Time Done: A Conversation With Jay Jordan, Part 1

Jay Jordan is the CEO of the Alliance for Safety and Justice. Jay landed in prison as a teendager under the Three Strikes law. While spending two years in solitary confinement, a single question prompted Jay to change his life forever: Who are you? Since then, Jay has been answering that question every day through his advocacy on behalf of crime survivors and formerly incarcerated people who want to rebuild their lives after prison. In this episode we talk about everything from how Three Strikes can and should change to the inspiring journey of imperfection and how we can all learn to lead by example. This is the first of a 2-part conversation.

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
(soft music)
- Welcome to A New Legacy,where we have conversations
about new visions for justice and healing
in this era of mass incarceration.
I'm Annie Nichol, and I'mhere with my sister Jess.
And today, we're speaking with Jay Jordan,
who is the newly appointed CEO
of the Alliance for Safety and Justice.
- Yes, Jay is an amazingadvocate and organizer

(00:23):
who has done some reallyincredible community work.
And this conversation is actually longer
than we typically wouldpublish for a podcast,
but his story is soamazing that we decided
to actually release it as two episodes.
This first episode is allabout his story of growing up,
and getting into sometrouble as a teenager,

(00:44):
and then being incarceratedunder three strikes
when he was 19.
- We also talk about Jay's political work
and community organizing, whichled to his political career,
with his early work as an advocate
and mentor for at-risk teens
and other crime survivorsin his community.
So this first episode mostlyconsists of his personal story,

(01:06):
which has some really inspiring moments.
- Yeah, in fact, as you'll hear,
he actually received twostrikes for the same crime,
which is not how thatlaw was supposed to work.
Three strikes was intended to be used
in cases where peoplecommit repeat offenses,
not just adding strikes to a single crime.
So unfortunately, Jay'sstory is yet another example

(01:29):
of the three strikes law being misused,
which has resulted indisproportionately harsh sentencing
and incarceration for black people.
And we actually have a reallyinteresting conversation
with Jay about that towardthe end of the episode.
- As for the secondepisode, we'll talk about
some of the more effective community-based

(01:49):
violence interventionsthat Jay's been a part of
and what to do with thiscrisis of rising homicides,
which we thought deserved its own episode.
- It really does.
I'm curious, what were somehighlights for you, Jess?
- So many amazing things.
One highlight for meis when he talks about
painting all those trash cansin the parks to clean them up

(02:10):
and make the parks andplaygrounds more usable,
and getting politiciansand police officers
to come paint trash cans.
- Right, (laughs) that was really great.
I also wanna call outhis First 50 program,
which was a youth organizing program
that led to 100% high school graduation
and college enrollment in its first year.

(02:31):
I mean, so amazing.
- Okay, I'm gonna read a quick
and by no means comprehensivesummary of Jay's bio.
Jay Jordan has worked at theintersection of social justice
and politics throughout his career.
He serves as the Alliancefor Safety and Justice's CEO,
overseeing all of ASJ's state-based teams

(02:51):
and reform advocacy efforts,
as well as the TimeDone National Director.
Jay co-founded theorganization's TimeDone campaign
to organize people livingwith past conviction records
to eliminate the barriers to opportunity
that block them from success.
He previously served as Executive Director
of ASJ's flagship state-based program,
Californians for Safety and Justice.

(03:14):
If you'd like to learn more about Jay
and the incredible work he's done,
please visit our website at anewlegacy.com
to read his full bio and learn about
the various projects andcampaigns he's worked on.
- So you're the Executive Director
of Californians for Safety and Justice,

(03:35):
an organization that has advanced
important criminal justicereforms in California,
like Proposition 47 and 57.
Can you tell us about whatbrought you to this work
and Californians for Safety and Justice?
What was your background?
And what was your experience growing up?
- Oh, man, what brought me to this work.
So I have to take you all the way back.
I am the son of a countrypreacher from Okmulgee, Oklahoma,

(04:00):
which I'm actually here now,and a city girl from Watts.
And the reason I'd saywhere my parents are from,
because it put things into some context.
Okmulgee, Oklahoma was, my dadwent to segregated schools.
He was not able to drinkout of the same water faucet
as other folks, and heexperienced what it was like
back when Dr. King wasmarching for civil rights.
My mom experienced segregation and racism

(04:21):
in a different way, in Watts over police.
She lived through the Watts riots.
She lived through RodneyKing, and the '94 crime bill,
and the tough on crime,and the war on drugs,
and all that stuff thathappened, she lived through.
And so you have these twoset of people coming together
and growing their familyin Stockton, California.
That's where I'm from.
And Stockton is not unique.

