June 20, 2023 • 66 mins
How does society treat people based on their criminal conviction history and how can we better understand the unique experiences of people who are convicted of sexual offenses? Why, in an age where second chances and demands to reduce mass incarceration have become mainstream, are people with these convictions often excluded from reform and relief efforts? In this episode of Amplified Voices, Jason and Amber speak with Emily Horowitz, a professor of sociology and criminal justice at St. Francis College, ahead of the release of her new book: From Rage to Reason: Why We Need Sex Offense Laws Based on Facts Not Fear.
During this conversation, Professor Horowitz details her own personal and professional journey, along with powerful stories from the years she spent interviewing people impacted by the registry. The discussion reveals a deep empathy that comes from being in close proximity to people who are experiencing banishment and stigma, as well as an exploration of how laws based on vengeance rather than justice or evidence create new forms of harm while failing to address the real and pervasive problem of sexual violence.
About Emily Horowitz, PhD
Professor Emily Horowitz teaches courses in sociology at St. Francis College. She is the founder and co-director of the Justice Initiative. Her scholarly research addresses the causes and consequences of mass incarceration, with a focus on the harms of conviction registries and banishment laws.
Her latest book, From Rage to Reason: Why We Need Sex Crime Laws Based on Facts, Not Fear (Bloomsbury Academic, 2023), explores the human carnage wrought by decades of draconian and fear-based sex offense policies. She is also the author of Protecting Our Kids?: How Sex Offender Laws Are Failing Us (Praeger, 2015), which was awarded a 2016 Choice Outstanding Academic Title by the American Library Association, and co-editor, with Law Professor Larry Dubin, of Caught in the Web of the Criminal Justice System: Autism, Developmental Disabilities and Sex Offenses.
Professor Horowitz frequently engages in advocacy efforts and public scholarship aimed at challenging myths and misinformation that lead to ineffective and draconian laws. Select recent news publications and media include The Real Monsters (a 2022 essay in Inquest: A Decarceral Brainstorm), a Reason article about the man wrongfully convicted of raping prominent author Alice Sebold (2021), a NY Daily News editorial about the Supreme Court hearings for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson (2022), and participation in an
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Intro (00:00):
Everyone has a voice, a story to tell.
Some are marginalized and muted.
What if there were a way toamplify those stories, to have
conversations with real peoplein real communities, a way to
help them step into the power oftheir lived experience?
Welcome to Amplified Voices, apodcast lifting the experiences
(00:23):
of people and families impactedby the criminal legal system.
Together, we can createpositive change for everyone.
Jason (00:34):
Hello and welcome to another episode of Amplified
Voices.
I'm your host, jason, here withmy co-host, amber.
Good morning, amber.
Amber (00:40):
Good morning Jason.
Jason (00:42):
And Amber.
today we have a special guest.
It's Dr Emily Horowitz.
Hello, emily.
Emily (00:49):
Hi, thank you so much for having me.
I'm a big fan of both of yoursand your amazing work.
Jason (00:54):
Thank you so much.
As we are And as I mentionedbefore, we even started
recording a lot of the listenersto this podcast Already know
your name and are familiar withyour work and you have hero
status with them.
There are going to be someother listeners that are meeting
you for the first time.
Can you tell us a little bitabout who you are and how you
(01:17):
came to the work that you'redoing?
Emily (01:19):
Yeah well, so I'm a professor of sociology and
criminal justice at St FrancisCollege and I teach classes and
I do all the stuff a normalprofessor does.
I also work very closely withstudents who are justice
impacted.
I help run a scholarshipprogram for students with prior
justice involvement And I teachcourses in a detention center
(01:43):
aimed at students who are kindof on their way out of
correctional facilities so thatthey can finish their college
degree when they return to thecommunity.
Jason (01:53):
How long have you been doing that?
Emily (01:56):
I've been doing that program, So I started it about
10 years ago, maybe eight yearsago, And it's really interesting
because when I started it therewas a lot of pushback from the
administration from otherstudents, Like why should they
get scholarships when I haven'tbroken any laws and I don't get
a scholarship right?
Why should students in prisonsget free college classes when we
(02:18):
didn't break any laws and doanything?
Jason (02:20):
wrong, right So, and your college is in, you're in New
York City.
Emily (02:27):
Yeah, we're in Brooklyn, but things have really
radically shifted, and soquickly.
When we started, they had takenPell grants out of prisons.
Now they've been returned, andObama and Trump and Biden have
really been supportive ofrestoring Pell grants to people
in prison, which was taken awayin the early 90s.
(02:48):
But everything has radicallyshifted so quickly, and part of
my work and Amber has beenreally good on this in her own
activism is to create asituation where people who have
sex offenses are treatedsimilarly to anyone else who's
been charged with a crime, andso the thesis of all of my work
(03:09):
in recent years has been if youcommit a crime you commit.
It doesn't matter if it's a sexoffense or any other crime.
You should be given the samegrace and opportunities as
anyone else.
Jason (03:21):
Right, but going back to the point about people,
shouldn't be.
why should somebody who isincarcerated have access to an
education?
How do you respond to that?
What do you tell people?
Emily (03:35):
So well when it started.
I would explain that it makesus all safer.
We know that if you earn acollege degree in prison or
afterwards, you're far lesslikely to reoffend.
you're far less likely to needit.
It saves money because it'scheaper to give somebody a
college degree than to keep themin prison.
(03:56):
It helps their children, ithelps their family.
They're less likely to be onpublic assistance, so it helps
us.
So it's kind of a make like aselfish argument.
right, they're less likely tocommit another offense and
they're more likely to havehousing and jobs and not need
social services.
And also they're less likely togo back to prison, which is a
(04:18):
lot more money.
But it's interesting becausethings have really shifted and I
don't have to have thoseconversations anymore about
people who commit non-sexoffenses anyway.
It's almost so many collegesnow have these programs.
They have these programs inprison and out of prison.
It's really been an amazingradical shift in attitudes about
(04:38):
this And, like I said, fromTrump to Obama, democrats,
republicans people are prettyunited on the idea that people
who are incarcerated should getaccess to higher education and
also that they should bedeserving of post-incarceration
scholarships and support.
Jason (04:55):
So we could do an entire separate podcast on just this
topic alone, i think, in theinterest of time, though I know
there are some things we want totalk about.
We're going to talk about thenew book that you have coming
out very shortly, so to get tothat, my question then becomes
how did you get involved inhaving this focus on people of
(05:18):
convicted sex offenses andworking with that population?
Emily (05:22):
Yeah.
So one of the reasons why I wassort of talking about that a
lot right now is that it reallyinforms this book I have coming
out in June because I've seenthis bifurcation.
I've seen the grace and supportthat people who are formerly
incarcerated are now receivingin society And I see much less
(05:43):
of that for people convicted ofsex offenses.
So having this kind of role assomebody who researches sex
offenses and also separatelyprofessionally helps other
people who have criminalhistories really speaks to what
this new book is about.
So I got into this because Imet a journalist named Debbie
(06:04):
Nathan through a mutual friend.
Debbie Nathan was one of thefirst journalists in the country
to identify the panic aroundthe daycare centers and the
satanic panic.
I was really lucky to meet herabout 20 years ago And after I
met her I read her book And itwas called Satan's Silence And
it was really.
It blew my mind that all thesepeople in the late 1980s and
(06:25):
early 1990s were falsely accusedand wrongfully convicted of
sexually harming children, andshe does a great job identifying
the causes and the consequences, from the feminist movement's
emphasis on believing victims,believing women and children, to
the rise of the new right whoare angry about women going back
to work and kids being indaycare centers and how they
(06:46):
kind of came together and thispanic emerged And the left as
well as the right embraced thispanic.
And she was this really bravejournalist who was like this is
fake, this is not happening.
And she wrote this amazing bookand helped a lot of people.
And then, after being familiarwith kind of her work and
theories, i met somebody throughher who had recently left
(07:10):
prison and was on parole for asex offense.
He was falsely accused andwrongfully convicted in one of
these daycare cases And she washelping him kind of get on his
feet.
And I met him And I was shockedat his life.
He had served his time eventhough he hadn't done the crime,
but that's another story.
I'm less interested ininnocence than his experience
(07:31):
afterwards.
So he'd spent over 10 years inprison for a crime he didn't
commit.
He was on parole And the paroleconditions because he had a sex
offense conviction blew my mind.
He had housing, he had familythat had nice homes.
He couldn't live there becauseof residency issues And in
another case he moved in withanother family member But the
(07:53):
neighbors freaked out and themanagement threw him out of the
home.
He had become very religious inprison And he joined a religious
congregation And he was kickedout of that, which I think was
kind of and Jason, i know youcan relate to this that was kind
of what really blew my mind.
I was like isn't religion aboutredemption and helping?
But he's not allowed to goduring the reentry process and
(08:16):
get the support he needs.
How could somebody who claimsto have any kind of religious
principles justify kickinganyone out of a congregation who
wants to go there?
He had so many restrictions.
He wanted to go to college.
He couldn't go on a campusbecause of the sex offense
conviction And this kind ofreally made me think.
(08:38):
I'm a sociologist.
I'd been working on variouscriminal justice research issues
And I was like I want to figureout why this is happening.
He's not a threat to anyone.
Even if he'd done the crime.
He was convicted at 19 and hadspent over a decade in prison.
He was on parole.
None of these restrictions wereabout supporting him or helping
him reintegrate and notreoffend.
(09:01):
They were all meant todestabilize him.
Amber (09:04):
How long ago was this?
Emily (09:07):
This was in the early 2000s so about 20 years ago That
I met him and got to know hisexperience And, like I said,
things are way worse today.
I think about some of thethings that he was going through
.
And then Debbie said well, ifyou're so outraged, i'm on the
board of this organization thathelps people who are falsely
accused of sexual offenses, andI joined that board And then
(09:30):
very quickly we started to workon people who were rightfully
accused of these offenses.
What if they'd done it?
Isn't this punishment enough?
Like decades in prison, parole,polygraph treatment all of
these punishments were more thanenough.
Jason (09:48):
So how does that work?
I mean, you're a professor,you're teaching other classes
and doing other work.
You just this intrigues me andyou start researching it.
I mean, what was your life Like?
how did you incorporate thatinto your world?
Emily (10:01):
Well, it was.
I mean, it wasn't completelyout of the blue, because I met
Debbie through like-mindedfriends and my dissertation,
which I had was almost finishedwith at that time, was about a
domestic violence court.
So I was a sociologist and Iwas kind of doing criminology
and I started studying theprosecution of domestic violence
.
And it was kind of like thisparallel experience, because I
(10:23):
was spending every day in adomestic violence court project
and I'd initially been reallyexcited like wow, the criminal
justice system is gonna likestop domestic violence and, like
you know, prosecute people whocommit domestic violence.
And I'm gonna write about itand write about how this is a
great success for the feministmovement, because only 20 years
before nobody cared aboutdomestic violence.
(10:44):
And so I sat in this courtroomand I saw really poor men,
mostly of color, mostlyunemployed, being given extra
long sentences because theirconviction was domestic violence
rather than something else.
And I was really saddened andshocked because I had come into
(11:06):
that project thinking that itwas like a great success for
feminism.
It was the title of mydissertation was
institutionalized feminism Andmy hypothesis was like it's
great because feministprinciples are being integrated
into the criminal justice system.
So I was really shocked anddisappointed to see how it
really wasn't about helpingwomen, it was about punishing
(11:26):
men, and I met many women whowere the quote unquote victims
This was the terminology wasvery different then And they
would say, like I don't want himto go to prison for a long time
, i don't want this restrainingorder.
I called the police because Iwas harmed, but he's the sole
support of our family.
There was a lot of.
It was a lot less clear cutthan I thought And I realized
(11:49):
very quickly like the courtsystem was not the answer for
social problems.
So it wasn't like I wascompletely detached from this.
So both of these thingshappened at the same time And
then I sort of shifted to seeingsexual offenses as something
that I wanted to study andunderstand.
Amber (12:06):
Emily, i think you're bringing up a really important
sort of concept that I think alot of individuals, particularly
people who are just learningabout these issues and they are
self-described feminists interms of really wanting to
deeply move women forward And soit seems like when you were in
(12:31):
the situation where you werelearning more, you really
expected it to be one waybecause of your feminist logic,
and what you saw in real lifeturned out to be completely
different.
What would be your response tosomeone who's sort of at the
beginning of that journey as afeminist, like what are some
(12:52):
ways someone could learn abouthow things really are?
Emily (12:56):
Well, that's funny.
You say that because Aya Gruber, for example, has a book that
came out called The Feminist Waron Crime, which talks about the
incompatibility of mostfeminism of sort of non-carceral
feminism with punish, punish,punish, pitchforks, pitchforks,
pitchforks and, even moreimportantly, more and more
(13:19):
relevant since Judith Levine andErica Miners have an amazing
book called The Feminist in theSex Offender, which talks about
how feminism is not like justthis.
You know single focused.
You know ideology It's verycomplicated.
There's all different types offeminism, and carceral feminism
(13:40):
might be the feminism that weall know and see and that's been
most successful, and it's thestrain of feminism that's most
successfully worked with thestate and that most people kind
of like know about.
But a lot of feminism is notabout carceral responses.
