Living Two Lives: A Conversation With Sam Lewis

Sam Lewis is the Executive Director of the Anti Recidivism Coalition.  A former life prisoner himself, Sam understands the enormous obstacles current and formerly incarcerated people face in reintegrating themselves back into their communities and rebuilding their lives. This conversation will delve deeply into the power of redemption and rehabilitation, the importance of providing meaningful support to those who need it most, and how being of service to our communities can heal the deepest wounds we carry.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
(soft uplifting piano music)
- Hello and welcome to "A New Legacy"
where we are speaking tocommunity leaders and organizers
about building a new vision of justice.
I'm Annie Nichol, and I'mhere with my sister, Jess.
And today we are speaking with Sam Lewis,
the founder of theAnti-Recidivism Coalition.
And oh my gosh, Jess,

(00:21):
I'm so excited aboutsharing this conversation.
- Yeah, Sam is one ofthose incredible people
who went through a whole transformation
from being incarceratedwith a life sentence
for a gang-relatedhomicide to being released
and now going back into prisons

(00:42):
to help incarceratedpeople get on a new path
and re-enter society in a good way.
- Yeah, and honestly, the process
of having this conversationwas incredibly transformative
for me, for both of us.
- Mm-hm.
- Let's dive in and I'llbegin by reading Sam's bio.
- Great.
(soft pensive piano music)

(01:02):
- Sam Lewis is the executive director
of the Anti-Recidivism Coalition, ARC.
A former life prisoner himself,
Sam understands the variousobstacles, challenges,
and difficulties the prisonand re-entry populations face.
in 2017, Sam created theHope and Redemption Team,
a first-of-its-kind initiativehe built from scratch.

(01:22):
The Hope and Redemption Team is a group
of nine former California life prisoners
who go back into Californiastate prisons to provide hope,
demonstrate that redemption is achievable
and to prepare participants
for successful re-entryinto our communities.
His work directing theHope and Redemption Team
exemplifies what's best about ARC,
our desire to reach and walk with those

(01:43):
who have been mostmarginalized by society.
Most Saturday nights,
Sam leads the Hope and Redemption mentors
who support youth currently housed
at Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall.
These youth are facingpotentially long prison sentences.
The unique mentors are trainedin transformative mentoring
and use a peer-to-peerCredible Messenger model
to encourage incarceratedyouth to believe in themselves

(02:05):
and pursue their educationwhile incarcerated.
Sam previously worked with friends
outside Los Angeles County asjob specialist, case manager,
employment programs supervisor,and project director,
roles that reinforced his commitment
to creating opportunities
for formerly incarcerated men and women
as they transition back into society.
In 2018, Sam was the recipient

(02:27):
of a Bank of AmericaNeighborhood Builders award,
UnCommon Laws' UnCommon Heroes award,
and 2019 DangerMan Award.
So hi, Sam. Welcome.
We're thrilled that youcould join us today.
- Hello, Jess. Hello, Annie.
Thank you for having me.
- So you were incarcerated.You had a life sentence.

(02:50):
- Yes, I did.
- But you're no longer incarcerated.
Can you tell us a bit about your journey
of really how you got out of prison
and what it was like for you personally
when you were released?
- Absolutely, but I think in order
to talk about how I got out of prison,
also how I landed in prison too.
I grew up in what's nowknown as South Los Angeles

(03:12):
but was infamously known asSouth Central Los Angeles
in the 80s when Los Angeles was considered
the gang capital of our nation
and during the heightof the crack epidemic.
And during this period I wasa teenager smack in the middle
of all of these thingsthat were happening.
When I was seven, my dadleft the family tumultuously.

(03:33):
Like, I literally walked inon him beating my mother.
Had never seen anything before.
And that was my firstexperience in terms of,
or would turn me towards, like,really resenting authority
because my father wasalways the authority figure
in our house and I remember mymom hid for a couple of weeks
'cause she's fair-skinned andso she was black and blue.

(03:53):
And so that's kind of wheremy journey started at.
Like, I had a lot of thingsthat were going on in my head
that I didn't know how to express.
Like, I can say at that age,
I really felt a hatred towards my dad.
By the time I was 16,I had been shot twice,
stabbed, jumped on multiple times,
and pretty much that resentment just grew.
And then by the time I was 18,

(04:13):
I had, like, was immersedin a gang culture,
was a high school dropout, andcommitted a horrible crime,
a murder, gang-related, andwas sentenced to life in prison
and rightly so at the time.
A month after my arrest,my daughter was born
and I didn't know when she was born
that she would be the personthat literally launched me
into really wanting to change.

