From Prison to Purpose: Real Second Chances That Work (Full)

Episode Transcript
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Alex (00:00):
Solving America’s Problems drops into a story most people never expect.
Rafael Quiroz — fifteen years behindbars, sentenced to life as a kid — walks
out in 2021, applies for a home loansix months later, and gets approved
for a HALF-MILLION-DOLLAR home loan.
SIX MONTHS.
No decades of credit history, noco-signer, just a man who refused

(00:22):
to let the system’s label stick.
Jerremy and Dave sit down with Rafael,Jason Holland, and Jennifer Morehouse
— three Defy Ventures graduates whoturned cages into companies, pain into
payrolls that hire the overlooked.
They expose an $80 billion punishmentmachine that still somehow lets people
like Rafael buy houses, build seven-figurebusinesses, and prove the system can

(00:46):
be beaten… but only if you’re willingto fight it from the inside out.
The raw truth of how they did it — andwhat it really takes to stop America from
locking up another 1.9 million souls…

Jerremy Newsome (00:59):
Dave, the people want to know what are we talking about today?

Dave Conley (01:07):
In this week's episode of Solving America's Problems, we
confront an $80 billion prison systemthat traps 1.9 million people in a
cycle of punishment over possibility.
We're joined by three leaders who facedyears behind bars, yet rows above and
built lives of purpose and impact.
Their triumph shows the system's potentialto empower more if it prioritizes change.

(01:30):
And that's this week onsolving America's problems.
From bars to Breakthroughs withJason Holland, Jennifer Nancy
Morehouse, and Raphael Kiros.

You served your time.
You fought for a second chance.
You fought.
The hardest part was over, but outhere, freedom comes with change.
You did not see coming.
Finding work, rebuilding trust,reclaiming purpose, every step
is harder when the system's builtto break you and not rebuild you.

(02:04):
I'm Jerremy Alexander Newsom, alongsidemy co-host Dave DC Conley, and
this is solving America's Problems.
Today we are sitting down with threeextraordinary human beings who refused
to let their worst day define them.
They did not just rebuild theirlives, but they are continuously

(02:24):
leading others to do the exact same.
Holland, also known as just Jason,program manager for Defi Ventures,
co-founder of Reentry Wheels andcreator of the Move Your Mountain
program is igniting human potential.
Jennifer, Nancy Morehouse, foundingpartner of Long Beach City Lifestyle

(02:45):
Magazine is a top interior designer forCompass Realty is not just designing
homes, she's rebuilding communities byhiring those others who they overlook.
And we have Raphael a dynamicentrepreneur and nonprofit leader,
spent 15 years incarcerated andturned his story into one of executive

(03:07):
leadership transformational growth.
All three are graduates, entrepreneursin training through the Defi Ventures
program, which is a revolutionaryorganization proving that who you were
does not define who you can become.
Family, thank you for being here.
Really tremendously excited tohave an open, amazing conversation

(03:30):
about well prison reform.
going if anything, andwhat we can all do better.
So I'm gonna start with a generalquestion, and I'm gonna have
generous Jennifer, go first.
Let's start with your fight today.
What is something that you'rebuilding in your life now?
Family purpose or a new path thatshows the world who you really are

Generous Jennifer (03:52):
For sure.
For sure.
So I'm growing a business.
It's actually growing now thisyear, like a few months ago,
it finally became profitable.
And I honestly I'm terrible.
I have no sense of scarcity and Ireally, still working to manage my money
better, but I already have started payingpeople to help me, even though I can't,
not for sure that I could afford to.

(04:13):
But I have a, it, it's reallyimportant to me to make sure that
I scale this business by hiringpeople with barriers to employment.
And mostly that's for return citizensand formerly incarcerated folks.
And it's also peoplethat, have little ones.
It's really hard tofind affordable daycare.
It's really hard to be a singleparent, not just for women, like
anybody who's a single parent.

(04:34):
Shortly after I left my nine tofive last January, another colleague
of mine also got let go and shewas the breadwinner in her home.
So immediately I was like I'm about tocollect a big B on one of my projects.
Why don't you come over andhelp me with some consulting?
That's what I do.
Anytime money comes into mybusiness, I try to disperse it
immediately to people that need it.

(04:55):
And I hope I get betterat that and less reckless.

Yeah,

Yeah,

But hey, you also mentioned that it's becoming profitable
now, and so there's a corner gettingturned, and so you're showing the
cool universal energy of money thatI love to discuss, which is the
more you give, the more you receive.

for sure.

Yeah.

And the nice thing is that I just started
back up a class with Defy again,and we are looking at financial
modeling, which I need desperately.
So I'm getting the support in the areasthat I'm weak, like from Defy actually.

Beautiful.
Yeah, I love that.
All right speaking of Defy, let'shop over to my boy Jason, just Jason,
who as I mentioned right now, isvery much still involved in the Defi
organization as a program manager.
So Jason, what's in your liferight now that you've walked
through fire, what's one truth?
About you and who you are that you wantevery listener to hear loud and clear.

Jason Holland (05:49):
Oh, wow.
That's a really great question.
First of all, thank you for the awesomeintro, by the way, and for having us.
So one truth that I want everyoneto know yeah, I think that I'm
still onto my way to becoming.
All that I can be.

(06:10):
And in that process, I'm relearningmyself in a new context versus who
I thought I was even when I leftprison just in August of 2023.
I think it's a really importantthing that I've learned, and you
alluded to this earlier, Jerremy.
When I left prison, I had done a lotof work to reshape to unpack so much

(06:35):
of who I was that brought me to thatplace to reshape and my relationships
with myself and the world and howI connect to other people and what
outcomes that I wanna see from that.
But, and I really thought I had agood idea on who I was coming home.
And then I came home and learnedand am learning who I am in a world

(06:56):
that's coming at me in ways that isvastly different than what I expected.
And so I think that what Iwould want people to know is
that, hey, I'm still learning.
I'm gonna continue to grow and I'mgonna continue to bring value through
that to others because I recognizethat others are still learning
and continuing to grow as well.
Every day it's about I wanna wakeup with the right intention to

(07:18):
the best of my ability serve.
Receive and give all that I can, andthen just continue to be open to what
Life provides and what life offers me interms of opportunity to learn and grow.

Let's go, man, let's go.
That's a, that constantnever ending improvement.
It's a skillset and a mindset, and Iwould even say a heart set, that if we

Yeah.

and adopt, we continually find ways to become
better and look for ways to alwaysimprove, which is incredible reliable.
Ralph, what a legend.
A Love
Ralph.
Here's gonna me a fun one for you.
So tell us, tell me a moment in a momentin time that made you feel unstoppable.
What was that moment?

Rafael Quiroz (08:02):
Oh man, there's been so many both while I was
incarcerated and since I've been home.
I wanna speak specificallyto, since I've been home.
One that made me feel unstoppable iswhen I got approved for a home loan six
months after being released af afterserving nearly 15, 16 years in prison.
And within six months I got qualifiedfor half a million dollar home loan.

Wow.

And I really thought it was impossible.
And I thought, you need years of incomehistory and you need this, you need
all these things I thought you needed.
But I was able to navigate that.
So at that point, I've been home,that was probably one of the
biggest points professionallythat made me feel unstoppable.
Hey, I can do this.
I could be like, just like anybodyelse, any other American, any
other person that's been outhere, I could be a homeowner.

(08:48):
I knew that was my goal, topurchase a home, to raise my family.
I've been married for years already.
We now have a beautiful baby boy.
But at that point I knew that wasmy goal, but when it happened,
within six months of being released,I was like, wow, I can do this.
And that really made me feel unstoppable.
A few min, a few months later I scaledmy my company to over $2 million.

you did.
Well

Wow.

That's what I'm

Yeah.

Well done.
And for my listeners out there,our thousands of listeners you
have on your Zoom profile in the,like in a photo, if you don't
risk anything, you risk even more.
It's such a beautiful statement.
'cause I think so many people arejust generally afraid of risk.
And for all three of you, we havejust learned that you continually

(09:36):
look for ways to optimize and to grow.
And it's a risk.
It's scary 'cause it's the unknown, right?
generous, Jennifer'sover here I don't know.
I'm gonna make it work.
But here we go.
gonna hire people and I'm gonnarecycle money and I'm not really
sure, but we're gonna make it work.
I think it's just a remarkabletestament to to power.
So here we go.

(09:57):
dive in.
And this is gonna be like a round robinquestion for the three beautiful people
sitting here with myself and Dave,take us into a day behind those walls.
was the hardest thing to endureand what kept you holding on?
Maybe it was a person,maybe it was a moment.
Let's go with Jason first.

Yeah, so the har I think for me the hardest thing to endure
towards the end was I. I had beendenied for parole, and I felt that I
had done everything right at that point.
There was nothing I could do withthe denial to make it go faster.

(10:44):
There was nothing I coulddo to change that decision.
It was really just amatter of due to time.
And it was difficult because wasone of those situations where
like even spiritually, I wouldquestion like, what would be the
meaning or the purpose of this?
And I didn't know, had tosit with just not knowing.
And then it was like I need to findvalue in this some point at some way.

(11:08):
I need to have faith that there'sgonna be a value for this, that
I can take from this for myselfor that I can give to others.
And so at that point, dealing withwhat seemed like such a defeat and
having to sit with it while alsosaying, look, I still wanna live
into the possibility of this future.
I still want to do everything I canto move forward in the right way.

(11:30):
While at the same time beinguncertain with how some of these
things that I was conflicted with,how it was going to work out.
I think towards the end that would besomething that, that I was faced with.
And then earlier in my sentence, Iwas serving a life without parole
sentence, which felt very much likehopelessness on a continual basis and.

(11:53):
me at that time, enduring that.
Again, just that sense of thisis how my life is gonna go.
This is what it is.
And finally coming to a place whereI was able to break that mindset and
being defeated and taking ownershipof my life and turning that around.
I think that there's these those arethe two answers that come up for me
when you ask that question, right?

(12:14):
Because there was two differentphases in my life where I was
enduring two types of things.
And ultimately all of thosethings now have become gifts
that I can share with others.
One of the bigger takeaways of myentire journey is that all of it in some
way was an opportunity to be a gift.

There it is.

Wow.

Turn the mess into the message.

There you go.

life will change so dramatically.
Ralph, what about yourself, man?
What was one of those moments behind barsthat was just so strenuously, difficult

Man, I guess like Jason, at different points in my life.
When I was younger, when I first startedmy incarceration, the hardest thing was
getting a sentence of life in prison.
It's oh shoot, this is it.
Being in the hole by myself andcoming to a realization that because
I had been so cold and heartless andjust shut my heart up to the world.

(13:08):
I remember being in the hole atone point early on and thinking to
myself like, I don't have anybody.
I don't have, no,

is the whole solitary confinement.

yeah.
Solitary confinement.
Yeah, sorry.

You're good.

Solitary confinement.
Getting in trouble and then beingsent to solitary confinement.
Sorry, I referred to it as the whole.
And and just being in there and havinga moment to think to myself for one
of the first times early in my younglife, and just like how isolated
I really felt like I was alwayslike, good at talking to people,
manipulating really good at manipulatingand getting the things I wanted.