A lot of feminism is aboutchanging the world and changing
our culture and not inflictingmore violence, right?
(14:00):
So I would argue that you know,anything you do with the
carceral system inflicts moreviolence, and a lot of feminism
is not about increasing violence, and we understand that the
prison industrial complexcreates conditions for sexual
violence and domestic violence.
Ironically enough, Thanks,Emily.
Jason (14:21):
So how did you go from you became interested in it, you
started researching it,studying it, to then writing a
lot about the topic, speakingpublicly, doing debates that get
passed along where everybodywatches them.
Well, how did thattransformation happen?
Emily (14:39):
Well, i think part of it is that, like I started to get
really angry because when Iwould talk to people about it
and it seemed so obvious to me,i'd be like this guy went to
prison and now he's homeless,not because he doesn't have
money or family or support, butbecause the neighbors don't want
him there, right, he can't goto his church because the leader
(15:02):
of the church was like you know, it's not safe for you to be
here.
And it made me really angry.
When I would talk to people andthey'd be like, well, maybe he
did it.
If he did do it, that's worthit.
And I'm like, who cares if hedid it?
I don't care if he did it ornot.
He needs, he's out, he's amongus, he needs a human being.
Why can't we forgive him?
(15:22):
It was so angering And I'm sureyou two have this experience
too.
You talk about it with peopleand they're such a disconnect.
So I thought, okay, well, i'm asociologist, like I finished my
dissertation, i can write abook, i can write articles and
explain to people like why thisis crazy, why this is wrong, and
it's interesting.
I mean, i wrote this book in2015 and I kind of had expected
(15:46):
to like move on and work onother stuff, but I just have
this other book coming out nowbecause I feel like things have
actually gotten worse, which isreally discouraging.
I mean, you like to thinkthere's this arc and things get
better and people become moreopen-minded, but my
conversations have grown likemore combative, worse.
(16:07):
People are angrier.
People are less rational aboutit.
I mentioned that when I metDebbie Nathan.
I joined the board of thisorganization.
It's called the National Centerfor Reason and Justice And the
goal is to be rational and focuson justice and not panic and
hysteria.
But everything about sexoffense law and policy has to do
(16:27):
with panic and hysteria.
It's completely divorced fromany kind of research or findings
.
I don't wanna like preach thechoir here.
Jason (16:37):
No, no, preach What's interesting is when you talk
about people being able toalmost compartmentalize.
It's like you know well, webelieve in human rights, except,
you know, we detach, we thinkit and like for a researcher,
like somebody who's doing thetype of work that you're doing,
it seems like there are peoplethat can think of other human
(16:57):
beings as just a subject in ormaterial, as opposed to real
human beings.
And it sounds just from talking.
I mean, i've read your work andseen you, but in talking with
you it seems like you reallytake it personally, like these
are real people, and you connectquickly with people, so you
feel you can, you're empathicand can feel their pain to an
(17:20):
extent.
Emily (17:21):
Yeah, and I mean it definitely makes me like very
personally upset when I see theway people are treated And I
think there's like there's a lotof really amazing people
working on this.
Like I said, when I met DebbieNathan, i was like, wow, she's
able to see this, she can thinkcritically about this.
You know people like JudithLevine, people that I'm like
(17:42):
kind of mimicking, but it is.
It's very, it's really hard towork on something where so many
people are so irrational.
But I guess that's like thepoint of sociology and social
sciences.
You try to use research, data,stories, provide evidence so
that people can think clearlyabout this.
Amber (18:05):
I just wanted to ask you to sort of, if you could, just
briefly, because we have a widevariety of listeners, some who
are more familiar with your workand the social science.
So, when you're talking aboutthe social science and what it
tells us, what are, like the keytakeaways that we know about
(18:27):
individuals who may have beenconvicted or committed a sexual
offense?
Emily (18:33):
Well, we know that recidivism rates are low lower
than for many other offenses but, more importantly, we know that
things like the registry,residency restrictions,
community notification, presencerestrictions, don't do anything
to decrease it further.
In fact, all of criminologicalresearch shows that the number
(18:57):
one way to reduce reoffense andmake everybody safer is through
post-incarceration support,housing, family support,
employment, and so what reallychallenges me about working on
this is that the registry andall of these laws we have
actually make it more likelythat people or not more likely
(19:20):
but it doesn't make it lesslikely that they will commit
another offense.
So it's infuriating becauseit's so obvious.
There's decades of researchthat shows us this.
There's also no research thatshows a policy such as residency
restrictions would protectanyone.
It undermines the reality ofalmost all sexual abuse.
(19:44):
Almost all sexual abuse is notstranger.
Danger is not because somebodylives in your neighborhood or
lives too close to a school, andwe've known this from the
beginning, from the start ofresidency restrictions.
I think it's been like almost20 years since article after
article has appeared underminingthis as a way to prevent new
(20:06):
sex offenses.
Yet the laws keep expanding andthey never get rolled back.
Jason (20:11):
I have so many questions.
Emily (20:13):
Yeah, but a lot of this I'm rehashing in my book.
Jason (20:16):
But I know, I know, but I have so many questions.
Emily (20:19):
If you want to, you're totally welcome to.
Jason (20:21):
And I'm going to go back.
Well, actually, before I askany question, let's say the name
of your book now and then we'llsay it again later, but it's
say you're the name of your book.
Emily (20:31):
From rage to reason why we need sex crime laws based on
facts, not fear.
Jason (20:36):
All right, so go look for it.
So you were, you were makingthe point before you know when
you, when you're there's,there's so much lack of reason,
and so how's that affected youin your life, being someone who
you know you talk about that alittle bit in the book that if
(20:57):
you are somebody who's studyingmurder, nobody calls you, you
know, a murder apologist, right?
So how has that impacted youand what, what?
what type of personal toll hasit taken in your life that you
work in this field?
Emily (21:12):
Yeah, i mean I definitely have certain fears
that my other colleagues don'thave about backlash, about
people accusing me of being, youknow, in favor of sexual
violence.
I've gotten accusations of thatfrom, like, random people who
call my office or people on theinternet who say things, and I
(21:35):
don't see that with people whowork on violent crime, right,
they'll work on all those studylike.
I always use this example ifyou study serial killers, you
don't have a bunch of people youknow calling your office and
calling you somebody who likesserial killers right, you don't
get people putting things upthat you don't care about
humanity.
But if you advocate forrational and just post
(21:58):
incarceration, post probation,parole, rationality and fairness
, you are accused of supportingsexual violence, which makes a
lot of people very spooked.
to work on this And I've talkedto other researchers who yeah,
right.
Jason (22:14):
So there's a chilling effect in the, in the whole
field, because you're going to,you have to get people who have,
who are willing to pay thatprice.
So, on behalf of, on behalf ofhumanity, i thank you for for
the work that you do.
Emily (22:32):
I mean, there's a lot of very brave social scientists,
lawyers, journalists who do workon this.
But I have definitely seenpeople say like, yeah, like I
hear you, but you know, anddefinitely I've had like friends
and family say like well, youalready wrote a book enough, you
know.
like you made your point why,why can't you work on something
(22:53):
else?
But it reminds me of one time Iremember, kelly Michaels, who
was a woman who was wrongfullyconvicted in the daycare panic
of sexually harming children Andshe said she got to prison.
she wound up being exonerated,but she said when she got to
prison she just thought anythingelse couldn't.
I have been convicted ofanything else besides this.
(23:13):
And she just I remember hersaying that and thinking, yeah,
like this is the worst, this isthe worst thing you can defend,
the worst thing you can beconvicted of And so many people
I interviewed in the book saidsimilar things.
like anything else.
Amber (23:29):
So, emily, can I'd like to talk to you a little bit more
about, like, your experience ofdoing research for the book and
talking to different people,just sort of the mechanics of,
like you know, pulling back thecurtain on how these things
happen.
So how, what was themethodology?
(23:50):
How did you like reach out topeople?
How did people get back to you?
You know, how long did it take?
all of those sort ofinteresting tidbits?
Emily (24:01):
Yeah well, so I was pretty lucky because I had this
book that came out in 2015.
So I wasn't going to writeabout it again But, like I said,
when I saw things getting worse, i felt like I had no choice,
just because, again, like itmade me really angry that the
laws kept building up, in spiteof the evidence that kept
(24:22):
building up that they wereineffective.
So, because of the first book,i knew people.
I engage in advocacy andactivism, so I put out a call.
I got permission from myuniversity to interview people
on the registry and I put out acall through a number of
activist groups that I'minvolved in and know about.
(24:43):
And I think one of the goodthings because I had that first
book, i got a lot of responsesAnd I also got a lot of people
to talk to me in a way that wasvery open, because they knew I
wasn't, they knew my position onthis.
Like, right, you engage inactivism.
Since, after my first book cameout, i did a public debate
(25:03):
about the registry where I wenton record publicly on YouTube
saying this is like nonsense,there's no need for a registry
at all, and so I think thingslike that like made people aware
that because a lot of people onthe registry tell me they get a
lot of calls for researchersAnd so there's a lot of people
(25:24):
who want to study people on theregistry, so I think they felt
like I was at least an advocate.
So I got I had really goodexperiences interviewing people
And I got a lot of peoplewanting to be interviewed And I
couldn't use all the interviewsI conducted.
I spent about two yearsinterviewing people.
Jason (25:40):
One of the things that struck me about a number of the
people you spoke to.
they said that they were moreprivileged and that they were
lucky relative to other peoplethat were on the registry or
committed sex offenses And so,and then you would go on to
describe how they were livingvery difficult lives.
(26:02):
So what was?
how did you react to that?
What were your thoughts?
Emily (26:07):
Yeah, i mean, it was really like this existential
experience because I'd betalking to people and they would
always start out by saying,like I know I'm really lucky,
i'm luckier than other people,like I have a house or like I
have a wife, and then they wouldgo on to tell these stories
where they were suffering somuch.
So it really made me see thatkind of something about humanity
(26:29):
that being, having thisexperience of being banished and
being a pariah also makes youhave this extraordinary empathy
for people, and I found thatkind of like beautiful and very
moving And I wanted to conveythat in the book that so many
people that I interviewed werelike, yeah, i got to go, my
(26:52):
friend who's in prison needsthis.
So there was this weirdcommunity of people that have
this unique experience of stigmaand banishment.
Jason (27:02):
So part of it is that they're, that they do feel like
they're more privileged, andpart of it is that the people
that do have it even worse youprobably couldn't even get to.
They might not have access tocomputer, they might not be able
to find you.
They're still, you know they're.
They're on the lowest rung interms of trying to get just
housing or trying to getsomething that so that they
(27:23):
could even like getting on aninternet connection to be able
to speak with you is a sense ofprivilege that they don't even
have.
Emily (27:32):
Right, right, i mean, i interviewed one guy who was in
his car because he didn't havehousing.
I mean he had some resources,but there were residency issues.
But even he said like, well,i'm okay, you know, my parents
helped me and I don't reallymind, and I'm in my car, and I
found that pretty inspiring.
Yet it's also really tragic,right, i mean right So.
Amber (27:55):
I want to, you know, sort of stay on that for just a
second.
One of the things that I am nota sociologist but I do work
with a lot of individuals whoare impacted by the registry And
one of the things that I haveobserved, you know, in my own
loved one and others, is thissense of yes, i am really lucky
(28:16):
for what I do have, and sort ofan internalized cultural shame
that they're like, well, if Ilike, this is what I deserve,
not necessarily like reallybelieving that, but because of
the way that culture has sort ofshunned, they feel lucky to
have a job as opposed to reallyreaching their full potential,
(28:41):
right, and that's just like asignificant sort of piece of
collateral damage that sometimespeople don't understand.
Is that people, when people areshunned in this way, they start
to believe the hype themselves?
Sure, absolutely.
Emily (28:56):
Yeah, that's why I didn't interview anyone.
And in all my years of doingthis and going to conferences
and meeting people, i meanpeople often reach out to me
because they can find me on theinternet to talk to me about
their experience or ask foradvice about something I haven't
talked to.
anyone who's like this isn'tfair, you know, they don't
(29:19):
express and maybe they don'texpress the anger but a little
bit is.
it might be good if there wasmore anger, but they feel like
they don't have the right to beangry because they've
internalized, they've made thismistake that is so unforgivable
that they don't even deserve tofight back.
They don't deserve to stand upfor themselves.
Amber (29:40):
Jason, what are your thoughts on that?
Jason (29:42):
Well, that's tough.
I mean just hearing that wholeidea of like not fighting back.
I mean the part of it is, ifyou have any type of aggression
in any way, it feeds into allthe stereotypes as well.
So it's not just a matter ofinternalizing it, but it's the
world smacking you down theminute you try to live like a
normal person.
Amber (30:04):
That's a good point.
Jason (30:05):
There's some of that.
So I mean, i think it's amixture of both, because there's
certainly people who arewalking around saying I'm
terrible, i'm terrible, you know, like how could I have done?
and of course you know that'sgood, like how could I have done
what I did?
you know for that and thenunderstand it.
But I think the majority ofpeople who find themselves
committing an offense we'll sayhow did I do that?
(30:26):
What do I do to make sure Idon't do it again?
So there's an element to that.