(04:33):
And so I got to know my daughter
in different prison visiting rooms,
literally in the visitingroom, coloring books, talking,
like, watched her grow upto about the age of seven.
I was still immersed in thegang culture while in prison.
And about seven years into my sentence,
my daughter came to visit me
and I had gotten intosome trouble in the yard

(04:53):
and so I was in chains and handcuffs
and behind this thick, scarred plexiglass,
and my daughter walkedinto the visiting room
and she's scanning thevisitor room and she sees me.
She walks up to thewindow and she looks in
and she sees these chains.
And her look went fromone of curiosity to fear.
And as a father, I just knewshe wasn't afraid for herself,
but it was like, whatare they doing to my dad?

(05:15):
And she picked up thephone and she looked at me
and asked me, "Why youback there like that
"and how come I can't hug you?"
And the truth was at that time
is that I had not beenputting my daughter first.
I had not thought about theramifications of my actions.
And I looked at her and just told her,
"Daddy got in some trouble."
And if you can imagine a seven-year-old
that just wants a hug from her dad,

(05:37):
she looked at me withoutjudgment, just said,
"Could you not get in trouble again
"so I can hug you when I come back?"
And it shook me up.
When I think deeply about it now,
it still brings tears to my eyes.
And my mom was sitting next to her
and took the phone from her and told her,
"You understand now thateverything you do, good or bad,
"impacts the peoplethat love you the most."
And all I could do was nod my head.
I remember my mom walkingaway with my daughter's hand

(06:00):
and my daughter stopped and turned around
and said, "Try hard."
I didn't know how I was gonna do it
but I promised her I would.
But it planted a seed insideme to want that change
and it just did not happen overnight.
Even though I'll fast-forwardto where I got out,
I bumped my head a lot of times.
I had to figure out howto get out of the gang.
I had to figure out howto really focus on me.

(06:21):
And a lot of these thingsI learned along the way
with very little help, butthe encouragement of my mom
and a desire not to let mydaughter down or my mom.
- What a beautiful story,
this kind of turning pointmoment with your daughter
as the inspiration to make a change.
And that very change, like,if you're deeply immersed

(06:47):
in prison in the gang culture there
and you want to make a change,
how hard or easy is thatin terms of socially?
Like, are you open tospeaking a little bit
about that experience?
- Absolutely, the process took a while
and there were guys ondifferent yards that knew me,
had known me before prison, and, like,

(07:08):
your reputation for the thingsthat you do precedes you
and people know the thingsthat you've done in the past.
And I told them one day,like, I'm tired of this, like,
why do we have to be out here?
Like, why do I have to be part of this?
And I remember one of theguys was always saying,
he was like, well, youknew the job was dangerous
when you took it.

(07:29):
And I was like, well, Idon't want the job anymore.
And I was getting angryat myself and the gang,
and I just told them, I said, I'm done.
Like, whatever I have to suffer,
whatever discipline I need to deal with,
like, let's do it now
'cause I'm not gonna lookover my back and I'm done.
And I remember a couple of the guys
that, like, you have status and rank
that had, as we call it, rank on the yard,
basically said, okay,and in not so kind terms,

(07:52):
basically say, go.
You have permission, butI'm saying it nicely.
It was basically like, get the F on.
Like, you have no backing whatsoever.
And I was okay with that.
That was scary but I was okay with that
and you feel a bit ostracized.
(soft pensive piano music)

(08:12):
My mom who had always been an advocate
for education kept pushing me.
And so one of the things that I did,
I finished up high schooland I remember going in
and asking to take the GED test
and there was a teacher named Mr. Stanley.
Mr. Stanley was like what Iwould describe as a hippie.
He literally was sohappy based on my scores
except for math and I couldn't understand

(08:34):
what excited him about this.
He was like, do you knowhow high you scored?
And I was like, no, I neverreally applied myself in school
so I didn't know what to expect,
but I've always had this desire to read
and I would always read countless books,
something that I picked up from my mom.
And so I finished my GED andthen Mr. Stanley convinced me

(08:56):
to try enrolling in colleges.
And I was like, "No,like, that's not for me."
And he was like, "Why?"
And I was like, "I'm not smartenough to go to college."
He's like, "How do you know that?"
School was just notsomething where I grew up
that was really endorsed, so to speak.
But he badgered me enough to where I went
and I took the entrance exam and I passed

(09:17):
with a pretty decent score.
And he said, "Now you knowthat school is for you."
What it had did for mewas open up this desire
to learn again, a desire that I had lost
as a kid when I dropped out of school.
And so I wanted to find away to keep going with school
but there was no schoolavailable outside of vocations.
And so I sent out for a book called

(09:38):
"The Guerrilla Handbook onCorrespondence Courses,"
it's still published today,
and literally found a way to go to school.
I went to work in PrisonIndustry Authority
where you can make 75 cents an hour
and I used that moneyto pay for my tuition
to re-enroll in college.
And a funny thing happened along the way.
All this time, I didn't shareany of this with my family.