(13:38):
And then when I was in the hole with myown, to my own thoughts, I was like, man,
I have nobody, like I, I have nobody.
And it was really hardto swallow that pill.
Pill.
And that was a point where I'mlike I want something more.
I want something more.
That's when I, so that's when Idecided to open up and stuff like that.
So that was earlier.
So sentenced to life coming tothe realization that, how far I
distanced myself from the world.

(14:00):
And those are some hardtruths to swallow early on.
But then later on, some of the hard thingswere just taking responsibility, like
taking a hundred percent responsibility.
For so long I had blamed mychoices off of my childhood.
Oh, I didn't have my mom or my dadaround, it's because of the neighborhood
I grew up in and all these things.
Those were my crutches,those were my excuses.
So if I failed, I always had somethingto point the point, the blame at

(14:22):
or point the point, the finger at.
that was a hard part, realizingI need to take a hundred percent
ownership from my own life.
And so that was another hard part.
As I transitioned Jason said, justthat due through different phases in my
life, there was different hard parts.
And one of the lar, one of the hard parts.
Right before I was released, I wasactually the chairman for the Men's
Advisory Council during covid.

(14:44):
So during Covid I was the chairmanfor the Men's advisory Council.
And so I was the go between,between the inmate population and
the staff, prison staff, and Ifelt like I couldn't do anything.
The inmate population said, Hey,you need to have, give us yard
time and blah, blah, blah, blah.
I would go to the staff andsay, Hey, we need yard time,
we need sports, we need this.
And the prison staff would be like,look, bro, it's out of our hands.

(15:06):
I don't know what to tell you.
It's coming down from Sacramento.
So the officers gottired of hearing from me.
inmate population felt like I wasn'tdoing enough, and I felt every day for
almost a whole year, I felt like themost hated man on that entire yard.
And that was hard.
was really hard.
But I'll tell you what, I learnedimportant leadership skills during that

(15:26):
time, during my last year in prison.
I came home in 2021.
And during that last year of prison,I really learned some crucial
and critical leadership skillsthat I didn't know I had before.
And so that was one of thehardest times as well for me.

man.
Thank you for sharing that.
I really heard you say is you choseto be a victor and not a victim.
We all have circumstancesregardless to what they are.

Right.

you're right, they can happen to us, they can happen for us.
We can be born, we can have all thethings and the cards are gonna be
against us, but at the same time, singleperson is making some level of choice.
And once we get to go,yeah, but I did do that.
That was me.
Even though other peopledid or said or whatever.
You turn that spotlight inwardand then you started turning

(16:12):
it outward again, which

hundred percent.

awesome.
Ah, thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you, Jennifer.
Generous.
Jennifer, how'd you getover those hard moments?
What were they like?

Okay.
So I always feel the need to.
Disclose this when I'm in these spaces.
But I got arrested two times and bothtimes I was able to bail myself out.
So I didn't do time likesome of the other folks here.
But the second time, my sense ofself-worth was like still completely
in the dumps and it stayed thatway until my dad approached me,

(16:44):
like he saw what I was doing.
He was nice and hands off, but hecould tell that I was still on drugs.
I was never coming home.
And he approached me and just said,why don't you go back to school?
I will help you pay for it.
And it was like a light bulb went off.
I could not believe thatsomebody still believed in me.
So you, Ralph say that you felt like themost hated person on the yard, that would

(17:04):
be so fucking hard to deal with becauseI've realized that the esteem of others
is what affects me more than anything.
so getting my dad's esteem andknowing that he still believed
in me, I was like, that's it.
I'm getting straight A's.
I'm gonna get valedictorian.
I'm not just going back to school.
I have to be the best.
And I did, I went back to school and Idid get straight A's and I volunteered

(17:25):
so much that I got an award fromObama and I did make valedictorian
and I was probably the most decoratedvaledictorian they ever had.
I was the first, architecture major,valedictorian amongst a lot of other
things, but, so that's what's made melike, I'm giving that back to the world.
I'm starting this business,I'm starting a scholarship.
It's gonna go to other people thatdidn't have the same resources I did.

(17:47):
Also, my husband served 11 years.
He's also an ex-felon and nowhe's an electrical engineer.
So it's just really important to bothof us to give that back to the world,
the same opportunities that we werelucky enough to have, because we still
have the support from a strong familynetwork not everybody has, which can be
a make or break difference for people.
Like the resources you have and howmuch people believe in you, I think

(18:10):
is really what goes a long ways.
Yeah.
Did that answer the question?

Oh yeah.

Okay.

And Jennifer I want to piggyback on that.
It's like I heard, like it wasimportant to you that, your
dad was proud of you in this.
And when Jeremiah, when Jerremy and Iwere at the women's prison last week, one
of the things I brought back with me waswhat an honor it was and how the remarks

(18:38):
from the other EITs that were there.
Was just to, to actually just seethem and be with them and ha have
them just being treated normal.
And I got more than one commentthat it's you're not judging me.
And I'm like,

oh
We,

I will judge your business idea, but not not you and I'm, this
system is supposed to help and, but,50% of the people who are inside deal
with real mental health struggles.
So how, what were those,what was that like for you?

(19:19):
What, what were the conditions,how did those conditions hit you?

I'm sorry, I'm struggling.
The mental health struggles,sorry, I'm trying to think.
I think for me it was definitely the issueof self-worth and I think in, I was in a
world with a lot of sex work being aroundthe men in that world that were powerful,
they were doctors and lawyers and hadlots of money and not being held in their

(19:46):
esteem, like all of that, definitely justlike that message to me was not helpful,
obviously for my self worth and forwhat I thought my future was gonna be.
sorry, what were you asking?

I think it's at that, particularly inside, there's a, it's
a big mental game and some of it'slike real, you're gonna run into
or even have your own mental issuesand you're gonna run into people
who have untreated mental issues.
What's that, what's the mental game like?
Because, coming from that place, justthe simple act of treating somebody with

(20:19):
some basic humanity was almost a relief.
Like they weren't feeling judged.
It was.

can speak better to this because it sounds like it's also
really rooted in toxic masculinity,like this being okay with kindness.

What about you, Ralph?
What's the mental game like?

Man, there's so much, there's so much, what comes to mind
for me speaking for myself, earlyon, young, full of pride and ego.
I want to be the tough guy.
I'm stronger, I'm better than you.
I'll beat you up.
That mentality, that personaadopting that, and it's tough.
Everybody's who's gonna fold and so heit can be tough and it puts, sometimes
it puts it, it can break a lot of people.

(20:57):
It can break a lot of people, so themental game is it's definitely in
there, especially speaking against,speaking for myself, being young and
immature, wanting to fit in, wantingto be cool, wanting to be that guy.
Then just putting all thisadditional stress on myself.
And then later on as I'm growingand maturing that you're right.
Remember actually defy, I rememberwhen we had a graduation at Defy

(21:18):
Ventures, one of our first visitors.
We had some visitors come in andthey spoke to us like regular people.
The exercise that really broughtit all together for me regarding
mental health and those type ofthings was step to the line exercise.
I'm not sure if you guys are familiarwith the step to the line exercise,
but they said, I remember acrossfrom me was a sheriff or a detective
or a somebody in law enforcement.

(21:39):
I remember that specifically.
He was in law enforcement.
And the question was, haveyou ever committed a crime
and not got caught for it?
I get the goosebumps thinkingabout it even now to this day.
And he stepped to the line.
He stepped to the line, andin my head, my mind was blown.
I'm like, this sheriff or detective orthis law enforcement person stepping

(21:59):
to the line talking about crimeshe committed and didn't get caught.
Did you ever get in fightwhen you're in high school?
That's a crime.
And he stepped to the line and itit brought me back to like humanity.
I don't have to have this persona.
I'm not so far different fromeverybody else in America.
So that took a burden off of mymental health that took a burden off
of that stress of thinking I have tohave a certain persona in this place.

(22:22):
And then and then comingafter, after that.
Just staying strong.
This is, for me I think this issomething, whether you're in prison or
out of prison, just staying mentallystrong and fit is an ongoing thing.
Self-development is a lifelongjourney and not a destination.
I say it's a lifelong journeyand not a destination.
So after getting to that place of moreconfidence, comfortability, living life

(22:44):
based on principles, now the mental gameis just, Ralph, be honest with yourself.
Stop making excuses,discipline, type of things.
And that can just be an everydaystruggle, even now to this day.
Hey, did I really need to eatthat extra slice of pizza?
Did I really need to skip my leg day?
Right now, it's the, that's wherethe, that's where the mental game
has come, but it's definitelycome from a long journey though.

(23:06):
So I hope that answeredyour question, Dave.

Man, we talked about that exact same question.
It was, and for a lot of us that steppedup to that line, it's like, how many
times did we get behind the wheel, whenwe shouldn't have, and I absolutely talked
to a person who was in the exact samesituation and she got into an accident and
now she's behind bars and that's for real.

(23:31):
Yeah.
Thank you Ralph.

Percent.

Jason, you have anything to come in with on
the mental game around this?

Yeah, no I think that my experience is much like what Ralph
was describing early on for myselfand many of my, associates in there.
I think we were just trying to, hang on.
I think we were just trying tosurvive and we saw a we just saw
ourselves in a situation where itwas like, Hey man, we're gonna make
the best out of this as possible.

(23:58):
But we didn't, I don't think that,speaking for myself, I don't think that
I realized that what had happened wasall of us had had this inheritance in
the prison system that we didn't reallyrealize was there, like adopting the
ideals and the values and the behaviorsand the way of coping in that environment.
And so in that, I thinkthat there was this sort of.

(24:25):
Hanging on thing.
I just don't wanna breakas Ralph alluded to.
then eventually, once I startedunpacking of that, ev all the scripts
that I had adopted along the way inthere started thinking more for myself,
I remember I, when I really startedhaving the turnaround in my life,
I read a Tony Robbins book and it

(24:47):
The way I viewed my potential andthe way that I viewed the, how I
was interacting with the world.
And once I started surrounding myself withnew people, once I started really looking
at my belief system and how I could createsomething new for myself, I realized

(25:08):
that my life had become like a garden.
And I could cultivate it, right?
I could cultivate the relationships,I could cultivate my mental health.
And it became easier becausebefore that, I thought that I was
just a victim of circumstance.
And I thought that I was a victim oflike my mood swings and my depression,
and I was just fending it off.
It was like a constant battle of fendingthese things off and could I just survive?

(25:31):
But once I started making theseshifts, slowly but surely, I. was
no longer me fending things off.
It was like, what can I create?
What can I take part ingenerating for myself and others?
And then surrounding myself withnew people getting involved with
reeducating myself investingin my personal development.
Everything that comes with the wholedevelopment process in prison that's now

(25:53):
offered with groups, education, et cetera.
Suddenly my life was changed and Ifound a whole new level of freedom
that I had never enjoyed before, right?
It just, I was waiting physically to befree and come home, but in there I was
operating on a whole new level of whatwas possible for me, and my mental health
as a result was drastically improved.

