates as individual people, because of the
higher rate of illness among them, UM are more likely
to be vulnerable to the coronavirus and because of just
the way prisons work, it's more likely to spread their
(42:15):
one fourth the number of testing per capita um, which
is a very direct way of saying that Andrew Cuomo
thinks that incarcerated people are less people and thus less
worthy of having resources spent on them and less worthy
of their lives being protected than people who are not incarcerated,
which unfortunately a lot of Americans agree with. And there's
(42:35):
this nasty thing related to the American puritanical streak um,
which is a big thing in this country, which that
whereas this like this like revulsion Americans have at the
idea that a prisoner that we are more revolted by
the idea that a couple of guilty people might go
free than the idea of a lot of of of
(42:56):
basically decent people not continue to be punished. One of
the things that I think best illustrates the toxicity of
this kind of like this cruelty streak towards prisoners in
American culture is the case of Willie Horton. So Willie
Horton is a convicted and he's still alive today, is
a convicted American felon who was serving a life sentence
for murder, a murder he committed in nineteen seventy four.
(43:17):
He was furloughed under a program that the state of
Massachusetts stated which allowed like prisoners to be essentially let
out on the weekends if they met certain conditions, and
he was furloughed in nineteen eighty six. Uh In in in
nineteen eighties seven, he twice raped a woman after pistol whipping, knifing, binding,
and gagging her fiance. It was a horrific crime, and
(43:38):
it was used by the Bush campaign in nineteen eighty
eight to run against Michael Ducacus, who had been the
governor of Massachusetts when this program was instituted, and they
made a big deal about the weekend passes that prisoners
were being allowed, and the idea was that, see, these
Democrats tried to take it easy on a prisoner, and
this woman got raped, and like, that's means that we
(44:00):
should never we should like it's always a bad idea
to even consider easing up on any of these people
and trying to rehabilitate them. And this is behind white
people like Cuomo and people like Governor Insley of Washington
why they have all made like such a point of saying,
no one who is in for any kind of a
violent offense is going to be considered for release. UM.
And it's because of the Willie Horton effect. It's because
(44:22):
that this is like widely considered to be one of
the things of not the major thing that cost to
Caucus the eighty at election UM. And one of the
most infuriating things about the Willy Horton effect is that
the Massachusetts furlough program existed to help reduce recidivism, and
by some accounts it had a success rate. UM. This
was an extremely successful program when it came towards actually
(44:45):
UM helping to reintegrate prisoners into society UM and allow
them to rebuild their lives and and exist in the future.
As a person who does not hurt people. It was
extremely successful. The program was straighting that one the one
example of it going south is the only thing that
(45:09):
people focus on instead of the positive impact. Yeah, and
it's the same thing you see with that rants guy
I posted earlier, I talked about earlier, where like, um,
you know, you have this program to release people to
try and stop them. Are people dying from COVID nineteen
and immediately right wing commentators are looking for every example
of a crime committed by one of them. And so
you've got, you know, a thousand people at least, and
(45:30):
three of them committed minor fucking crimes. And we're gonna
we're gonna hammer this home. And these liberal governors, because
most of them are pretty fundamentally cowards, are going to
they respond to that. None of them want to get
Willie Horton's absolutely, it's just I mean the same thing
we see we saw for the past few years with dreamers. Yeah,
and like it's the way, just the way they talk
like okay, well here's one and they're bad. Therefore, it's
(45:54):
why the president got away even though like people got pissed.
That's why he gets away with talking about like the
animals and stuff like that. Yeah, and it's I mean,
to be honest, it's the same thing you see with
like Syrian refugees and in particularly Germany, where like it's
a big thing on their right to point out like, look,
you know, this guy was a refugee, he committed a rape.
This guy was a refugee and he committed rape. And
(46:15):
it's like, yeah, they let a million people into the country.
Some of them are going to be rapists. Yes, when
you when you take when you take a million, yeah,
some of them will be rapists, Like especially if it's Hollywood. Uh.
And that doesn't mean that everyone else should be. Yeah,
it's it's it's frustrating, but it's also incredibly easy too,
(46:38):
because you can't argue against it, right, Like if you're
arguing in favor of prison furloughs and the other person
just has to bring up the case of one furloughed
prisoner who committed a rape, um, you you can't. There's
no argument against that. I mean, there is a logical argument,
which is that, Okay, but what about all these thousands
of people who are now living lives and contributing to
society and who are back with their family members and
like what about like like they matter too, but they
(47:03):
it's not something you can actually win in a rhetorical sense.
And the biggest bummer about this is that from a
perspective of actually winning re election and from a perspective
of actually like maintaining and holding their political power, I
suspect all of these governors are making the right decision, um,
which I think is the morally wrong decision, but I
think it will work. Yeah, because Americans fucking hate incarcerated people.
(47:27):
They really do. Yeah. Yeah. For for hating and crustrated
people so much, we sure do make a lot of them. Yeah.
It's all part of a much bigger conversation about prisons
in general, which I think we should do at some point. Um.
You know, I'm very interested in the prison abolition movement
versus prison reform, you know, because it's hard to say
(47:51):
abolish prison when there's you know, so many people that
are there are a lot of violent offenders or people
that the general population would not be quick to saying yes,
let's let them free. It's complicated. But prison in general, Oh,
if there's just so many there's so many issues that
(48:12):
I have, and when people do go out how they're
not get out there not set up for success, they're
not set up to be reintegrated. We've just got it
such a gnarled view of freedom and humanity. And like, yeah,
I'll share another personal story. My my loved one that
was in San Quentin while they were there, you know,
(48:35):
drug charges and everything. Was was started on antidepressants and
when he was released, they refused to give him his
anti represence or even a prescription, and he was released
without health insurance, without anything. Uh. And you know with
(48:58):
drug situations, like a lot of that has to do
with depression and mental illness. And of course it didn't
take long for him to be back in jail and
there was no support system. We fought to try to
get him his medications and then we couldn't get it.
And one of the reasons why, because you're one of
(49:21):
the point you're making that's really good, Katie, is that
when these people get out, they don't get out. They're
not released with the things they need to take care
of themselves or with an ability to take care of themselves,
and that that increases recidivism. Like that guy who's winds
up shoplifting from a Fred Meyer um, because he just
got out of jail during a pandemic and he can't
(49:43):
get a job and he needs food. Um. And then
he becomes fuel for the right wing gristmill and it's
the same. Like. Part of the reason the furlough program
was so successful is that by letting these people out
on the weekends, they were able to maintain relationships with
family and friends. And one of the number one factors
that determines whether or not a criminal will after being
(50:04):
released from from prison, will commit more crimes is whether
or not they have a support network. Um. It's it's
also be released into the same community that you, uh,
that are that you were in prior to being incarcerated.