(04:42):
It is like many other small to mid-size
cities and towns in America.
In Stockton, the industry was government.
It is government.
The biggest employer inStockton is the government.
Part of that government isthe criminal justice system.
I remember my first interactionwith the justice system
was when I was in second grade.
And I wanted coffee cake.

(05:03):
I didn't have the 25 centsto get the other tray.
If you don't have themoney, you get the one tray.
But if you've got 25 cents,
you get the tray with the coffee cake.
I don't know why they do this to kids.
This is insane.
I was at the classroom
and there was a bunchof lunch tickets there.
A quarter and you canbuy two lunch tickets
and you can buy the other tray.
And so I saw a bunch of lunch tickets.
I took two lunch tickets.
I went there and I gave'em to the lunch lady,

(05:23):
got my coffee cake.
I ate it.
And when I got back,
apparently, somebody hadsaw me take these tickets.
And now, mind you, I'min the second grade,
so I couldn't be no morethan seven, eight years old.
I didn't think anythingwrong with it at the time.
And the teacher, when I came back,
she was waiting on me withthe person who saw me.
It was another student.
And she was like, "JerronJordan, you thief."
I immediately start crying.
Oh, my God, I just disgraced my family.

(05:45):
All this stuff is goingthrough a second grader's head.
So they send me to the principal's office,
and the school resource officer was there.
I remember the firstthing that he told me was,
"Hey, you don't wannagrow up to be a criminal."
And in some ways,
it turned out to be aself-fulfilling prophecy,
because 11 years later,
I found myself in troublewith the justice system.

(06:06):
(soft music)
I had a great upbringing.
I'm the last of eight kids.
My dad was as a local pastor.
We did organizing and handing out
clothes and chips and hot dogs
to the community around ourchurch in downtown Stockton.
So I didn't have a rough upbringing.

(06:26):
There was a set ofcircumstances that happened
that led me to prison.
Fast forward to sixth grade.
And I was at the church, andit was a Wednesday night,
and my parents were in there praying.
We heard fireworks.
And we were in theparking lot, in the car,
waiting for them to come out.
They were almost done.
And then all of a sudden,about two minutes later,
a bunch of cop carscame in the parking lot,
drew their guns out.
And this had to be likea half a dozen cop cars.

(06:49):
This is, again, no morethan 11, 12 years old,
in sixth grade at the time.
So we were walking towards these guns
with our hands up here, andmy dad just start going,
I never heard my daduse these words before,
and he says, "These are kids.
"What are you doing?"
And their justification was,"Oh, well, we heard gunshots."
It happened to be there was no gunshots.
It was fireworks.
And yet, here, they seeblack kids in a parking lot,
literally no facial hair, nothing.

(07:11):
I looked 12.
Fast forward, my nextinteraction with the cops
was 16 years old, takinga bottle of Hennessy
out of a store, and the cops, I was,
I won't call it assaulted,but I was pulled out of a car.
The dog was biting my leg.
I really had a very differentperspective of policing
and safety because I justdidn't trust the police at all.

(07:33):
And from 16 to 18, I had my troubles.
I was a young black kid
trying to figure outwhere I fit in the world.
I ended up leaving homeearly, getting my GED,
and hanging out with the wrong crowd.
I had a substance abuse problem,
and I ended up gettinginvolved with a robbery,
and that was my introductionto the corrections system.
When I first went to prison, it wasn't a,

(07:54):
oh my God, come to God moment.
It was like, the blacks are over here.
The whites are over here.
The Northern Mexicans are over here.
The Southern Mexicans are over here.
And the others are over here.
It was extremely racialized,
and like very offensive racially as well.
It was like, I'm black.
You're white.
You're Mexican.
You're an other.
I leaned into prison politics.
And for four years of mylife, it was just survival.

(08:17):
(soft music)
At the time, I went to SolanoState Prison in '04 to '08.
If you go into the archives,
between '04, '05, and '08 in Solano,
there was over a dozen miniriots or large-scale riots.
These are hundreds of peoplefighting in these prisons.