But then the other side of itis like we were saying is, if I
come out and I look, i'm goingto be accused of looking at
somebody the wrong way.
Emily (30:38):
Right.
I mean, one of the things I'vetalked to Amber a lot about is
that, on the one hand, in mostmovements, it's really important
for directly impacted people tospeak up and be the face of it,
but in this is one of the onlycases where, in some way, those
of us that are not directlyimpacted have more
(30:58):
responsibility, because ifpeople who are directly impacted
are like this is wrong, this isterrible, they do face like
you're aggressive, you're out ofcontrol, you're a predator.
So it's tough.
So I think that's also, i think, one of the reasons why I feel
like I can't move on, because Ido feel like I have more
responsibility Because those whoare on it are under so much
(31:20):
surveillance and so vulnerable,right, i mean, they're the only
group of formerly incarceratedpeople that are subject to
vigilante violence whose addressis on the internet, right?
So if you're there giving a talkor you're on a panel or you're
doing a debate, you're very easyto find, right, every your
whole history is there.
So it's tough.
Like one time, amber actuallydid this really lovely thing.
(31:42):
I was criticized because I wason a panel that I was moderating
and somebody wrote like shedoesn't even have any directly
impacted people on it And Amberpointed out yes, she did, but
the directly impacted peopledidn't want their picture taken,
so it wasn't put on socialmedia, so it looked like I was
like alone on the panel.
Jason (31:58):
Interesting And we've seen that too where we've had
people come onto panels and thenall of a sudden, the person
who's organizing puts the lastname of the person.
That person gets into trouble.
Could even be somebody who's onprobation.
Why are you being so publicabout this?
We've had situations where yougo and you speak in favor of a
(32:20):
bill or against the bill And allof a sudden, if you go and you
share your story, you're writtenin the newspaper.
So it's just, or even beyondadvocating, just doing anything,
going about your life, livingOne of the things as you know,
if you could be.
I think you even mentioned thisin the book, didn't you?
About somebody being afraid ofactually doing something.
(32:42):
No, I think in the book youwere talking about somebody
having these fantasies aboutsaving people.
Emily (32:49):
A lot of people said I have fantasies that I'll save a
child and the world will forgiveme.
Jason (32:54):
But the reality is that what we would see is if somebody
went in I mean, my thought onthat would be if you went and
you saved a child what wouldshow up in the newspaper is the
defender was inappropriatelyholding a child, i mean as
opposed to saving a child.
So that's part of the issue aswell.
When you were interviewing allof these people and writing your
(33:15):
book, did anything surprise you?
I mean, we talked a little bitabout the privilege, but did
anything else surprise you, orwas just this confirmation of
things you have been hearing allalong?
Emily (33:29):
No, i was really surprised by what I did.
These interviews were all aminimum of an hour And sometimes
I was doing like four a day.
Because I had this period oftime where I was doing it And I
began to feel very detached fromthe world.
I felt like people didn'tunderstand me And I did have
(33:51):
friends say I can't hear thesestories.
I'm like Emily, it's greatyou're working on your book, but
stop talking about it, stoptelling me how horrible this is.
And oh my gosh.
And I was struck by how kind oftraumatized I was.
I was talking to a friend ofmine And she said it's kind of
like you're the first person andyou see Auschwitz, you're the
(34:12):
first person there, and thenyou're trying to tell people and
everyone's like that's nothappening, they're not doing
that Or they must have committeda crime.
And so I felt very detachedfrom the world and kind of angry
.
This is so stupid And we'redestroying all these people's
lives And it would get me veryangry.
They had kids and they couldn'thelp their kids and their
(34:35):
mothers and their wives, andthat's also what made me so
angry.
It wasn't just theseindividuals that were being
punished, but the collateralpunishment of their entire
families.
And just for what?
For nothing.
It's so stupid.
Jason (34:50):
So, yeah, yeah.
So I mean, so you're living allof that.
I mean that's a reallyfascinating way to view it.
You're the first person to seeit, sharing it, as I'm reading
the book and I'm reading thesestories and thinking about all
the people and their lives And Ihave empathy for them and you
had empathy for them.
How do you think?
(35:13):
Do you think the average person, who doesn't really understand
what it's like, will feel that,will feel that?
Emily (35:21):
I hope so, because I feel like the data is clear, the
research is clear.
The recidivism data, forexample.
It's decades and decades ofdata.
There's a consensus of anentire field right, recidivism
is low.
There is no reason for thisexcept to punish, punish kind of
shame, shame, shame, destroy,destroy, destroy, right.
So the reason why I have verylittle data in this book and I
(35:44):
kind of touch on the studies,but it's like I want people to
understand the human impact ofthis.
And it's not a few people,right, there's millions of
people impacted if you countmothers, wives and children.
And I'm really careful in thebook, like I don't talk about oh
, this was a Romeo and Julietcase, oh, this was.
(36:05):
They were only nine years old,it doesn't matter what the
offense was.
These are all people who'vebeen punished.
I don't say held accountable,because I don't think prison is
real accountability, i don'tthink mandated treatment.
Thank you, thank you.
Yeah, i learned that from Amberand Mike Nikki Phillips.
But yeah, they're punished,right, and they're punished a
(36:29):
lot, they're punished too muchAnd nobody's held accountable,
right, it's just a mess.
Jason (36:35):
So one of the things that you talk about a lot is the
moment and the culture and howthe word pedophile, groomer and
the Me Too movement and all ofthat is being weaponized, and so
can you talk a little bit aboutthat and your journey with, or
(36:57):
your whole thought process interms of how that's evolved and
where you think we are right nowas a society?
Emily (37:05):
Yeah, i mean, i think it's really clear now that the P
word that you just said is theworst thing you can call anyone
right.
It's like the ultimate insult.
It's worse than being anything.
And so I've noticed like Istarted to notice a few years
ago, like I teach collegestudents that they were
constantly calling people PEDOto characterize a 22-year-old
(37:32):
like a senior dating a freshman.
They would call him this allthe time.
They would just throw this wordout there about people they
didn't like, and I also saw iton social media about anybody
older dating anybody younger,which is so.
And grooming also right.
Grooming started to be used notabout a priest or a coach with
(37:53):
a young child, but just aboutany age difference where the
older person was more than likefour or five years older than
the other person, and the quote,unquote, victim or whatever,
was 14, 15, 16, 17, which it wasjust a shift to expand these
(38:14):
terms to everything, everyimbalance of power, which, of
course, those who are actuallyon this registry are the brunt
of this, because then this wordis used all the time, all the
time, all the time.
In fact, i didn't notice thiswhen I wrote my first book.
That came out in 2015.
But I know friends who areprofessors, smart people, who
(38:35):
will say to me oh, how's yourwork on pedophiles, how's your
book on pedophiles coming up?
And I go crazy, right, right,but I don't want to be like the
word police or something.
Jason (38:46):
Well, actually.
Emily (38:47):
Yeah, i just spoke to a journalist from a really
prestigious publication and Igot an email from the journalist
And the subject was pedophilestory.
Right When I spoke to her, ikept explaining the origins to
the word and the problem of thewords.
And she's still emailing mequestions using this term And
(39:08):
she's very nice and she's verycritical and smart and
everything, but it's just outthere.
But it's very dangerous forpeople who actually are on
registries, because they're thepeople who we say well, those
are actually.
Amber (39:22):
And Emily, what do you think about marginalized
communities that you seeregistries and this language
being weaponized against?
For instance, you see a lot oflanguage around LGBTQ and people
utilizing this type of languageAnd then that ultimately one
(39:46):
would think anecdotally thatthat would lead to harm against
that community because thislanguage is being utilized that
way.
And registries we know thatregistries are weaponized
against the LGBTQ community.
Emily (40:03):
Yeah, i write this a little bit about this a little
bit in my book How It Some ofthe protests for drag queen
story hours.
You'll see people wearingT-shirts that say, quote unquote
kill your local pedophile,which you can buy online.
You can see these stickersaround And equating drag queen
story hour with being somebodywho sexually harms children, and
(40:26):
then the same language that'sused to protest those on the
registry the vigil anti-violenceagainst those on the registry
is now being transferred to thatcommunity.
I remember speaking to a verylong time activist who had been
active since Bill Clinton signedMegan's Law And this activist
said to me he said well, maybenow that Hillary Clinton is
(40:47):
being accused of these thingsand Democrats are being accused
of these things, they'll seewhat this has done and they'll
join us.
They'll be sympathetic.
They'll see how dangerous it isto stigmatize people and point
the finger like that.
Needless to say, that didn'thappen, but hopeful that Maybe
it would, because the Democratsthey often buy certain segments
(41:11):
of the population.
Now They say the quote unquoteparty of pedophiles, right, and
you can Google that and see thatthat's used in somewhat
mainstream Republican discourse.
Amber (41:22):
And so, for those who may find themselves in some of
these conversations, what isyour sort of advice to someone
who may be in a hostilesituation where somebody is
saying some of those things?
I mean, i would suggestprobably they get your book.
Emily (41:49):
Bull price.
Amber (41:52):
So what are some common or sort of smaller chunks of
things that somebody can utilize, like?
so, for instance, somebody it'shappened to me before will be
in a conversation about this andit'll be like, well, utilizing
(42:19):
the term pedophile.
So when you're talking aboutsexual harm and the registry and
someone immediately goes topedophile, how do you avoid
being that person?
that's like, well, actually theclinical term of this is this
What are some tips you mighthave?
Emily (42:37):
I mean it's really hard.
I mean number one, of courserecidivism rates are low.
There's a wide range ofoffenses, not everyone's all the
same, but what I really focuson is like, look, there's enough
punishment.
Prison is serious punishment.
Supervision is seriouspunishment.
We don't need additionalpunishment.
(42:58):
We need to help people.
Wouldn't you want people tohave jobs, housing?
Do you want people to bedestroyed?
I find talking about redemptionand grace is really helpful,
talking about how, for example,people just want to go to
college and work, but it's very,very hard.
(43:19):
There's so many myths and ittakes time.
But a lot of people I mean inour community people are like oh
yeah, we know recidivism ratesare a myth, we don't have to,
but so many people still believethat.
I teach a course on sexoffenses And at the beginning of
the semester, of course,everyone thinks the registry's
the greatest thing and we needit and da, da, da And by the end
(43:44):
, 13 classes, movies, people.
Every student is much morecompassionate, rational,
understanding, but it takes work.
I would also say that one thingto think about that I think is
it's harder to talk about is oneof the reasons why people
justify registries.
They're like well, why shouldthey get their life back.
(44:05):
The person they harmed willnever get their life back.
Their life is over And you kindof need to like pull back the
panic and rage about that too.
Like it's undermining to thatperson to say they're destroyed
forever.
Right, they didn't do anything,it's a terrible thing, but
(44:26):
there's all kinds of terriblethings that happen in our lives
And why are we elevating thatthing?
That's giving, that's takingpower away from the person
harmed?
right, if you're saying this isthe worst thing, right, and
Amber and I have also talkedabout this.
Yeah, one of the reasons why,like a lot of people who work on
this prefaced it by saying likeI'm a mother, i'm a wife, i'm a
survivor, all of these thingsAnd like I really don't like to
(44:48):
do that, because I feel likethat's saying like, okay, like
you know, and and it's on theleft generally, this is like you
can speak on this becauseyou've had this experience I
don't like to do that onlybecause I feel like I should be
able to critique these laws,even if I haven't been harmed.
These laws are stupid and badobjectively, like I don't have
(45:12):
to say that I understand this.
Of course I'm a woman in oursociety And, of course, i've had
the same experiences that 90%of all women have had.
Amber (45:23):
Yeah, and I think that that's one of the things that is
a journey for people to toreally understand particularly
individuals who are advocating,because I remember having like
an epiphany at one point And youknow I said to myself I don't
(45:43):
owe the world the sort ofparading of my own trauma for
them to believe that my familyhas been harmed by the registry,
but it's a, it's a verysignificant phenomena that's out
there.
So I really appreciate yourhighlighting that.
Emily (46:04):
Yeah, i mean, i think you know, i think it's excellent
when people are comfortabledoing that.
I just have like this angerabout it because I am a
sociologist.
I feel like you know, maybe ifsomebody's an advocate it's,
it's different.
But like I can study anything Iwant, you know, i can study any
social problem and comment onit, and that's the purpose of
(46:25):
being like a social critic,right, yeah, and I quote a
sociologist in the book sayinglike that's our job, like we, we
study things, even things thatmight have a lot of like panic
and hysteria, and we try to becritical and think clearly about
them.
So I don't like.
I don't.
I don't criticize people whoshare that about themselves.
(46:46):
I just feel like it's a verydeliberate choice.
At this point, i don't have toprove anything, you know.
I can say that sexual harm isbad without you know, and I can
say that it's also bad todestroy people who are convicted
of harming others.
Amber (47:03):
Yeah, i think that's one of the things that we culturally
have a hard time doing isholding many truths all at one
time.
Right, it can be true thatsexual harm is bad, but it can
also be true that state harm isbad And that we should not be
doing it on behalf ofindividuals who have been
(47:24):
victimized, because all the wayaround we're harming all of us.
Emily (47:28):
This history is not making my life better.
It's not making anyone safer.