(50:24):
So if you are a drug addict and you're released
into the same environment that you were before and you
don't have that support system, uh, what support system do
you have? You have the people that you knew, and
it's a real easy path back. But yes, having that
furlough program, I imagine yet you can strengthen bonds, reconnect
with with family members. You can also start to test
(50:47):
the waters of being back in public uh and and
figuring out what your boundaries are or how it feels
to be out there. Do you know what I mean.
It's it's a gradual reintroduction. Yeah, it's jarring to it's
a different world. And yeah, on theme with our title
(51:10):
of the show and itself, we are ending this episode
on a collective side. No, actually we're not. I have
something to say. As Cody mentioned earlier in the episode,
later this week, we will be releasing an interview we
did with some organizers in Michigan who have been fighting
(51:33):
this issue. Yeah. The group is no Detention Centers in Michigan. UM.
And they're specifically protesting against the opening of a private
for profit or of the Sorry, they're organizing against a
recently opened private for profit immigration prison in Baldwin, Michigan,
owned and operated by the GEO Group. Um, the Geo Group.
So yeah, they're they're and these are these are immigrant
(51:55):
detention centers for like, for non US citizens who have
committed crimes. Um. And they're they're, as you can imagine,
pretty brutal places. Um. Yeah, absolutely them later this week,
and and they've been experiencing you know, we we all
heard those stories. I think maybe maybe not. Who can
assume what people have seen in all of this chaos? Uh,
(52:16):
you know, a lot of people in ice detention facilities
have been uprooted and sent across this country to other facilities,
and and there's a lot of stuff happening there. But
I say this to also mentioned that one the point
that they made and I'd like to make now is
that you can find local groups that are organizing, uh
(52:39):
to to fight this. And I encourage you to do that,
to look up the prisons near you, in your your
county and and see what efforts are being done, because
that would be a good way to channel your frustration
right now. Positive note achieved spectacular. Guys can and check
(53:00):
us out online at Worst Year Pod, on Twitter and
on Instagram, and you could follow us all as well.
I'm sure you have those handles. Google our names and
the word Twitter, you'll find us. And I guess that
does it for us. Today. We're gonna go have better Mondays,
I think, and I hope you guys do as well.
Except it will probably be Wednesday. Have a better Wednesday,
(53:26):
have a good whatever day, everything everything, so it's not again.
Worst Year Ever is a production of I Heart Radio.
For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i
heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to
(53:46):
your favorite shows,
Welcome to Worst Year Ever, a production of I Heart
Radio Together Everything, So don't don't do Hi, America and
(00:22):
other places that I presume exists but cannot currently prove
the reality of. Uh, this is the worst year ever,
as you're aware of because you're living through it. And
I am Robert Evans here today with my co hosts
Stole yp There we go, Cody dot Katie, Cody dot Katie,
(00:44):
Stole dot Kate. Um, you'd both be dot orgs. I
am not. I did not register myself as an organ. Oh,
you'd better not have done with dot us because that's
a real pain in the ass. M. I don't like
I accidentally ceo dot c O. Ye, that would be
(01:07):
good at Oh and you could be if you could,
if you move to Canada, you could be Katie dot
c A. I'd love to move to Canada. Actually, right
now I'm thinking Denmark looks good. Denmark's looking good. Uh.
You know who you know who did a really good
job of handling their coronavirus outbreak? Apparently? Yeah, I mean yes,
(01:31):
A number of places that aren't where we live did
did jobs in very different tactics. Yeah, it seems like
they got a handle on it, so I know, open
air prisons. Prisons. Yeah, well we are not. We hadn't
we We had not introduced the subject of this week's episode.
(01:54):
But Cody, thank you for doing that. We speaking of
prisons was the best that's every went one accident speaking
of prisons. Let's all stop saying that our homes are
like a prison, because that is not fair to prisons
or doing justice to the situation which we are going
(02:15):
to talk about today. Yes, yes, yeah, I'm always whenever
I hear that, I'm always reminded of Um. I apologize
to listeners that one episode of The Office where they
had like a prisoner work program, yes, and everyone was
referring to the Office as a prison, and Michael Scott
was like, no, it's actually good see and everyone's like, yeah, obviously,
obviously it's not like prison. Yes, although I will say,
(02:40):
are are are the current the current terms that under
which many Americans, including ourselves, are our our social distancing.
If you were going to compare it to a prison,
you might compare it to the kind of prison that
people go to after they steal billions of dollars um
and and cause tens of thousands of people to lose
their homes like that. It's like it's like it's like
(03:02):
white collar crime prison. It's broadly like that. It's like
Jeffrey Epstein prison. Well, no, no, no, the first time around,
the first time around he went, he went to a
cushy prison place where he was allowed out every day
to go to work. Yeah, we're all experiencing something that's like,
(03:23):
like broadly similar to how Jeffrey Epstein was incarcerated the
first time. Yes, that's that's a good way to look
at it. Yeah, my experiences to Yeah, is that the
end of the episode. Are we done now? Yeah, we're done.
We've we've hit it. No, speaking of open air prisons,
Jeffrey Epstein is episode. Yes, yeah, this was this was
(03:47):
all part of our our goal of tying Jeffrey Epstein's
first incarceration, uh to the the lockdown of Gaza Um
for reasons that I think have escaped us all and
never made a much sense to begin with, And we're
always a bad idea. Thank you for listening, yep. Goodbye.
In conclusion, goodbye, Uh, Okay, are we gonna start the episode? Um?
(04:16):
I'll go because I think my section probably first, because
it's about like yeah, okay, all right, So just for
listener's sake, none of us are doing great with the
quarantine today the month we're recording this, and and so
starting this episodes a little bit of a ship show
because I think I don't want to speak for everyone else,
but this is also me starting my week, and it's
not going great. It's definitely the beginning of a new week,
(04:40):
and UM, we're all to our best, which is not
very good. No, it's not. It doesn't sound like it's
great today. UM. We so obviously, as I'm sure at
least the title has indicated, we certainly have not the
hosts of the show. UM, but we're going to talk
about prisons today and this week. We have an interview
later this week as well on this topic. UM. Because
(05:04):
if you've been reading the news, which for that, I
am sorry if you have been. Um, there's a lot
of a lot of COVID cases in prisons, UM, and
a lot of discussion about what to do about that
and protests going on. We'll we'll get into all of it,
but is generally and like I won't get into the
(05:24):
conditions of prisons in general. I think listeners and hosts
and everybody probably No, it's not not great good guests.