(26:16):
And so I think that's oneway of describing how the
process unraveled for me.
And it was really just aboutbecoming increasingly open to en
entertaining new ideas about whatcould be for myself and others.

Yeah.
Yes.
So speaking of others,talking plural here, right?
America locks up 1.9 million peoplemore than almost anywhere in the world.
Was the system that you saw or youexperienced, was it trying to rebuild

(26:53):
you, you, or keep you locked in?
Tell us a story.
Let's go with Jason first.

Yeah, in 1995, was sentenced to life without parole.
and I was guilty of everythingthat they accused me of.
I went in and I think at that time,when I look back at what prison was in
California prison, especially level fourinstitutions, I don't think that there

(27:23):
was much intention for rehabilitation in
Releasing of us who had been deemedunsalvageable, maybe that's too
extreme, but I think that life withoutparole is a sentence that indicates
that you sh shouldn't come home.
I'm not gonna say that therewas no opportunities available.
think that there were, I just was too,I was not ready to see them or take

(27:47):
advantage of them where I was at the time.
Cut to 20 years later, suddenly theCalifornia prison system started
infusing many yards with groups.
They started making educational programsincreasingly easier to access vocational
programs, increasingly easier to access.

(28:08):
And I'm not gonna say thatit's a perfect system.
I'm gonna say that there has been alot of work from people both in CDCR
and outside to provide opportunitiesfor people that they know were
gonna be coming home at some pointto have the most success possible.
And so I would say that in thebeginning it did not seem to me like
there was a lot of opportunity or alot of intention for letting us go.

(28:32):
It seemed like a warehousingsystem at the time.
Towards the end, I think that theyrealized that they had made a big
mistake in that, and that theywere gonna have to release people.
And if they were gonna release them,they were gonna do it as safely as
possible by helping them upgrade andskill education and personal development.
And I think there's been a lotof strides to towards that.
And it, that's what's impactedmy life in a lot of ways.

(28:55):
But is it perfect?
No.
Has it changed?
To a large degree, I would say yes.
In my opinion, I.

And Jason, you said they had to make that change.
Why the imperative impetusto make that change?

In my opinion, I think that basically it was costing too much money.
It was a failing business model,
That it was unsustainable and itwas basically like the pig that's
gotten too fat to support its ownweight and it's gonna go down.
And so the feds came in at one point,and basically, if I understand it
correctly, we're the CDCR, you gottarelease people, you gotta release 'em.

(29:32):
It's, it just cannot continue.
And so had to release peoplewhat are you gonna do?
You wanna do it asresponsibly as possible?
'cause if these guys have been inhere, and these women have been in
here for 20 years and they've had norehabilitative programming, what do you
expect them to do when they go home?
If they haven't been upskilled, iftheir education hasn't increased,
if they haven't learned any kindof like causative factors for what

(29:52):
brought 'em here in the first place,they're gonna go home and be met with
a whole bunch of new stress factors.
How are they gonna react to that?
So I think that this is my, mytheory that they recognize that th
this was the writing on the wall.
And so to release people as responsiblyas possible they've done what they can
up until now to provide programming.

(30:15):
Is it perfect?
No, but I do take it as there, there hasbeen increased opportunities for growth.

Gotcha.
Thank you.

Yep.

about you?
What did you feel or seeor experience or notice?

Yeah, I would say kinda like Jason said, in
hindsight, hindsight's 2020, right?
There
Available.
For example, if you wanna be reallyproactive, go to the library,
get a book, a self-help book,read that, start from there.
And there was opportunities available.
But, especially in that prison culture,the prison mentality, and just taking
responsibility for myself, I'm notlooking for those opportunities.

(30:48):
I'm more focused and like whatDave was asking earlier, the
mental game being this tough guy.
And so if there was opportunities,I just wasn't looking for them.
I didn't see them.
And but as Jason mentioned,things definitely changed
the whole prison culture.
People were started fighting to go home.
Pri people just started fightingto go home, signing up for
programs and things of that nature.

(31:11):
So it did become more available.
But I think going back a littlebit, I think part of it is also
part of the officers, right?
And I'm not trying to I'm not, I'm big ontaking a hundred percent responsibility,
not pointing the finger, but just speakingin general terms, I think the officers,
as a young man in prison, the officers,it feels like the officers, either
talk down to you or look down on you.
You feel less thin.

(31:32):
And then you already, for me,speaking for myself, you have a
separation between officer civilian,good guy, me, inmate bad guy.
In, in my mind, I hadcreated that separation.
I'm not them.
I'm not a good guy.
I'm a bad guy.
And at least that was my experience.
I felt maybe if the officers had more,just talk to us like regular people.

(31:53):
For example, going back to Defy whenvisitors are coming in and they talk
to us like regular human beings,it's it's almost foreign at first.
It's oh, I'm not, we're notsupposed to talk like this.
We're not supposed to have thiskind of relationship and dialogue.
I'm just like, Hey, sir. Yes.
Take me to myself.
That's it.
That's all right.
so I think the officers, maybe being ableto dialogue differently with inmates.

(32:14):
And what I think of is I was at a yardand man, the leadership there from the
lieutenant on down his name the lieutenantthat I'm speaking about knows who he is.
I'm not sure if I should sayhis name or not, but I'm gonna
just keep it to myself for now.
But I was on a yard, the lieutenantdown was freaking super cool, and
he talked to us like regular people.
That's where I actually didthe five entrance program.
That's actually where I didthe Defy Ventures program.

(32:36):
And when the officers talk toyou, like a regular person.
When they talk to me like aregular person, it made me feel
like I am a regular person.
Wait, maybe I should signup for these programs.
Maybe I was in a program and oneof the officers came in, they
listen, one of the officers came in.
He's oh, that's cool.
That's something I'mlearning from you guys.
Him saying that I'm an officerand I'm learning from you

(32:57):
guys, meant something to us.
Oh shoot, we're human.
Where there's not that separationbetween officer and inmate, closed down.
So that particular yard the leadershipfrom the officers, the leadership
from the officers, close thatgap between inmates and officers.
And man, we can go to yard, say,Hey, officer how's it going?
Good morning.
And that made you wanna be moreproactive, more pro-social, go in

(33:21):
there, take programs, go to school,get be encouraged At some prisons,
you sign up for college and it'shard to get into the college program.
hard to get, 'cause you need a what'sthe role, Jason, please help me out.
What's the, who's the personthat helps with the college?
The staff that coordinatesbetween colleges and inmates?
I can't think of the term right now.

Oh yeah, it's a it's just a coordinator between the it,
that's all, that's really all it is.
It's just a staff

So just a staff coordinator, let's go with that.
And at other prisons, they'll justbe like, Hey, if you don't get your,
if you don't get enrolled in collegein time, it's too bad for you.
But at this particular prison,the coordinator was on it like,
Hey, who do we need a write to?
Let me send an email to this school.
Let me send an email to that school.
Let me, oh, you're trying to go to anotherschool that we don't have available.
Let me send an email, print out theinformation and get it to you guys.

(34:06):
That kind of behavior from theleadership at the staff leadership
really made me want to be more engaged.
It made me wanna be more engaged.
So I think that really has a lotto do with the leadership of the
officers and not necessarily just theprograms that were available alone.
And that made me want to bemore proactive, more pro-social,
and get into these programs.

That's fascinating and that, that brings a lot of
awareness and kind of thoughtsthat I had in just general as we
keep having this conversation.
And Jennifer, we know that you mentionedearlier that your experience was a little
bit different, and of course everyone'sexperience is a little bit different, but
was there anything in the system that wasactually right for you that was correct,
that you feel was made accurately?

My personal experience, I think everything went really bad,
like from the judge that I saw in court,giving me extra time while dismissing
people that had DUIs when my crime wasnonviolent and didn't affect anybody.
Like I, it really wasgeared towards punishment.
And I think a lot of our institutionsare geared towards punishment.
And a big theme from what theseguys are talking about is how

(35:11):
just like a simple message canreally help with your self-worth.
And that message coming from justsomebody showing that they believe in
you and your goodness and your value.
And I think the fact that we spendmore sending people to prison than we
would spend on college tuition, andthe fact that we send more people to
prison than to college is just, I thinkwe're all geared towards punishment.

(35:32):
I'm a little less optimisticin that regard, in this topic.

Yeah, and that's okay.
That's why we're here.
Have that conversation.
Jason, what's your thoughts, my man?
With your hand up.

Yeah, I just I wanted to lean in on this one.
The, absolutely I agree with Ralphin terms of I want to be able to look
back and take full responsibility formy decisions while saying that yeah I
think that I inherited a culture whenI came into prison that was very much
coming at me from different angles,reinforcing the narrative that like

(36:06):
my way of living now is to do X, Y, Z.
It's to commit violence, it's tobe involved with smuggling, it's
to be involved with criminality.
I need to do this so that,whatever my reasoning was.
And so there was a cultural thinghappening there that I was enmeshed
in, and I definitely could havepulled myself out at any given
time had I had the courage, right?
Had I had the awareness to do Ilacked those things at that time.

(36:29):
That being said, when it shiftedand when I was able to finally find
the courage and, make all thesedifferent changes in my life, I also
think that the staff had a culturethat they were dealing with, right?
In terms of while our culture wasshifting, their culture was shifting.
And I think that, 'cause I've hadconversations with them where it wasn't
as easy as simply getting behind therehabilitation because I think that

(36:54):
a lot of them felt or what they werecatching from their end of things
was this is gonna cost us our jobs.
This is gonna change the waythat we've done things and what
they were familiar with, right?
And so when we talk about thisconversation in terms of prison
reform, a lot of complexity to it.
it's, you wanna simplify it andbe break it down to simply, we
should provide opportunitiesfor people to change and grow.

(37:16):
Absolutely.
We should do that while alsome, while also understanding
look, this these questions.
And specifically in California,there's a whole cultural thing that's
happening on many different levels.
Inside of these institutions, right?
And so while we look at it, it's just, Ithink it's important to note that these

(37:37):
are complexities that are occurring.
But I do have hope that in time people cancome to see that really in the humanity
of the people that are inside, both theofficers and the staff or, and the inmates
and the residents, that that there'sactually more to gain out of investing
in the humanity and the shared connectionthere than there is in simply creating a

(38:00):
greater divide between good guy, bad guy,us versus them and in just punishing.

Yeah.

that's my 2 cents on that.
Thank you.

Thank you.
Thank you for your 2 cents, becauseultimately, I, me and Dave, and I think
a lot of people who are listening to theshow are learning more and more about this
recently, but private raking billions.
I did not know this was a thing.
Again, I just thought allP prisons were government.
But private prisons, they'repushing for full occupancy.

(38:30):
Did any of the three of youexperience a private prison?
And in that situation, did you feel upmore like a number versus a person or
what, how did that shape what you saw?

I haven't personally experienced that.

Okay,

Yeah, same here.
I, we were, I was never at aprivate prison either, so I
wouldn't be able to speak to that.

gotcha.
Yeah, it was just mindblowing ultimately to me.
Jennifer you're shakingyour head a little bit.