(10:00):
And we went on lockdown andI couldn't pay my tuition
'cause I couldn't work.
And so I wrote to mysister and I asked her
if she could send me $200 for school.
And so my sister's like, what is this?
Like, she didn't tell methis, but I can imagine
'cause she came to visitthe following weekend
and she's like, what is thisschool you're talking about

(10:20):
with this attitude, like, $200,
like, who needs, like, really?
And I explained to her what I was doing
and she said, "Okay, send me everything."
And so I sent her my GEDcertificate. I sent her my scores.
I sent it the two classes thatI took and she showed my mom
and my mom came up two weeks later
and she said, "We paid your tuition."
She said, "Go to school
"and you don't make anything less than A."

(10:41):
And so I just pushed.
I just kept going to school,kept going to school.
I finished two associate's degrees
and pretty much finishedmy bachelor's degree
before I got out.
And my mom would always ask me
when I finished something, "What's next?"
And so I went to the board nine times.
The ninth time, I was released.
The first eight times, I was denied.
The eighth time we appealed to court
and the court sent meback to be reconsidered.

(11:03):
Along the way, a numberof things transpired.
I learned accountability for the actions
that I'd taken and understand that for me,
and this is just for me, Ican't speak for anyone else,
I live a life that's dual, so to speak.
And what I mean by that is I took a life
and I don't know what thatperson would have become

(11:24):
had they had the opportunityto become an adult.
I always look at what I'm giving back
as not just my life, butthe life that I took.
And I live my life in that fashion
because I could live till I'm 80.
How long would the person whoselife I took had lived to be?
And so if I'm constantlygiving back and working
to help people not make thosesame mistakes that I made,

(11:46):
I feel like I'm fulfillingboth an obligation
that I placed on myself,
doing 24 years in prison is one thing,
but I still feel like to theuniverse, to some extent,
giving back is just my way ofpaying for what I took away
that can never be returned.
(soft pensive piano music)

(12:14):
- Hearing you speak, Sam,it's truly overwhelming
to imagine all of the challenges
that people leaving prisons face,
even beyond just the practical concerns
of finding a job or housing.
You know, there's reintegrating yourself
back into your family,into your communities
when you're a completely different person
than you were when you left.

(12:35):
Can you speak to some of the obstacles
you had to work throughfollowing your release?
- It was not easy.
When I came home, I camehome, matter of fact,
January 12th next year will be10 years that I've been home.
And from the pretty muchthe day that I got home,
I just was trying to figureout how to help people.
Once I got home, my very firstjob was working at Petco.

(12:55):
I was a sales associate.
My job was basically torun the cash register
and to clean dog tubs.
And when I went into theinterview, I was like,
they're a bunch of kids working here.
I was 42 years old.
And what I mean by kids,everybody was 18, 20, 21.
I think the manager was 23.
(interviewer laughs)

(13:15):
And it was $8.15 an hour,
but it was the first jobI had since coming home
and I took it seriously,
knowing that this was notwhere I was gonna stop at
but this was the firststep in demonstrating
both the ability to bedependable and to have impact.
And then going from there,
there were not a lot of organizations
that really helped people thatwere coming home from prison

(13:37):
but I did come across onethat a friend connected me to
called Friends Outsidein Los Angeles County.
I interned for them andwhen I interned for them,
basically my internship was to learn
how to file to be a case manager.
And then I discovered a skill that I had.
I was able to actuallyget certain companies
to commit to offering people jobs.

(13:59):
And so that was my first steps
and I always got to give Mary Weaver,
who's still the executivedirector of Friends Outside,
credit 'cause she was the first person
that gave me a chance, an opportunity
to demonstrate what Iwas capable of doing.
Out of prison, I had not evenbeen out of prison two months.
First I interned and then itturned into a full-time job.

(14:19):
And so that was the firstnine months of my release.
And I try to tell others
that come home, take time for your family.
Like, really spend time with your family.
When it comes to thesurvivors of violent crime
and for the lives thathave been lost or taken
through violent crime likethe crime that I committed,
being mindful of what youdid but also taking time

(14:42):
to make sure that youhelp your family heal
because they also wentthrough what you went through
but from a different perspective.
And I wanted so bad todemonstrate to my family
that I was a different person
and that I could stand on my own two feet
and that I am the person
that my mom always believed me to be.
I wanted them to understandthat I wasn't the teenager

(15:04):
that was angry and that was hurting people
that left the streets.
So now for the most part,
I'm in a really good place with my family
and we spend most weekendsdoing different things together,
but it's been a journey.
It's been a journey of a lotof things that I've learned
both while inside and coming home.
- Yeah, I bet thereare so many things too,

(15:25):
like, upon leaving prison, you know,
so many things to track and you want to,
you know, integrate back in a good way.
And then there's, you have family
and when you got into prison,you were a different person.
You have different values now.
I mean, I can imagine thecomplexity of that transition.
- Absolutely, it's, whatI try to tell most people

