Episode #156 w/ T.J. Vulcain

Tiffany “T.J.” Vulcain survived more than just a prison sentence — she endured the foster care system, the juvenile justice system, and federal incarceration. But her story isn’t about what broke her. It’s about what she built after.

Now an author, speaker, and force for transformation, T.J. serves as the Program Director of the Women’s Rising Workforce Development program at the Fortune Society, where she helps justice-impacted women rebuild their lives through healing, skill-building, and community.

T.J. was sentenced to nearly 5 years in federal prison for credit card fraud. Since coming home, she’s been laser-focused on changing the narrative for parents, youth, and families impacted by incarceration. She created Parents Day at the Fortune Society, an annual event bringing visibility to the challenges of parenting while incarcerated and navigating reentry.

You may have seen her featured in the Amazon Prime documentary “Preschool to Prison”, where she speaks truth to the systemic failures that push Black and Brown youth into the justice system. In this episode of Dog in the Yard, she shares the emotional and honest journey of surviving the system, and using her pain to fuel purpose.

This one’s for every mother, every fighter, every survivor. T.J.’s voice is real—and it’s necessary.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Himself.

Speaker 2 (00:41):
That'll be.

Speaker 3 (00:58):
Hope a south darks a over your mouth, regulous, clear,
that's right?

Speaker 2 (01:29):
What up? What else?

Speaker 4 (01:30):
You already knows, your boy, Pristol Pete Walking back to
the Dog in the Yard, This episode was totally different
than I usually have. Today we have a female in
the building. You know what I'm saying, TJ, this some
fat time came from a good background. I mean meaning
like you know, money, established home and managed to you know,

(01:55):
get out the house and get herself and caught up
in a lot of other things that was along the way.
And with that being said, let's get right to it, man, TJ.
Dog in the y'all, what up?

Speaker 2 (02:08):
What elp? You already know what it is, your boy,
pistol P. Welcome back to the Dog in the Yard.

Speaker 4 (02:12):
And today, as you can see, we got the beautiful
TJ the building a female.

Speaker 2 (02:16):
It's been a while since we had a.

Speaker 4 (02:18):
Female at in Dog in the Yard at this platform,
and we as an honor to have your sister appreciate you.

Speaker 5 (02:24):
Thank you so much, pistol P. I'm so honored to
be here. I'm so excited about this.

Speaker 4 (02:29):
That's what's up, man, that's what's up man. I'm happy,
You look beautiful, Thank you, thank you. That's what's up, man,
So talk to me a little bit about yourself. How
long you been out doing your thing? And you know
how long you been home.

Speaker 5 (02:41):
So I've been home about nine years, okay, serve time
in federal prison fifty nine months to be total.

Speaker 2 (02:47):
Okay.

Speaker 5 (02:48):
I gave birth to a child while I was incarcerated, okay,
And basically it.

Speaker 6 (02:52):
Was trouble while I was inside.

Speaker 5 (02:54):
Spent a lot of time in solitary confinement, moved around
a lot while I was inside, and so I didn't
quite get it. Kept bumping my head. Being young, there's
a lot going on in prison. People think that prison
you're just away and you boys nothing going on. But
there's a whole life behind the wall, and so I
got involved in a lot of that. I write about
it in my book. I have a book that I released,

(03:15):
a Black Girl in Orange, where I speak about my
incarceration experience.

Speaker 4 (03:19):
Okay, and real quick before before just because I want
you to tell me all about that you don't get
a chance to tell me about. I just want you
to tell me a little bit about TJ, your upbringing, siblings,
where you're from, and when you went off the wrong way.

Speaker 2 (03:34):
It was it?

Speaker 4 (03:35):
It was it trauma that you went through as your
parents broke up. Issues that you've seen. What was it
that that triggered TJ to go and in this lifestyle.
Is whatever it cost you to go incarcerated?

Speaker 5 (03:49):
Okay, Uh, it's just so much. So I guess I'll start.
I start with what you said the childhood. Actually don't
come from poverty. I don't come from the hood. I
am the first to be incarcerated in my family. My mother,
I would describe her to be a narcissist and went
through a lot of child abuse in a home, being
locked in a room.

Speaker 6 (04:07):
With a partty.

Speaker 5 (04:08):
I always had to defecate in a party and knock
on the door like to come out of the room.
I was electrocuted in the basement like crazy stuff.

Speaker 2 (04:17):
What age?

Speaker 5 (04:18):
This was like around nine ten years old. So from that,
from that, I really didn't want to be in a
home and tried to get out run away. That's how
Administration for Children's Services got involved and kind of went
downhill from there. Where you're from, I'm from Queens but
currently live in Brooklyn.

Speaker 4 (04:37):
No, but when this was happening to Queens, Queens yes,
your mother father was around.