(08:38):
And here I am, I'm like, "This is insane,"
and it's all racialized.
That was my first three or four years,
and I ended up getting caughtup in some stuff in prison.
And I did two years insolitary confinement,
from '08 to 2010.
That's where things changed for me.
- Oh my.
- I was in Tehachapi.
And I'm a two-striker.
When someone asked me, "Hey, who are you,"
and I ended up telling him likesome street name that I had,

(09:00):
and he says, "No, that's what you are.
"I asked who you are."
And from that moment on,things changed for me
'cause I couldn't reallyanswer the question,
'cause up until that moment, mind you,
it was like, either you were like church,
you're Judeo-Christian,or you're a criminal.
You're this, you're that.
And none of it really spoke to who I was,
and really never, as I look back now,
I never once had a teacherthat sat me down and was like,

(09:22):
"You are more than whatyou're purporting to be."
I've never had a black teacher in my life,
let alone a black male teacher in my life,
someone who looked like me
telling me this is what life looks like.
I only had my dad andother mentors in my life
that were great, but it wasnever like someone sat me down
and said, "Hey, let's figure this out."
And so that was the first time
I actually thought about who was I.
(soft music)

(09:46):
From then on, I literally readevery book you can think of.
I had my mom sending meall these types of books.
And I went on this wholeintrospective journey,
trying to figure likeout exactly who I was
as an individual, and divorce that
from what society told me Iwas or what I thought I was.
And I realized that a lot ofthe things that I was doing
prior to prison, like I was just doing 'em

(10:08):
because that was the thing to do.
It was like I was drinkingnot because I like to drink.
It was because these people were drinking.
I was smoking not because I like to smoke.
It was because I was hangingaround people who smoked.
I would go into stores and take stuff
not because I was a thief.
It was because, hey,everyone else is doing it,
or I don't have clothes,
so let me go in here andsteal a pair of shoes.
And so it was like super innocentuntil it wasn't innocent.
And I just truly wish thatsomeone would've said,

(10:29):
"Hey, man, you are more than that."
That's why I'm a bigproponent of mentorship.
And so fast forward, got out in 2012,
and I had these grandiose plans.
I went in a kid.
I went in 10 monthsafter my 18th birthday.
I was a kid, right?
Now I'm getting out, 26 years old
with all this wealth of experience
of what real racism looks like,
violent racism, violent, implicit.

(10:50):
I've seen that, I experiencedit, I participated in that,
like having that experience
and then coming on the otherside saying, "That is wrong.
"Prison is just not a goodplace for anyone to be in."
(soft music)
- How did you make that transition
from being such a part ofthis racialized culture
into reading these books andgoing into more introspection

(11:15):
and wanting somethingdifferent for yourself?
Like, how did that happen?
- It was that one question.
I think Maya Angelou said it best.
She says that a question cannot exist
unless the answer is somewhereout there in the universe.
And all it takes is the right question
to unlock these doors.
I tell my dad all the time,a lot of what I am now
is because of the seeds he planted in me

(11:36):
when I was four andfive and six years old.
If you look at it from aperspective of a seed and a tree,
everything that tree isin that seed already.
And so it was already in me.
That question was likejust super agitational
because I really wanted to answer it.
And so it was that one questionthat sent me down that path.
And then once I began tolook at every single thing

(11:57):
that I've done in my life,
and I had a long time tothink about those things,
it really got me thinking like,hey, I don't know who I am,
but I know who I wanna become.
Becoming Jay Jordan, thefather, the husband, the leader,
the son, the organizer,the community advocate,

(12:18):
like that journey that I'm still on
to become the best versionof me every single day
is what drives me.
This is like, I think thePoet Laureate of America,
Amanda, said it best.
This is not finished product here.
Like, we're imperfectbecause we're not finished.
The excitement of knowingthat I'm imperfect,
that I'm imperfect becauseI'm on this journey

(12:40):
was such a relief, 'causejust think about it.
All throughout my life, fromsecond grade to sixth grade,
to when I was pulled outthe car by the police
when I was 15, 16 to thengetting thrown in prison,
once you get labeled acriminal in this country,
that word, criminal, is ajustification for dehumanization.
Once you have that title,it justifies murder.
It's why I advocate for police reform,