Oh no, I just, when you monetize something,
you incentivize it, right?
So I know I've heard, I've done theresearch on this because it's horrible.
I've heard about like people passing outmore sentences, like harassing inmates,
more so that they can give you more time.
You incentivize something.
What do you think will happen?
don't know.
I just.

Justin said earlier just Jason said earlier
that this is a failing businessmodel, is the word that Jason used.
And again, not only the privatizedprisons, but also just the.
Federal prisons in general, like they'regetting their subsidies and their
grants and the government loans and theprojects and the programs, like they're

(39:34):
receiving money and it's a system,but the system has to be profitable.
And I definitely think there's somelevel of components, kinda what you said,
Jennifer, that is focused more on how canwe keep these individuals, these inmates
in longer so that we can make more.
Dave, what's your take andwhat you feeling over there?

I am just, I'm wondering if anything's working, if so seven
outta 10, that, what is that?
Almost three, almost four out of fiveare going back in, within three years.
That by definition is acompletely failed system.
And I was talking to one EIT graduateand I was asking him, Hey, what's

(40:11):
what's the sunny side on this?
And he said, you know what, actuallyI learned a lot of discipline, and
that's really served me really well.
Being on the outside, it's I'm regimentedand like I, like I'm on top of things.
And I noticed when, like when westarted up this conversation, like
everybody here was a here earlyand on time and I, I don't know.
I don't mean to make fun of that at all,but in your opinion, is anything working?

(40:33):
Is anything, did the, did anythingin the system go right by you?
What do you think Jen?

The reason why I say that it did not Okay.
Did anything in the system,was anything working for me?
Okay.
So I was ordered to do rehab and thegroup of people that I was hanging out
with found me a rehab that would takemy money and let me keep doing drugs.
So

Oof.

work.
Yeah.
And then when I ordered to do communityservice and I was nine hours short on
my community service, and I went tocourt and I was in court with a lot
of other people that were asking forextensions for their community service.
A lot of people went up and somepeople had d UIs and people had
some really to me different crimes.

(41:17):
Like I was in there for prostitution.
So I thought, for sure she'sgiving all these people extensions.
I just have nine hours.
I didn't finish.
She was ready to send me to jail,and I could see that it was like,
there's this hate, like with womenthat I experienced that makes it hard.
That's the barrier that I get.
So I didn't do time, but I have a crimethat women are especially hostile towards,

(41:37):
I'm in a field that's dominated by women.
I'm an interior designer, so thatcreated some weird issues and barriers.
But just to speak to why I personallydon't feel like anything went
right for me, like at any timethat I should have been given
grace or help, I got punished and I
A message that.
You're irredeemable.
I don't care.
Yeah.

(41:58):
Think there's a lot of work to bedone in that field, especially like
just considering the circumstancesthat lead women to go into
to, to get that kind of crime.
It just doesn't make sense to me.
It's not offer moresupport versus punishment.
And I see this as atheme in a lot of things.
Not to go too far off topic, but justreally quickly, like I hear about
single moms that will there was thismom that was working at McDonald's

(42:22):
and she dropped her kid off atthe park right across the street.
And so she got in trouble for that andthey took the kid away and it was like,
okay, so we're gonna spend resourcestaking the kid away and traumatizing
them versus spending resources givingthem to this mother that needs support.
Like we have a verypunishment driven society.
I think our institutions arevery punishment driven it bothers

(42:43):
me and I seek to help fix that.

Me too.
Me

What?

or go ahead Dave.
Sorry.

No.
I was just to open it up to Jason, didanything in the system work for you?
Does anything work?
I'm I'm trying to find if anythingis working because I think I. One
of the reasons why it, it feels likeit's around so much punishment is
that's the political easy thing to do.
Whereas everything else seem that actuallyworks like Defi, which costs very little,

(43:13):
and people get out and they get jobsand they get reintegrated into society.
And like Youth three are very,quite successful by any stretch
of the imagination, not just, assomebody who's, been in the system.
I'm just trying to find anything thatworks and I'm not finding it, but Did
anything work for you, Ralph or Jason?

So I don't mean to be poll, what is it, Pollyanna-ish about this?
I believe back on who I wasat the time when I went in,
that I needed to be detained,
A danger, right?
I was a dangerous young man I reallybelieve that prison helped save me.

(43:54):
That there were plenty of opportunities,gifts, guides along the way that placed
me in a position to really change my lifeand to find a value that I had more to
give and more to receive from the worldand to the world than just hurting people.
And I think that prisongave me that opportunity.

(44:15):
And the people that I met along theway, they helped me build good habits,
re-up my education, unpack what I hadbeen carrying, and learn how to relate
to the world in a whole new way that Idon't know that I would've had otherwise.
And any, even if I try to imagineanother scenario, I had what I had,

(44:37):
And so I learned la I got lastingfriendships, I got involved with
Defy and so many other just beautifulthings, a result of my time in prison.
Now, I'm not saying that my experienceis the same as everyone else.
I'm saying that, and I hadplenty of terrible experiences in
there, like nightmare scenarios.
Plenty of nights of fear, wakingup thinking I'm gonna die in here

(44:57):
and I'm never gonna get outta here,and all this stuff thinking that.
Just terrible stuff, right?
But it offered me a lot.
And also I think when you're talkingabout changing a system like this,
it requires all stakeholder buy-in.
That's not just the staff,it's not just legislators, it's
also the inmate population.

(45:19):
And not all inmates are ready to makethe changes are necessary to grow.
And thankfully, it's becomingmore and more, we're reaching a
critical mass more and more wherepeople are willing to do that.
And thankfully for myself I've beenwilling to do that and seeing results
as a re as ultimately from it.

(45:40):
But yeah I would neversay or begrudge my time.
There is horrible as some moments wherethere were just as many beautiful moments
and I met many beautiful people and I'mso grateful for where I am today and
that I have this as a part of my history.

Yeah.

I'm while saying I'm terribly sad that committed
the harm that I've committed, andI'm definitely focused on bringing
healing to the world rather than harm.
So I.

I appreciate being bold and brave enough to say that
man, and having the courage, becauseto your point, the people that do go
to prison, I don't know the statisticbut ultimately there are people there
that need to be there for a reason.
They did something terrible,painful, scary, terrifying.
And to your point, they probablydon't know a different life.

(46:31):
They don't know a different way.
They're not entirely sure becausethat's just their environment and they
might not have seen it any other diany other way, any other direction.
And for you to say, I needed thatbecause the person I was, when I
got in there, I needed to be there.
I was supposed to be there.
That was the only way I wasgonna get course corrected.
I think it's huge because, again,to, to your point, some people wanna

(46:53):
change, some people don't wannachange, but there's two things that
will change someone, pain or pleasure.

There's.
So I,
I feel like we're lumping togethernonviolent crimes, violent crimes,
people who are severely mentally ill.
People, terrible mistakes,
Addiction.
I, we're mixing up all, these are waydifferent situations in my mind, right?

(47:18):
These are different people, yetthey're treated all the same.
They're sent to prison.
I don't know.
Do I have that wrong?

Yeah.

Yeah.
I feel like you're, I feel like you'rereally uncovering something other, Dave,
because ultimately that we just go, oh,you did something that we don't think
is societally totally acceptable prison.
Oh, like you, so we, we met three womenin the event that we just attended last
week, Dave, that were in there for DUIs.
Now, again, the Step to the Line program.
Has anyone ever listening to thispodcast Driven while they shouldn't have?

(47:52):
Probably.
I have.
I was in college once, there'sreally good chances that you could
have been just slightly toastedand still got in that vehicle.
some people got caughtand some people didn't.
And there were people in thatorganization, in that product, in that
program that had gotten caught withDUI and therefore they were in prison.

(48:14):
just this really fascinating aspect thatyou mentioned, Dave, where it's like
we just, we blend everyone together.
So on the, on this solutionpiece of this, on the solution
piece, Ralph, I'm coming to you.
You've seen the systemsand the flaws up close.
one change?
I know you've briefly mentionedone before, and that could be the

(48:34):
one or there could be another one.
What's one change policy orprogram or mindset you would make
right now to set things correct.

That's a, that's definitely a loaded question.
Man there's just so many things, right?
And it starts with the leadership.
It's hard to say which policy exactly.
So many come to mind.
So I started a nonprofit.
I also started a nonprofit calledThe Made New Foundation and
serving the reentry community.
So I'm very proactive.
I don't wanna wait for a policy.
I don't wanna wait for this to change.
I don't wanna wait for that to change.

(49:05):
I'm gonna go do it today.
If it means something to me,I'm gonna go do it today.
So my first year home, I also started anonprofit called the May New Foundation.
And I can't help but to echo alot of things that Jason says.
I echo a lot of the same things,I put myself in that place.
No excuses.
I was given a second chance.
And, again, it's hard for me to narrowon what policy would be best, but our

(49:27):
philosophy and our approach at theMay new foundation at my nonprofit,
it's meet people where they're at.
There's a saying, you could take a horseto water, but you can't make 'em drink.
Jason said, some peopleare not ready to change.
They're not ready to change.
However, there's another part ofthat saying that we don't really
talk about, or may, maybe I'm justmaking it, maybe we just made it up.
Me and my peers, we talked about itwas, you can't make the horse drink

(49:48):
the water, but you can feed him salt.
And when you feed him salt,he starts to thirst naturally.
He's gonna get thirsty.
So you're gonna incentivizehim to drink this water.
And what I mean by this water, personalresponsibility, personal change.
I've been in so many groups and programsand speaking for myself, I started taking
programs just 'cause I wanted one day.

(50:10):
I'm thinking criminally here oneday, if I ever have to go to the
parole board, I wanna show them.
I've changed.
And I started taking these programs,we call it, at least at the prison
I was at, we call it paper chasing.
You're just chasing chronos andcertificates to fool the board
and one day be let out of prison.
So it's really hard tofocus on what one thing.

(50:33):
'cause there's so many thingsthat come to mind for me.
What one thing can change thewhole system at the end of the day?
We can take people to water,but we can't make 'em drink.
But we can give them salt.
We can show them an example, be a leader.
Be a leader and be an example.
Look, this is what the other side lookslike when you take responsibility.
When you take ownership andyou stop worrying about,
your peers or this or that.

(50:53):
I know you have hardships, I'vehad hardships, but let's get
through those hardships together.
Don't be so disconnected.
Let's actually beconnected to our humanity.
So those are some things, and there's a,I really believe in the compound effect.
Really believe in the compound effect.
I'm sure you guys have heard yourlisteners and the people here, would
you rather take a million dollars or apenny doubled up every day for a month?

(51:13):
And at first people are like,oh, gimme that million dollars.
But when you double up the pennyevery day for a month, 30 days, it's
$5 million on your 30, on your 31stday, it's it's 10 over $10 million.
The compound effect.
So what I mean by that is it's notabout trying to save everybody today.
not for me.
So I'm speaking for myself.

(51:34):
It's not about tryingto save everybody today.
It's being a mentor and a leader.
And an example for just one person.
Just one person.
If you could do that becomes two people.
And then two people become four,eight becomes 16 and so on.
And in theory in 35 to 40years, you could reach a over
a billion people on the planet.
So trying to save everybody today,I don't think is the solution.