It doesn't make me feel morewhole again.
This isn't.
They're not being heldaccountable.
This isn't.
Jason (47:37):
Yeah, and part of that I mean is the fact that we've all
been told that the way you makepeople heal, or the way you make
people whole not even heal isby punishing like you know, i'm
hurting, so you have to hurtversus how do we make everybody
whole again?
How do we make everybody heal?
So that's just where we are.
(47:59):
I have a question a little bitback on something that was in
the book, you covered people whohad been on the registry or who
had convictions going way back,and there were people who had
committed offenses before therewas a registry and their life
(48:20):
wasn't perfect but seemed to bethese people.
Some of them seem to be doingreally well And then when the
registry came out, it justincreasingly got worse.
What, what?
what did you learn from doingall that And can you talk about
that?
Emily (48:35):
Yeah, yeah.
So there's two points that Imake.
So, first of all, obviously aprivate registry, a law
enforcement only registry, isnot the answer, because I did
interview people who are on lawenforcement only registries who
suffer greatly becausebackground checks bring that up.
So they still have housingchallenges and all kinds of
other problems.
However, there were many peoplewho had been on private
(48:58):
registries And then in the 90sit became public And their lives
grew far worse or worn onregistries at all, and then in
the 90s, laws were implementedAnd then actually the third
point is that many people whoare even on public registries
from day one, as the internetexpanded and apps expanded and
hysteria expanded, things got alot worse.
(49:19):
So they were on a publicregistry from the time that they
started, from the time theywere released from prison, yet
things got a lot worse, likemany people I talked about said
until six, seven years ago, likeit really wasn't that big a
problem.
People in the workplace didn'tmind, my boss didn't mind, and
then I don't know if it'sbecause, like, the internet is
(49:40):
like more pervasive now, orpeople are more angry now, or
there's more laws now, butthings have gotten a lot worse.
So many people said I was fineuntil like six, seven years ago,
and then things started to geta lot harder.
Amber (49:56):
Well, i think one of the things that you know in reading
the book really struck me issort of that progression, and
part of it has to do with thisidea that the registry is not
punishment, like this sort ofridiculous notion that it is for
(50:18):
public safety.
Therefore, you know, it'soutside of those protections of
the Constitution, in thatanything any legislator can
decide that a new restriction isneeded, propose it, have very
little opposition, have it kindof go right through the
legislature And then people arethen subject to whatever
(50:42):
sanction or restriction.
It is So that, combined withsort of the internet and
cultural panic, you know,additional cultural panics
probably have.
Again, i'm not a sociologist,but you would think that all of
that might be contributing.
Emily (51:02):
Yeah, because you think that once, like, you have a
social problem and then you havecritiques of that problem,
critiques of the response,things get better, right, like
if you look at things likeracial justice, all those things
, things are supposed to getbetter when you highlight the
problems.
And in this case, as theproblems have been highlighted
(51:23):
by researchers, journaliststhere's been many articles and
the documentary untouchable andlots of scholarship about the
uselessness of registries right,there's basically no
scholarship about how they'reeffective or keep anyone safer,
because they don't.
Jason (51:39):
So if the normal tools to make for social change aren't
working, how do we get change?
How do we get to a more humanejust society?
Emily (52:00):
Yeah, I mean, I think that there has to be a social
movement.
Like I said, this movement hasunique issues.
I think one of the problemswith this movement is that
people think the lawyers aregoing to save us, like the
lawyers are going to go and havetheir lawsuits, but in a way
that's kind of just empoweringright, Like if you just think,
okay, we'll just give money andlawyers will load you their
(52:21):
thing.
Obviously, I think the lawsuitsand the research are really
important, but at the same time,there does have to be a
movement And I think and I'mstealing this from Amber, but I
think the larger criminaljustice reform movement is who
we need to work with.
We need to say we're notoutside, We're not different.
(52:44):
So I think that is one of theanswers and mobilizing people
and getting rid of the fear.
But it's really hard.
I mean it's hard, It's going totake time and work.
Jason (52:54):
Yeah, forging those allies is critical.
I think that's really.
We've seen some successes thereAnd I think things like your
book that touch on the humanaspects and real lives a
documentary, a drama that showsthe lives of somebody just
trying to live their lives andliving honorable lives and
(53:17):
having all these obstaclesthrown at them So I do think, i
think a lot, i think it's got tocome from every direction.
Amber (53:24):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So one of the things I do wantto say is, just as much as we've
seen, like so many people startsort of fall into this panic
and culture sort of go the wrongway.
I do feel encouraged becausethere are more conversations out
in the open about these issuesthan there have ever been And
(53:46):
there are many voices who arespeaking up.
It just needs to be built up ina more significant and
organized way.
So I think, jason, youmentioned that this book is
great for that.
When I'm thinking about andhaving read the book, which I
definitely will recommend thisbook really in the hands of
(54:09):
individuals who are already inthe criminal legal movement,
reform or abolition movement, toreally have tools that they
need and an understanding tounderstand why we should not be
carving segments of thepopulation out, i think is a
really really good tool.
So in my mind, that is one ofthe audiences of this book.
(54:34):
Would you agree with that,emily?
Emily (54:36):
Yeah, I mean, that's definitely who it's for.
I mean, I actually think it's ahard read for people who are
directly impacted becausethey're going to be like, duh,
yeah, got it.
I think that I would like thisto be for, like, the broader
social science community, thebroader criminal justice
(54:57):
community and, most importantly,the criminal justice reform
advocates.
So that's sort of my goal is toget it to them and to work with
them and to give them somethingto say look at this, this is
like happening.
These are men and women that weknow about and they're also
(55:17):
harmed by the criminal legalsystem and they also deserve
relief.
Jason (55:23):
And it's not like you met somebody and it was a unique
experience.
These are representative ofgeneric experiences, like I've
talked to people in the fewyears that I've been doing this.
I've talked to people who Icould recognize in that book,
even though they weren't thesame people.
I could recognize the story.
(55:44):
Oh, this guy, this happened tothis guy.
Oh, i remember when I heardthat story, right.
So, but putting it all togetherand seeing it in one book, i
think it might even be helpfulto take a story or two, have a
discussion with a group and thentake another few stories and
have a discussion with a groupand you know to highlight, like
what did this person experience?
(56:05):
What do you think it was liketo be in their shoes?
And-.
Emily (56:09):
That would be great, i know.
Amber (56:11):
So, emily, you know, being a college professor and a
sociologist, you talked aboutsort of the way that young
people evolve their thinkingthroughout a course.
Right, if you are speaking toother college professors who may
be working on this issue or thecriminal justice teaching,
(56:33):
would you see, you know yourscholarship and scholarship of
others, and particularly thisbook as a tool that they might
be able to utilize in some ofthose discussions in their
classrooms?
Emily (56:44):
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, do you think anybodyworking on criminal justice
reform is far more open thanlike the average person to
understanding the human toll ofmass incarceration and similar
policies?
And they just need to beeducated too.
Like they don't know, they'vegrown up thinking like you know.
People who commit sexual harmare evil, uncontrollable, not
(57:09):
human right, and they just haveto be taught that they're the
same as all the other peopleyou're working with right.
20 years ago, people thoughtpeople who sold drugs were not
human right And didn't deserveopportunities.
Amber (57:26):
So I'm gonna say something and it might be a
little emotional, but that's howI am.
I remember when our lives wereflipped upside down and my
husband's situation and Iimmediately I'm the kind of
person and I'm like how am Igonna fix this?
So I went to Google our friendGoogle and I sort of Googled the
(57:48):
issue, And one of the firstthings that I watched was a
debate, a SOHO debate, with thisamazing woman who just tore
down all the myths about theregistry, and that really
inspired me.
So I just have to say that outloud And that was you, and so I
(58:09):
want to thank you for that, andanybody who has not seen that
debate and the newest debatethat you've done really should
see that.
So thank you, emily.
Emily (58:18):
Thank you.
I'll say something about that,though It's kind of interesting
because I'm not really a gooddebater, like I'm not a really
good public public.
But when I was preparing for it, like I said to this friend of
mine who's a really smart lawyerwho understands the stupidities
of registry, i said, all right,like let's do a mock debate.
Like you know you be the personwho's supporting it and I'm
gonna work on my argument here.
(58:40):
And he was, like you know,there's no arguments for it.
The only argument for it islike we hate these people.
This makes us feel good.
We love vengeance, and he wasright, which is why, like you,
should never be scared to debateanybody because there are no.
The only reason for it isvengeance, that's it.
(59:01):
There's no other reason for it.
It's not doing anything exceptover punishing.
So thank you for saying that itwas a good debate, but it's a
great opportunity to everyone.
Should debate people about it,because there's no argument for
it.
I say to my students like youcan write your paper about how
the registry is great, but justadmit it's cause you hate these
(59:22):
people and think they don'tdeserve a second chance or a
third chance.
Jason (59:26):
I'm gonna pile on to the Dr Emily Hurwitz fan club.
You know we people can havepeople can be armed with the
facts and you do a phenomenaljob.
You know, i've watched it outin the two debates and I've seen
you live talking about theissue.
You do, you do present in a waythat is very compelling And so
(59:51):
hopefully it rubs up on otherpeople.
Amber (59:55):
I think for me and it's just again not to go back to it
but I think for me the biggestpart of that was I was so
astounded that there wassomebody doing that, not that it
was true or not true, but therewas somebody willing to do it,
(01:00:15):
and so I think that's where thethanks come in.
It's difficult work and it'sappreciated, so that I mean I
think that was more my point,not whether it was.
We all know there's no goodargument.
Jason (01:00:30):
So we recommend that everybody go and watch both
debates.
We can put them in the shownotes.
Emily (01:00:34):
Yes, we will.
Jason (01:00:35):
And buy your first book and your second book, and there
we go.
Emily (01:00:40):
Thank you guys so much And thank you for having a
podcast where you focus on lifeexperiences.
So in some way my book is kindof like the embodiment of your
podcasts, where you let peoplespeak and tell their stories and
how these crazy, cruel lawsdestroy their lives And you give
(01:01:01):
them also.
Then people can hear like wait,these are men and women, these
are people.
Amber (01:01:07):
Yeah absolutely So, emily .
are there any like finalthoughts that you want to share
on the book, or to encourageother individuals in scholarship
, or any just final thoughts?
Emily (01:01:25):
Yeah, i mean, if you're directly impacted, like, get
involved, speak up to the extentthat you can without hurting
yourself.
Don't think you don't have theright to stand up for yourself.
I feel really sad when I talkto people who say, like I want
to get involved, i want to dosomething, but I'm so scared
(01:01:46):
Plus, as Jason pointed out, idid this terrible thing.
I don't even deserve to standup for myself.
Jason (01:01:54):
Right, Amber.
how about you?
Any additional thoughts beforewe wrap up?
Amber (01:01:59):
I think my last question for Emily is if you were talking
to someone who was at thebeginning of their career, right
, and they were thinking aboutstudying this sort of issue,
what would your advice to thembe?
Emily (01:02:19):
I would say do it because it needs to be done And
like I think we all want tostudy things where we do make a
difference, right.
So, like I mean, unlikestudying certain topics, like if
you do study this, you do havepeople like you guys who do
these podcasts, you do have someorganizations where you will
(01:02:41):
have an impact And you want tostudy things that I mean, look,
things can only go forward,right, And so if you want
policies to change and getbetter, like this is something
you should do.
If you go into sociology tomake the world a better place,
this is a really big problem Andthere's not a lot of voices,
(01:03:02):
right, There's some problemswhere there's a lot of voices.
Here's a problem where there'snot a lot of voices and all
voices have impact.
Jason (01:03:12):
And I know we're towards the end here, we're wrapping up,
but what you just said, youknow there's not a lot of voices
.
It was interesting.
in the last debate the guy youwere debating basically said you
were coming from the popularposition and I had to laugh.
I mean, what was?
what were you thinking in themoment when someone's telling
you Well, here's the thing Hewas saying.
Emily (01:03:33):
You're coming from the popular position because there's
no peer reviewed scholarshipexcept for mine that says the
registry is good and shouldexist.
And he's correct.
Because you can't to getsomething like peer reviewed, to
get a scholarly book published,you have to have an argument
besides, i hate these people.
Right.
So he was correct that I ammainstream in scholarship.
(01:03:57):
But there's not that much.
I mean, all the scholarship onthis says the registry is stupid
and terrible.
There's no evidence for it.
But in the world of politicsand humanity everybody hates the
registry.
Yeah, there's some studies thatsay it's not effective, but
nobody cares.
Every week there's a newproposal.
(01:04:18):
I mean, in the world everybodyloves the registry.
Right sorry, in the worldeveryone loves the registry,
right Yeah.
So yeah, there's a fewsociologists and criminologists
who study it and said wait asecond, this is ineffective and
expensive and dumb.
Yeah no, that's veryfrustrating, but he was the only
one who tried to write ascholarly book about why it's a
(01:04:39):
good thing.
Amber (01:04:40):
Well, his whole argument is that we democratically
decided that we want this as asociety Right, and so we also
have democratically decided thatwomen shouldn't vote and that
people should be discriminatedagainst because of the color of
(01:05:00):
their skin and all of that.
So that doesn't make it not ahuman rights abuse.