(13:01):
is because if Jay Jordan,
the guy who was the Red CrossHero of the Year in 2014,
gets pulled over, the firstthing you're gonna do is,
oh, he's a two-striker.
Even though I haven't beenin trouble in 17, 18 years,
it still doesn't matter.
I'm always gonna be a criminal.
And so that's what,
to answer your question,Jess, that's what really,
it was the agitational question,
and then it was like theexcitement of going on this journey

(13:24):
and not having the weight of,
there is a finished productI'm trying to get to.
It's like, no, you areimperfect, and it's okay.
You can be imperfect,
but be the best imperfecthuman that you could be.
(soft music)
I relapsed when I got out, right?
I relapsed with the sense of my thinking
because I had all these plans.
I wanted to sell used cars.

(13:44):
I wanted to sell real estate.
I wanted to sell insurance.
I wanted to open up a barber shop
and become an entrepreneur,and I quickly realized
that I couldn't do any ofthat stuff, none of it.
Like, everything I had on mylist, I could not do at all.
My friend was selling insurance.
He was like, "Yo, this is the money gig.
"You can sell insurance.
"Everyone needs lifeinsurance, and you'll be good."

(14:04):
My felony denied me that.
I couldn't become a barber, my felony.
I couldn't sell cars, my felony.
I tried to even volunteerat my nephew's school.
I couldn't do that, my felony.
And so I was like devastated,
and I was like, "Man, what is this?"
I will always be acriminal, and that really,
I was down until my dadwas like, "Man, listen.
"Your story is still being written.
"Your testimony is still being developed,

(14:26):
"and let this be a part of your testimony.
"Let this inspire people
"because you're gonnaovercome this," and I did.
I ended up starting amentor program in Stockton,
and I was successful.
It was called the First 50,and we were able to take kids
from one of the moretroubled schools in Stockton,
the high school, and take those kids
and teach them about civics,teach them about life,
teach them about Stockton.

(14:46):
And some of these folkswere not gonna graduate,
and it took us like 18 months,
but every single one of 'em graduated.
Every single one of 'em went to college.
We were recognized over 37 times,
American Red Cross Heroof the Year in 2014.
And I ended up, I was blessed enough
to start a small vending machine company
that ended up being a verybig vending machine company,
and I sold it to startthis mentoring program.

(15:07):
And I didn't know anything about grants
or anything like that,so I spent all my money
like helping out with these kids.
I literally used toopen up my dad's church
and these kids would come andthey would do their homework,
play with our sound system,
and we would try to tackle problems
in the community together.
And I would teach 'em how to change tires,
and how to balance a checkbook,
how to do community gardening,
all these different thingsthat they were never taught.

(15:28):
And in turn, I felt like taking these
and giving them somethingthat I was never given,
which was, hey, listen, thisis the way the world works.
And the world is not gonna be nice to you,
but you should be nice to the world,
and your positivity will shine bright.
And so teaching them that,but also teaching them
the components of society,the hard components.
So the first project that Iworked on was called We Can.

(15:49):
And I was trying to figureout how to get us some money,
'cause this is like themiddle where I was like,
okay, I'm spending allmy money on these kids,
and I don't know where to get any money,
so I'm trying to rack mybrain on how to do grants.
I was fresh.
They just wouldn't leave me alone.
I'm like, "Hey, go tothe park or something.
"Go play."
And these are high schoolstudents and they're like,
"No, parks are dirty."
I'm like, "Well, figure it out."
I'm like, "Look, I'llgo buy you some pizza
"and some ice cream, and when I come back,
"figure out how to fix these parks."

(16:11):
I was literally frustrated.
I came back, and they're all in a circle,
and they're hellaexcited, and they're like,
"Hey, we got it, we got it,intrinsic motivation," (laughs)
and I was like, "Intrinsic what?"
They're like, "Intrinsic motivation."
I'm like, "Okay."
Like, listen, people dothings purely for enjoyment.
They're like, "Look atthis YouTube video,"
and they showed me this YouTube video
of people using the stairsinstead of the escalator

(16:32):
because the stairs weremade into piano keys.
They're like, "Well, if youpaint the trash cans nicely,
"then people will wanna use 'em."
We painted over 200 trashcans in 70% of the parks
and people were using the parks.
We had city council memberspainting trash cans.
We had like congressmenpainting trash cans,
police chiefs painting trash cans.
And it was my first realizationthat something as simple

(16:56):
as making something beautiful again
was so transformative to me.
That's what I wanted to do for them.
I was like, "You guys are beautiful.
"You guys are powerful.
"You guys are inspirational.
"You guys are magic, and theworld needs to see that."
(soft music)
I ended up leaving Stockton
because I just couldn't find a job
and all the kids graduated.