Good guests would be not great. Um, but just in
terms of this pandemic and the things that we all
need to do, like social distancing. Um, the inmate population
(05:45):
federal prisons exceeds their rated capacity by twelve to Yeah,
if I can interject, I found a startling statistics. So
California has one of a really bad problem with current
virus and its prisons. Ten years ago, a federal court
ordered the state to reduce its in mate population and
(06:06):
they were required to reduce it to less than a
hundred and thirty seven point five percent of capacity. So
they were they were above a hundred and thirty five
point seven percent capacity of their prisons. Um, there are
today a hundred and fourteen thousand people housed in California's
main prisons, which were designed to support eighty five thousand people.
(06:28):
So just like, and that's as Cody saying, that's a
nationwide thing. I just picked California because it's kind of
like the starkest example. But um, that's like, that's like
say your your local concert hall is supposed to fit
three hundred people and they fit five hundred people in there.
You're not going to be happy about that for a
(06:50):
variety of reasons. And I actually do think it's maybe
a good idea just to quickly say some of the
things that are are wrong with prisons in general, even
outside of coronavirus, their existence, their existence, sure not the
whole conversation as well. But you know, it's not cleanly,
it's not safe. Uh they as you mentioned, you know,
(07:12):
overcrowding of prisons is a real epidemic, and it's a
real problem, and there's a lot of social issues and
reasons why it is that way. But it's impossible for
prisoners to keep distance from each other. It's impossible to
even maintain a bare minimum of cleanliness that is required
to survive this pandemic. You know, they don't have to
(07:34):
water like we do, or soap. Yeah, they can't. They
aren't allowed to have antibacterial soap because there's alcohol in
it and so they could drink it. Um. So that
was an initial problem. Another major problem is that nationwide
and estimated, incarcerated people in jails and prisons have at
least one chronic medical condition, which renders them significantly more
(07:55):
vulnerable to COVID nineteen UM. Thanks thanks for participating. By
the way, a Katie, in this long hijacking of Cody's
train of thought, you should return things to Cody now.
I mean it's all nested in the whole point, um,
which is that even if like let's say, even capacity
was down and uh that's not good. Uh that's not ideal.
(08:17):
No reason one likes to be on a full plane flight, right, Um,
like this wouldn't be an ideal situation to implement any
of these things anyway. And it just so happens that
it's much worse than that. Yeah, if the problem were
less bad than it is, it would be a problem, right, cool,
(08:40):
Very cool. Yeah, it's just it. It's happening everywhere in counties.
You'll see here is all these reported cases in this county,
like Brazoria County in Texas, cases were reported. Five of
those were from their facility. It's just over and over.
Last week, the majority of inmates hadn't been tested. In
(09:02):
Cook County Jail in Chicago, even though the majority had
not been tested, they still had two hundred and thirty
inmates and one fifteen staff members testing positive. In Ohio,
the Marrying Correctional Institution had two thousand, eleven inmates testing positive,
which is eight percent of their prison population. UM. Again
(09:24):
speaking of staff, on d fifty four of fifty staff
UH tested positive. UM. And also NPR reported that, Uh
these tests were two thousand eleven inmates were testing positive.
They didn't even get to see the results of their tests. UM.
They like, the tests were done and they found out,
oh this many prisoners here had are testing positive, but
(09:49):
the individuals did not get informed of whether or not
they tested positive. UM, which makes all of the things
that we need to do harder. UM. Again would to
been easy, but they made it harder. UM. There's a
lot security prison in San Pedro called Terminal Island UM
and nine cute name, a great name for the current situation.
(10:13):
Terminal Island, my god, Uh, six ninety three of its
one thousand, forty two and sixty of their prison are
testing positive. UM and nice yeah, really close to being nice. Um.
But it's just case after case of this kind of thing. Yeah.
(10:35):
And there's the uh speaking of like funk ups in prisons.
There was just like, Michigan has the highest death rate
of any UH state in terms of like prisoners dying
of COVID nineteen and a story just dropped a few
days ago that three inmates who were infected were sent
to one of Michigan's prisons that had no coronavirus cases
just because up and testing, which is craft. But it
(10:58):
wasn't full of mirth or away. And yeah, like you were,
you were alluding to, like a lot of them, A
lot of prisoners have pre existing conditions and certain extreme cases.
Um and Uh, there's what Federal Medical Center in Fort Worth,
which is where a lot of them go. Um, there
are at six cases there out of four sixty three people. Um.
(11:24):
It's because of the conditions of not only the facilities,
but also of the inmates there. Um and so it's
just there's so many everywhere, and it's it's clearly a
problem these kinds of places specifically. Um and there. You
know prisons, we all we all know co hosts and listeners,
(11:47):
everybody of the problems with prisons in general. We've talked
about it on the show. Um. But there's just so
many people there that are elderly that have these can
auditions and problems, that have been in prison for decades
and probably don't need to be there anymore. Like there's
(12:08):
a study from the Brennan Center for Justice that found
no compelling public safety reason to incarce rate thirty nine
percent of the inmates in state and federal prisons. It's
about five seventy six thousand people. Elderly Americans are especially
unlikely to commit further crimes once released. The United States
Sentence and Commission found in twenty seventeen the defenders over
(12:28):
the age of sixty five had just a thirteen point
four percent chance of being re arrested in an eight
year period after release, compared to a sixty seven point
six percent chance for those under age twenty one. UM.
So these are people who have been in prison for
decades and decades for things, you know, ranging from uh,
it could be a violent defense, it could be like
a tax thing, it could be any like having like
(12:51):
a little bit of weed on him, who knows. Um.
But they're over sixty five, and if you release them
into the public to get them out of this situation
that they're not in there for this, they're not in
there to die of this virus UM, then it's not
like an immense threat to public safety to release them.