Jason (01:05:06):
Right, exactly.
Tell us one more time the nameof the book.
Emily (01:05:11):
From rage to reason why we need sex crime laws based on
facts, not fear, and when is theapproximate release date?
June, in June 2023.
Jason (01:05:25):
All right, so everybody go out by the book, and you've
been listening to Dr EmilyHorowitz.
Emily, thank you so much forjoining us today.
It was a real pleasure to haveyou and to talk with you.
We're gonna continue workingwith you.
So thank you so much.
Like I said, we could probablydo a whole other podcast on the
(01:05:46):
work that you've done inside ofprisons.
It's just amazing the kind oflife, the value that you're
bringing to the world.
So thank you so much for beinghere.
Emily (01:05:58):
Thank you so much, thank you.
Jason (01:06:00):
Until next time, Amber.
Amber (01:06:03):
We'll see you next time.
Outro (01:06:13):
You've been listening to Amplified Voices, a podcast
listening to the experiences ofpeople and families impacted by
the criminal legal system.
For more information, episodesand podcast notes, visit
AmplifiedVoicesshow.
Everyone has a voice, a story to tell.
Some are marginalized and muted.
What if there were a way toamplify those stories, to have
conversations with real peoplein real communities, a way to
help them step into the power oftheir lived experience?
Welcome to Amplified Voices, apodcast lifting the experiences
(00:23):
of people and families impactedby the criminal legal system.
Together, we can createpositive change for everyone.
Jason (00:34):
Hello and welcome to another episode of Amplified
Voices.
I'm your host, jason, here withmy co-host, amber.
Good morning, amber.
Amber (00:40):
Good morning Jason.
Jason (00:42):
And Amber.
today we have a special guest.
It's Dr Emily Horowitz.
Hello, emily.
Emily (00:49):
Hi, thank you so much for having me.
I'm a big fan of both of yoursand your amazing work.
Jason (00:54):
Thank you so much.
As we are And as I mentionedbefore, we even started
recording a lot of the listenersto this podcast Already know
your name and are familiar withyour work and you have hero
status with them.
There are going to be someother listeners that are meeting
you for the first time.
Can you tell us a little bitabout who you are and how you
(01:17):
came to the work that you'redoing?
Emily (01:19):
Yeah well, so I'm a professor of sociology and
criminal justice at St FrancisCollege and I teach classes and
I do all the stuff a normalprofessor does.
I also work very closely withstudents who are justice
impacted.
I help run a scholarshipprogram for students with prior
justice involvement And I teachcourses in a detention center
(01:43):
aimed at students who are kindof on their way out of
correctional facilities so thatthey can finish their college
degree when they return to thecommunity.
Jason (01:53):
How long have you been doing that?
Emily (01:56):
I've been doing that program, So I started it about
10 years ago, maybe eight yearsago, And it's really interesting
because when I started it therewas a lot of pushback from the
administration from otherstudents, Like why should they
get scholarships when I haven'tbroken any laws and I don't get
a scholarship right?
Why should students in prisonsget free college classes when we
(02:18):
didn't break any laws and doanything?
Jason (02:20):
wrong, right So, and your college is in, you're in New
York City.
Emily (02:27):
Yeah, we're in Brooklyn, but things have really
radically shifted, and soquickly.
When we started, they had takenPell grants out of prisons.
Now they've been returned, andObama and Trump and Biden have
really been supportive ofrestoring Pell grants to people
in prison, which was taken awayin the early 90s.
(02:48):
But everything has radicallyshifted so quickly, and part of
my work and Amber has beenreally good on this in her own
activism is to create asituation where people who have
sex offenses are treatedsimilarly to anyone else who's
been charged with a crime, andso the thesis of all of my work
(03:09):
in recent years has been if youcommit a crime you commit.
It doesn't matter if it's a sexoffense or any other crime.
You should be given the samegrace and opportunities as
anyone else.
Jason (03:21):
Right, but going back to the point about people,
shouldn't be.
why should somebody who isincarcerated have access to an
education?
How do you respond to that?
What do you tell people?
Emily (03:35):
So well when it started.
I would explain that it makesus all safer.
We know that if you earn acollege degree in prison or
afterwards, you're far lesslikely to reoffend.
you're far less likely to needit.
It saves money because it'scheaper to give somebody a
college degree than to keep themin prison.
(03:56):
It helps their children, ithelps their family.
They're less likely to be onpublic assistance, so it helps
us.
So it's kind of a make like aselfish argument.
right, they're less likely tocommit another offense and
they're more likely to havehousing and jobs and not need
social services.
And also they're less likely togo back to prison, which is a
(04:18):
lot more money.
But it's interesting becausethings have really shifted and I
don't have to have thoseconversations anymore about
people who commit non-sexoffenses anyway.
It's almost so many collegesnow have these programs.
They have these programs inprison and out of prison.
It's really been an amazingradical shift in attitudes about
(04:38):
this And, like I said, fromTrump to Obama, democrats,
republicans people are prettyunited on the idea that people
who are incarcerated should getaccess to higher education and
also that they should bedeserving of post-incarceration
scholarships and support.
Jason (04:55):
So we could do an entire separate podcast on just this
topic alone, i think, in theinterest of time, though I know
there are some things we want totalk about.
We're going to talk about thenew book that you have coming
out very shortly, so to get tothat, my question then becomes
how did you get involved inhaving this focus on people of
(05:18):
convicted sex offenses andworking with that population?
Emily (05:22):
Yeah.
So one of the reasons why I wassort of talking about that a
lot right now is that it reallyinforms this book I have coming
out in June because I've seenthis bifurcation.
I've seen the grace and supportthat people who are formerly
incarcerated are now receivingin society And I see much less
(05:43):
of that for people convicted ofsex offenses.
So having this kind of role assomebody who researches sex
offenses and also separatelyprofessionally helps other
people who have criminalhistories really speaks to what
this new book is about.
So I got into this because Imet a journalist named Debbie
(06:04):
Nathan through a mutual friend.
Debbie Nathan was one of thefirst journalists in the country
to identify the panic aroundthe daycare centers and the
satanic panic.
I was really lucky to meet herabout 20 years ago And after I
met her I read her book And itwas called Satan's Silence And
it was really.
It blew my mind that all thesepeople in the late 1980s and
(06:25):
early 1990s were falsely accusedand wrongfully convicted of
sexually harming children, andshe does a great job identifying
the causes and the consequences, from the feminist movement's
emphasis on believing victims,believing women and children, to
the rise of the new right whoare angry about women going back
to work and kids being indaycare centers and how they
(06:46):
kind of came together and thispanic emerged And the left as
well as the right embraced thispanic.
And she was this really bravejournalist who was like this is
fake, this is not happening.
And she wrote this amazing bookand helped a lot of people.
And then, after being familiarwith kind of her work and
theories, i met somebody throughher who had recently left
(07:10):
prison and was on parole for asex offense.
He was falsely accused andwrongfully convicted in one of
these daycare cases And she washelping him kind of get on his
feet.
And I met him And I was shockedat his life.
He had served his time eventhough he hadn't done the crime,
but that's another story.
I'm less interested ininnocence than his experience
(07:31):
afterwards.
So he'd spent over 10 years inprison for a crime he didn't
commit.
He was on parole And the paroleconditions because he had a sex
offense conviction blew my mind.
He had housing, he had familythat had nice homes.
He couldn't live there becauseof residency issues And in
another case he moved in withanother family member But the
(07:53):
neighbors freaked out and themanagement threw him out of the
home.
He had become very religious inprison And he joined a religious
congregation And he was kickedout of that, which I think was
kind of and Jason, i know youcan relate to this that was kind
of what really blew my mind.
I was like isn't religion aboutredemption and helping?
But he's not allowed to goduring the reentry process and
(08:16):
get the support he needs.
How could somebody who claimsto have any kind of religious
principles justify kickinganyone out of a congregation who
wants to go there?
He had so many restrictions.
He wanted to go to college.
He couldn't go on a campusbecause of the sex offense
conviction And this kind ofreally made me think.
(08:38):
I'm a sociologist.
I'd been working on variouscriminal justice research issues
And I was like I want to figureout why this is happening.
He's not a threat to anyone.
Even if he'd done the crime.
He was convicted at 19 and hadspent over a decade in prison.
He was on parole.
None of these restrictions wereabout supporting him or helping
him reintegrate and notreoffend.
(09:01):
They were all meant todestabilize him.
Amber (09:04):
How long ago was this?
Emily (09:07):
This was in the early 2000s so about 20 years ago That
I met him and got to know hisexperience And, like I said,
things are way worse today.
I think about some of thethings that he was going through
.
And then Debbie said well, ifyou're so outraged, i'm on the
board of this organization thathelps people who are falsely
accused of sexual offenses, andI joined that board And then
(09:30):
very quickly we started to workon people who were rightfully
accused of these offenses.
What if they'd done it?
Isn't this punishment enough?
Like decades in prison, parole,polygraph treatment all of
these punishments were more thanenough.
Jason (09:48):
So how does that work?
I mean, you're a professor,you're teaching other classes
and doing other work.
You just this intrigues me andyou start researching it.
I mean, what was your life Like?
how did you incorporate thatinto your world?
Emily (10:01):
Well, it was.
I mean, it wasn't completelyout of the blue, because I met
Debbie through like-mindedfriends and my dissertation,
which I had was almost finishedwith at that time, was about a
domestic violence court.
So I was a sociologist and Iwas kind of doing criminology
and I started studying theprosecution of domestic violence
.
And it was kind of like thisparallel experience, because I
(10:23):
was spending every day in adomestic violence court project
and I'd initially been reallyexcited like wow, the criminal
justice system is gonna likestop domestic violence and, like
you know, prosecute people whocommit domestic violence.
And I'm gonna write about itand write about how this is a
great success for the feministmovement, because only 20 years
before nobody cared aboutdomestic violence.
(10:44):
And so I sat in this courtroomand I saw really poor men,
mostly of color, mostlyunemployed, being given extra
long sentences because theirconviction was domestic violence
rather than something else.
And I was really saddened andshocked because I had come into
(11:06):
that project thinking that itwas like a great success for
feminism.
It was the title of mydissertation was
institutionalized feminism Andmy hypothesis was like it's
great because feministprinciples are being integrated
into the criminal justice system.
So I was really shocked anddisappointed to see how it
really wasn't about helpingwomen, it was about punishing
(11:26):
men, and I met many women whowere the quote unquote victims
This was the terminology wasvery different then And they
would say, like I don't want himto go to prison for a long time
, i don't want this restrainingorder.
I called the police because Iwas harmed, but he's the sole
support of our family.
There was a lot of.
It was a lot less clear cutthan I thought And I realized
(11:49):
very quickly like the courtsystem was not the answer for
social problems.
So it wasn't like I wascompletely detached from this.
So both of these thingshappened at the same time And
then I sort of shifted to seeingsexual offenses as something
that I wanted to study andunderstand.
Amber (12:06):
Emily, i think you're bringing up a really important
sort of concept that I think alot of individuals, particularly
people who are just learningabout these issues and they are
self-described feminists interms of really wanting to
deeply move women forward And soit seems like when you were in
(12:31):
the situation where you werelearning more, you really
expected it to be one waybecause of your feminist logic,
and what you saw in real lifeturned out to be completely
different.
What would be your response tosomeone who's sort of at the
beginning of that journey as afeminist, like what are some
(12:52):
ways someone could learn abouthow things really are?
Emily (12:56):
Well, that's funny.
You say that because Aya Gruber, for example, has a book that
came out called The Feminist Waron Crime, which talks about the
incompatibility of mostfeminism of sort of non-carceral
feminism with punish, punish,punish, pitchforks, pitchforks,
pitchforks and, even moreimportantly, more and more
(13:19):
relevant since Judith Levine andErica Miners have an amazing
book called The Feminist in theSex Offender, which talks about
how feminism is not like justthis.
You know single focused.
You know ideology It's verycomplicated.
There's all different types offeminism, and carceral feminism
(13:40):
might be the feminism that weall know and see and that's been
most successful, and it's thestrain of feminism that's most
successfully worked with thestate and that most people kind
of like know about.
But a lot of feminism is notabout carceral responses.
A lot of feminism is aboutchanging the world and changing
our culture and not inflictingmore violence, right?
(14:00):
So I would argue that you know,anything you do with the
carceral system inflicts moreviolence, and a lot of feminism
is not about increasing violence, and we understand that the
prison industrial complexcreates conditions for sexual
violence and domestic violence.
Ironically enough, Thanks,Emily.
Jason (14:21):
So how did you go from you became interested in it, you
started researching it,studying it, to then writing a
lot about the topic, speakingpublicly, doing debates that get
passed along where everybodywatches them.
Well, how did thattransformation happen?
Emily (14:39):
Well, i think part of it is that, like I started to get
really angry because when Iwould talk to people about it
and it seemed so obvious to me,i'd be like this guy went to
prison and now he's homeless,not because he doesn't have
money or family or support, butbecause the neighbors don't want
him there, right, he can't goto his church because the leader
(15:02):
of the church was like you know, it's not safe for you to be
here.
And it made me really angry.
When I would talk to people andthey'd be like, well, maybe he
did it.
If he did do it, that's worthit.