(17:17):
Like, all of 'em, they graduated.
Two years of workingwith us, they graduated.
And they like graduated and they didn't go
to community college, like which is great.
They got accepted intocolleges, and it was like,
I remember crying 'cause I was like,
"What am I gonna do with my life?"
And I ended up getting into politics.
So I got tapped to be a field director
for a congressional campaign.
We won that campaign.
I was still on parole, which was insane,

(17:37):
and we won that campaign.
I had since like built relationships
with the DA in Stockton,Tori, and Chief Jones,
Chief Eric Jones in Stockton,
and the sheriff out there and more.
We built relationships throughthe work with the kids,
and so we had a lot of support,
a lot of support in Stockton.
And I never thoughtthat I would be friends
with judges and DAs and police chiefs,
but doing the work with the kids
and trying to make the community better,

(18:00):
it was very apparent thatthey were people too, right,
and we had this common thread
of wanting our community tobe safe and people to be,
like thrive and be happy.
And I didn't care what theywore, like what badge or not.
I was like, "Hey, come out hereand paint some trash cans."
You know what I mean?
"And don't bring your gun,don't bring your badge,
"don't bring your uniform.

(18:20):
"Just come out here and be a person."
That would really shape me
on how I think about the world now.
Fast forward, moving toLA, I moved to LA in 2015
'cause I just couldn'tfind a real job out there.
No one would hire mebecause of my conviction
after the campaign.
It was just hard.
Like, I couldn't find anything
'cause everyone had likethese background checks
you had to go through and guidelines.

(18:40):
I'm like, "Hey, we gotta fix this stuff.
"This is crazy."
I did all this stuffand I'm at square one,
and I moved out to LA homeless.
I slept in my car.
And I had some money saved up.
I couldn't find an apartment
'cause everyone did background checks.
And I ended up landing a gig at PICO,
organizing mothers who had lost kids
to gun violence in the Westmont area,
the shooter's parents andthen the victim's parents

(19:00):
around this community-basedasset development strategy
where we would bring folks together,
talk about what is neededto prevent gun violence.
And we did that for 11months, and CSJ came knocking.
"What do you think about takingProp 47 to the next level
"and helping these millions ofpeople with records get free
"and be able to access jobs and housing?"
I'm like, "Hey, this is me!

(19:21):
"Like, this is great."
How do you humanize peoplethat are considered criminals?
So everything that I'vebeen through in my life,
being called a criminalwhen I was in second grade
for wanting coffee cakeand taking lunch tickets,
to now what I do today, whichis help people understand
why someone with a pastconviction is a human
and deserves a second chance.

(19:41):
If they've proven thatthey can operate in society
successfully, it's just a testament to God
and to the universe andthe way things just click.
One thing that I'm extremelyproud of in terms of policies
is not so much on the TimeDone side,
which is our constituency ofpeople with past convictions,
the thousands of people that we organize.

(20:02):
It's actually on the survivor side.
If you are a victim of violence in a home
and you have to break your lease,
then you can break yourlease without penalty.
And when we began to run it,
I felt really empoweredbecause, obviously,
passing laws is great and much needed,
ensuring that someone'shouse who was shot up
could actually move.

(20:23):
Two close friends ofmine, childhood friends,
their house was shot up in Stockton.
There's a lot of gun violence in Stockton.
And they were strugglingwith their landlord
to break the lease.
CSJ stepped in and helped to relocate them
and do all the stuff.
I reassured them.
They were like, "Man, this is a crazy law.
"There should be a law against this."