(51:55):
I think it's raising strong men,strong leaders in our communities.
And it starts with yourself.
Before I went to prison, I.I was a good father figure.
My, my mom was on drugs and my sisterwas on drugs, and they had pretty much
abandoned my nieces, and so I, I steppedup as a fatherly figure for my two nieces.
I raised them.

(52:15):
I put a roof over their head.
I took 'em to school.
I was doing the right things.
If you knew me at home, you wouldbe like, man, that's a great guy.
That's a, he's such a good guy.
He's stepping up, he's taking care of hissister's kids, blah, blah, blah, blah.
But I was somebody else away from home.
And what I learned is youcan't be two different people.
You can't be a good guy at homeand somebody else on the streets.

(52:35):
It's incon that, thatconsistency's not gonna last.
And because I was two differentpeople came to the light and
I abandoned my family, thepeople I said I would be there.
Unfortunately, I abandoned thembecause I didn't deal with the
trauma of being abandoned myself.
I didn't deal with my trauma.
And so I did the exact thingI promised I would never do.
so to answer your question, Iknow I said a lot because I'm

(52:57):
very passionate about this.
Very passionate.
I don't think a bandaid solution,politics, or policies or economies
are gonna change the system today.
I think it needs to bea long-term solution.
It needs to be a genuine solution.
And I believe in the compound effect overtime, I think we have a better chance of
changing more lives over the next 30 yearsas opposed to trying to fix everything

(53:20):
over the next four or eight years.

Sure.
And one of the things I heard yousay was that we need to, create
strong men and do that againthrough a longer period of time.
One of my sayings is the brokennessof this country is in direct
proportion to the brokenness of men.
That's a very crucial aspect.
And

hundred percent.

ultimately, that's really only characterized and understood and
probably change adapted and visualizedand integrated through education.
My big focus and my huge platform for thepresidential run will be education reform.
'cause I believe ultimately, ifwe know the things on the front
end, to your point, Ralph, thecompounding effect on the back end.
If we did all the things that you bothare, Jason, that you did going through and

(54:04):
Ralph, you did to get the papers right?
Those books, the courses, the programs theinsight because in order to get parole,
in order to become a returning citizen,has to be some level of inner work.
The insights to change theperson from the inside out.
It's not the outside in, insideouts, the beliefs, the composition,
the structure, the thoughts.

(54:25):
The inner soul really needs to be shiftedand re-categorized and reprioritized.

If I I want to, I wanna just piggyback off that
what you just said, Jerremy.
I cannot agree with you more.
It's I believe in that same idea.
It's, that's what I'm so passionateabout is, when we have weak men.
families, weak communities.
This is what's broken up, broken families.
I read a statistic, this was years ago.
I was watching a I was watching ainterview with Denzel Washington.

(54:51):
I was watching a, I've alwaysreally enjoyed watching Denzel
movies and just him as a person.
I always thought his movieswere great and all that.
So he is watching, he's doing it.
He's in an interview and they wereasking him some questions and he said the
greatest indicator of prison or criminalbehavior, I forgot exactly what it was,
but he said, it's fatherless homes.
It's not race, it's not religion.
It's not these other things.

(55:12):
It's

likelihood.

fatherless homes.
I get the goosebumps today thinkingabout that because I'm like, man, I
look at the statistics racially, breakit down by race and class and income.
It's fatherless homes.
That's the number one indicator.
And so for me, I've been onfire about that ever since.

Oh man.
Jason, what's your thoughts with that?
Hand up, my bro.

Yeah.
So to the question of what policies needto change I, and I agree with Ralph.
There's not one I, what I, whatcame to mind as you guys were having
that conversation was I. In termsof the internal system prison.
The prison system, what needs tobe fostered and what's missing

(55:54):
is the individual sense ofagency a desired future, right?
I have any kind of agency to actuallymove towards a future that I want?
Or are all the forces around me tellingme a story and re enforcing a story that

(56:14):
my life is hopeless, that it's over, thatit's meaningless, that it's worthless.
To quote Jennifer, is themessaging so overpowering, that
I have no hope, I have no agency.
Right?
And I think that the more we do forprisoners through legislation through

(56:37):
infusing institutions with opportunitiestowards education, vocational training,
personal development, all everythingthat we're doing now just and in moving
towards a cultural change where peopledon't feel like they'll be ostracized,
looked down upon victimized for makingchanges towards a d desirable future.

(56:57):
If we can make those shifts, then you'llsee a critical mass, because why would
you wanna stay inside of a place thatcultivates and promotes fear and harm?
If, you know you have agencyand opportunity to move towards
a place that promotes health,family love freedom, prosperity,

(57:17):
Would you do that?
Unless you believed that stayingin that place of harm and fear was
your only way to maintain security?
The Greeks had this idea that everythingyou do is for the good, It doesn't
necessarily mean that it had a goodoutcome, but you believed at the time that
what you were doing was for your own good.

(57:39):
When I look back on all the harm thatmyself and the people that I used to run
around with, that we were doing, I lookback on it today and I'm like I cannot,
I can't fathom what was going through ourminds, but at the time, there's a lot of
times where I realized we thought we wereactually doing something good, right?
But that's because of the narrativethat we were telling ourselves and what

(58:00):
we thought was possible for ourselves.
And so what we were basicallyrelegating ourselves towards.
there's a lot of thingsthat need to change.
It's hard to say what exactly, butI, for me, from my per perspective,
it's should be, it should be thingsthat promote agency within the
individual towards a desirable future.

(58:20):
Because if he doesn't feel that he hasthat agency, if he doesn't feel that he
has that hope, then he's gonna likely buyinto negative narratives around him in
order to just stay as safe as possible.

Dang.
There we go.
All right, Jennifer.

So I think that based on everything that we're saying,
like supporting places like Defy reallyaddresses a lot of this, like through
those on the line exercises, like itreally does cultivate self-worth in
these formerly incarcerated folks.
Like I could see that all of the workfor Defy was really geared towards
you getting rid of self-limitingbeliefs and thinking of an idea where

(58:56):
you can bring value to the world.
Like it really is about bringingback your sense of self-worth.
And I think that a policy thatcould help is changing this up
ecosystem that is this privatized,monetized, incentivized prison system.
There's an EIT through Defy thatI met recently that is trying to
start a business doing procurementfor prisons where he only sources

(59:17):
the items that go into the prisonsfrom sustainable companies.
So now he's also gonna scalethat business and hire other
formerly incarcerated folks.
And now that's a new ecosystem thatmaybe the prison can't just obviously
it can't completely go away, butit could be a healthier ecosystem.
So it could bring in productsfrom sourced, sustainably sourced

(59:38):
places or places that are alsohiring people that have barriers.
And it could just become ahealthier ecosystem that way.
I think supporting places like Defy isthe kind of policy that we need to be
looking towards because there's a lotof I live in a neighborhood with a lot
of halfway houses and I can tell thatthey're not doing the same work to.

(59:59):
Reform the citizens that Defy does, right?
Like they do get a sense ofcommunity in the halfway house, but
they're not getting their sense ofself-worth the way that they need to.

Dave Conley (01:00:10):
Jen, let's dig a little deeper in that, coming home's a battle.
If 75% of people who've been in thesystem can't find jobs, what's ways,
communities and employers can reallystep up and give people a real chance?
What do they need?
I.

Generous Jennifer (01:00:27):
Man, it's not hard.
My husband has a BS in electricalengineering and made it through
three interviews and then hada job offer revoked because of
something he did almost 30 years ago.
that's illegal that we havelaws in LA against that.
But there were no fucking consequences.
It didn't matter.

(01:00:48):
We could start with what we'realready not doing a good job at
that we want to be doing a good jobat, there's the Fair Chance Act.
So that happened and I reported thecompany and they tried to resend
the job offer, but there's not anyreal consequences for employers
to discriminate ESP even withpeople that are fully reformed.
To the point where you have a bachelor'sdegree and a wife and a child, and we're

(01:01:09):
just not helping people that are doingeverything they can to help themselves.
So even with that 75 to 85%,even with those people that
didn't have a supportive network.
Even with the people that didhave a supportive network,
they're still having barriers.
So there's a lot that we could do.
And then there's also some reallyobvious basic things we could do, like
starting with enforcing the laws thatwe passed eliminate this discrimination.

What about you, Ralph?
What are what are, what do employers andcommunities, what, how can they step up?

Rafael Quiroz (01:01:36):
Awareness.
I think awareness education.
Ultimately as an employer.
As an employer, myself rightnow my company, I think I have
a total of nearly 70 people.
I employ 70, 60 somethingpeople I employ today.
And so as an employer, you wanna make sureyour company's running efficiently and
effectively and that it's, you're hiringpeople for an ROI, you need, in order for

(01:01:58):
the business to continue to exist, I needto hire people so we can keep growing.
So I think employers justneed to be made more aware.
'cause if an employer, for example, Iwent to an event Ontario, California.
At a HR event, and we're talkingabout hiring people and a lot
of HR professionals don't knowthat, oh, we can't hire people
criminal records as truck drivers.

(01:02:19):
That was like an assumptiona lot of them were making.
And I actually got to speak to thatbecause that's, I own a trucking company.
And I was like no.
No, you actually, we can hire them.
And sometimes let me explain toyou why it's good to hire people.
Criminal records coming home,they're hungry for success.
They're willing to beout there on the road.
They're some of the hardestworking people I've been able
to hire, blah, blah, blah, blah.

(01:02:40):
Educating and informing them.
Some of them think, oh,criminal record, I can't hire.
And then they see if an employerdoesn't see an ROI or if they see
risk, forget just for a moment here,forget changing this or changing that,
or that this is the right thing todo, or this is a good thing to do.
Or that's all gravy.
Put all that to the side and just atthe end of the day, especially for

(01:03:02):
small and mid-sized companies who arelooking to grow, the bottom line is ROI.
If I hire this person, am Iputting my business at risk?
Or am I ensuring areturn on my investment?
And so what I think we just needto maybe just educate the public,
educate employers, Hey, by hiringpeople, one of the number one reasons

(01:03:23):
why people rec go back to prisonrecidivism, fall into recidivism
is, you don't start making income.
You start getting stressed out.
And it's easy to fall back to theold behaviors and habits of, before
I'm stressed out, how am I gonnapay my mortgage, my bills, my rent,
my utilities, and, all this stress.
And if they haven't picked upthe skills to deal with that
stress, it's back to prison.
You go.
So if employers and the communityknew, hey, by giving people a second

(01:03:47):
chance, giving them employmentopportunities, one, does it break?
What's, how do I mitigate therisk if there is there a risk?
How do you ensure my ROIby hiring this person?
So educating HR professionals,educating potential employers, then
the community, by having them employed,they're gonna be paying tax dollars.
There's a less likelihood thatthey're gonna go back to prison.

(01:04:08):
There's a less likelihood they'regonna be committing crime.
You get so busy, myself, I'm so busy.
Crime or criminal behaviors, it'sthe, it's, nobody has time for that.
I'm working.
I'm trying to pay my bills,I'm taking care of my family.
You give people those responsibilitiesand sometimes it surprises you.
They step up to those responsibilities.
So again, just to reiterate.

