61 | Refactoring the Mass Incarceration System | Hope, Transparency, Technology

This discussion is a LinkedIn LIVE recording of the Data Binge Podcast featuring Chris Redlitz and Jason Jones, of The Last Mile, a non-profit breaking the mass incarceration cycle by combating recidivism through in-person education and post-release mentorship focused on coding and software engineering. (for those pondering what this means, recidivism is the tendency for a convicted criminal to reoffend).

The Last Mile's returned citizen alumni, maintain 0% recidivism.

Chris Redlitz is a general partner of Transmedia Capital, one of the best performing micro funds in Silicon Valley, and co-founder of The Last Mile. Through The Last Mile, Chris, along with his wife and co-founder Beverly Parenti, launched the first-ever full stack coding program inside US prisons. Previously, Chris co-founded KickLabs, which Forbes ranked as a top technology accelerator and incubated Wish, AngelList and other influential companies. He received Ad Age’s prestigious i20 award for his contributions to the development of interactive marketing and advertising. Earlier in his career, Chris was part of Reebok’s explosive growth where he held positions in sales and marketing and also owned one of the first specialty sports retail chains in Southern California. 

Jason Jones is a full-time disruptor, activist, educator, and software engineer. Jason is the Remote Instructor Manager for The Last Mile, and leads a team of educators that remotes into classrooms across the US to deliver virtual lessons in computer coding. On September 25th, 2018, Jason was released after 13 ½ years incarcerated, during which time he graduated from The Last Mile’s inaugural coding class. Three weeks before his release, Jason became the first person from his cohort to sign a work agreement with a tech company as a software engineer. Jason was also the first justice-involved person to be accepted into the Lightspeed fellowship with a team from Stanford, and today he is a participant in the Koch Associate Program.

We talk across a broad range of topics in our time together today, from the very problem that The Last Mile is committed to help solve, to the systemic impact that incarceration creates within different communities, and the importance of solving the challenges facing the formerly incarcerated and system impacted individuals in our country.

If you'd like to find out more about The Last Mile, or you are looking for ways to contribute, you can navigate to thelastmile.org/, or you can send an email to [e-mail]

Thank you for listening, and for being a part of this very important conversation.

 

Key Takeaways:

 [07:28] The context of The Last Mile (TLM) and why is it created

[09:30] What TLM means and the importance of Jason’s story

[11:31] The gap between hope and transparency for the justice impacted

[13:41] What came into Chris’s mind in creating TLM and the vision for hope and transparency

[17:12] How TLM integrated into the prison system, and the importance of story telling

[19:36] The big problems that The Last Mile is trying to solve

[20:54] The challenge of developing a support system and creating opportunities for the justice impacted

[24:39] How Ch