(20:44):
I'm like, "Hey, we just passed a law."
If this happens to anybody else,
they'll be able to breaktheir lease without a penalty.
It's things like that that really inspires
and empowers me to makechange in real people's lives,
'cause a lot of times, we divorce politics
from real systems change,
and what we do here iswe're everyday people.
We are who we serve,
and the laws that I've been able to pass,

(21:06):
like that being one of 'em,I can see the everyday impact
and like how it's likebetween life and death.
- Yeah.
I think one of the thingsthat I've been so struck by
since we started educating ourselves
is that everythingseems so interconnected.
It's like you advocate for someone,
you have to end upadvocating for everyone.
Crime survivors likeus, in terms of people

(21:26):
who have been impacted by incarceration,
it's all so connected.
And I think the firsttime we met you, Jay,
was during a meeting youled about the possibility
of changing the threestrikes laws in California,
and that was a really powerful experience
to be in this virtualroom with so many people
who have been impacted by these laws.
And you have a secondstrike, and so obviously,

(21:47):
this is a topic that holdsspecial meaning for you.
And I'm curious to knowhow you would like to see
the three strikes laws changed.
And how is it for you to talk with us
given our connection to these laws?
- First and foremost, thankyou all for doing this.
I think this is something that is needed.
Quality qualitative contentaround issues of public safety,

(22:10):
I think, is how we getto where we need to be
of transforming a system
that just does notnecessarily make it safe.
Here's the rub about the system in general
and why three strikes justdoesn't make any sense, right?
We spend about $50 billionon this thing every year,
from top to bottom, prisons, police,
the whole kit and caboodle,
50 billion in Californiaalone, every year,
about 13 billion on prisons alone.

(22:33):
Since 1982, it's been about $1trillion building this thing,
and this is a lot ofmoney we're talking about.
And the whole thing, the whole thing
only responds to crimeafter crime happens, right?
None of it goes to preventingcrime from happening.
And if you ask anybodywho's lost a loved one,

(22:54):
if you ask, "What is the one thing
"that you really wouldlove the system to do,"
and most people would say,
"We want this not tohappen to anybody else.
"We wish it didn't happen to us.
"We want this to happen to anybody else."
So it's prevention.
And if it's a system of public safety,
how much of that shouldgo to punishing people?
How much of that should actually go
to ensuring that thisdoesn't happen ever again?

(23:17):
We get more bang for our buck
to stop intergenerationalcycles of trauma.
With three strikes, it just speaks
to the reactionary nature of the system.
We spent a lot of moneybecause of three strikes.
If you look at why the systemhas so many people in it
in terms of a disproportionate amount
of black and brown folks,

(23:37):
it's because of three strikesand gang enhancements.
If you look at thenumbers of three strikes,
we are talking about upwardsof 70 to 80% of people
that get three strikes arepeople of color, right?
If we're talking about
what is the function ofthree strikes, right,
at the beginning, it was supposed to be
if you commit a crime three times,

(23:58):
then three strikes, you're out.
And that, for most people, is fair.
When you look at the function now,
I did one crime and I got two strikes.
How is that even possible?
It's being used to ensure thatthe DAs have what they need
to punish people to the furthestextent of the law, right?
It's not being used in a waythat it's supposed to be used.

(24:20):
It's like, hey, if you dothe same thing three times,
then we're gonna put youon pause for a little bit.
Okay, this is a lever that DAs could use
to just get people to sign these deals
that are putting peoplein prison for a long time.
Some stats that I thinkeveryone should know, right,
is about 900,000 peopleare booked into jail
every single year in California.

(24:40):
This is only California, 900,000 people.
The average prisonsentence for a black person
is two years longer than white people.
80% of people sentenced tolife are people of color
and disproportionately mentally ill.
92% of people sentencedto gang enhancements
are people of color.
And so if we're saying that the system

(25:04):
that's supposed to keep us safe,
that's supposed to holdpeople accountable,
somewhere along the line
is disproportionatelychurning out numbers,
high numbers for black folks
when we're only a smallerportion of society,
then something's wrong with that,
and three strikes hasa lot to do with that
because you're seeing folks

(25:25):
that are habituallycoming into the system.
They're not coming into thesystem for violence at first.
A lot of folks come into the system
for drug offenses and petty crimes.
But then when they get thesefelonies on their record,
what happens is people justcan't reintegrate into society
like I couldn't.
Luckily, I have my parentsand a support system,
but I couldn't do anything.
Just imagine if you don'thave a support system.