(15:47):
both when I go insideprisons and when I'm here
and they come home, it's take it slow.
When you're inside prison,understand that the socialization
within the prison system is not something
that you want to allowto become who you are.
When I walked out of prison, I said,
I'm gonna help change thissystem and make it better,
the system for survivors,

(16:08):
the system for peoplethat are incarcerated,
and the system for youngpeople that are lost
in often under-resourced communities
that make bad, bad choicesthat often harm people.
And then along the way, they're lost
and trying to figure out,like, why did I do that?
And how do I change?
(soft pensive piano music)

(16:36):
- In terms of therealities of incarceration,
it seems like rehabilitationprograms aren't as accessible
to everyone or aren'tas available to everyone
depending on your situationor depending on your sentence.
And I was wondering if youcould just speak a little bit
to how easy or difficult is itfor most incarcerated people
to get into these programsand what's that process like.

(16:56):
- So I'll start by saying
what the Department ofCorrections and Rehabilitation
is today is miles andmiles ahead of where it was
when I started and when I was inside.
I mean, there's still a lot to be done.
And so my personal experience
both first as a person that was inside,
I remember being on yardswhere there was no programs,

(17:16):
not even Narcotics Anonymousand Alcoholics Anonymous.
No programs. That was whatit was like when I was in.
And I remember getting to Soledad in 1998,
there were enough of us there
that had did, like, 10, 15 years.
We started creating curriculums,
like, things that we go to the board
and the board would say,"You need anger management."

(17:37):
Well, we don't have anger management.
And so we would write to places
and ask can you send us a curriculum?
Can you train us?
And Soledad, like afew other institutions,
became what I describeas a Mecca, so to speak,
of rehabilitativeprogramming at one point.
I remember the gym that usedto have triple bunks in it
became the hub of rehabilitation,
program behind program behind program

(17:58):
whether it was alternatives toviolence or anger management
or leadership training or Toastmasters.
You just had all of theseprograms that you can enroll in
and most of the men that werethere were in the programs.
And so when new people wouldcome into the institution
and some of them thatmight have not decided
if they wanted to beinvolved with programs

(18:20):
would end up getting involved
because that was whatthe majority was doing.
And so I started seeingwhat you would call
reverse peer pressure.
I remember sitting on thebench where I heard two guys
debating Pavlov's theory,and I'm sitting there,
I don't see who they are, butthey're arguing just there
and I'm like, I remembersitting on this bench years ago

(18:43):
and instead of it beinga debate about Pavlov,
it was a debate about whohad the most low riders
or sold the most dope or, like,
and I'm like, we're in a different place.
And just sitting there,I just remember vividly
and I kind of chuckled, like,
this is really cool theway the system has changed,
that we had this impact.

(19:03):
And there were a few otherinstitutions that had this
but then you had institutions
that still didn't haveanything or very little.
And even today, that'strue where you have places
like San Quentin andSoledad and Chuckawalla
that have all of these programs, Ironwood,
but then you also haveplaces like High Desert
that, they're so farout and hard to reach,

(19:26):
you don't have a lot of programs there.
And so depending on theinstitution where you're located,
the level yard that you're on,
programs may not bethat readily available.
And one of the thingsthat we did here at ARC
when we started doingrehabilitative programming inside,
we wanted to go into themaximum security prisons,
the places that normallyhad the least amount of hope

(19:47):
where we could start with the men
that were on thesehigher level institutions
and demonstrate that, one,redemption is possible
if you hold yourselfaccountable and do the work,
to provide hope and so that they could see
living breathing examples of people
who have been incarceratedthat turned their lives around.
Therapy, which is somethingthat's not available widespread

(20:08):
where you have to go througha number of different hoops
and be basically designated as a person
that has some mental issues to get therapy
and therapy should besomething that's available
for every single person that's in prison,
because to use myself as an example,
I never saw myself as a victim.
And then when I sat down witha therapist, and I was lucky

(20:29):
because I figured out how toactually get a psychologist
to give me one-on-one therapy,
and we did what was called a timeline.
And I remember the first time
that we basically wroteout all the good things
and bad things that happened in my life.
And as I got more and morein tune with this therapy,
I started understanding, like, that anger,
like, there's two ways angerand trauma can manifest.

(20:53):
It can turn inward anddestroy you and break you down
and cause you a lot ofdifferent mental issues,
the ultimate sometimes being suicide,
and it can also becomeoutward where you hurt people.
You basically take out that anger
and all of those things on other people.
And it's not excuses.
Like, literally I always wondered
what would I have been like ifmy mom, if I never saw that?