Speaker 5 (04:42):
Yeah, my mother and my father were together and they
were doing well financially. But everything the white picket fence
isn't always white on the inside, you know.

Speaker 4 (04:51):
In fact, Yeah, So what what age you uh? You know,
you had a lot going on, you know, a lot
of abusive, a lot of stuff going on. So at
what age you decided you want to either run off
or when you got the chances that you wanted to
spread out and bounce through your thing?

Speaker 6 (05:11):
And so I'll back up a little bit.

Speaker 5 (05:13):
My mother sent me to Jamaica before I could remember myself.
So I was about two to seven that I spent
in the Islands, so I knew love. My grandmother treated
me well. So when I came here, it was abrupt halt,
like whoa, what is this right?

Speaker 6 (05:28):
So I wanted to go back.

Speaker 5 (05:30):
They wouldn't allow me to speak with my grandparents, so
I wanted to get out of the house. And then
I started running away. That's how I started to get
involved in the hood. I started going to Brooklyn, I
started finding out about the projects.

Speaker 6 (05:43):
I didn't even know what food stamps.

Speaker 5 (05:45):
Were, right, So what I did appreciate about the hood
was the realness.

Speaker 4 (05:49):
Right.

Speaker 5 (05:50):
My family was so stufshed you don't say this, you
don't talk about this, right. There were so many rules
and etiquette was really important. But when I went to
the hood, that wasn't there, right, people ware able to
be free and just do what they wanted and say
what they wanted. And so I was attracted to that,
and I kept going back for that, and I, you know,
eventually ended up in group homes and forster homes and

(06:11):
you know, these are the kinds of people that fill
up those kinds of institutions, and those became my friends.

Speaker 2 (06:18):
Yeah, so uh uh what age?

Speaker 5 (06:22):
So I probably went into foster care about twelve.

Speaker 2 (06:25):
Wow, okay, and how long you was there?

Speaker 6 (06:30):
I aged out?

Speaker 5 (06:31):
So I started with the foster care and the group homes,
bouncing around angry really internally but not really understanding that
at that time, and they bounced me around from home
to home. I had fights and really wanted to be
respected people. Some of the kids made fun of me
because I spoke well, I didn't really speak with the

(06:53):
slang and the ebonics, so I had to learn that,
you know, the lingos. So I kind of was picked on.
So I felt like I never was able to fit in.
Highly intellectual but you know, cool down the earth, but
just couldn't fit in, So moved around from home to
home and then eventually fell in with some bad kids.
Boosting started with boosting out of the stores, and I

(07:13):
was nice with It's embarrassed to say that, but they
kind of used me for my smarts. And that's something
that happens in the hood a lot, right, you get
exploited for your intelligence, and so I was doing things
that I didn't even understand the seriousness of what I
was doing. Probably fell any theft and all kind of stuff,
you know, I don't really want to get into, but
kind of like escalated from there.

Speaker 4 (07:34):
Yeah, the more you do, the more you get away
with it, the more shit you did get into.

Speaker 2 (07:37):
Right, Yes, so.

Speaker 4 (07:41):
When you graduated from boosting to what else?

Speaker 5 (07:45):
So it went from boosting, So we were talking about
boosting clothing items for survival at first because I'm in
the group home.

Speaker 6 (07:53):
But then I got a rush, right, I enjoyed it.

Speaker 5 (07:55):
I was good at it, I had good schemes, I
did things differently than most people.

Speaker 6 (08:00):
I got away with it.

Speaker 5 (08:01):
So it made me escalate to now we're boost the
electronics and just all kinds of game systems and expensive
items design the items just things that most people couldn't
get their hands on. I was able to get it
out of the store, and so that attracted me to
people that again I didn't know it at the time,
but was using me for being able to do that
and get.

Speaker 6 (08:21):
Away with it, and I thought they were really my friends.

Speaker 2 (08:24):
Right.

Speaker 5 (08:24):
They say there's no love and no honor amongst thieves,
and I mean I was the one that was honorable,
but I was really the only one. And so eventually
I started getting in trouble, getting arrested. Also had some
gang activity, looking for family, looking to be included, looking again.

Speaker 4 (08:46):
Having somebody you could talk to it. Yeah, I understand
you wanted to be embraced. Yes, I get it. Yes,
the gang, so the gang activity presented themselves.

Speaker 2 (08:57):
The gang was say that again, So I mean the gang.

Speaker 4 (09:02):
So you said the gang came along. You started getting
introduced to the gang.

Speaker 6 (09:07):
Yes, the crime introduced me to the gangs, right you?

Speaker 4 (09:11):
And you was like cool because it was like a
family thing, you know. Yeah, we get together, we get
to vive, we get to chair do things together. I
get it, right, So what gang crip Okay, it's okay,
I mean it is what it is, right.

Speaker 5 (09:25):
It wasn't really only they were the first ones to
approach me. It didn't really matter to me what gang.