(13:12):
And it's very frustrating because, um, if you if you
try to lay out the actual facts of incarceration in America. Um,
you wind up like like ian like okay. So one
of the arguments you'll hear for people who will complain
about how many people are incarcerated is the number of
(13:33):
non violent drug offenders, and that is a problem. But
the the reality of the situation is that most people
who are incarcerated in the United States for long sentences
have committed some sort of violent crime. UM. The numbers
are that about fifty of federal inmates something somewhere around there,
a little over half are on some sort of drug offense.
(13:54):
But that's about ten percent of the incarcerated total UM.
And more than half of people who are incarce aided
in state prisons have some sort of violent offense. Now
that's even more complicated than it sounds for a number
of reasons. One of them is that when you like
the data that we have that determines like whether or
not somebody's you know, doing time for a violent or
non violent defense, it is based on what is marked
(14:16):
down as their most severe UM charge. So in a
lot of cases that means that someone who has domestic
violence and a heroin charge might look like a non
violent heroin offender, even though no, that's a person who
actually did commit a violent crime. It's just that our
system considered the heroine crime to be a more severe crime. Um.
The second factor in that, though, is that a lot
(14:36):
of people who commit crimes like robbery and burglary that
may not have involved a violent crime but are considered
violent crimes get written down as violent criminals. Um. But
the broader issue is that this leads to a situation
wherein a lot of Americans, if if they find out
someone has a violent crime in their history period, um,
(14:59):
then they suddenly have no desire in You know, a
lot of Americans have gotten on board the idea that
like drug offenders should be let out and consistently, when
people are asked to estimate what percentage of the prison
population are non violent drug offenders, they vastly overestimate how
many Americans are just in prison for a drug offense.
But when and so when people find out like like
(15:20):
like like so when you you've looked at the way
governors have approached talking about releasing because like in New
York and in Californian and Michigan, in a number of
states Washington, UM, you have had governors releasing at least
temporarily non violent offenders, but they all point out that
they don't want to release violent offenders and that this
will not affect violent offenders. And as Cody notes, for
one thing, it is incredibly unlikely for elderly offenders to reoffend.
(15:45):
It very very rarely happens. Just to interject like, isn't
that the point? Like, yeah, it should be like that
people emergeformative restorative justice, like people should be the point,
and it would be the point, and it it it's
it's this we have this difficulty. So there's another study
(16:07):
was reading about where they they asked people to imagine
one of their um, their relatives, a loved one, a
family member was murdered, and what sentence they think would
be effective, would be fair for the murderer, And people
pick obviously very very harsh sentences. They want they want
the book thrown at the person who took their loved
one away from them, which of course makes sense. But
(16:29):
when people are asked to imagine that a loved one
committed one of those crimes, um they consider the recommended
sentence to be considerably more lenient. Because when we think
about people we care about it's easier to imagine even
if they did something horrible, Um, we can imagine them
redeeming themselves because we see them as complete human beings
who may have done something terrible but that aren't washed
(16:50):
out and so like that. This is part of the
complexity of communicating the issues that we're having with incarceration
to people. I've had a really interesting article hole in
um a Washington. It was like a Washington conservative radio
uh jock kind of piece of ship, Jason Rants, who
was complaining that Governor Insley had released about a thousand prisoners, um,
(17:14):
which is is was uh not a lot of prisoners.
So this guy was pointing out that like, well, we
said on the right when they said, you know, we
conservatives said that when they started releasing prisoners, was gonna
go bad. And sure enough, just a couple of weeks
after he released these prisoners, you know, a bunch of
them have reoffended. And then you get through the article
and it turns out that three people have reoffended, and
the three re offenses out of the thousand, what's the
(17:37):
legal definition of a bunch? Yeah, yeah, he says that,
Um yeah, it's it's it's very frustrating. So and the
and the three offenses are one person like went on
a high speed chase and was charged with a felony
account of eluding police um and to misdemeanor charges of
obstructing an officer and driving with a suspended license. Um.
No violent crimes, no one hurt, nothing, nothing all. I
(18:00):
wonder when he could have renewed his license. Yeah, he's
been out. I wonder why he ran away from the
cops that he's afraid of. Yeah, it's frustrating. Another person
UM had gotten high on methamphetamines and used a crowbar
to break wooden boards that were like had been boarded
(18:22):
up over a window. Like he was just like fucked
up on meth and hitting boards with a crowbar. So again,
no real damage to poverty and no violence against the human.
And then the third person had stolen seventy dollars from
a grocery worth of items from a grocery store. Yeah, okay, yeah,
(18:42):
it's like, yeah, boy, sure would be better if they
were dying. And this is what I like. This is
why it's one of the frosting things too for me
is seeing like seeing that framing of it, and I'm
sure I'm sure that this rants fellow. Ah, if it
(19:03):
were not like a radio rant or whatever, if it
was like a published piece, they would have shown the
original mug shots of those people when they were originally
arrested as the photo that you see of them. Uh,
because they're scary. There's the mug shots are scary, you see,
So yeah, to show those, So you got to show
them people out there worst. Um, we need to take
(19:24):
a really quick break, you know, for the products and
services that you know drive this show. But then we're
gonna come back and we're gonna talk about some of
the protests we're seeing pop up around the country and
what they are protesting all that stuff. You know. Yeah,
I'm gonna reopen the gems, take some meth hit boards
with a crowbar and justify your incarceration and death by
(19:49):
a virus in doing so, and also products together, everything
we are have become returned. We are have become returned. Indeed, Um,
(20:10):
as I alluded to before the break, I'm gonna talk
a little bit about the prison protests that we are
seeing popping up and uh, to your point, Cody, Yes,
earlier on people probably have heard about how jails are epicenters,
truly epicenters for the outbreaks that we're seeing throughout America,
(20:34):
not just because of the prisoners, although everybody should be
caring about the fact that prisoners are being treated un humanely,
but also correctional officers, people that work in the facilities
and then go home and spread the virus to the
counties that they live in. So that's really important and
and hopefully you guys have seen that and you are
(20:55):
aware of the situation, just like nursing homes are also epicenters. Okay,
get off topic, but my problem is that the mainstream
media has not and has never been good about covering
protests around prisons, you know, the lamb stream. Oh my god.
(21:18):
I mean, we have seen hunger strikes at prisons in
the past, for for conditions that we've talked about, you know,
all sorts of strikes, and they never really break the
surface of of media coverage. And I find that that
is true here. I mean, there are there are definitely
little articles about all this stuff popping up, but I
(21:40):
don't see very much top down coverage of of these things.