(21:15):
Would I have been soresentful towards police
and other authority figures
if I had never saw my dad do what he did?
If I never was involvedin any of these things,
what kind of choices would I have made?
Would I have decidednot to run with a gang
if I had never been jumpedand felt like I needed
some type of protection and retribution?
I honestly began to askmyself those questions

(21:36):
and I can't go back and say
that I would've made different choices
because we all say that,what is it, hindsight is 2020
but the reality is, isI still made choices.
I could have went tomy mom and said, look,
there's a gang that stoppedme from going to school
and I got to fight themevery day or run from them
and I'm sure my momwould have took action,

(21:58):
but I didn't make that choice.
And so the reality isthat I made wrong choices.
What we've attempted to do is, one,
get people to begin to not onlyinside evaluate the choices
that they've made, but imaginemaking different choices
when you come home.
When the person gets inyour face or pushes you
or does something that youfeel requires a response,

(22:21):
how do you walk away?
And so, like, literallygetting people to imagine,
like, you have different choices
and you are in control of your future,
and then also understandingthe impact of what you've done
to your community andother human beings, people.
Another part that I thinkis really important,
we just went into SoledadPrison two weeks ago,

(22:43):
myself and six other former lifers.
And we delivered a messagethat we intend to share
throughout the state and every prison.
The staff that are infacilities are human beings
and they're alsostakeholders in the people
that are in custody.
And what we pour into thepeople that are in custody
is what our results are gonna be.

(23:03):
If we basically dehumanizethem, treat them as less than,
it's hard to get them tolook within themselves,
to do the work and become accountable.
But if we humanize themand demonstrate, well,
we're gonna make sure that youhave rehabilitative program.
We're gonna make surethat you have therapy.
Self-accountability is whatwe need to be looking for.
And what we would like to do is be able

(23:25):
to create a system where
on both sides, there's an understanding
that these are human beings.
From the standpoint of aperson that's in custody,
the correctional officers are human beings
that are doing a job.
From the standpoint ofa correctional officer
that's there to make surethat no one breaks out
and everyone's safe,

(23:46):
the people that are doingtime are human beings.
If we create a safer environmentinside the prison setting
that includes accountability,demonstration of remorse,
the ability to really look inward
for the reason why you made those choices,
we'll be creating publicsafety from the inside out
and we'll create a safer environment

(24:07):
for both the people in custodyand the correction officers
and all the staff.
A lot of people don't realizethat correction officers
have a really high rate ofdivorce, suicide, alcoholism.
That's not because they have a bad life.
That's because their job.
And we have to figureout how to change that
because 95% of people thatare in prison are coming home,

(24:30):
and so if they're cominghome, how do we make sure
that they come homebetter than they went in?
- Well, it's so, it'sinteresting, you know,
there's this idea that oncea person goes to prison,
they're going to reflect on themselves
and eventually get toa point of realizing,
you know, the error of their ways
or they're going to gothrough a process of remorse,

(24:54):
but it doesn't seem thatthat's just an automatic,
that we actually, there's a responsibility
to facilitate that process,right, is what I'm hearing.
It's like, there's a lot ofviolence that happens in prison.
It's not an environment thatinvites a person necessarily
to kind of come to termswith their actions.
I have this question I wasthinking of asking you,

(25:16):
but it almost, I thinkI have the answer now.
It's like, for peoplewho are incarcerated,
what do they need?
It sounds like support to really realize
that their actions have impact is one
as well as, like, you gotto go to therapy, right?
Like, actually acknowledging how you felt
when you were jumped when you were eight,

(25:36):
the capacity to acknowledgethat there's impact on us too.
- Right.- Like both, right?
The impact on us and the impact on others
from the actions that we've taken, like,
that seems like such an essentialpiece of rehabilitation.
- Absolutely.
What I've learned bothfrom personal experience

(25:58):
and from working with peoplethat have come home from prison
and working with people that are in prison
and people that have never been in prison
is that we all want the same thing.
People want safe communities to live in.
If I go in a prison yard
and I have 500 people in front of me,
and I say, "How many peoplewant to have a front yard
"where your kids and yourgrandkids can just run

(26:19):
"and have fun and you don't have to worry
"about anything happening to them,"
everyone raises their hands.
And then you ask them,"Okay, what role do you play
"in creating this type of community?"
And then you'll hear people talking
about what they have to do.
Some people don't know.
To give you a really great,
this just happened yesterday morning.

(26:39):
So I'm in the office and I had two kids
that I've been mentoring,young adults, they're 20, 21,
just came home from Departmentof Juvenile Justice.
They went in when they wereteenagers, one 15, one 16.
And so I asked him, I said,"Have you had breakfast?"
And they said, "No."
And I was like, "Okay, whatyou want for breakfast?"
And they look at me andwas like, "I don't know."
And I was like, "Well,why don't you just tell me
"what you want?"
And they said, "Well, no one'sever asked us that before."