(01:04:29):
Educating the communities, showingthem how employing people is
a is in our favor for safety.
'cause that's what it comes down to.
It has to be safety.
There has to be safety.
Two, educating employers, letting'em know, Hey, you you can hire
people from these backgrounds.
You can do this.
And let me show you the ROI, 'causethat's the bottom line, right?

(01:04:49):
For a business owner, for a small businessperson, a mid-size company, what's my ROI?
you can tell me all day tillyou're blue in the face.
Oh, hire people from prison.
It's good for you.
You're not gonna pay mybills if something happens.
Are you, if they crash my truck, areyou gonna gimme the money for it,
Mr. Higher people criminal records?
No, probably not.
It's easy to try to push that on me ifI'm the one who has to pay for it, right?

(01:05:12):
But, so taking all that to theside, informing, educating, and
creating awareness to employers.
Let me show you how we mitigate risk.
Let me show you how this is good forbusiness and let me show you how it
helps your ROI and your bottom line.
So I hope that answeredyour question, Dave.

Yeah.
Yeah.
When I was in corporate, the numberone question when I was hiring every
single person I hired, I asked thequestion what was your biggest mistake?
What happened?
What'd you do?
And when somebody was like, eh, like allover, I'm like, they never got a job.
But if they had your story, I'dbe like, oh, you can do anything.
You can get through anything.

(01:05:48):
Nothing's gonna phase you.
And that's the exactly the kind ofpeople that I want in my business
is people who have resilience thatcan focus and work under pressure.
I can't think of anything more pressuresensitive than something like that.
Jen, you had you had something to,

I just wanted to ask Ralph, because I think it would
be good for everybody to know, likewhen you're you've hired people
that are formerly incarcerated.
When you were looking, where do you go?
Like where exactly do you startwhen you're trying to find somebody?

Jerremy Newsome (01:06:16):
Great question.

just in general.
Trucking has a 92% turnover rate.
We have a high turnover rate in trucking.
A lot of people are gonna use, they'llstart with you today and they're out of
the truck with another company within amonth, within six months, under a year.
So we're always looking to hire drivers,dispatchers sales professionals.
Sales also has a high turnover rate.
A lot of people don't like doing sales.

(01:06:37):
They hate the rejection.
We're always looking.
So we post traditionallyon, indeed ZipRecruiter
Craigslist we run Facebook ads.
We run Facebook ads thatshows that we're hiring.
And then we use thirdparty recruiters as well.
So we, I am always using probably likefive different sources to hire people.
So I'm going through third partiesCraigslist, indeed, ZipRecruiter

(01:07:01):
trucking job boards, and then otherjob boards as well, salespeople.
And I'm also able to hire globally.
I also hire globally.
I also hire, I actually got theopportunity to hire a couple of guys I
was incarcerated with that got deported.
They're actually in Mexico, and Iactually got to hire a couple of them
and it's been working out pretty cool.

Rad.
Awesome.

Very rad.
Dave, you'd like, you're about to saysomething, or you just warm it up.
You're just getting pumped.

No, it,

Yeah.
Alright, cool.

Ralph, do you actually put in the job description, like felons welcome?
Like how does that work?

no, I, I don't put that I put what's the term we use
is don't put Fallon's welcome.
It's there's a term that we use inthe industry and not in the industry,
but when you're looking to hire,not second Chance friendly, it's no,
there's a term Jason, what's that term?
I'm sure you've probably seen it.
If you go on Indeed, you couldliterally put in the filter on Indeed.
If you go to Indeed and putin it's the actual filter.
It says.

(01:07:53):
It doesn't say second chance hiring.
It says second opportunity.
Fair chance.

Yeah.

fair chance Hiring.
So we

Love it.

chance hiring.
And that's what that indicatesto people criminal records.
Oh, okay.
I can apply here.

So every business should do that.

yeah.
Very educational for me.
Thank you, Jason.

Jason Holland (01:08:07):
Yeah.
Just to touch back on the question, Ithink that David posed I personally,
I don't see employers as the issue.
I don't, granted, there's somesituations that are bad where someone
doesn't get the job that they want.
I think that by and large though, mostof my friends that have come home they've
had pretty good employment opportunitiesand a lot of that started with them

(01:08:29):
doing work while they were incarcerated,preparing to come home, right?
To put themselves in position, to bethe kind of person that Dave suggested
where you can deliver your story in away that would actually and inspire an
employer to want to give you a chance.
So I'm not I'm not surethat's necessarily the gap.
I think that for me, where I'm throwingin my hat in the reentry field is

(01:08:51):
yes, I'm a program manager for Defyand I love the fact that I can have
an impact on people and familiesby helping them build businesses.
That's great.
That's amazing.
of, two of the places where Isee the biggest gap in reentry
is in personal transportation forpeople coming home, which is why
co-founded Reentry Wheels, we.
Help people coming home get reliableand personal transportation for

(01:09:13):
a couple of reasons that can helpthem secure employment can help
them with reduced financial strain.
And also as a result of being inour program, we want them to provide
meaningful community service, right?
So that does three things and meetthe conditions of their parole.
That's one way we can help.

(01:09:33):
And it's, there's a big gapin that with reentry services,
personal transportation, right?
The other one is I think many peoplecoming home have what they think
are ideas about financial literacybecause they take personal fi finance
courses in college, or they take thesefinancial literacy courses while inside.
But there's a difference betweenfinancial literacy and financial freedom.

(01:09:56):
And when you're coming home and you thinkyou understand what these things mean, but
there's no clear pathway towards acquiringassets that generate cash flow, right?
You may understand what that is intheory, but not what the steps are.
I think that there is an opportunityfor us to provide a service to people
coming home where they can do reallywell for themselves if they have a

(01:10:18):
clear plan that's currently missing.
And so what happens is a lot of peoplecome home, they spend six months to a
year inside of transitional housing.
They don't pay rent.
They save up, say, 10 to 20 Gs.
And what they do is they squander it oncethey get out of transitional housing.
But if we provided the right type of.
A guidance and structure for them, theycould actually build that into something

(01:10:41):
worthwhile in a few years if they hadthe right skills for knowing how to
move from just theory and financialliteracy towards financial freedom.
So that's where I'mseeing gaps in reentry.
That could be really beneficial becausethen person could get a job, but then
with the money that they're makingfrom the job they use that money to
make money that makes money, right?

(01:11:01):
Versus just simply saving itin a bank where it might not do
exactly what they're hoping for.
And especially if they haven't had 20years of being outside here and having
their money, just compounding interest.
There's gotta be a way to find legitimateshortcuts, what M Scott Peck would
call legitimate shortcuts towards that.
And so I'm really interested infinding those things and laying out

(01:11:21):
those pathways for people coming home.
Yeah.
And that's what I thinkis missing currently.

I love that.
So fill us in, just because I thinkthat's extremely informative and
also interesting, like when youmentioned reliable transportation.
Tell me more.
What does that mean exactly?
I.

when I came home, okay, so a lot of times when people come
home, they are given a tap card toget on public transportation, right?
Or maybe they get some kind ofvoucher to do Uber and Lyft,
and that's great to an extent.
But there's people that come home and theydon't have access to a car right away.
And because of that, they may have hada union job waiting for in them, but

(01:12:01):
the union won't hire 'em because theycan't get to the job locations because
they don't actually have a personal car.
And so what we wanna do with reentrywheels is if they're eligible and if
they meet our requirements, we wannamake them registered users in an, in
a vehicle that they have access to.
And after a probationary period, ifthey meet all of the requirements, we'll
transfer the title of the car to them.
Right now, if they don't meet therequirements for the car program, what

(01:12:24):
we'd like to do, we'd like to get themon an e-bike so that they can at least
have some means of mobility to and fromthe places that they need to be, right?
Because these expenses,so think about this.
If I come home, rather than havingmy family spend $5,000 on a car or me
spending my first $5,000 on a car, if I'mable to get that through an organization

(01:12:48):
that helps me do that, now I can putthat $5,000 towards something else.
That's gonna, that's gonna have longterm ramifications for me potentially
if I know how to use that money.
But if I don't know how to use thatmoney and I don't have the car,
then the money goes towards the car.
Now I'm in a depreciating asset.
Or let's say that I buy a car that'snot a good car and it's not reliable and

(01:13:10):
it's breaking down and it ends up costingme more money to just keep the car than
it would had I gotten a better one.
So that's what I mean by reliable, right?
We wanna provide them with reliabletransportation that they can depend
on, at least for the first couple ofyears, so that the money that they
would've spent there goes somewhereelse that can build them up long-term.
hope that answers the question.

It does.
I just had no clue because I, in movies,you see someone get out and they always
have a car and their friend drives'em, and so you just don't think about
anything else outside of that okay,they've, if they've been in prison for
X amount of time, probably don't havea car anymore, so how do, how would
they get from point A to point B?
And no.
It's fas fascinating.

(01:13:52):
It's very you'd even create that as well.

Yeah.
We're building it out yeah.

Awesome.
And one other thing I'll mention, andI know you all know this, but just to
say it verbally, one of the industriesthat I'm a part of the stock market.
The stock market is alwayswelcoming participants.
it doesn't matter if what yourbackground is, what your skin color
is, how much money you do or do nothave, what choices you have or have
not made in the past, it'll takeyour money and it'll give you more.

(01:14:21):
so that's a very interesting skillfor all of us to be aware of is that
anyone at any point, if you have accessto internet, have access to income.
I think also too, that's a verypopular misunderstanding that is
something that even though it's veryfinancially institution laden, it's
open to the general public as well.
So going forward to a little moreeducation, I feel like you guys

(01:14:43):
got all excited as I was talkinga little bit about the educational
component, which gets me pumped.
There's a bunch of kids thatare getting trapped, right?
Ralph?
So you mentioned fatherlesshomes, 60,000 young men and
women are in detention every day.
one way that we can stop that cycleearly on just your either experience

(01:15:05):
or just your general thoughts.

For me this is something again specifically
I'm very passionate about.
I think we need to raise strong.
Strong men, strong leaders, and itstarts with themselves and then in
the home, and then the community.
I think sometimes it's, isjust a observation I've made.
Sometimes it's cool to be the leaderin the community because the popularity
and it's cool, but it's not so coolor easy to be that leader at home.

(01:15:31):
Sometimes it's harder to be that leader athome, so it really needs to start at home.
So I think some of the things likeprogram, going back to programs and edu
education again, this can be a really'cause I've thought very deeply into this.
So it could be a very lengthysegment all by itself.
But just to try to bring it down.
Teaching people skills, softskills, communication skills.
I think related skills.
'cause that's really where it starts.

(01:15:51):
The relationships are you buildinga healthy relationship and then you
have a kid, and then you have kids.
And it's if you pick the wrongpartner and you guys don't have
a healthy relationship, then youknow it's not gonna work out.
For example, my father, when my mother andmy father met my mother was, an addict.
My father was a drugdealer also a womanizer.
And so when they connected,the relationship was very

(01:16:12):
toxic from the very beginning.
And so obviously it didn't work out.
But when you're already pickingthe wrong partner, you're already
setting up your possible children.
If you guys have children together,you're setting up your possible
children for a very difficult future.
So educating people when they'reyoung, one thing, even though I grew
up in a very, I had a very difficultand challenging childhoods and
traumas and stuff like that, beingyoung, I'm still very impressionable.