Um so I've probably together something of a list here.
I want to also just really like that on that point,
like they can't get enough of covering the protests of
the people who want to go to the right exactly.
They are obsessed with the haircut people, um but they
(22:03):
can't bring themselves to do more than a minute on
like on these or even just like nurses and doctors protesting.
There's so many other protests going on that aren't just
a bunch of weirdos who want to get a fucking haircut.
Very frustrating. Yeah, they're also not covering. Yeah, yeah, there's
it's it's frustrating. Is we all agreed on that. It's frustrating.
(22:28):
It's settled. That's why we're talking about it here today.
And I assume that the majority of our listeners care
about the conditions these people are living through. But if
you don't at least care about the fact this is
this is a very compelling argument that our country will
not have this under control until we figure out how
(22:48):
to handle the outbreaks in prisons as well. Okay, cool,
So some of the places that have had protests. In April,
more than a hundred prisoners at Monroe Prison in Washington State,
um UH protested after six prisoners and five staff members
were diagnosed with COVID nineteen. From what I understand, a
(23:10):
couple of fire alarms were set off and then the
buildings were evacuated, leading the innate sitting in a field,
some of them in masks, protesting the lack of attention
being paid to the situation. Eventually, the infected prisoners were
moved to isolation units. So that's something, although also a
thing um here in California, I don't know what that means.
(23:33):
And then the official word from the prison is the
situation is under control. Okay, don't worry, we put them
in solitary. Yeah. Here in California, citizens organized a protest
outside of San Quentin um, which is personally important to me.
I do not have a family member in San Quentin currently,
(23:53):
but I have had a family member in San Quentin
in the past for a long time. It was a
horrifying experience. Uh, they were drug charges and uh, you know,
because of other things ends up there. It's a whole thing.
But anyway, that to me stood out because I have
(24:15):
spent a lot of time worrying about a loved one
who has been incarcerated specifically there. Anyway, organizers respected social
distancing by using a car caravan to demonstrate on Saturday.
You know, they would circle around, you know, hanking their horns,
protesting the conditions in there. They were also calling for
(24:36):
prisoners who are over the age of sixty to be released. Yeah,
there have been similar car protests like that all over
the states. In Indiana back in April, organizers circled Westville
Correctional Facility after a hundred and forty three inmates and
thirty six correctional officers tested positive for coronavirus. And Raleigh,
North Korean, Rolina. Just this past weekend, another socially distant
(24:57):
protest was organized. Cars circle the central prison, honking horns,
and other people marched on foot carrying signs. This is
from a local news station there. Julie Schneider, organizer of
the protest, joined the dozens of people who took part
in the social distance protests in their vehicles as others
held up signs while walking around the prison. She and
others demanded an end to solitary confinement practices and improved
(25:20):
food and medical treatment during the coronavirus outbreak. Over years
and years, what we've seen in DPS facilities is systemic
ignoring if any kind of human rights, so that happened there.
There were also similar protests also in North Carolina and Goldsboro.
In Cleveland, actually city councilmen, but shir Jones took part
in a COVID nineteen protests outside the Marian Correctional Institution.
(25:45):
They have over more than two thousand infected inmates and
over a hundred and seventy five staff members UH with
coronavirus as of early May. UH. Marian is considered one
of the hardest hit COVID nineteen hot pots in the nation.
That's both believable and wildly unbelievable. You know, this is
an enormous outbreak. Again pointing to what I'd said earlier,
(26:08):
it doesn't stay contained in the prison. It goes out
to the community. Gosh, there's so many more. They're in Portland,
in San Diego and Florida. It's just these are not
stories that many people are aware of and tracking, or
even no are happening so that they could go and
join in the protests, you know what I mean. UM,
And that leads me to ICE facilities UM detainees that
(26:32):
several ICE facilities have gone on strike to demand sanitary
supplies UH and apparently in some places, it's been sort
of effective. Federal judges in California and Pennsylvania have ordered
ICE to release several detainees who have sued UH and
there are also lawsuits happening in other states, though I'm
not clear where they stand at this point, but it's
very case by case. UM. At the Stewart Detention Center,
(26:55):
which is a privately run ICE facility in Georgia, there
have been some unsuccessful examples of impaintes protesting their treatment
during the pandemic. Apparently sick patients were being ignored, the
problems weren't being addressed. UM. And this one I'm going
to read from is from the intercept. Carlos was on
his bed feeling sick when he turned to look out
(27:17):
the window and saw a group of detainees running out
a side door leading to a recreation yard. Several correctional
officers were giving chase. At first, Carlo thought that there
was a fire, but he saw correctional staff use pepper
spray and the detainees. Daniel, another detainee whose name has
also been changed, saw it all happened from a unit
across the hall. People were asking for medical attention for
(27:39):
some of the sick people in here, Daniel said. But
because they the staff didn't pay attention, they began protesting.
They started placing sheets on the windows and doors, Daniel said.
The correctional office began deploying gas, throwing detainees on the floor,
taking them in handcuffs too. He assumed solitary confinement, or
as they called it, the whole all so in this
(28:00):
article UH, they explained that there is a special unit
of correctional officers task with suppressing detainee disturbances, akin to
a swat team. The pepper spraying unit is known as
the Special Operations Response Team or SORT. The SORT unit,
which has not previously been reported on, is trained to
use riot shields, helmets, pepper spray, and pepper ball ammunition.
(28:23):
The whole article is pretty ghoulish. Apparently, this use of
force has happened twice against prisoners protesting coronavirus UH, and
both times correctional officers have gone on and and like
celebrated their use of force and stuff on social media posts.
Also from the article, The posts and aggregate gives a
(28:46):
series of snapshots of the SORT team's actions against the
protesting detainees. In one social media post, a sort officer
said he shot all the detainees in sight with pepper
ball projectiles. It was he said, call of Do Demode,
referring to a violent first person video game series about
going to war. Um, it's pretty horrifying, way like one
(29:10):
of those times in Call of Duty where you fire
into a crowd of unarmed people with pepper spray paintballs. Yeah.
And again, so what are the things that they're protesting.
They seem pretty reasonable to me that conditions prisoners are
being held in are improved, that they have access to
medical care. You know, that they're not treating sick patients
(29:31):
or isolating them in many cases. And I don't mean
putting them in solitary confinement. I mean removing them from
a crowded cell block. And as we've alluded to, also
for the releasing of inmates to reduce the number of
incarcerated individuals, especially people that do not need to be there, um,
you know, for a variety of reasons. If we're like
(29:53):
being realistic, like do they deserve to be given a
death sentence for their marijuana charges from fifteen years ago? Yeah?