And I'm like, who cares if hedid it?
I don't care if he did it ornot.
He needs, he's out, he's amongus, he needs a human being.
Why can't we forgive him?
(15:22):
It was so angering And I'm sureyou two have this experience
too.
You talk about it with peopleand they're such a disconnect.
So I thought, okay, well, i'm asociologist, like I finished my
dissertation, i can write abook, i can write articles and
explain to people like why thisis crazy, why this is wrong, and
it's interesting.
I mean, i wrote this book in2015 and I kind of had expected
(15:46):
to like move on and work onother stuff, but I just have
this other book coming out nowbecause I feel like things have
actually gotten worse, which isreally discouraging.
I mean, you like to thinkthere's this arc and things get
better and people become moreopen-minded, but my
conversations have grown likemore combative, worse.
(16:07):
People are angrier.
People are less rational aboutit.
I mentioned that when I metDebbie Nathan.
I joined the board of thisorganization.
It's called the National Centerfor Reason and Justice And the
goal is to be rational and focuson justice and not panic and
hysteria.
But everything about sexoffense law and policy has to do
(16:27):
with panic and hysteria.
It's completely divorced fromany kind of research or findings
.
I don't wanna like preach thechoir here.
Jason (16:37):
No, no, preach What's interesting is when you talk
about people being able toalmost compartmentalize.
It's like you know well, webelieve in human rights, except,
you know, we detach, we thinkit and like for a researcher,
like somebody who's doing thetype of work that you're doing,
it seems like there are peoplethat can think of other human
(16:57):
beings as just a subject in ormaterial, as opposed to real
human beings.
And it sounds just from talking.
I mean, i've read your work andseen you, but in talking with
you it seems like you reallytake it personally, like these
are real people, and you connectquickly with people, so you
feel you can, you're empathicand can feel their pain to an
(17:20):
extent.
Emily (17:21):
Yeah, and I mean it definitely makes me like very
personally upset when I see theway people are treated And I
think there's like there's a lotof really amazing people
working on this.
Like I said, when I met DebbieNathan, i was like, wow, she's
able to see this, she can thinkcritically about this.
You know people like JudithLevine, people that I'm like
(17:42):
kind of mimicking, but it is.
It's very, it's really hard towork on something where so many
people are so irrational.
But I guess that's like thepoint of sociology and social
sciences.
You try to use research, data,stories, provide evidence so
that people can think clearlyabout this.
Amber (18:05):
I just wanted to ask you to sort of, if you could, just
briefly, because we have a widevariety of listeners, some who
are more familiar with your workand the social science.
So, when you're talking aboutthe social science and what it
tells us, what are, like the keytakeaways that we know about
(18:27):
individuals who may have beenconvicted or committed a sexual
offense?
Emily (18:33):
Well, we know that recidivism rates are low lower
than for many other offenses but, more importantly, we know that
things like the registry,residency restrictions,
community notification, presencerestrictions, don't do anything
to decrease it further.
In fact, all of criminologicalresearch shows that the number
(18:57):
one way to reduce reoffense andmake everybody safer is through
post-incarceration support,housing, family support,
employment, and so what reallychallenges me about working on
this is that the registry andall of these laws we have
actually make it more likelythat people or not more likely
(19:20):
but it doesn't make it lesslikely that they will commit
another offense.
So it's infuriating becauseit's so obvious.
There's decades of researchthat shows us this.
There's also no research thatshows a policy such as residency
restrictions would protectanyone.
It undermines the reality ofalmost all sexual abuse.
(19:44):
Almost all sexual abuse is notstranger.
Danger is not because somebodylives in your neighborhood or
lives too close to a school, andwe've known this from the
beginning, from the start ofresidency restrictions.
I think it's been like almost20 years since article after
article has appeared underminingthis as a way to prevent new
(20:06):
sex offenses.
Yet the laws keep expanding andthey never get rolled back.
Jason (20:11):
I have so many questions.
Emily (20:13):
Yeah, but a lot of this I'm rehashing in my book.
Jason (20:16):
But I know, I know, but I have so many questions.
Emily (20:19):
If you want to, you're totally welcome to.
Jason (20:21):
And I'm going to go back.
Well, actually, before I askany question, let's say the name
of your book now and then we'llsay it again later, but it's
say you're the name of your book.
Emily (20:31):
From rage to reason why we need sex crime laws based on
facts, not fear.
Jason (20:36):
All right, so go look for it.
So you were, you were makingthe point before you know when
you, when you're there's,there's so much lack of reason,
and so how's that affected youin your life, being someone who
you know you talk about that alittle bit in the book that if
(20:57):
you are somebody who's studyingmurder, nobody calls you, you
know, a murder apologist, right?
So how has that impacted youand what, what?
what type of personal toll hasit taken in your life that you
work in this field?
Emily (21:12):
Yeah, i mean I definitely have certain fears
that my other colleagues don'thave about backlash, about
people accusing me of being, youknow, in favor of sexual
violence.
I've gotten accusations of thatfrom, like, random people who
call my office or people on theinternet who say things, and I
(21:35):
don't see that with people whowork on violent crime, right,
they'll work on all those studylike.
I always use this example ifyou study serial killers, you
don't have a bunch of people youknow calling your office and
calling you somebody who likesserial killers right, you don't
get people putting things upthat you don't care about
humanity.
But if you advocate forrational and just post
(21:58):
incarceration, post probation,parole, rationality and fairness
, you are accused of supportingsexual violence, which makes a
lot of people very spooked.
to work on this And I've talkedto other researchers who yeah,
right.
Jason (22:14):
So there's a chilling effect in the, in the whole
field, because you're going to,you have to get people who have,
who are willing to pay thatprice.
So, on behalf of, on behalf ofhumanity, i thank you for for
the work that you do.
Emily (22:32):
I mean, there's a lot of very brave social scientists,
lawyers, journalists who do workon this.
But I have definitely seenpeople say like, yeah, like I
hear you, but you know, anddefinitely I've had like friends
and family say like well, youalready wrote a book enough, you
know.
like you made your point why,why can't you work on something
(22:53):
else?
But it reminds me of one time Iremember, kelly Michaels, who
was a woman who was wrongfullyconvicted in the daycare panic
of sexually harming children Andshe said she got to prison.
she wound up being exonerated,but she said when she got to
prison she just thought anythingelse couldn't.
I have been convicted ofanything else besides this.
(23:13):
And she just I remember hersaying that and thinking, yeah,
like this is the worst, this isthe worst thing you can defend,
the worst thing you can beconvicted of And so many people
I interviewed in the book saidsimilar things.
like anything else.
Amber (23:29):
So, emily, can I'd like to talk to you a little bit more
about, like, your experience ofdoing research for the book and
talking to different people,just sort of the mechanics of,
like you know, pulling back thecurtain on how these things
happen.
So how, what was themethodology?
(23:50):
How did you like reach out topeople?
How did people get back to you?
You know, how long did it take?
all of those sort ofinteresting tidbits?
Emily (24:01):
Yeah well, so I was pretty lucky because I had this
book that came out in 2015.
So I wasn't going to writeabout it again But, like I said,
when I saw things getting worse, i felt like I had no choice,
just because, again, like itmade me really angry that the
laws kept building up, in spiteof the evidence that kept
(24:22):
building up that they wereineffective.
So, because of the first book,i knew people.
I engage in advocacy andactivism, so I put out a call.
I got permission from myuniversity to interview people
on the registry and I put out acall through a number of
activist groups that I'minvolved in and know about.
(24:43):
And I think one of the goodthings because I had that first
book, i got a lot of responsesAnd I also got a lot of people
to talk to me in a way that wasvery open, because they knew I
wasn't, they knew my position onthis.
Like, right, you engage inactivism.
Since, after my first book cameout, i did a public debate
(25:03):
about the registry where I wenton record publicly on YouTube
saying this is like nonsense,there's no need for a registry
at all, and so I think thingslike that like made people aware
that because a lot of people onthe registry tell me they get a
lot of calls for researchersAnd so there's a lot of people
(25:24):
who want to study people on theregistry, so I think they felt
like I was at least an advocate.
So I got I had really goodexperiences interviewing people
And I got a lot of peoplewanting to be interviewed And I
couldn't use all the interviewsI conducted.
I spent about two yearsinterviewing people.
Jason (25:40):
One of the things that struck me about a number of the
people you spoke to.
they said that they were moreprivileged and that they were
lucky relative to other peoplethat were on the registry or
committed sex offenses And so,and then you would go on to
describe how they were livingvery difficult lives.
(26:02):
So what was?
how did you react to that?
What were your thoughts?
Emily (26:07):
Yeah, i mean, it was really like this existential
experience because I'd betalking to people and they would
always start out by saying,like I know I'm really lucky,
i'm luckier than other people,like I have a house or like I
have a wife, and then they wouldgo on to tell these stories
where they were suffering somuch.
So it really made me see thatkind of something about humanity
(26:29):
that being, having thisexperience of being banished and
being a pariah also makes youhave this extraordinary empathy
for people, and I found thatkind of like beautiful and very
moving And I wanted to conveythat in the book that so many
people that I interviewed werelike, yeah, i got to go, my
(26:52):
friend who's in prison needsthis.
So there was this weirdcommunity of people that have
this unique experience of stigmaand banishment.
Jason (27:02):
So part of it is that they're, that they do feel like
they're more privileged, andpart of it is that the people
that do have it even worse youprobably couldn't even get to.
They might not have access tocomputer, they might not be able
to find you.
They're still, you know they're.
They're on the lowest rung interms of trying to get just
housing or trying to getsomething that so that they
(27:23):
could even like getting on aninternet connection to be able
to speak with you is a sense ofprivilege that they don't even
have.
Emily (27:32):
Right, right, i mean, i interviewed one guy who was in
his car because he didn't havehousing.
I mean he had some resources,but there were residency issues.
But even he said like, well,i'm okay, you know, my parents
helped me and I don't reallymind, and I'm in my car, and I
found that pretty inspiring.
Yet it's also really tragic,right, i mean right So.
Amber (27:55):
I want to, you know, sort of stay on that for just a
second.
One of the things that I am nota sociologist but I do work
with a lot of individuals whoare impacted by the registry And
one of the things that I haveobserved, you know, in my own
loved one and others, is thissense of yes, i am really lucky
(28:16):
for what I do have, and sort ofan internalized cultural shame
that they're like, well, if Ilike, this is what I deserve,
not necessarily like reallybelieving that, but because of
the way that culture has sort ofshunned, they feel lucky to
have a job as opposed to reallyreaching their full potential,
(28:41):
right, and that's just like asignificant sort of piece of
collateral damage that sometimespeople don't understand.
Is that people, when people areshunned in this way, they start
to believe the hype themselves?
Sure, absolutely.
Emily (28:56):
Yeah, that's why I didn't interview anyone.
And in all my years of doingthis and going to conferences
and meeting people, i meanpeople often reach out to me
because they can find me on theinternet to talk to me about
their experience or ask foradvice about something I haven't
talked to.
anyone who's like this isn'tfair, you know, they don't
(29:19):
express and maybe they don'texpress the anger but a little
bit is.
it might be good if there wasmore anger, but they feel like
they don't have the right to beangry because they've
internalized, they've made thismistake that is so unforgivable
that they don't even deserve tofight back.
They don't deserve to stand upfor themselves.
Amber (29:40):
Jason, what are your thoughts on that?
Jason (29:42):
Well, that's tough.
I mean just hearing that wholeidea of like not fighting back.
I mean the part of it is, ifyou have any type of aggression
in any way, it feeds into allthe stereotypes as well.
So it's not just a matter ofinternalizing it, but it's the
world smacking you down theminute you try to live like a
normal person.
Amber (30:04):
That's a good point.
Jason (30:05):
There's some of that.
So I mean, i think it's amixture of both, because there's
certainly people who arewalking around saying I'm
terrible, i'm terrible, you know, like how could I have done?
and of course you know that'sgood, like how could I have done
what I did?
you know for that and thenunderstand it.
But I think the majority ofpeople who find themselves
committing an offense we'll sayhow did I do that?
(30:26):
What do I do to make sure Idon't do it again?
So there's an element to that.
But then the other side of itis like we were saying is, if I
come out and I look, i'm goingto be accused of looking at
somebody the wrong way.
Emily (30:38):
Right.
I mean, one of the things I'vetalked to Amber a lot about is
that, on the one hand, in mostmovements, it's really important
for directly impacted people tospeak up and be the face of it,
but in this is one of the onlycases where, in some way, those
of us that are not directlyimpacted have more
(30:58):
responsibility, because ifpeople who are directly impacted
are like this is wrong, this isterrible, they do face like
you're aggressive, you're out ofcontrol, you're a predator.
So it's tough.
So I think that's also, i think, one of the reasons why I feel
like I can't move on, because Ido feel like I have more
responsibility Because those whoare on it are under so much
(31:20):
surveillance and so vulnerable,right, i mean, they're the only
group of formerly incarceratedpeople that are subject to
vigilante violence whose addressis on the internet, right?
So if you're there giving a talkor you're on a panel or you're
doing a debate, you're very easyto find, right, every your
whole history is there.
So it's tough.
Like one time, amber actuallydid this really lovely thing.