(25:46):
A lot of people willgo and become homeless.
A lot of people will go andbecome addicted to drugs.
A lot of people have mental breakdowns.
Most people that go into prison
have had some sort of traumaticexperience to begin with.
Three strikes doesn't cut at the issue.
Three strikes is like, it's backwards.
If the system is there to catch people

(26:08):
when they are failing insociety, then you would think
if they're failing two times,you're like, "Wait a minute.
"Let us ask you a different question.
"Let us ask you a question ofwhat can we do to help you."
That's what I want to see.
That's what I think alot of people wanna see
is, hey, if we have people
that are continuously coming to you,

(26:28):
if we were to do it like a hospital,
and if a person were tocome to the emergency room
for the same thing, then you would say,
"What is causing this?"
In the criminal justice system,if someone comes three times
for the same thing, we say,"Let's lock them up further.
"Let's lock them up for life."

(26:49):
And it does not make any sense
'cause obviously, this personis crying out for help.
Obviously, like there'ssomething wrong with this person,
and we need to address it, right?
If we're spending $50 billiona year to keep us safe
and people are continuouslycoming into this system,
and they're coming into thesystem with mental illness,
drug addicted, living in poverty

(27:11):
and we're not addressingany of those three,
and all we're saying is, "We'regonna lock you up forever,"
and then they get outand we give them felonies
and they can't get jobs and housing,
that's not a system that'sgonna work for anybody.
The system is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
It's, hey, we only respond to crime.
We don't prevent crime from happening.
Only 1% of the $50 billiongo to support victims.

(27:31):
The rest of it goes tomaintain the system,
and the system needs tomaintain itself over and over.
And that for me is why threestrikes, gang enhancements,
enhancements in general,the sentencing matrix,
plea bargains, all of it,
we need take a long hard look at it.
Is this the most effective way
we can be spending public dollars?
Is this the most effectiveway to support survivors?
Is this most effective wayto keep communities safe?

(27:53):
And if you look at the dataand historical analysis,
you realize that it is the polar opposite.
(laid back music)
- Thank you for listeningin on this conversation.
We are going to pause hereand publish the second part
of our conversation withJay in a separate episode.

(28:15):
But stay tuned here for a bitof a debrief of this episode
from Annie and me.
- I just wanna say Jay issuch an amazing leader.
I'm so grateful we got thechance to talk with him.
- Yeah, I think this conversationis such a good example

(28:36):
of why it's important
to be prioritizing theperspectives of people
who have actuallyexperienced incarceration
and the issues we'retalking about firsthand,
not just in a hypothetical way.
Jay has obviously beenon all sides of this.
And I hope folks who listened can see
that these are real lives
that are being impacted by these policies.

(28:57):
And I think that getsa little lost sometimes
when we talk about these broadissues, like crime prevention
and public safety, insuch an abstract way.
Jess, did you know that the average age
for people who are given alife sentence without parole
in California is 19?
- I've heard that, and it's so terrible.

(29:18):
Jay is an example of someonewho got out of prison
and has made such importantcontributions to his community.
He's the CEO of the Alliancefor Safety and Justice now,
which is the biggest crime survivor
and advocacy organization in the country.
- Absolutely.
Let's talk a little bit
about what people canexpect in episode two.

(29:41):
- Yeah, so part two is a conversation
that's relevant to what's beenhappening in the headlines
for the past six months or so,
which is around rising crime rates.
And this episode is super relevant to that
because we talk about thekinds of interventions
that can really help in these situations.
And it felt like such animportant conversation

(30:02):
that we wanted it to stand on its own.
- We actually had thisconversation with Jay
about six months ago, and as you'll hear,
he predicted many of thenarratives around rising crime
that are being sensationalizedin the media again,
and this was before any of ithad really hit the headlines.
He saw it coming, andhe was, unfortunately,

(30:24):
absolutely right about that.
- So in part two of our conversation,
he really lays out what's happening,
what people in vulnerablecommunities need,
and how community-based supportinitiatives can really solve
for much of the problem ofrising violence and homicides.
- So please tune in for part two
of our conversation with Jay Jordan.

(30:44):
If you'd like to learn more about Jay
and how you can support his work,
please visit our websiteat anewlegacy.com.
And again, thanks for joining us.
(laid back music)