SOLUTIONS FROM THE YARD

On this episode the hosts, led by Charles Hopkins, discuss the culture of poverty as a newly released individual. They discuss the offshoots of poverty such as incarceration, recidivism, and disruptions to mental health. The gentlemen go on to discuss the cost of living in Washington, DC, and the difficulty returning citizens face in gaining financial progress and/or job stability to obtain adequate housing/general support.

The hosts, led by Michael Dickerson-El, discuss homelessness after reentry leading to recidivism. They begin by discussing their own journeys with returning home and finding adequate housing.  The concept of “criminalizing poverty/homelessness” and statistics relating to this concept are discussed as well. This episode is part 1 of 2.

This episode focuses on the 13th Amendment and its recent appearance on the voting ballot in 5 states. The podcast hosts discuss how slavery is a human issue, not just a prison issue. They delve into the nuances of the prison workforce and how it relates to the 13th Amendment, the meager pay as justification for involuntary slavery, and how prison labor is an incentive to slow criminal justice reform...

The hosts continue their exploration of homelessness, this time discussing the relationship homelessness has to juvenile delinquency. Generational trauma, drug use, single parenthood, government program dependency, carceral indoctrination, and practical solutions to the root of juvenile homelessness & delinquency are discussed.

Our Juneteenth 2023 episode discusses our youth and the homelessness crisis. The hosts, led by Charles Hopkins, discuss how interactions with the juvenile justice system and family trauma coincide with homelessness. The gentlemen go further into the problem of young people and homelessness to discuss mental health, responsibility, and healing in solving this issue. This is a conversation you don't want to miss!

This episode explores the relationship of homelessness to experiencing mental health issues. The hosts explore poverty, generational trauma, and other factors as a stimulus for mental illness and its impact on the community. "Forced poverty" is also discussed, and how this idea gives way to traumas.

This episode opens with a slight breakdown of the letter from Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton to the new Director of the Federal Board of Prisons and moves into how federal guidelines adversely affect DC inmates, discrimination & mismanagement of DC inmates in sentencing management and the fallout of closing Lorton prison. This is not an episode you want to miss!

On this episode, the gentlemen discuss recent probation restrictions that stipulate unemployment as a reason to be put on "the box". The discussion centers around home confinement, probation, the local government agency's role in moving a parolee forward, and alternatives to supervision...

The gentlemen continue their talk about reentry journeys and in part 2 discuss the positive side of their journey and how they did the work of getting back to their communities. Discussion highlights the trust factor of returning citizens with organizations, "reentry pimps", credible help, learning new skills, peer groups, and more.

Here we talk about our reentry journeys, none of which are the same. You must take back your identity when you're on your reentry journey.  This episode finds the  gentlemen speaking on their journeys upon release and navigating the first steps of returning to the community.

The second installment of our Trauma series explores triggers of trauma, how past experiences lead to PTSD symptoms, how to identify these, and how to manage them.   

“I got trauma.” Each of our hosts, led by Michael Dickerson El, share what trauma means to them and how trauma has manifested in their lives due to their time while incarcerated. This episode is the first of two in which our hosts discuss how any of the three types of trauma - acute, chronic, or complex - manifests itself in their current lives.

Introducing SFTY hosts Charles, Michael, and Dietrich! Hear from our three hosts as they tell us a little bit about themselves and their experience during incarceration and release, their goals for the conversations conducted through SFTY, and how they will be helping their brothers and sisters searching for solutions to some of their problems as returning citizens.