And that's why I want to that because a number
of people have had their their lesser sentences become death sentences.
And I'm about to get to that. In March, William
(30:14):
Barr actually ordered officials running federal prisons to immediately maximize
the release of prisoners to home combinement, you know, to
help prevent the spread, and you know, urged them to
focus on the most vulnerable people and facilities, uh, such
as elderly people. UM. And that's the fine, that's that's
(30:35):
a good move, you know, somewhat surprising from them, but UM,
kind of it hasn't really moved the needle. I mean,
you can push back on this, but from what I'm
looking at, uh, this only applies to about two thousand
of the hundred and seventy thousand inmates and the federal
correction system. UM. And the majority of the over two
(30:55):
million prisoners currently being held in the United States are
you know, states or or local level. UM. So that
leaves the decision of what to do with the majority
of the prisoners at the discretion of local governments and governors,
which I know you've prepared some stuff on Robert UM. Yeah,
I mean I wanted to talk in the context of
(31:17):
people having their their sentences turned into death sentences. I
wanted to talk about E from Stutson. E from Stutson.
UM was convicted for selling cocaine. Uh. He served twenty
seven years in Lompoc Prison in California, and he was
released on April one. UM. Within hours of getting off
of his bus in San Bernardino, he was hospitalized for
(31:39):
COVID nineteen and he was dead five days later. UM.
And his sister says that, yeah, he told her as
he was in his last days in prison that he
started to get sick. Um. He was not released then, Uh,
even though it would have improved his chances to have
immediately been released to a hospital. UM. Instead, he spent
days sick in prison and then was released and died
(31:59):
to meeting upon coming back out into the world for
the first time in almost thirty years. UM. And there's
a number of stories like that. It's just it's horrible. UM. Yeah, yeah,
And that's I mean, that's a whole other thing. Like
even in releasing a lot of people, if we're to
do that, like a lot of them don't have those
connections in the real world anymore. So what did they
(32:21):
do and where do they go? I Mean, it's the
same thing with the story that you talked about earlier
with the few inmates that have committed crimes, stole some food,
you know, or got chased by the cops and arrested
because they didn't have a valid drivers trying to try
to get somewhere needed food like this. I mean, I'm
(32:42):
not saying we should be going and stealing food, but
you can understand it's too late. You've said it, Yes,
steal food and you know, while you're at it, hit
some boards with a crowbar while on methamphetamine. YEA, all
good calls. I wanted to talk about some of the
governors that we've we've been celebrating recently for their their
(33:02):
relative competence in the face of the COVID nineteen epidemic.
Um because like Cuomo is a good example, so he's
enjoys something popularity right now. The villain from the mask
Governor Cuomo is he wait what No, but look just
look up the UM. Okay, that makes sense because he
(33:26):
is essentially I believe he would fight. I don't know,
I don't remember. I don't remember anything about the mask
Cody other than Jim Carey's face is green and he
has that big that big comedy gun. It's like it's
like a lot, right, so it's it's smoking And wasn't
wasn't in the actual comics that it's based on. Wasn't
he like a horrible rapist murderer? Yeah, it's way worse. Yeah,
(33:47):
much darker. It's not not great in the movie either,
like most Jim Carrey movies, I guess of that era
in retrospect. Yeah, we let him get away with a
lot in the nineties. Um, but yeah, speaking of getting
away with a lot, but Andrew Cuomo, like Stanley Yell,
NAT's he is getting away with a lot. As you
(34:09):
pointed out, you know, Jim Carrey was able to get
away with a lot in the nineteen nineties. We all
as a society decided that he said, somebody stopped me,
and then we said no, no, no, no, we want
We're like, no, no, go on please. Yeah. Yeah, and
his if you rewatch old Jim Carrey movies, with the
exception of a spin cur At two, Um, they're all
they're all uh monstrous uh and and and the characters
(34:33):
that we're supposed to identify with do horrible things. And
we just let Jim Carrey get away with it because
he was really good at making that one face and
and pretending to talk with his butt, and it was
a simpler time, and we all decided that was okay.
And in a similar manner, Governor Andrew Cuomo of New
York City has been allowed to get away with some
horrific actions because he's doing the gubernatorial equivalent of talking
(34:57):
with his butt. Um in a funny ha haa movie
which is I guess talk like an adult. Um. I
don't know it breaks down here, but you know what
doesn't break down are the products and services that support
this podcast. So we're going to talk about cuomsy. But
first here's ads Ubernatorial, my brother. I've got a joke
(35:21):
gubernatorial more like goober you know, booger booger. Yeah, these
are the kind of jokes you don't get with NPR podcasts,
A bunch of hacks together everything. So we talked earlier
(35:48):
in the episode about how old people, when released from prison,
even if they were released from violent crimes, are are
very unlikely to reoffend for a variety of reasons, including
and this is like again, it's one of the things
that it's hard to get a lot of people on
board with because you hear like someone was jailed because
they're part of a robbery where someone got murdered, and
the argument is always like, okay, well that other person,
(36:09):
you know, never gets a chance for justice. And it's like, yeah,
you know, that's that's that's fair. It's an injust universe.
But is it really better to just like lock them
up for forever, um, even though like we all can
acknowledge that none of us are the same person we
were at twenty, and maybe a sixty year old who's
been in prison for forty years should get a chance
to be a different person than were at nineteen when
(36:30):
they were committed armed robbery or whatever. Um, I don't know.
That's kind of my failing on the matter. But um,
what a messed up view of the world. Robert, Yeah,
it was not. It really depends on their race, Robert,
you know, yeah, no, but it's true. Um, it was
not the opinion of of Governor Andrew Cuomo in two
(36:52):
thousand twelve, um that that older people should be released,
maybe after spending decades in prison, um on good behavior.
So in two thousand twelve, Valerie Gator was New York
State's longest serving incarcerated woman. Her crime she committed a
crime when she was twenty one years old. She participated
in the deaths of an elderly couple Blues during a
(37:13):
robbery gone wrong UM, and it was a pretty horrific crime.
She was also twenty one years old, UM and over
the next almost forty years in prison, she took significant
steps to change herself into a better person. She earned
multiple college degrees, She became a mentor to other prisons.