Speaker 4 (09:31):
It was just you just wanted to be You wanted
to be accepted, period. You didn't care about what gang
or what And that's what usually happens when the child
was like lost and they have an issues through home
and through changes.

Speaker 2 (09:42):
And all that. You want to look for that love
and all that somewhere else. I get it. So now
you hold in the gang.

Speaker 6 (09:53):
Maybe about fourteen fifteen.

Speaker 2 (09:54):
Okay, And how that makes you feel? Like what went
from then?

Speaker 6 (09:59):
Well? I was kind of always a leader.

Speaker 5 (10:02):
So even though I was the youngest one, I was
looking around, like I noticed they broke So that was
a problem for me because.

Speaker 6 (10:09):
I came from money.

Speaker 5 (10:10):
So I'm like, well, we all collectively here is together.
They introduced me to weed. I'm smoking weed, were chilling,
We having fun, but nobody's making money. So I kept saying, like,
we need to go make some money, Like what can
we do to make money?

Speaker 6 (10:22):
So the leader at the time was like, ribbery. We
could go out and rob somebody.

Speaker 5 (10:27):
And I guess this was like how I could kind
of like show my status.

Speaker 6 (10:33):
I'm so far from trying to remember that's fine. So
I went out.

Speaker 2 (10:38):
You try to show me how damn you are.

Speaker 6 (10:41):
I get you, I guess trying to earn stripes. But
so I got cool with this girl.

Speaker 5 (10:46):
She was supposed to be like one of the biggest
fighters in the game, like she was tough. She joined
not too long before me. So we went out and well,
I had to fight her. That was like a part
of my initiation, and I end up beating her up.
So now she didn't like me. So it was like
a little animosity there. So I'm thinking, well, this is

(11:06):
what we were supposed to do.

Speaker 2 (11:07):
Like it was just confusing from the beginning.

Speaker 6 (11:10):
A lot going on.

Speaker 2 (11:11):
I got you.

Speaker 5 (11:12):
But we went out and we robbed somebody, and and
I got arrested. And it was the first time that
I had gotten arrested for something really serious. And what
hit me was that everybody else had parents to come
and pick them up from the precinct, but I didn't.
And I've been giving so much trouble in the group
home that they didn't want to come and get me.

(11:35):
It was dis it was their discretion, and they left
me in there, and that was my first did I
ended up doing I think about a year in the
juvenile facility and I was sentenced to eighteen months. Okay,
I came home, and I came home back to my parents.
My parents took me back, but again it was dysfunctional.

Speaker 2 (11:56):
Same thing, same change, and.

Speaker 5 (12:00):
Again wound up leaving again back and forths to care
and that's when the crime escalated. Now I'm older, now
I spent more time with criminals. Now I'm a criminal
minded person myself, and had the lingo to swag all
of that, like, and then I kind of got into
the materialistic stuff, right, So I seen that people would

(12:22):
gravitate to people who had jewelry and Gucci, and you know,
my family had real wealth, so they weren't materialistic. They
had other property and things like that. I didn't understand different,
way different. So it was like intriguing to me, like, oh,
a Gucci bag, you know what I'm saying. So that's
what I wanted for myself, and I like the attention

(12:45):
that I was I was getting. I like how people
glamorized and glorified me for that, and so it kind
of created an addiction to continue to try to get
that money, and that's how the crime started escalating from that,
the boosting and the robbery, which essentially turned into now
the fraud, credit card fraud.

Speaker 2 (13:05):
Okay, and that's when you got That's when you went
to the Fast.

Speaker 6 (13:08):
That's when I went to the fest.

Speaker 2 (13:09):
Okay, what year was this and how old?

Speaker 6 (13:13):
I don't know how old that was?

Speaker 2 (13:14):
Okay, I was. I'll be lost too so much? Well, good, yes,
so much. It's true.

Speaker 5 (13:20):
Two thousand and twelve. I went to the fest in
of January. But I got I got locked up. I
got locked up the end of twenty and eleven. That's
when my bid started and I came home twenty and
sixteen marks.

Speaker 2 (13:33):
Okay, So let's talk about when you fast win and
got you. When you got in trouble for the Fast,
you realized it.

Speaker 4 (13:40):
Was the Fast and you was like shit, it's the
Fast and now you're in the FAED. How you felt,
what was going through your mind and the whole Tell
me about that.

Speaker 6 (13:49):
So it's funny.

Speaker 5 (13:52):
I had a statecase first in Virginia, so we were
being investigated by n CIS, but I didn't know. So
that's Navy police, the federal branch like FBI and DA
but they have a branch for Navy Police. It's in
CIS and so they were investigating us for about seven months,

(14:13):
but we didn't know. So we're going out there using cards,
but I didn't use them in New York. They weren't
working in New York.