(31:42):
I was criticized because I wason a panel that I was moderating
and somebody wrote like shedoesn't even have any directly
impacted people on it And Amberpointed out yes, she did, but
the directly impacted peopledidn't want their picture taken,
so it wasn't put on socialmedia, so it looked like I was
like alone on the panel.
Jason (31:58):
Interesting And we've seen that too where we've had
people come onto panels and thenall of a sudden, the person
who's organizing puts the lastname of the person.
That person gets into trouble.
Could even be somebody who's onprobation.
Why are you being so publicabout this?
We've had situations where yougo and you speak in favor of a
(32:20):
bill or against the bill And allof a sudden, if you go and you
share your story, you're writtenin the newspaper.
So it's just, or even beyondadvocating, just doing anything,
going about your life, livingOne of the things as you know,
if you could be.
I think you even mentioned thisin the book, didn't you?
About somebody being afraid ofactually doing something.
(32:42):
No, I think in the book youwere talking about somebody
having these fantasies aboutsaving people.
Emily (32:49):
A lot of people said I have fantasies that I'll save a
child and the world will forgiveme.
Jason (32:54):
But the reality is that what we would see is if somebody
went in I mean, my thought onthat would be if you went and
you saved a child what wouldshow up in the newspaper is the
defender was inappropriatelyholding a child, i mean as
opposed to saving a child.
So that's part of the issue aswell.
When you were interviewing allof these people and writing your
(33:15):
book, did anything surprise you?
I mean, we talked a little bitabout the privilege, but did
anything else surprise you, orwas just this confirmation of
things you have been hearing allalong?
Emily (33:29):
No, i was really surprised by what I did.
These interviews were all aminimum of an hour And sometimes
I was doing like four a day.
Because I had this period oftime where I was doing it And I
began to feel very detached fromthe world.
I felt like people didn'tunderstand me And I did have
(33:51):
friends say I can't hear thesestories.
I'm like Emily, it's greatyou're working on your book, but
stop talking about it, stoptelling me how horrible this is.
And oh my gosh.
And I was struck by how kind oftraumatized I was.
I was talking to a friend ofmine And she said it's kind of
like you're the first person andyou see Auschwitz, you're the
(34:12):
first person there, and thenyou're trying to tell people and
everyone's like that's nothappening, they're not doing
that Or they must have committeda crime.
And so I felt very detachedfrom the world and kind of angry
.
This is so stupid And we'redestroying all these people's
lives And it would get me veryangry.
They had kids and they couldn'thelp their kids and their
(34:35):
mothers and their wives, andthat's also what made me so
angry.
It wasn't just theseindividuals that were being
punished, but the collateralpunishment of their entire
families.
And just for what?
For nothing.
It's so stupid.
Jason (34:50):
So, yeah, yeah.
So I mean, so you're living allof that.
I mean that's a reallyfascinating way to view it.
You're the first person to seeit, sharing it, as I'm reading
the book and I'm reading thesestories and thinking about all
the people and their lives And Ihave empathy for them and you
had empathy for them.
How do you think?
(35:13):
Do you think the average person, who doesn't really understand
what it's like, will feel that,will feel that?
Emily (35:21):
I hope so, because I feel like the data is clear, the
research is clear.
The recidivism data, forexample.
It's decades and decades ofdata.
There's a consensus of anentire field right, recidivism
is low.
There is no reason for thisexcept to punish, punish kind of
shame, shame, shame, destroy,destroy, destroy, right.
So the reason why I have verylittle data in this book and I
(35:44):
kind of touch on the studies,but it's like I want people to
understand the human impact ofthis.
And it's not a few people,right, there's millions of
people impacted if you countmothers, wives and children.
And I'm really careful in thebook, like I don't talk about oh
, this was a Romeo and Julietcase, oh, this was.
(36:05):
They were only nine years old,it doesn't matter what the
offense was.
These are all people who'vebeen punished.
I don't say held accountable,because I don't think prison is
real accountability, i don'tthink mandated treatment.
Thank you, thank you.
Yeah, i learned that from Amberand Mike Nikki Phillips.
But yeah, they're punished,right, and they're punished a
(36:29):
lot, they're punished too muchAnd nobody's held accountable,
right, it's just a mess.
Jason (36:35):
So one of the things that you talk about a lot is the
moment and the culture and howthe word pedophile, groomer and
the Me Too movement and all ofthat is being weaponized, and so
can you talk a little bit aboutthat and your journey with, or
(36:57):
your whole thought process interms of how that's evolved and
where you think we are right nowas a society?
Emily (37:05):
Yeah, i mean, i think it's really clear now that the P
word that you just said is theworst thing you can call anyone
right.
It's like the ultimate insult.
It's worse than being anything.
And so I've noticed like Istarted to notice a few years
ago, like I teach collegestudents that they were
constantly calling people PEDOto characterize a 22-year-old
(37:32):
like a senior dating a freshman.
They would call him this allthe time.
They would just throw this wordout there about people they
didn't like, and I also saw iton social media about anybody
older dating anybody younger,which is so.
And grooming also right.
Grooming started to be used notabout a priest or a coach with
(37:53):
a young child, but just aboutany age difference where the
older person was more than likefour or five years older than
the other person, and the quote,unquote, victim or whatever,
was 14, 15, 16, 17, which it wasjust a shift to expand these
(38:14):
terms to everything, everyimbalance of power, which, of
course, those who are actuallyon this registry are the brunt
of this, because then this wordis used all the time, all the
time, all the time.
In fact, i didn't notice thiswhen I wrote my first book.
That came out in 2015.
But I know friends who areprofessors, smart people, who
(38:35):
will say to me oh, how's yourwork on pedophiles, how's your
book on pedophiles coming up?
And I go crazy, right, right,but I don't want to be like the
word police or something.
Jason (38:46):
Well, actually.
Emily (38:47):
Yeah, i just spoke to a journalist from a really
prestigious publication and Igot an email from the journalist
And the subject was pedophilestory.
Right When I spoke to her, ikept explaining the origins to
the word and the problem of thewords.
And she's still emailing mequestions using this term And
(39:08):
she's very nice and she's verycritical and smart and
everything, but it's just outthere.
But it's very dangerous forpeople who actually are on
registries, because they're thepeople who we say well, those
are actually.
Amber (39:22):
And Emily, what do you think about marginalized
communities that you seeregistries and this language
being weaponized against?
For instance, you see a lot oflanguage around LGBTQ and people
utilizing this type of languageAnd then that ultimately one
(39:46):
would think anecdotally thatthat would lead to harm against
that community because thislanguage is being utilized that
way.
And registries we know thatregistries are weaponized
against the LGBTQ community.
Emily (40:03):
Yeah, i write this a little bit about this a little
bit in my book How It Some ofthe protests for drag queen
story hours.
You'll see people wearingT-shirts that say, quote unquote
kill your local pedophile,which you can buy online.
You can see these stickersaround And equating drag queen
story hour with being somebodywho sexually harms children, and
(40:26):
then the same language that'sused to protest those on the
registry the vigil anti-violenceagainst those on the registry
is now being transferred to thatcommunity.
I remember speaking to a verylong time activist who had been
active since Bill Clinton signedMegan's Law And this activist
said to me he said well, maybenow that Hillary Clinton is
(40:47):
being accused of these thingsand Democrats are being accused
of these things, they'll seewhat this has done and they'll
join us.
They'll be sympathetic.
They'll see how dangerous it isto stigmatize people and point
the finger like that.
Needless to say, that didn'thappen, but hopeful that Maybe
it would, because the Democratsthey often buy certain segments
(41:11):
of the population.
Now They say the quote unquoteparty of pedophiles, right, and
you can Google that and see thatthat's used in somewhat
mainstream Republican discourse.
Amber (41:22):
And so, for those who may find themselves in some of
these conversations, what isyour sort of advice to someone
who may be in a hostilesituation where somebody is
saying some of those things?
I mean, i would suggestprobably they get your book.
Emily (41:49):
Bull price.
Amber (41:52):
So what are some common or sort of smaller chunks of
things that somebody can utilize, like?
so, for instance, somebody it'shappened to me before will be
in a conversation about this andit'll be like, well, utilizing
(42:19):
the term pedophile.
So when you're talking aboutsexual harm and the registry and
someone immediately goes topedophile, how do you avoid
being that person?
that's like, well, actually theclinical term of this is this
What are some tips you mighthave?
Emily (42:37):
I mean it's really hard.
I mean number one, of courserecidivism rates are low.
There's a wide range ofoffenses, not everyone's all the
same, but what I really focuson is like, look, there's enough
punishment.
Prison is serious punishment.
Supervision is seriouspunishment.
We don't need additionalpunishment.
(42:58):
We need to help people.
Wouldn't you want people tohave jobs, housing?
Do you want people to bedestroyed?
I find talking about redemptionand grace is really helpful,
talking about how, for example,people just want to go to
college and work, but it's very,very hard.
(43:19):
There's so many myths and ittakes time.
But a lot of people I mean inour community people are like oh
yeah, we know recidivism ratesare a myth, we don't have to,
but so many people still believethat.
I teach a course on sexoffenses And at the beginning of
the semester, of course,everyone thinks the registry's
the greatest thing and we needit and da, da, da And by the end
(43:44):
, 13 classes, movies, people.
Every student is much morecompassionate, rational,
understanding, but it takes work.
I would also say that one thingto think about that I think is
it's harder to talk about is oneof the reasons why people
justify registries.
They're like well, why shouldthey get their life back.
(44:05):
The person they harmed willnever get their life back.
Their life is over And you kindof need to like pull back the
panic and rage about that too.
Like it's undermining to thatperson to say they're destroyed
forever.
Right, they didn't do anything,it's a terrible thing, but
(44:26):
there's all kinds of terriblethings that happen in our lives
And why are we elevating thatthing?
That's giving, that's takingpower away from the person
harmed?
right, if you're saying this isthe worst thing, right, and
Amber and I have also talkedabout this.
Yeah, one of the reasons why,like a lot of people who work on
this prefaced it by saying likeI'm a mother, i'm a wife, i'm a
survivor, all of these thingsAnd like I really don't like to
(44:48):
do that, because I feel likethat's saying like, okay, like
you know, and and it's on theleft generally, this is like you
can speak on this becauseyou've had this experience I
don't like to do that onlybecause I feel like I should be
able to critique these laws,even if I haven't been harmed.
These laws are stupid and badobjectively, like I don't have
(45:12):
to say that I understand this.
Of course I'm a woman in oursociety And, of course, i've had
the same experiences that 90%of all women have had.
Amber (45:23):
Yeah, and I think that that's one of the things that is
a journey for people to toreally understand particularly
individuals who are advocating,because I remember having like
an epiphany at one point And youknow I said to myself I don't
(45:43):
owe the world the sort ofparading of my own trauma for
them to believe that my familyhas been harmed by the registry,
but it's a, it's a verysignificant phenomena that's out
there.
So I really appreciate yourhighlighting that.
Emily (46:04):
Yeah, i mean, i think you know, i think it's excellent
when people are comfortabledoing that.
I just have like this angerabout it because I am a
sociologist.
I feel like you know, maybe ifsomebody's an advocate it's,
it's different.
But like I can study anything Iwant, you know, i can study any
social problem and comment onit, and that's the purpose of
(46:25):
being like a social critic,right, yeah, and I quote a
sociologist in the book sayinglike that's our job, like we, we
study things, even things thatmight have a lot of like panic
and hysteria, and we try to becritical and think clearly about
them.
So I don't like.
I don't.
I don't criticize people whoshare that about themselves.
(46:46):
I just feel like it's a verydeliberate choice.
At this point, i don't have toprove anything, you know.
I can say that sexual harm isbad without you know, and I can
say that it's also bad todestroy people who are convicted
of harming others.
Amber (47:03):
Yeah, i think that's one of the things that we culturally
have a hard time doing isholding many truths all at one
time.
Right, it can be true thatsexual harm is bad, but it can
also be true that state harm isbad And that we should not be
doing it on behalf ofindividuals who have been
(47:24):
victimized, because all the wayaround we're harming all of us.
Emily (47:28):
This history is not making my life better.
It's not making anyone safer.
It doesn't make me feel morewhole again.
This isn't.
They're not being heldaccountable.
This isn't.
Jason (47:37):
Yeah, and part of that I mean is the fact that we've all
been told that the way you makepeople heal, or the way you make
people whole not even heal isby punishing like you know, i'm
hurting, so you have to hurtversus how do we make everybody
whole again?
How do we make everybody heal?
So that's just where we are.
(47:59):
I have a question a little bitback on something that was in
the book, you covered people whohad been on the registry or who
had convictions going way back,and there were people who had
committed offenses before therewas a registry and their life
(48:20):
wasn't perfect but seemed to bethese people.
Some of them seem to be doingreally well And then when the
registry came out, it justincreasingly got worse.
What, what?
what did you learn from doingall that And can you talk about
that?
Emily (48:35):
Yeah, yeah.
So there's two points that Imake.
So, first of all, obviously aprivate registry, a law
enforcement only registry, isnot the answer, because I did
interview people who are on lawenforcement only registries who
suffer greatly becausebackground checks bring that up.
So they still have housingchallenges and all kinds of
other problems.