(01:16:37):
So when I was in elementary school, Iwould hear things in school and even
though things at home were tough, I wouldhear the things at school like Dare the
DARE Program, which is against drugs.
I've never been into drugs eventhough I come from a family that
did a lot of drugs, sold drugs.
I've never been into drugs myself.
The DARE program had animpact on me as a young kid.
'cause I was impressionable.
Even though I had negative examples andbad examples at home, those little things.

(01:17:00):
So maybe educating educating a youngpeople to be leaders, teaching 'em soft
skills, not, I'm all for math, science,all those things are super important.
But also teaching the softskills, communication skills.
What is a healthy relationship look like?
And hopefully it's not always gonnastick to the wall, but hopefully it
sticks to the wall with one at least one.
And go back to that compoundeffect, you continue to rebuild it.

(01:17:23):
What I think could potentially helpfix that besides being a long-term a
long-term thing, educating people whenthey're young and still impressionable,
putting that in the back of their mind.
So maybe when they get older, evenif they are facing childhood trauma
at home, maybe if it's in the backof their mind, they're gonna second
guess their decisions later on.
And so dev develop, learning howto develop communication skills,

(01:17:44):
healthy relationships, what tolook for in a healthy relationship.
I can't tell you guys how many ofmy peers come home that have been
incarcerated for 20 plus years.
Ex lifers.
And the two number, re two numberone, reasons why ex lifers go back.
Substances and relationships.
Substances and relationships.
And so just learning how toidentify what's a healthy

(01:18:04):
relationship look like First.
Are you ready for a relationship?
Are you in a position for a relationship?
And two, does the other person acrossthat you're looking at, are they not
just a pretty face, but are they healthyand ready to engage in a relationship?
Or do they have their life together?
They don't have to be perfect,nobody's perfect, but are you both,
as the Bible would say, equally yoked?

(01:18:26):
Are you both equally yoked?
Are we on the same page here?
So you have an unhealthy relationship.
You potentially have kids withsomebody you don't even like, you're
already setting up your kids for

yeah.

Some challenges.

I love that you mentioned soft skills.
I. That we are dozens and dozens ofepisodes in to solving America's problems.
And again, I am always gonna bringup whatever we're discussing.
I'm like, education'sgonna be the main problem.
It's gonna be the biggestsolution to this, right?
So for your point, when you're talkingabout soft skills, I've been saying

(01:18:59):
in almost every episode, at somestage, if we have, our schools totally
get massively updated and changed.
Where one of the classes is just calledconversation, communication, having people
sit down like we're doing right now,often talking so that they no longer feel

(01:19:21):
judgment or embarrassment when they speak.
The number one fear is public speaking.
Where do you think we get that from?
One person staying in front ofa room of a bunch of people.
You're gonna get judged ifyou say something incorrectly.
That's where it stems from, right?
School.
Learn to start nurturing.
The simple ability to be open, to bevulnerable, to communicate so that way

(01:19:42):
men and women can talk to each other.
Girls and boys can talk to each other.
Kids and other kids, parents,other parents and teachers.
Teachers and kids.
They could start just seeing, likeI, I remember vividly when I was in
third grade not thinking that my.
A teacher was a person and thenwhen I saw her in a grocery store,
I'm like, what are you doing Ms.
Johnson getting groceries?
I didn't even know she was a human being.
I was like some wizard alien that camein to teach school every so often.

(01:20:06):
It was just, it's strange to me 'causeI didn't know who she was as a human.
I didn't know or feel or see orunderstand any of her challenges or
flaws or struggles or hopes or goals.
Her admirations.
'cause we never talked, wedidn't have conversations, we
didn't have communications.
And that's the soft skills.
Ralph, that I'm hearing you talkabout, I'm hearing you say is these

(01:20:27):
are aspects that Yes, are absolutelychange, changeable and very easily
implementable implementable.
Jason, what about you, man?
Starting in school, what could we do?

so I think parents need to get on the same page with
teachers and administration needs toget on the same page with teachers
that they, there's a divide a lotof times between I. and teachers.
if the student, is not necessarilydoing the best that they can in the

(01:21:02):
class and the teacher is wantingto work with the student, sometimes
parents will be overly protective.
And it creates this whole dynamicwhere I think teachers often feel
helpless today versus where they mayhave felt when I was going to school.
So I think that there needsto be an overhaul there in
that, in those relationships.
For one.

(01:21:22):
And secondly one of the things thatRalph mentioned that I, that was
coming up for me is, and this is acomplex thing, but just simply reducing
violence and exposure to violence asa tool to get what you want, Domestic
violence that starts in the home.
The statistics are that a kid thatwitnesses that is exponentially more

(01:21:45):
likely to commit violence later, right?
Because it becomes away to solve problems.
And so I think that just exposureto that, obviously, so much of what
Ralph was saying would do that, right?
Just with healthy relationships.
And then the other thing too that Ithink, honestly, this is gonna be,
this is may sound controversial.

(01:22:07):
really believe that most people,most of the time want power.
They want power, period.
They want to have the abilityto make something happen, which
is how I define power, right?
The difference is they don't alwaysknow the difference between abusing
power and using it in a healthy way.

(01:22:30):
And I think that if we couldreeducate people on simply
that look, you want power?
Sure, we'll show you how to getit, but there's a healthy way
where it can grow sustainably.
Your ability to change things cangrow sustainably or you abuse it.
And what happens is that actuallyreduces your opportunities in
your ability to change things.
And I think that if we seriousconversations about that and just

(01:22:54):
acknowledged it and did it in a waythat was smart with teachers, educators,
administrations, and parents on boardfor the kids to develop a sense of
agency how they could move towards adesirable future we go a far away in that.
That's my take on that.

Hot take.
Thank you, generous.
Jennifer, what's your hot take?

I hear all of you guys, and I do not to go there,
but I feel like these are verymasculine struggles, so just to bring
it into kind of a. Feminine space.

go

that, sorry, power.
I get it.
For me it's more esteem and it'smore like I, I have ego too.
Like I want this businessto be successful.
And I took a really honest look at myselfrecently and was thinking about why.
And my ego is very much in that, butit's because I wanna be a mentor.
Like when my ego comes in, it's'cause I realize I wanna be
a mentor, I wanna be a hero.

(01:23:48):
I wanna pay for houses for people.
I wanna make people rich.
It's not about me and my powerand what I wanna gain, but it's
what I wanna give and provide.
But I think that going back to theeducation part of this question,
now that I'm a mom, I understandwhy my mom was so terrible.
She was tired.
She did not have the resourcesthat she needed to be present,

(01:24:10):
let alone encouraging for me.
And my mom was very abusive.
She was also a paranoid to schizophrenic.
And she said some really strange things tome about my sexuality when I was too young
to even know what she was talking about.
So if my mom had better resources,then she could have been better for me.
And just talking about kids andyouth, I really, I get that we wanna
start with the kids, but I reallythink that starts with parents.

(01:24:32):
And it starts with the parentsthat are spending the most time
with their kids that are gonnahave the most impact on their kids.
I realized really early when I wasraising my son, like the toys that I
buy him, none of this shit matters.
What matters is the quality of timethat I spend with him and how much
I encourage him and how much I helphim through frustrating situations,
stay focused and determined.

(01:24:53):
Yeah, now that I'm a parent, a lotmore grace from my mom and a lot
more understanding and realizationthat being a parent is really hard.
And that's who I wanna give my support to

Yeah.

So these are these are very personally centered.
Jen, I want to, I wanna come backto something you said earlier and
think about the justice system.
The front end of this, likesentencing fuels a lot of this.
The people of color, if you're poor youran into it with bias because of your sex.

(01:25:26):
These people are getting longer terms.
What do we need to do on thejustice side so that it's just.

A lot of the things that we talked about today.
I will always say that it goes backto self-worth and every, everything
that we do should be helping peoplewith their sense of self-worth
so that they wanna bring value.
So our justice system shouldbe geared towards, you did
this, why did you do this?
And how do we address that?

(01:25:55):
Versus you did this, nowyou're being punished.
If we had more programs like Defy, ifwe had more programs that supported
mothers, if we had more programs thatsupported people that are gonna start
businesses with social causes, if wegave more grant money to these small
businesses, and it doesn't even have tojust be businesses with social causes,
but supporting locally owned businesses,supporting small businesses, like that's

(01:26:18):
gives better opportunities to a lot ofthese places where we see crime, like
people commit crime because they don'thave opportunities that they want,
or they feel like have to compete forthese opportunities with people that
don't deserve them more than they do.
So they'd rather compete inanother arena where it's easier
to win or quote unquote win.
I think
Opportunities to neighborhoods is abig it's think something I believe

(01:26:42):
in strongly and why I support Defyand this entrepreneur component
like this business component.
This making you a successful businessoriented person and spreading that into
the world and not being shortsightedand having it being about profit,
but having it be about something youreally care about, like Jason wanting
to bring to solve this problem that hesees as a barrier to people reentering

(01:27:04):
society and getting their life together.
Sorry, I'm rambling.

No.
Great.

that's great.

Jason what do das, what do das and judges need to hear on
the front end of these sentences?

Oh gosh, that's a tough one.
I honestly I don't thinkthat it's necessarily das and
judges that need to hear it.
I think it's legislatorsthat need to hear that.
People need some, they need to seesome tunnel or some way for how
to move towards that's desirable.

(01:27:41):
If they feel that there's no lightat the end of the tunnel for them,
there's no hope, then the odds of themactually making healthy decisions as
a result or are lessened if you say,Hey if you would've if I would've came
into the prison system at 18 and yousaid, look, Jason, have life without
parole, but here's what you can do.
If you followed this pathway,you could potentially go home

(01:28:03):
in 15 years, and you know what?
You'll have a college degree.
You'll be worth this much in the market.
You'll be able to get a reasonable job.
You'll be able to do these things.
Yeah.
You're gonna have to spend the timeand you're, it's gonna be hard work,
but there's a clear pathway for you.
Think that would've changed myentire trajectory in prison.
And I would've, instead of doing 28 years.

(01:28:24):
might have done 15 and come homea lot earlier and been able to
provide a lot more to my familyand the community as a result.
And maybe I wouldn't have impactedthe prison system as negatively
I, as I did for as long as I did.
So I think that the idea of locking'em up and throwing away the key
is a terrible solution, right?

(01:28:44):
I think that we wanna provide ameaningful avenue for people to change
the outcome of or the course of theirlife, even if they find themselves in
really bad circumstances inside a prison.
Because otherwise what you're gonna getis just people dwelling in hopelessness
and reacting from hopelessnessand fear and hurt and harm, and
that's not a recipe anything good.

Wow.

I love that you both said the same thing in wildly different ways
and it it keeps coming back to that.