Speaker 6 (14:21):
They were related. They were coming from the military base.
I didn't know.

Speaker 5 (14:28):
Before I knew it, you know, being sloppy, being comfortable,
really didn't need the money, had so much money at
that time, and just honestly in automatic mode, just continuing
to do it because it was the lifestyle for me
and my husband. I had a husband at the time.
He was kind of like, you know, like you know,
it's not and I was like, I get this money.

(14:50):
I remember there was even times it was like I
was addicted to money, like addicted.

Speaker 6 (14:56):
It was just I never wanted to be without.

Speaker 5 (14:58):
I seen that money came with respect in the hood anyway,
and I wanted that and.

Speaker 6 (15:05):
Kept going down there.

Speaker 5 (15:06):
We kept doing it and eventually just being sloppy got
caught up in a store.

Speaker 6 (15:12):
But I never knew. I thought that would have been
a simple case, but.

Speaker 5 (15:15):
I never knew that that was what caused the first
to be able to identify me. See, they've been investigating me,
but they didn't know my name. So when I got
that arrest, that's when.

Speaker 2 (15:30):
So when the first came and got you, there were
know who you was.

Speaker 6 (15:33):
So they called me on my phone actually, and they.

Speaker 5 (15:38):
They were like, because I was doing pre trial in Virginia,
I wasn't supposed to be back in New York. But
I had a life in New York. I had a
son in New York, so I had to go to
New York. So I was coming down there every week.

Speaker 4 (15:50):
So you had a child, I had a child, Yes,
oh had so I old you had a child.

Speaker 5 (15:56):
So I was twenty when I had my son.

Speaker 6 (16:00):
So I'm doing this with a kid. So that was
another thing.

Speaker 2 (16:03):
In New York.

Speaker 5 (16:04):
My son is in New York. My son's father, that's
another thing. Like I thought that was my man, but
it wasn't. I ended up finding out that he was
with another woman and we ended up it ultimately got
to the point where he pulled a gun on me.
Like it was a lot of trauma with that and

(16:24):
I had to walk away from him.

Speaker 6 (16:26):
Heavy in the street known in the street.

Speaker 5 (16:30):
Had a stores and cars, and it was the first time,
I really was introduced to that real money street life,
you know what I'm saying, and being with him came
with Cloud too. So you know, you're young and I'm
again nineteen twenty years old. He's a grown man who
now I look at him side out like you should
have you exploited me? You know, I feel some type

(16:51):
of way about it, but just took advantage of me
being so naive. And you know, back then I was
really beautiful.

Speaker 6 (16:57):
I'm still beautiful now. I appreciate that. But you know,
you young and new to the hood, new face, fresh face.

Speaker 2 (17:06):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course theok advantage of.

Speaker 5 (17:08):
Me and I got pregnant and I left. I left
when he pulled that gun on me, and probably shouldn't
have said that. What about the kind of thing? I
don't know that your limitation I'm.

Speaker 6 (17:21):
Not trying to get.

Speaker 2 (17:23):
We don't even know him.

Speaker 6 (17:25):
Well, he's doing twenty five right now.

Speaker 4 (17:26):
I'm sorry, ain't They ain't gonna go bother him.

Speaker 5 (17:31):
That's not my intention, but it's my story. And sometimes
people play a part in your story and they it's
like they don't want you to tell the part they played,
you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 6 (17:39):
But that's the character he was.

Speaker 2 (17:41):
That was That's just that's just what it was at
that time.

Speaker 6 (17:43):
That's what it was. At that time.

Speaker 2 (17:44):
You had a child in New York. Fast card you.

Speaker 6 (17:47):
He didn't show up for the for the birth and
that so I just moved on.

Speaker 5 (17:50):
I got a new man who eventually became my husband,
played the father of my son.

Speaker 6 (17:56):
My father.

Speaker 2 (17:56):
My son believed that was why you still was doing
your thing. Yes.

Speaker 6 (17:59):
Never.

Speaker 5 (18:00):
Now I'm on even more grind because now I don't
have him.

Speaker 6 (18:03):
And then I just didn't.

Speaker 5 (18:04):
I got into this hyper independence moment, like I can't
rely on the man. If this man walks away from me,
I gotta be able to hold me and my son down.

Speaker 2 (18:12):
Yeah, you gotta hold it down.

Speaker 4 (18:13):
You realize that you had to do that anyway, because
the first you know, your baby daddy, he just went
somewhere else.

Speaker 2 (18:19):
I get it. Yeah, so you continue doing anything.

Speaker 4 (18:22):
And you said a Fast called you and you was
in New York coming to see your kid.

Speaker 6 (18:29):
Yeah, I was. No.

Speaker 5 (18:30):
The Fast caught me in Virginia. They called my phone.
I was down there on another No, I was down
there reporting to the pre trial for the case that
I had gotten caught for and I was on my
way back to New York.