However, there were many peoplewho had been on private
(48:58):
registries And then in the 90sit became public And their lives
grew far worse or worn onregistries at all, and then in
the 90s, laws were implementedAnd then actually the third
point is that many people whoare even on public registries
from day one, as the internetexpanded and apps expanded and
hysteria expanded, things got alot worse.
(49:19):
So they were on a publicregistry from the time that they
started, from the time theywere released from prison, yet
things got a lot worse, likemany people I talked about said
until six, seven years ago, likeit really wasn't that big a
problem.
People in the workplace didn'tmind, my boss didn't mind, and
then I don't know if it'sbecause, like, the internet is
(49:40):
like more pervasive now, orpeople are more angry now, or
there's more laws now, butthings have gotten a lot worse.
So many people said I was fineuntil like six, seven years ago,
and then things started to geta lot harder.
Amber (49:56):
Well, i think one of the things that you know in reading
the book really struck me issort of that progression, and
part of it has to do with thisidea that the registry is not
punishment, like this sort ofridiculous notion that it is for
(50:18):
public safety.
Therefore, you know, it'soutside of those protections of
the Constitution, in thatanything any legislator can
decide that a new restriction isneeded, propose it, have very
little opposition, have it kindof go right through the
legislature And then people arethen subject to whatever
(50:42):
sanction or restriction.
It is So that, combined withsort of the internet and
cultural panic, you know,additional cultural panics
probably have.
Again, i'm not a sociologist,but you would think that all of
that might be contributing.
Emily (51:02):
Yeah, because you think that once, like, you have a
social problem and then you havecritiques of that problem,
critiques of the response,things get better, right, like
if you look at things likeracial justice, all those things
, things are supposed to getbetter when you highlight the
problems.
And in this case, as theproblems have been highlighted
(51:23):
by researchers, journaliststhere's been many articles and
the documentary untouchable andlots of scholarship about the
uselessness of registries right,there's basically no
scholarship about how they'reeffective or keep anyone safer,
because they don't.
Jason (51:39):
So if the normal tools to make for social change aren't
working, how do we get change?
How do we get to a more humanejust society?
Emily (52:00):
Yeah, I mean, I think that there has to be a social
movement.
Like I said, this movement hasunique issues.
I think one of the problemswith this movement is that
people think the lawyers aregoing to save us, like the
lawyers are going to go and havetheir lawsuits, but in a way
that's kind of just empoweringright, Like if you just think,
okay, we'll just give money andlawyers will load you their
(52:21):
thing.
Obviously, I think the lawsuitsand the research are really
important, but at the same time,there does have to be a
movement And I think and I'mstealing this from Amber, but I
think the larger criminaljustice reform movement is who
we need to work with.
We need to say we're notoutside, We're not different.
(52:44):
So I think that is one of theanswers and mobilizing people
and getting rid of the fear.
But it's really hard.
I mean it's hard, It's going totake time and work.
Jason (52:54):
Yeah, forging those allies is critical.
I think that's really.
We've seen some successes thereAnd I think things like your
book that touch on the humanaspects and real lives a
documentary, a drama that showsthe lives of somebody just
trying to live their lives andliving honorable lives and
(53:17):
having all these obstaclesthrown at them So I do think, i
think a lot, i think it's got tocome from every direction.
Amber (53:24):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So one of the things I do wantto say is, just as much as we've
seen, like so many people startsort of fall into this panic
and culture sort of go the wrongway.
I do feel encouraged becausethere are more conversations out
in the open about these issuesthan there have ever been And
(53:46):
there are many voices who arespeaking up.
It just needs to be built up ina more significant and
organized way.
So I think, jason, youmentioned that this book is
great for that.
When I'm thinking about andhaving read the book, which I
definitely will recommend thisbook really in the hands of
(54:09):
individuals who are already inthe criminal legal movement,
reform or abolition movement, toreally have tools that they
need and an understanding tounderstand why we should not be
carving segments of thepopulation out, i think is a
really really good tool.
So in my mind, that is one ofthe audiences of this book.
(54:34):
Would you agree with that,emily?
Emily (54:36):
Yeah, I mean, that's definitely who it's for.
I mean, I actually think it's ahard read for people who are
directly impacted becausethey're going to be like, duh,
yeah, got it.
I think that I would like thisto be for, like, the broader
social science community, thebroader criminal justice
(54:57):
community and, most importantly,the criminal justice reform
advocates.
So that's sort of my goal is toget it to them and to work with
them and to give them somethingto say look at this, this is
like happening.
These are men and women that weknow about and they're also
(55:17):
harmed by the criminal legalsystem and they also deserve
relief.
Jason (55:23):
And it's not like you met somebody and it was a unique
experience.
These are representative ofgeneric experiences, like I've
talked to people in the fewyears that I've been doing this.
I've talked to people who Icould recognize in that book,
even though they weren't thesame people.
I could recognize the story.
(55:44):
Oh, this guy, this happened tothis guy.
Oh, i remember when I heardthat story, right.
So, but putting it all togetherand seeing it in one book, i
think it might even be helpfulto take a story or two, have a
discussion with a group and thentake another few stories and
have a discussion with a groupand you know to highlight, like
what did this person experience?
(56:05):
What do you think it was liketo be in their shoes?
And-.
Emily (56:09):
That would be great, i know.
Amber (56:11):
So, emily, you know, being a college professor and a
sociologist, you talked aboutsort of the way that young
people evolve their thinkingthroughout a course.
Right, if you are speaking toother college professors who may
be working on this issue or thecriminal justice teaching,
(56:33):
would you see, you know yourscholarship and scholarship of
others, and particularly thisbook as a tool that they might
be able to utilize in some ofthose discussions in their
classrooms?
Emily (56:44):
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, do you think anybodyworking on criminal justice
reform is far more open thanlike the average person to
understanding the human toll ofmass incarceration and similar
policies?
And they just need to beeducated too.
Like they don't know, they'vegrown up thinking like you know.
People who commit sexual harmare evil, uncontrollable, not
(57:09):
human right, and they just haveto be taught that they're the
same as all the other peopleyou're working with right.
20 years ago, people thoughtpeople who sold drugs were not
human right And didn't deserveopportunities.
Amber (57:26):
So I'm gonna say something and it might be a
little emotional, but that's howI am.
I remember when our lives wereflipped upside down and my
husband's situation and Iimmediately I'm the kind of
person and I'm like how am Igonna fix this?
So I went to Google our friendGoogle and I sort of Googled the
(57:48):
issue, And one of the firstthings that I watched was a
debate, a SOHO debate, with thisamazing woman who just tore
down all the myths about theregistry, and that really
inspired me.
So I just have to say that outloud And that was you, and so I
(58:09):
want to thank you for that, andanybody who has not seen that
debate and the newest debatethat you've done really should
see that.
So thank you, emily.
Emily (58:18):
Thank you.
I'll say something about that,though It's kind of interesting
because I'm not really a gooddebater, like I'm not a really
good public public.
But when I was preparing for it, like I said to this friend of
mine who's a really smart lawyerwho understands the stupidities
of registry, i said, all right,like let's do a mock debate.
Like you know you be the personwho's supporting it and I'm
gonna work on my argument here.
(58:40):
And he was, like you know,there's no arguments for it.
The only argument for it islike we hate these people.
This makes us feel good.
We love vengeance, and he wasright, which is why, like you,
should never be scared to debateanybody because there are no.
The only reason for it isvengeance, that's it.
(59:01):
There's no other reason for it.
It's not doing anything exceptover punishing.
So thank you for saying that itwas a good debate, but it's a
great opportunity to everyone.
Should debate people about it,because there's no argument for
it.
I say to my students like youcan write your paper about how
the registry is great, but justadmit it's cause you hate these
(59:22):
people and think they don'tdeserve a second chance or a
third chance.
Jason (59:26):
I'm gonna pile on to the Dr Emily Hurwitz fan club.
You know we people can havepeople can be armed with the
facts and you do a phenomenaljob.
You know, i've watched it outin the two debates and I've seen
you live talking about theissue.
You do, you do present in a waythat is very compelling And so
(59:51):
hopefully it rubs up on otherpeople.
Amber (59:55):
I think for me and it's just again not to go back to it
but I think for me the biggestpart of that was I was so
astounded that there wassomebody doing that, not that it
was true or not true, but therewas somebody willing to do it,
(01:00:15):
and so I think that's where thethanks come in.
It's difficult work and it'sappreciated, so that I mean I
think that was more my point,not whether it was.
We all know there's no goodargument.
Jason (01:00:30):
So we recommend that everybody go and watch both
debates.
We can put them in the shownotes.
Emily (01:00:34):
Yes, we will.
Jason (01:00:35):
And buy your first book and your second book, and there
we go.
Emily (01:00:40):
Thank you guys so much And thank you for having a
podcast where you focus on lifeexperiences.
So in some way my book is kindof like the embodiment of your
podcasts, where you let peoplespeak and tell their stories and
how these crazy, cruel lawsdestroy their lives And you give
(01:01:01):
them also.
Then people can hear like wait,these are men and women, these
are people.
Amber (01:01:07):
Yeah absolutely So, emily .
are there any like finalthoughts that you want to share
on the book, or to encourageother individuals in scholarship
, or any just final thoughts?
Emily (01:01:25):
Yeah, i mean, if you're directly impacted, like, get
involved, speak up to the extentthat you can without hurting
yourself.
Don't think you don't have theright to stand up for yourself.
I feel really sad when I talkto people who say, like I want
to get involved, i want to dosomething, but I'm so scared
(01:01:46):
Plus, as Jason pointed out, idid this terrible thing.
I don't even deserve to standup for myself.
Jason (01:01:54):
Right, Amber.
how about you?
Any additional thoughts beforewe wrap up?
Amber (01:01:59):
I think my last question for Emily is if you were talking
to someone who was at thebeginning of their career, right
, and they were thinking aboutstudying this sort of issue,
what would your advice to thembe?
Emily (01:02:19):
I would say do it because it needs to be done And
like I think we all want tostudy things where we do make a
difference, right.
So, like I mean, unlikestudying certain topics, like if
you do study this, you do havepeople like you guys who do
these podcasts, you do have someorganizations where you will
(01:02:41):
have an impact And you want tostudy things that I mean, look,
things can only go forward,right, And so if you want
policies to change and getbetter, like this is something
you should do.
If you go into sociology tomake the world a better place,
this is a really big problem Andthere's not a lot of voices,
(01:03:02):
right, There's some problemswhere there's a lot of voices.
Here's a problem where there'snot a lot of voices and all
voices have impact.
Jason (01:03:12):
And I know we're towards the end here, we're wrapping up,
but what you just said, youknow there's not a lot of voices
.
It was interesting.
in the last debate the guy youwere debating basically said you
were coming from the popularposition and I had to laugh.
I mean, what was?
what were you thinking in themoment when someone's telling
you Well, here's the thing Hewas saying.
Emily (01:03:33):
You're coming from the popular position because there's
no peer reviewed scholarshipexcept for mine that says the
registry is good and shouldexist.
And he's correct.
Because you can't to getsomething like peer reviewed, to
get a scholarly book published,you have to have an argument
besides, i hate these people.
Right.
So he was correct that I ammainstream in scholarship.
(01:03:57):
But there's not that much.
I mean, all the scholarship onthis says the registry is stupid
and terrible.
There's no evidence for it.
But in the world of politicsand humanity everybody hates the
registry.
Yeah, there's some studies thatsay it's not effective, but
nobody cares.
Every week there's a newproposal.
(01:04:18):
I mean, in the world everybodyloves the registry.
Right sorry, in the worldeveryone loves the registry,
right Yeah.
So yeah, there's a fewsociologists and criminologists
who study it and said wait asecond, this is ineffective and
expensive and dumb.
Yeah no, that's veryfrustrating, but he was the only
one who tried to write ascholarly book about why it's a
(01:04:39):
good thing.
Amber (01:04:40):
Well, his whole argument is that we democratically
decided that we want this as asociety Right, and so we also
have democratically decided thatwomen shouldn't vote and that
people should be discriminatedagainst because of the color of
(01:05:00):
their skin and all of that.
So that doesn't make it not ahuman rights abuse.
Jason (01:05:06):
Right, exactly.
Tell us one more time the nameof the book.
Emily (01:05:11):
From rage to reason why we need sex crime laws based on
facts, not fear, and when is theapproximate release date?
June, in June 2023.
Jason (01:05:25):
All right, so everybody go out by the book, and you've
been listening to Dr EmilyHorowitz.
Emily, thank you so much forjoining us today.
It was a real pleasure to haveyou and to talk with you.
We're gonna continue workingwith you.
So thank you so much.
Like I said, we could probablydo a whole other podcast on the
(01:05:46):
work that you've done inside ofprisons.
It's just amazing the kind oflife, the value that you're
bringing to the world.
So thank you so much for beinghere.
Emily (01:05:58):
Thank you so much, thank you.
Jason (01:06:00):
Until next time, Amber.
Amber (01:06:03):
We'll see you next time.
Outro (01:06:13):
You've been listening to Amplified Voices, a podcast
listening to the experiences ofpeople and families impacted by
the criminal legal system.
For more information, episodesand podcast notes, visit
AmplifiedVoicesshow.
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