Yep.
Agreed agreed.
So how about this?
If we think about it on a immediatepicture, again, just imagine that you're
talking to thousands and thousandsof people who can make a big change.
This system that we're describingcosts $80 billion a year, and it also

(01:29:35):
blocks 6 million people from voting.
What is one step every listenercan take to break this cycle?
it's learn, maybe it's act,maybe it's vote a specific way.
Do you have an opinion on what isone step every listener could take?
I.

Yeah, I think that there's a bill coming up for, for people
that are serving life without parolethat were eight under the age of 25, I
believe, when they committed their crime.
I would highly encourage everyone tolook into that bill and search their
hearts on voting that bill passed.
They, the science behindjuvenile offenders.

(01:30:17):
Coming home, like the sciencebehind their brains not being fully
formed up until the age of 26.
They've passed several lawsallowing juvenile offenders or
youth offenders to come home.
But for some reason, if they weresentenced to life without parole, they're
not allowing them to do in my case, Ijust got lucky that I got the golden
ticket and was commuted by the governor.
But there's plenty of other men andwomen that are just like me, and

(01:30:41):
they've, they're doing great work insideof prisons and they would be great
in the community, and they're justrestricted simply because of a sentence.
And so one thing that voters coulddo is just look at the bill and
say, Hey, does this make sense?
If the science provides for other youthdefenders to come home, why not these guys
simply based on what they were sentencedto, that's one thing that they could

(01:31:01):
do that could really transform lives.

All right.
One, one of my immediate answersis make sure if you are a
listener, reach out, look up.
right?
DEFY ventures Jason?

was the mo more low hanging fruit, and I'm glad that you,
I'm glad that you filled that one in.
Thanks, Jerremy.
Tag Team.

Yes.
That's also something that justchanged my life in a great way.
I think every listener herewants to give back time, energy,
effort, it feels so good to give.
And the more you give,the more you receive.
It's always a feeling regardlessof where you are or what you're
doing or why you're doing it.
And I think Defi Ventures provides anincredible opportunity for any individual

(01:31:41):
to be a part of helping someone journeyand their entrepreneurship to really
become the best version of themselves.
And I think that's an awesome opportunityfor all of the listeners to take part in.
Jennifer what's your take somethingone step that a listener can do.
I already got the low hanging fruit.
Took that away from you.
My guy.
Jason talked about the voting.

(01:32:02):
What should they do?

I guess just look at formerly incarcerated folks with more of
an open mind and just know that, when Iwas writing my vale, sorry, I'm a snob.
When I was writing my valedictorianspeech, I had not wanted to.
My experience being arrested and toldme, the person who was helping with
a speech, that it's really importantthat everybody out there know that

(01:32:26):
this is what an ex-felon looks like.
They're a valedictorian,ex-felons look like me.
They don't look like what you think.
And I just, if one thing, since allthe low hanging fruit has been covered,
it's just change your perception ofwhat you think an ex-felon is and
know that they can be really caringand hard, really hardworking really
tenacious and thirsty individuals

(01:32:46):
That you should allow in your life.
'cause they can bring a lot of value.

Yeah.
Yeah.
Change the visual identificationthat, that, that initial judgment
that people might be throwing out.

Yes.

Yeah, that's a big one.
Ralph, what's your take?
What's one thing that listeners can do?

Man.
Awareness and opportunity, I thinksometimes for us who are transitioning
back into society sometimes sometimeswe just need opportunity and awareness.
We don't, we're not aware of certainresources that are available.
For example, Def five venturesI know this is already covered.
I'm not gonna recoverit, but what I mean is.
Some people who come home and theywanna start businesses or whatever

(01:33:27):
that have been incarcerated, they'renot aware of Def five ventures.
So just, Hey just yeah,creating awareness.
I think a lack of awareness sometimes isa is a, can be a little bit of a headache.
I'm just thinking of somethingsimple, something simple that
anybody can do and just be proactive.
Just creating opportunities spreadingawareness supporting local organizations
like Defy Ventures, like the main newfoundation, like other nonprofits who are

(01:33:53):
doing this work, who are helping returningcitizens transition successfully.
So those are some things that I thinkthat your listeners can potentially do.

Thank you.
Thank you.
All right here's another shift, andagain, I don't know exactly how or what
or where or when, but I'll say it anyway.
You have all lived throughsomething that most people haven't.
What is one piece of wisdom thatyou've earned you would like to pass
on to someone still on the inside?

It's not how you start, it's how you finish.

Oh, let's go Jen.
It's not how you start.
It's how you finish.
Amen to that, Ralph.
What you got for me?

Principles without a doubt.
Principles.
One thing of my transition during mytransition, I started living a life based
on principles while I was incarcerated.
And when I came home, thoseprinciples traveled with me.
Living principles, beingfair, honest, respectful.
It has nothing to do with beingin prison or out of prison.
Being honest doesn't mean I'm honest,because you're honest with me.

(01:34:56):
Being honest means I'm honestbecause that's a principle I dec
I made a decision to live by.
Being fair.
Life isn't always fair, butthat doesn't give me the right
to not be fair to others.
So what I something I've definitelylearned and would love to pass on
is live a life based on principles.
I get it.
Earlier in my transition.
I want to change because of myfamily, my friends, my loved ones.
I wanted my freedom.

(01:35:17):
I wanted all these things.
But what it really boiled downto was principle centered living.
And when I focus on principle centeredliving, almost everything else followed.
And my transition, I think, has beena successful one because I've been
making decisions based on principlesand not just on things alone.
And that kind of helpedshape my decisions.
So that's the lesson I would wanna sharefor the people who are still incarcerated.

(01:35:37):
Make your decisions,be principal centered.
And when you transition I thinkit'll be a little smoother.

Thank you, Jason.

For me, I think if I was speaking to anyone inside or even
someone outside that's going throughsomething, I wanna remind them that
everything that happens is an opportunity.
Everything, not all blessings comewrapped like a Christmas gift.
Some of them come wrapped in thorns.

(01:36:08):
You have to learn how to find what'sinside of that and turn it into something.
I don't believe in guarantees.
I believe in probabilities, and I believethat if we live our lives in a certain
way, day in and day out, we create ahigher probability for an outcome, right?
For the negative or the positive.

(01:36:28):
And I think that if they just focus on.
Living towards a probability, we'reall recognizing that everything
that comes, if they're creative,if they use their creativity, they
can turn that into an opportunity.
It might not be right away, down the line.
And having that openness and thatmindset can be crucial really

(01:36:49):
turning your life into a miracle.
And that would be my message.

My man.
Turn your life into a miraclebecause it is, it truly is.
Miracles are all around us.
If we look for it, if we expectit, if we want miracles in
our life, they're available.
Ralph, Jason, thank you for your time.
Thank you for your energy.
Thank you for your courage to share.

(01:37:14):
Thank you for your compassiontowards others and still continuously
daily helping others, not justyourself, but those around you so
that we can live a more bright,more bold, more unified country.

For having us guys.
Appreciate it.

Awesome.
Thank you guys.

Yep, our pleasure.
Thank you so much.

So what'd you learn?

Oh, what did I learn?
What I learned, Dave, I learned thateveryone's journey is different.
Some people will need want and requiredifferent forms of discipline in order

(01:38:00):
to change, in order to become better.
In order to shift thatdiscipline could be pressure.
discipline could be the prisonsystem, that pressure could just be
It could be financial requirements,it could be family requirements.
But ultimately, if we all ask to becomestronger, we're not given more muscles,

(01:38:22):
we're given more weight to carry.
I think each and every one of ourguests have carried their own weight.
They have made decisions that they'renot proud of, but I am 100% confident
every single listener is human andtherefore they have made at least
one decision that they're probablynot tremendously proud of just one.

(01:38:45):
I do one a week probably, where I'mlike, I could have done that differently
with my three and a half year old.
So I truly believe that thejourneys that we're all on.
It's one of remarkable opportunityand the visions and the and the
rehabilitation and the growth that,the three individuals that we worked

(01:39:07):
with today, Jason, Jennifer, and Ralph,have undergone a remarkable, and I have
heard loud and clear that yes, there wasdefinitely elements inside the prison
system that can or could have worked, butthere are very few and far in between.
And they're only going to work for theindividual and for the person, for the

(01:39:30):
spirit, and for the soul who also says,and articulates internally that I am
willing to change, I am willing to makethat shift, and that is gonna be that
person that we've, we need to continueto learn studying and figure out how
we can make that change happen faster.

(01:39:51):
How we can make the realizationfor that to occur quicker.
Because if someone is so bold andbrazen in their belief system and they
cannot change, they're not gonna changethrough pleasure or through pain,
they're gonna remain the exact same way.
But if you can find ways to crack intothe crack, into the spirit, into the soul
that does need to be shifted or couldbe shifted, or would like to be shifted,

(01:40:11):
you have to do it the right way, thenreally true, remarkable change can happen.
And I think we saw that today and I,and it was really quite moving for me.

I think for me, I think the last 10 days, going to the women's prison
and then having this conversation, if.
Absolutely changed me.
I heard over and over again that thethings I thought, would help, right?
All the money that we need to pour intoinner cities and, opportunities and

(01:40:41):
healthcare and daycare and transportation.
Like all of these, like huge,like undertakings that we need.
I didn't hear that from these folks andI didn't hear it last week either at all.
Each one of them startedwith personal responsibility.
And you get in the system andyou need to change your mindset.

(01:41:01):
You need to, focus on your values.
You need to grow up, youneed to work on yourself.
You need to have good relationshipsand not hang, and everything was
about what the internal person can do.
And all of those things are near costless.
That on the very beginning of this,where they grew up and how they grew up.

(01:41:22):
They needed hope, they needed a pathwayfor success and they didn't have it.
And then one thing leads to another,which leads to another, and it dominoes
and their life falls apart and theymake the mistakes or they're in with the
wrong thing and they're doing the wrongthing and they end up in the system.
And then once they're in thesystem again, they needed hope

(01:41:42):
and they needed a path and.
That is what sustained them,and that's ultimately what
got them out of that system.
And they came into being like real,like shining lights in the community.

Yeah.

And I think there's a complete ignorance by the
people who are actually in charge.
And I think by the voters and the peoplelike coming from very pri privileged
backgrounds who have hasn't really talkedto somebody who's been in these systems
and realizing, Hey, that could be you too.
And you know what, it's education.

(01:42:18):
It's different thingsthan what you think it is.
And it's not these, crazy unimaginablycostly kind of things that we're talking
about because what we're doing now isincredibly costly and it's not working.

Yeah.

Guess what?
The cheaper, better option are thingslike defi, giving people that hope
and giving people those opportunities.

We've heard today many powerful stories, real lives
shaped by a system locking up 1.9million people and millions more.
This isn't just a conversation,it's a call to understand and act.

(01:42:58):
We want to hear your stories.
Have you had someone close toyou who have faced incarceration
challenges or maybe found a wayto rebuild and push for change?
Share that with us.
Tag us at Solve USA Pod on X or solvingAmerica's Problems Podcast on Instagram.
Your perspective can drive progress.

(01:43:20):
Feel free to please subscribe, leave afive star view and share this episode
with someone who needs to hear it, becausetogether we can build a better way.

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