Speaker 6 (18:43):
They called my phone. They said, you don't need to
be going back to New York.

Speaker 5 (18:46):
You have a federal indictment. I said, excuse me, it's
just a prank. They said, no, we know that you
just left your pre trial office. We weren't able to
make it their own time, but you could just meet
us and we can make it simple. And I remember
being with my husband at the time, and he was like,

(19:06):
tell him tomorrow, you don't have to go, and you're
just gonna go into it the jail tonight. Just tell
them tomorrow. It's no court open right now. So I said,
you want me to tell her fast tomorrow, Like what's
wrong with you? But I listened to him and they said, okay, tomorrow,
we're gonna meet.

Speaker 6 (19:22):
You at the federal building.

Speaker 2 (19:23):
They don't care as long as you coming. That's what
I learned facts.

Speaker 5 (19:28):
Through my experience. So I turned myself in the next day.
Never I didn't sleep a wink. I couldn't believe it,
like my whole life changed in one phone call and
eventually found myself in federal prison.

Speaker 2 (19:43):
So how was that? How was your first day? I was?
I was confused.

Speaker 4 (19:47):
They called you you didn't know what you was in
jail for or you had an idea, I mean, what
was it?

Speaker 2 (19:53):
What was the process?

Speaker 5 (19:56):
So I was out on bell for a while, fighting
my case back and forth Virginia, New York.

Speaker 2 (20:02):
It was credit call for credit card from Okay.

Speaker 5 (20:05):
But with the Feds, they had mandatory minimums, so I
had it just kept getting worse because I wasn't coping out,
so they would like find a new charge or find
a new stipulation, find more money amount, Like I had
to take a plea to cap it because then they
wouldn't prosecute me anymore.

Speaker 6 (20:22):
So initially it was like twenty four months.

Speaker 5 (20:25):
Then it was like thirty six months, and then they
came back with a twenty four month mandatory minimum.

Speaker 6 (20:30):
And I was like, I just need to take a plea.
There's no where around us.

Speaker 2 (20:33):
There's nowhere around yeah. So I took the.

Speaker 5 (20:35):
Plea for fifty nine months, and I was pregnant at
the time too.

Speaker 4 (20:40):
That was tough, yeah, tough. Young twenty one years old.

Speaker 2 (20:44):
Twenty three, twenty three years old, twenty three, how many months?

Speaker 5 (20:49):
Well, by the time I went in, I was about
eight seven and a half eight months, so the fans
wrapped it up real quick.

Speaker 6 (20:55):
Maybe three months. Yeah, it didn't take long at all.

Speaker 4 (20:58):
Yeah, they have the binness real quick. Sure you you
was on your way.

Speaker 5 (21:02):
They do all their homework while you're being invested, so
by the time you get picked.

Speaker 2 (21:07):
Up, so it's over. That's why. That's that's where the
how you call it, the conviction rate is high.

Speaker 4 (21:15):
Because they do their homework way before they come get you,
so by the time you get you. I always felt
like the first when they come get you, it's like
you're guilty or to proven innocent. You know, it's not
like it's not like the state, the state, you're innocent,
to proven guilty. When they come to first get you's
like you're guilty. You gotta put your ass. That's true,
you know what I'm saying. I never thought about it
like that, but it's true.

Speaker 2 (21:36):
You know what I'm saying.

Speaker 4 (21:36):
So because I was in the state and I was
in the fast, so I know how that ship is.
So yeah, so I already know how they how they
do it. So you went in, I was twenty three
years old, pregnant. What did what they do with They
put you in the regular jail. I was in MDC Brooklyn,

(21:58):
pregnant with all the womens in the but they.

Speaker 5 (22:01):
Were wonderful to me when I told I was so,
I wasn't afraid, but I was not sure how they
were going to treat me. Right, they're going to take
advantage of me, like you going to prison. You don't
know what it's like. But they took care of me.
Those women were nurturers. They gave me commissary to make
hold me over.

Speaker 4 (22:21):
It was a different vibe than what you expected.

Speaker 2 (22:25):
So how long you was it MDC?

Speaker 6 (22:26):
A couple of months.

Speaker 5 (22:27):
They didn't want to move me until after I had
the baby security, whereas I was too far my pregnancy.

Speaker 2 (22:33):
Yeah, okay, so you have the baby while you was
at MTC.

Speaker 6 (22:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (22:37):
Actually, one of the things that I'm really proud of
is while I was pregnant, they kept telling me my
husband couldn't come to the hospital. So I was like,
you want me to have a baby by myself? It
just didn't sound right to me. So I was like, well,
who do I have to speak to? They're like, well,
that would the warden would be the only one people
in George, right, And I'm like, well, how can I
talk to the warden. So I had to go through

(22:59):
all these loops hoops in the mainline.

Speaker 6 (23:01):
You've been in the fest mainline.