She developed programs to assist in the rehabilitation UM and
(37:34):
her programs have like earned her a number of awards
from different national organizations UM because they helped reduce recidivism
and help other prisoners to get out and rebuild their lives. UM.
In short, how dare she you would consider her the
model of what we would hope for in our prison system.
You would hope that like this would be the goal, right,
(37:55):
that somebody who committed a horrible crime when they were
very young, over the course of thirty nine years in prison,
UH could change into a multiple degree holder who develops
programs that help hundreds of other people escape their youthful
horrors and live lives. Also, to just to interject, we've
used the word recidivism a couple of times. And just
(38:16):
in case you don't know, that is the tendency of
a criminal incarcerated person to reoffend. So she applied for
clemency in two thousand twelve, um and had a number
of times because she was an old person and didn't
want to die in prison. Um in because a hell
of a lot of people thought that she deserved another
chance after spending decades proving that she deserved another chance,
(38:39):
and Andrew Cuomo personally denied her clemency application. Um. Yeah.
In two thousand nineteen, the New York State legislator legislature
considered an elder parole measure UH state Bill to one
four four. This would have allowed incarcerated older people to
appear before a parole board for a chance at release
at age fifty five after serving fifty or more years
(39:00):
in prison. And this was also this was voted down
by the state legislature. So yeah, Miss Gator died September three,
two nineteen, So before COVID nineteen hit, she died uh
in a New York State prison. Um, having never tasted
free air again. So that's yeah, that's a bummer. Um.
(39:22):
It's also worth noting that while Cuomo did order the
release of people who were held up on parole violations,
and has released a number of of older non violent offenders. UM.
He's repeatedly insisted that people who are incarcerated on some
sort of violent crime uh not be released, regardless of
their age. UM. And he also insisted that state correction
(39:43):
officers not be allowed to wear masks until April six.
That was when the state of New York finally allowed
corrections officers to wear masks on the job, which probably
contributed to the fact that a number of correction officers
have died in the state of New York. UM so
blame the sasoning behind that. I I really don't. It's
(40:03):
very dumb. Um yeah, Like if not like that is
like it's baffling to me that that would even be
like yeah. So basically, before April two, there was a
directive from the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision that
prohibited employees from wearing masks quote unless medically necessary for
the job and the area they work in and for
(40:26):
whatever Yeah, for whatever reason, that didn't apply in a pandemic. Um. Basically,
there was a lot of quibbling going on about whether
or not every individual needed to wear a mask for
their specific point in the job, and like rather than
just being sane about it and being like, okay, well
you know, uh, maybe when there's a pandemic, everyone needs
(40:47):
to wear a mask all the time. And and they
they quibbled about like who needed to and then fifty
officer and sergeants got COVID nineteen. Yeah, it's a bummer.
It is dumb. It just seems like a bureaucratic rule
that was in place and then get released, like April
two is real late for that to that to be
(41:09):
dealt with a lot of guards and a lot of
prisoners and we'll never know how many prisoners got sick
as a result of this, um they don't even know.
So yeah, and it just it's part of this thing
like Cuomo has. There's other criticisms that have nothing to
do with the prison system to make about Cuomo's response
to COVID nineteen. But it is like really frustrating to
(41:32):
me that he's getting pointed out as like, you know,
taking this logical and fact and medicine based approach to
the virus. And that's true in some places, but it's
certainly not true of how prisons were handled were treated
in New York. Of how in New York prisoners and
guards um they were essentially like allowed to like it
(41:54):
was allowed to spread almost unchecked. The general public in
New York State received four time is the number of
tests per capita compared to inmates in prisons, even though, again,
as we've discussed inmates as individual people, because of the
higher rate of illness among them, UM are more likely
to be vulnerable to the coronavirus and because of just
the way prisons work, it's more likely to spread their
(42:15):
one fourth the number of testing per capita um, which
is a very direct way of saying that Andrew Cuomo
thinks that incarcerated people are less people and thus less
worthy of having resources spent on them and less worthy
of their lives being protected than people who are not incarcerated,
which unfortunately a lot of Americans agree with. And there's
(42:35):
this nasty thing related to the American puritanical streak um,
which is a big thing in this country, which that
whereas this like this like revulsion Americans have at the
idea that a prisoner that we are more revolted by
the idea that a couple of guilty people might go
free than the idea of a lot of of of
(42:56):
basically decent people not continue to be punished. One of
the things that I think best illustrates the toxicity of
this kind of like this cruelty streak towards prisoners in
American culture is the case of Willie Horton. So Willie
Horton is a convicted and he's still alive today, is
a convicted American felon who was serving a life sentence
for murder, a murder he committed in nineteen seventy four.
(43:17):
He was furloughed under a program that the state of
Massachusetts stated which allowed like prisoners to be essentially let
out on the weekends if they met certain conditions, and
he was furloughed in nineteen eighty six. Uh In in in
nineteen eighties seven, he twice raped a woman after pistol whipping, knifing, binding,
and gagging her fiance. It was a horrific crime, and
(43:38):
it was used by the Bush campaign in nineteen eighty
eight to run against Michael Ducacus, who had been the
governor of Massachusetts when this program was instituted, and they
made a big deal about the weekend passes that prisoners
were being allowed, and the idea was that, see, these
Democrats tried to take it easy on a prisoner, and
this woman got raped, and like, that's means that we
(44:00):
should never we should like it's always a bad idea
to even consider easing up on any of these people
and trying to rehabilitate them. And this is behind white
people like Cuomo and people like Governor Insley of Washington
why they have all made like such a point of saying,
no one who is in for any kind of a
violent offense is going to be considered for release. UM.
And it's because of the Willie Horton effect. It's because
(44:22):
that this is like widely considered to be one of
the things of not the major thing that cost to
Caucus the eighty at election UM. And one of the
most infuriating things about the Willy Horton effect is that
the Massachusetts furlough program existed to help reduce recidivism, and
by some accounts it had a success rate. UM. This
was an extremely successful program when it came towards actually
(44:45):
UM helping to reintegrate prisoners into society UM and allow
them to rebuild their lives and and exist in the future.