(27:01):
- Yeah.- Aw.
- And I'm looking and I'm like, okay,
so immediately I'm like,"Okay, do you like eggs?"
And they say, "Yeah."
"So, okay, how do you like your eggs?"
Scrambled, both of them say scrambled.
"Do you like French toast?""No, I like waffles."
And so literally we created a menu
while we were standing there and I said,
you got to remember,like, you're free now.
You have to make these choices.
Everything that you do is a choice.
Now, that was just simple breakfast.

(27:22):
Now imagine the personthat has been socialized
and all he or she knowsis gangs and drugs.
What do I know outside of that?
What can I envision outside of that?
How do I learn those things?
And that's where it comes in
that we have to helpthem navigate that part.
I was blessed and lucky to havea mom that pushed education

(27:44):
and a daughter that just broke my heart
because I was breaking her heart.
It just told me she neededme, and not in those words,
but what if I didn't have those things?
I would have continued downthe same path that I was going.
I would have stayed involved with gangs,
all the negative things, Iwould have just embraced that
and just stayed an angry person
that was closed off to the world.

(28:04):
A person goes into prison,like, you don't go in there
and start self-reflecting.
It's just like, thereare other people there.
There's all kinds of stuffthat's going on on a prison yard.
And some people just shutout the outside world.
And so if you don't havea roadmap, so to speak,
like understanding,like, do you understand

(28:24):
that the person whose lifeyou took is never coming back
and they may have had a sister,a mother, a brother, like,
how do you think they felt?
One of my close friends whowas doing a life sentence,
his mom died from cancerwhen he was real young.
He was like, around 12.
And so we're in prison and he understood

(28:45):
parts of how he got involved with gangs
and he always said it wasbecause of the community
that he lived in, and I toldhim at one point that's bull.
And he's like, "What do you mean?"
I was like, "If that's the case,
"the whole neighborhood would be gangs.
"Everybody in your neighborhood
"on the block was not a gang member."
And he was like, "Okay, sohow did I get in gangs then?"
And I said, "Let's talk about it."
And I asked him, I said,"When you were young,"
I said, "You watched your mom passed."

(29:07):
He was like, "Yeah."
And you could tell he kind ofdidn't like where I was going
'cause it's a sensitive topic.
I said, "Did you watch her pass away?
He said, "I watchedevery day my mom died."
And you could tell he wasirritated by the question.
I said, "After she passed away,"
I said, "Did you ever get counseling?
"Did anybody ever ask youif you were all right?"
Then he said, "No."

(29:28):
And I said, "And then when didyou get involved with gangs?"
He said, "Around 13."
And I just stood there and looked at him.
And you could tell, like,
he saw the hurt and anger that he had.
It wasn't like a predetermined decision,
but this was part of it.
Like, I lost somebody andI don't know what to do
but I know this group ofpeople is embracing me.
And then that's the only path you know.

(29:50):
And literally he was able to understand
from that point forwardand I literally was able
to watch him distance himselffrom the gang atmosphere
in a way that was unique in him.
Like, he just didn't comearound and he focused on school.
The person whose life he took, he said,
"I never thought aboutwas this dude shaving yet?
"What did they do with his clothes?

(30:11):
"Did they keep them becausethey wanted to remember him
"or did they get rid of thembecause it was too painful?"
Like, him sharing those thoughts,
you're thinking aboutthe impact on the family
and the community that you had.
And that leads to thatnext level of, like,
literally looking at yourself,
would I want that to be done to me
or someone that I love, no.

(30:32):
So how do I change that?
And though he might not verbally say this,
but I see him always workingand mentoring younger guys
that are in South LA.
Just to your point, peopledon't just go in and reflect.
It has to be facilitated.
And I think the bestfacilitators to do that
are people that have walkeda mile in those shoes.

(30:53):
Let's say a person that'snever been in prison before
is pushing to get a person tohold themselves accountable.
The cop-out might be, well,
you don't understandwhat I've been through.
- Totally.- Mm-hm.
- A person that did 25,30 years, like, oh, no,
I understand exactlywhat you've been through
'cause I've been through it too.
And just like I'm willingto hold myself accountable,
you should stop and think for a second.

(31:16):
What I did, how did itimpact the people around me?
How did they impact thefamilies, the community?
Like, I'm sure you bothheard the example of, like,
when you throw a pebble in a pond,
what is the ripple effect?
And that's a ripple effect from the family
that has survived a crime,that has lost a loved one,
the community, the fearthat's in the community,
and then your own family too.

(31:38):
(gentle uplifting music)
- I remember when we werepreparing for this conversation,
I was reading some of thethings that you've said
and you spoke so eloquentlyabout the connection

(32:00):
between re-entry and public safety
and healing in communities.
And I was wondering ifyou could maybe just speak
a little bit more to that, like,
how are these things connected?
- So there's a saying in this work
that hurt people hurt peopleand healed people heal people.