Speaker 5 (23:03):
Right, cop outs, And finally I got to the warden
and I asked him and he was like, sure, you
gotta have your husband come to the the hospital. So now,
following my birth, a couple other women had the same experience.

Speaker 6 (23:16):
They were able to have their family come.

Speaker 2 (23:18):
To So that made it easier for you. Ship quite sure.

Speaker 4 (23:23):
So you had your baby, then as soon as you
have your baby, they what.

Speaker 6 (23:27):
What happens you leave the baby in the hospital.

Speaker 4 (23:30):
I mean, just for the only reason I'm asking for
the for the for those ladies, them young ladies out
there right that was in your shoes, out there wilding
looking for a charge.

Speaker 2 (23:39):
Following who he looking for a charge? Looking for a charge.

Speaker 4 (23:42):
They don't know who the fuck yeah, because that's the
way looking for a job. They with John daughters getting
all this bread. They don't even basically know him very well.
They just know he's getting money. And because I've seen
it all the time, and I'm quite sure you did
because you were in so you walk into right into
it whole investigation, and they wound up being so what
they do with women that have kids, and what's the process.

(24:04):
What's the explain to the young sisters out there, what's
the process if you are pregnant and you go to jail.

Speaker 6 (24:09):
The process is you go to jail.

Speaker 2 (24:11):
And they take your baby soon as they take them.

Speaker 5 (24:13):
So they do have like the MINT program, but it's
an application base. I didn't have enough time between when
I came in and giving birth to be able to.

Speaker 6 (24:23):
Like get that program.

Speaker 5 (24:24):
So the only other option is you give up your
baby once you have birth, give birth in the hospital
to the family of my husband came and got the baby.

Speaker 6 (24:34):
Yeah, it's a care both of my children.

Speaker 2 (24:37):
Wow, thank god for that.

Speaker 6 (24:41):
Listen, I met women.

Speaker 5 (24:43):
That's one of the things I do now is advocate
for parents who are impacted by the justice system, because
I've seen women lose their kids for having like a
four year, five year bid. Their kids are adopted, name change,
like because they have nobody.

Speaker 2 (24:56):
Holy it sucks.

Speaker 6 (24:58):
Yeah that happens.

Speaker 2 (25:00):
Fuck and this sucks.

Speaker 4 (25:03):
So you had you have the baby, you gave it
to your your husband's family.

Speaker 5 (25:09):
Yeah, I mean I realistically was relying on my husband.
I ain't to be truthful, I wasn't even getting along
with his family, and we were beefing, and I'm like,
they want to take my baby.

Speaker 6 (25:18):
I don't even want my baby to be with them.

Speaker 5 (25:20):
Yeah, but I'm a Christian and I believe in God.
And when I think when I say that, I think
that God uses people around you that you might not
even like. Like in my case, right, and it worked
out for my good because I could have lost my.

Speaker 6 (25:34):
Kids if they were my kids.

Speaker 2 (25:36):
Absolutely, But I didn't see that at that time.

Speaker 4 (25:38):
You know, you was You was upset and being young,
ignorant and ship basically them, I ain't getting old with
them and they want to come get my kids. Basically
basically they have really helped you because the kids ain't
going to the system.

Speaker 2 (25:51):
I'm going. It came with a lot, a lot, but
it was done. So how much time me to.

Speaker 6 (26:00):
How much time to that?

Speaker 2 (26:02):
Did you? That you sharved?

Speaker 5 (26:04):
So I lost a lot of good time out of
the four years and eleven months, I probably served four
years and nine months, okay or eight months.

Speaker 6 (26:14):
Fights.

Speaker 2 (26:15):
But you was a nice girl. You at the beginning.
Everybody was great. So what happened?

Speaker 6 (26:22):
So the first thing I started gambling.

Speaker 2 (26:24):
I got in.

Speaker 6 (26:26):
I didn't know that.

Speaker 2 (26:29):
Nobody tell me that.

Speaker 5 (26:31):
Oh man, that's why we're telling these stories so.

Speaker 4 (26:34):
We could learn facts, so they could know that you
don't gamble, don't go to jail, and if you do
go to jail.

Speaker 2 (26:40):
Don't gamble, don't go to jail. Facts, don't go to jail.

Speaker 5 (26:45):
But I started gambling this girl, and now we started
gambling together, and then it was me, I'm not even
gonna lie. I was popping junk, running my mouth like
mad because I was losing because I used to gamble
like in Atlantic City black jack and stuff before that.

Speaker 6 (27:00):
So I'm bringing that energy to the jail. I don't
even know what. I didn't know that you can't do that.

Speaker 5 (27:05):
So the girl got tired of me running my mouth
and she was like, you're not getting nothing. And I
was like, you're not giving me nothing. What you mean
not giving me nothing? So I always had a little
heart like feisty, so I.