As a person who does not hurt people. It was
extremely successful. The program was straighting that one the one
example of it going south is the only thing that
(45:09):
people focus on instead of the positive impact. Yeah, and
it's the same thing you see with that rants guy
I posted earlier, I talked about earlier, where like, um,
you know, you have this program to release people to
try and stop them. Are people dying from COVID nineteen
and immediately right wing commentators are looking for every example
of a crime committed by one of them. And so
you've got, you know, a thousand people at least, and
(45:30):
three of them committed minor fucking crimes. And we're gonna
we're gonna hammer this home. And these liberal governors, because
most of them are pretty fundamentally cowards, are going to
they respond to that. None of them want to get
Willie Horton's absolutely, it's just I mean the same thing
we see we saw for the past few years with dreamers. Yeah,
and like it's the way, just the way they talk
like okay, well here's one and they're bad. Therefore, it's
(45:54):
why the president got away even though like people got pissed.
That's why he gets away with talking about like the
animals and stuff like that. Yeah, and it's I mean,
to be honest, it's the same thing you see with
like Syrian refugees and in particularly Germany, where like it's
a big thing on their right to point out like, look,
you know, this guy was a refugee, he committed a rape.
This guy was a refugee and he committed rape. And
(46:15):
it's like, yeah, they let a million people into the country.
Some of them are going to be rapists. Yes, when
you when you take when you take a million, yeah,
some of them will be rapists, Like especially if it's Hollywood. Uh.
And that doesn't mean that everyone else should be. Yeah,
it's it's it's frustrating, but it's also incredibly easy too,
(46:38):
because you can't argue against it, right, Like if you're
arguing in favor of prison furloughs and the other person
just has to bring up the case of one furloughed
prisoner who committed a rape, um, you you can't. There's
no argument against that. I mean, there is a logical argument,
which is that, Okay, but what about all these thousands
of people who are now living lives and contributing to
society and who are back with their family members and
like what about like like they matter too, but they
(47:03):
it's not something you can actually win in a rhetorical sense.
And the biggest bummer about this is that from a
perspective of actually winning re election and from a perspective
of actually like maintaining and holding their political power, I
suspect all of these governors are making the right decision, um,
which I think is the morally wrong decision, but I
think it will work. Yeah, because Americans fucking hate incarcerated people.
(47:27):
They really do. Yeah. Yeah. For for hating and crustrated
people so much, we sure do make a lot of them. Yeah.
It's all part of a much bigger conversation about prisons
in general, which I think we should do at some point. Um.
You know, I'm very interested in the prison abolition movement
versus prison reform, you know, because it's hard to say
(47:51):
abolish prison when there's you know, so many people that
are there are a lot of violent offenders or people
that the general population would not be quick to saying yes,
let's let them free. It's complicated. But prison in general, Oh,
if there's just so many there's so many issues that
(48:12):
I have, and when people do go out how they're
not get out there not set up for success, they're
not set up to be reintegrated. We've just got it
such a gnarled view of freedom and humanity. And like, yeah,
I'll share another personal story. My my loved one that
was in San Quentin while they were there, you know,
(48:35):
drug charges and everything. Was was started on antidepressants and
when he was released, they refused to give him his
anti represence or even a prescription, and he was released
without health insurance, without anything. Uh. And you know with
(48:58):
drug situations, like a lot of that has to do
with depression and mental illness. And of course it didn't
take long for him to be back in jail and
there was no support system. We fought to try to
get him his medications and then we couldn't get it.
And one of the reasons why, because you're one of
(49:21):
the point you're making that's really good, Katie, is that
when these people get out, they don't get out. They're
not released with the things they need to take care
of themselves or with an ability to take care of themselves,
and that that increases recidivism. Like that guy who's winds
up shoplifting from a Fred Meyer um, because he just
got out of jail during a pandemic and he can't
(49:43):
get a job and he needs food. Um. And then
he becomes fuel for the right wing gristmill and it's
the same. Like. Part of the reason the furlough program
was so successful is that by letting these people out
on the weekends, they were able to maintain relationships with
family and friends. And one of the number one factors
that determines whether or not a criminal will after being
(50:04):
released from from prison, will commit more crimes is whether
or not they have a support network. Um. It's it's
also be released into the same community that you, uh,
that are that you were in prior to being incarcerated.
(50:24):
So if you are a drug addict and you're released
into the same environment that you were before and you
don't have that support system, uh, what support system do
you have? You have the people that you knew, and
it's a real easy path back. But yes, having that
furlough program, I imagine yet you can strengthen bonds, reconnect
with with family members. You can also start to test
(50:47):
the waters of being back in public uh and and
figuring out what your boundaries are or how it feels
to be out there. Do you know what I mean.
It's it's a gradual reintroduction. Yeah, it's jarring to it's
a different world. And yeah, on theme with our title
(51:10):
of the show and itself, we are ending this episode
on a collective side. No, actually we're not. I have
something to say. As Cody mentioned earlier in the episode,
later this week, we will be releasing an interview we
did with some organizers in Michigan who have been fighting
(51:33):
this issue. Yeah. The group is no Detention Centers in Michigan. UM.
And they're specifically protesting against the opening of a private
for profit or of the Sorry, they're organizing against a
recently opened private for profit immigration prison in Baldwin, Michigan,
owned and operated by the GEO Group. Um, the Geo Group.
So yeah, they're they're and these are these are immigrant
(51:55):
detention centers for like, for non US citizens who have
committed crimes. Um. And they're they're, as you can imagine,
pretty brutal places. Um. Yeah, absolutely them later this week,
and and they've been experiencing you know, we we all
heard those stories. I think maybe maybe not. Who can
assume what people have seen in all of this chaos? Uh,
(52:16):
you know, a lot of people in ice detention facilities
have been uprooted and sent across this country to other facilities,
and and there's a lot of stuff happening there. But
I say this to also mentioned that one the point
that they made and I'd like to make now is
that you can find local groups that are organizing, uh
(52:39):
to to fight this. And I encourage you to do that,
to look up the prisons near you, in your your
county and and see what efforts are being done, because
that would be a good way to channel your frustration
right now. Positive note achieved spectacular. Guys can and check
(53:00):
us out online at Worst Year Pod, on Twitter and
on Instagram, and you could follow us all as well.
I'm sure you have those handles. Google our names and
the word Twitter, you'll find us. And I guess that
does it for us. Today. We're gonna go have better Mondays,
I think, and I hope you guys do as well.
Except it will probably be Wednesday. Have a better Wednesday,
(53:26):
have a good whatever day, everything everything, so it's not again.
Worst Year Ever is a production of I Heart Radio.
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(53:46):
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