(32:21):
On the inside if I have notaddressed the wounds or trauma
that I've experiencedin order to heal myself,
I won't be able to hold myself accountable
or admit the wrongs that I've done.
But once I'm able to do that,
the next step is that thething that I want to do
is I want to make right or atleast try to implement things
that will make my communitybetter, help my community heal.

(32:44):
And the only way to do that
is that I got to first heal myself
and then I can go out andI can mentor a young men
and others in the communityon what your choices are.
I often tell young people, like,
the choices you make todaywill be your tomorrows.
And then when we look at itin terms of public safety,
re-entry doesn't startwhen a person's released.

(33:05):
Re-entry should startthe day a person ends up
in our carceral system.
I'm prepared to come home, I'madded value to public safety
because I'm gonna want to beable to influence my community
in a way that's positive.
If I see something thatshouldn't be happening
in one way or another,I have all these tools

(33:25):
that I can work withto help change things.
Sometimes it may besomething as simple as,
like, I see a bunch ofyoungsters hanging out.
Let's go to the park andthrow a football around
instead of you're not doing anything
and then if you're doing thatand you start a conversation
and you figure out howto start directing them,
because sometimes peoplejust don't have a direction

(33:45):
but if we pour into the people
that are in our carceral system
all the resources that they need
to both become the best versionof themselves and to heal,
when they're released, that'sadding to our public safety
because they're gonna look at it
like I got to change this community
or at least I have to do the best

(34:06):
and be the best version ofmyself and not add to this.
Working from that prism, we'realso working from a prism
of being able to heal our communities.
- I'll say that three major themes for me
in our whole conversation here, it's like,
what do folks need, incarcerated people,

(34:27):
and people re-entering society,is healing of themselves,
accountability for theiractions, and role models.
This is kind of what I'm getting so far
from this whole conversation.
Does that seem pretty on?
- It's pretty on and Iwould have to also add,

(34:51):
while inside, resources thattranslate into the ability
for a person to actuallymake a living wage,
whether it be trades or college education,
but something where I step out,
I can actually go into a career,
and that's fiscally smarttoo 'cause we pay, like,
close to $70,000 a year tokeep a person in prison.

(35:14):
Now, if we took that personout, now, first of all,
they're not costing us 70,000 anymore
and let's say they'rein a $80,000 a year job,
they're paying into the tax space
and they're creating public safety.
The ability to heal, accountability,and a guide or mentor,
but also the resources toprepare them for their re-entry
and then realistic opportunitieswhen they come home

(35:35):
to actually have those living wage jobs.
We can do it too.
I have to say that almosta three-year period,
we put close to 300 people into union jobs
in LA and OC building trades
through our pre-apprenticeship program,
all formerly incarcerated,
electricians, plumbers, pipe fitters.
We created the firstever firefighters program

(35:57):
where people that arecoming out of the fire camps
now have the opportunity toactually become firefighters.
That's a career. That's a way of life.
- That's amazing.- Yeah.
- And talk about public safety.
- Exactly. Yeah.(interviewer laughs)
Like, those are the innovativethings that we can do.
Like, how do we like pullthe tech sector into this
and just continue to create,because as we do this,

(36:20):
we shrink our carceral system, yes,
but we also, again, enhance public safety.
(gentle uplifting music)
- It's so incredible.
I feel so grateful and inspired to know
that people like you are doing this work
because it just feels so vitalto the health of our society.

(36:45):
You're such a wonderful andgraceful presence. I don't know.
I just feel a strange sense of healing
just in talking to you
and I imagine that youhave that same impact
on so many people.
So thank you so much for everything
that you're doing and fortalking with us today.
- Thank you for having me and thank you
for the work that you're embarking on.

(37:06):
I can see from your perspective.
I can empathize on a levelthat some might not be able to
and see, like, in orderto change our system,
we need all of us, and whenI say change our system,
like, I heard some people say,
so you want to just empty out prisons.
No, I want a better society for us.

(37:27):
We make up 5% of the world's population
but we have 25% of the peoplein prison in our country.
I know we can do better and I've seen it,
but always withaccountability and healing,
and that's the hard partbecause when a life is taken,
like, that's hard to heal.
- I really agree thatit's up to all of us here

(37:49):
to contribute how wecan for a better society
and I'm curious, Sam, if you have ideas
or invitations for folks
that are listening to this conversation.
What can we do?
- So different levels.
Like, when I look at LA,LA is a unique county

(38:12):
and not just in this size ofprobation, all those things,
but LA has 11 sports teams
which means they have 11 foundations
which means they have abunch of players on teams.
Let's change how LA works.
Let's create preventativeefforts for our young people.
First, robust prevention and intervention.