Speaker 6 (27:18):
Said, I don't have to give me that. I'm going
to take it.

Speaker 5 (27:20):
So I go thinking I'm watching my way to herself,
and she stopped me, like, got in front of me,
and I put my hands on her and he started fighting.
And that's the first time I went to the solitary.

Speaker 6 (27:30):
The shoe. I'm sending the shoe like, oh my god,
why did I get here?

Speaker 2 (27:36):
Well, what the fuck is this right here? You ain't
got no books, You ain't got nothing. We have books.
They give us books like three days later.

Speaker 4 (27:48):
No, they want to make sure that we was good first,
like you good, like feel that ship first, Like I
guess they do that with us, like feel it first
and then we get the books later.

Speaker 5 (27:57):
They felt so bad for me, those women, because I'm
walking down that corridor is like dimly lit. It's like
everybody hanging on the balls looking they looking like they've
been serving decades. And I'm like they're like, you got soap?

Speaker 2 (28:11):
I got you mom, like.

Speaker 6 (28:12):
What you need. I'm like, oh my god.

Speaker 2 (28:16):
I didn't get out of here.

Speaker 6 (28:21):
The box that first time. Not long, probably like three
two months, two to three months.

Speaker 4 (28:27):
That's a lot any fucking day in the boxes a lot, right,
But I ended up.

Speaker 6 (28:33):
Doing like seven months.

Speaker 5 (28:34):
But after that, like I did a lot of time
in the shoot in the box, A lot of time
in the box.

Speaker 2 (28:40):
So you was getting into mad a different stuff.

Speaker 6 (28:44):
Then another time I was trying to make hooch. I
was making hooch.

Speaker 2 (28:48):
How you do the hooch.

Speaker 6 (28:49):
I'm not telling nobody how to make hoots.

Speaker 4 (28:52):
But I got an episode where I taught people how
to do hooch. I was actually had. I had another
guy do the hooch and we did the whole ship.

Speaker 6 (29:02):
Oh my god. So the hoosh was the fruit.

Speaker 2 (29:04):
So drunk in the weekend, girl, I never.

Speaker 6 (29:10):
Was drinking it. I was trying to get money.

Speaker 2 (29:12):
So it was because he was still hustling.

Speaker 6 (29:14):
The jail was closing. I was scared.

Speaker 5 (29:16):
I knew how to make money in that jail. I
wasn't the type of call home and getting no money
from nobody. These people were holding down my kids. I
didn't really want to ask them for nothing. So I
have to get the money from inside. So I was
in the kitchen. You know about veggie press, So I
was in vegie presp moving okay stuff out of there
and just trying to make it.

Speaker 4 (29:34):
Really need your stuff out, making sure you make your
get it. Anything to survive.

Speaker 6 (29:40):
Yeah, it was really about survival.

Speaker 2 (29:41):
Absolutely, I get it.

Speaker 5 (29:43):
And so that when when when that shut down and
I knew that jail was closing, I was like, what
else can I do? So how to be in desperate
the hooch came and just everything was just really about money.
But what I regret is that I didn't use that.

Speaker 6 (29:55):
Time to build myself. I didn't.

Speaker 5 (29:58):
I didn't do much while I was incarcerated besides hustle,
you know, And that's something if I could go back
and change, I definitely would. For anybody that's incarce the raid,
I would say, redbooks, take programs or learn like at
your mind right, free your mind before anything, you know.

Speaker 6 (30:13):
So that's something I was young, And.

Speaker 2 (30:15):
It was never too late though, because you still came
home and amazing.

Speaker 4 (30:18):
I mean, you're doing You're doing great moves, you're doing
great things. So it's like, I mean, you ain't doing it.
You ain't do it in jail, but you finally got
to come home and you're able to spread the word
and be able to still share your knowledge and your pain.
You feel me sure, So it's all right, It's all right,
ain't you ain't doing it? Was in the yard, Yeah,

(30:39):
you played a round. I only tell you that because
I can't. I'm here and I was in the yard
and I.

Speaker 2 (30:45):
Ain't doing ship.

Speaker 4 (30:47):
Really fuck no, I was fucking cutting people doing wild
and ship. Been three years and a half I was,
I won't if you really know. But yes, I ain't
do ship. I'm first predicting on Rackets Island. I started
cutting people there. Well up north of my bullshit. I
ain't do ship. I want up got it. I want
to get my education in the box, and but came home.

Speaker 6 (31:09):
Would you say the box was kind of good? Sometimes?

Speaker 4 (31:13):
Nah, I'm not gonna say that, because I did three
years and some change.

Speaker 2 (31:16):
It was. It was horrible, But you weren't. It was No.