(38:35):
If you're retired and you'rea coach or a dance teacher
or a music teacher and you're retired,
find a way to volunteerto help young people
be able to learn those things.
Some kids want to be engineers.They're mathematicians.
There are so manydifferent things out there.
But each person has to be able to invest
in our communities, andit's fun when you're working

(38:57):
with kids and young people.
You get to watch them become who they are.
So that's one, prevention and intervention
when it comes to especiallyunder-resourced communities.
Opportunities for peoplethat may have companies
or have influence with companies
or have training that they could offer,
offering it to people that arecoming out of incarceration

(39:18):
and people that are in theseunder-resourced places.
Look at ways to invest, to beable to change that dynamic,
because what we're doingis we're creating a system
that's different from what we live in.
I got to tip my hat toour elected officials
that have pushed hard tomake the system better
in terms of rehabilitative programming.
For the first time in almost 40 years,
I think it is, they're closing a prison,

(39:38):
but being mindful thatresources have to be available
to help people while they're inside
and once they're released,not to take care of them,
but to give them the opportunity
to stand on their own two feet.
To people that come from thesedifferent walks of lives,
find your niche that you're able
to give back in our community.
And when I say our community, like,

(39:59):
I'm talking about LA, theentire state of California.
There are differentthings that people can do.
You may have influence witha person that owns a company.
So I would say to those that are able to,
let's find a way touplift the least of us.
If we go and we uplift the least of us,
it's gonna uplift everyone else.

(40:19):
And those that are most vulnerable,
that don't have a choice often
in where they're at intheir life, our children,
let's double down on that.
Let's figure out a wayhow to make it happen
because every SaturdayI go into Juvenile Hall,
Barry J. Nidorf, and workwith kids and mostly kids
that have committed somepretty tough crimes.

(40:40):
What I've found when I learnedtheir stories is, like,
oftentimes their lives start off great
when they're young andthen something happens.
Mom loses her job.They're living in a car.
And now I think I'm 12
so I'm gonna go sell dope to help my mom.
To us as adults, like,why would you do that?

(41:01):
I'm 12. I don't think, I'm not that smart.
I'm 12 but I think I have a solution.
And that's where they at.
And so now imagine thiskid that goes to sell dope
and someone robs him.
Okay, well, I'm not gonna let them rob me
'cause I need this moneyso I'm gonna go get a gun.
And the next thing you know,
this child has committed a murder.
But wait a minute. What aboutthe mom who lost her job?

(41:24):
What if we had provided assistance to her?
We would have stopped thischild from ever deciding
to sell dope in the first place.
Like, it starts with thefamily and they say 80% of kids
in public school livebelow the poverty line.
Our state, first of all,as wealthy as our state is
in arguably the richestcountry in the world,
how do we do that?

(41:46):
What I would ask for people is, like,
figure out a way to do better by our kids.
And when I say our kids, I mean all kids.
Like, we have to do better by them
because it's our responsibility.
If we do better by them, ourcommunities would be better.
- Sam, I've gotten chills,I think, at least five times
while you've been speaking-- (laughs) Yeah, me too.
- In this whole conversation.
It's been really wonderful.- Yeah.

(42:07):
- Thank you.- Thank you so much
for sharing everythingthat you've shared with us
and for doing what you're doing.
It's incredibly inspiring.- Yeah, and I-
- Thank you.- I hope that we get
to continue being inconversation with you.
You know, if there's anything we can do
to support or help, wewould love to do that.
- Absolutely. Thank you so much.
Thank you for having me.And again, I'm a supporter.

(42:31):
So just let me know how I can help also.
- All right. Thank you.
(gentle uplifting music)
What an amazing thing that we get to be
in these conversations with people.
- I know. It's so good.
Oh my gosh, the whole idea of him

(42:52):
and others going into prisons
and supporting other incarcerated folks
in reflecting and understandingthe impact of their actions
and, you know, getting the impact
of their childhood or their traumas,
it seems like everythingsprings from that.
- One of the things Iwas thinking about too
was he was talking about how, you know,

(43:13):
it was his daughter and his mother
who sort of inspired him to change.
And I think that that'strue for most of us,
that we need someone elseto change for, you know,
or to heal for, like, often-
- To break our heart open.
- Yeah, often we're notgonna do that for ourselves
unless there's, like, somegreater purpose to it.
And if you don't have one,
then what reason do youhave to do that work?

(43:34):
And I think that's partof the accountability too
of what he was saying of, like, you know,
living two lives, youknow, living for the life
that he took as well.
It's sort of the same thing.
And I think that that'spart of where the healing
and accountability piece can meet.
Thank you for joining us for this episode
of "A New Legacy."
If you'd like to support Sam's work,

(43:54):
you can visit antirecidivism.org
and also check out ourwebsite at anewlegacy.com
where we will list someadditional opportunities
to support organizationsmentioned on this episode.