Speaker 4 (31:21):
I still was fighting the police. Still, yeah, in the box.
Still I still cut somebody in the box. I was
getting off the handcuffs, I was doing all the other ship.
I was doing a lot of criminal ship, like did
you yeah, getting coming out? Four people in the cage,
you know, got problems. One of them got problems with
one of my guys. You know, you know how jail
Joe was all about loyalty. Yoo yo, what I do

(31:42):
right there? Try to do something to me with it?
Oh yeah, Oh I got them ship like that. And
that kept me, like you know, in the box, and
it kept me in trouble. Then I refused to go
to school. I was forced to go to school, and
I had to get my education in the cell.

Speaker 5 (31:57):
Why do you think he was going on page like that?
Why do you think he was gonna Why do you think.

Speaker 4 (32:02):
I was just I was just almost most of us.
You know, we we go, we we come back. We
have a lot of trauma in our early ages. You know,
at my early age, I went through a lot of trauma.

Speaker 2 (32:12):
Too, you know.

Speaker 4 (32:13):
So you know, guns in my head, jumping out of the windows,
three story windows, my aunt getting shot, you know, she
was pregnant, this that I'm the guy put the gun.

Speaker 2 (32:22):
In my head.

Speaker 4 (32:23):
I mean, all kind of shit, man, Like you know,
my family was wold. My mom's side was cool, my
father's side was gotta his hell, you know what I'm saying.
And it was all criminals and fugitives, and so that's
what you was taught.

Speaker 2 (32:37):
Yeah, so it was just like, hey, I am, you know,
I was.

Speaker 4 (32:41):
I'm a nice and people love Pete and Pete's got
a great heart. But it was just like it was
just something that you know, I I went to jail
and it was like this guy here turned up crazy.

Speaker 3 (32:51):
Oll.

Speaker 4 (32:51):
The older guy was like, you know, pe Pete, he's wolent,
you know, And now I think about all these things,
and I'm like.

Speaker 2 (32:59):
Fuck, I did all this ship. I can't even believe
it's the.

Speaker 4 (33:02):
Same with us tattoos. I'm tired of the funk up.
But I'd be like Pete, they want to give me
tattoos for free? Yo, the best tattoo guy. You don't
want to tattoo you. I'm like, yeah, thanks, Brody, I'm
good over it.

Speaker 2 (33:13):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (33:14):
So you know I grew out of that ship, you
know what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 (33:16):
So I just be like, watch your tattoos.

Speaker 6 (33:19):
You regret the tax?

Speaker 4 (33:20):
No, I don't mean I mean there, Yeah, I don't
regret them. But if I had another, if I had
a choice my way of thinking, I won't never get
no tattoos. I won't never map my fate. This is
the temple, this is our temple. So God, you know
what I'm saying. I'm Christian too, so we get it.

Speaker 2 (33:36):
You feel me. So my point is, you know, it's
just part of life. I guess we grow. You know
what I'm saying, Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

Speaker 4 (33:46):
You know, we just I came a long way, you know.
So you sitting here, it's like I cannot judge your sister,
even if you never want this. That you didn't do this,
That you hear the date, that means, that means I
give you your flowers to day. Because you hear the date,
you feel me and became a long way, you know
what I'm saying. So only we could relate to that,
You know what I'm saying. Feel me so for the you,

(34:08):
for the youth, for the youth out there, for the
viewers out there, for those that never been through this situation,
and all that.

Speaker 2 (34:13):
This is real talk right here, This is real shit.
This is real yard talk, you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 4 (34:18):
And and as you can see, she didn't come from
the streets, she didn't come from from the ghetto. She
didn't come she came from an up good bringing and
all that for certain stituations that she had in her life,
and that trauma coursed us.

Speaker 5 (34:30):
I think that's ninety of the people in constray to
have a traumatic childhood. Everybody you talk to in prison,
something happening there.

Speaker 4 (34:38):
Yeah, it's always something something is not right, from the
early stage.

Speaker 2 (34:43):
To get help exactly. No, forget about mental health. I
never thought about mental health. Crazy.

Speaker 4 (34:48):
I'm not sitting down with that cracker. I'm not saying
that with that, you crazy as fuck. I'm not saying
that with this. You got me fucked up? You think
I'm gonna sit that with you know what I'm saying?
That was all just you know, we all thought it
was just for the white people to get to sit
down and speak to people and to be able to
express how you feel and all that.

Speaker 2 (35:04):
Most of us was afraid to do that too.

Speaker 4 (35:07):
You know what I'm saying, a lot of us live
with shame and things that we couldn't whether we was
lack of education or have problems on education. I learned
all that shit in jail, you know what I'm saying.
I didn't know shit.

Speaker 6 (35:18):
I was just that's my problem.

Speaker 2 (35:19):
I was a wild boy.

Speaker 5 (35:20):
Why is they're not programming that youth was learning that,
not before they go to jail. Right, we gotta do
better as a community, and that's some of the work
that I do now, and the advocacy is pushing youth
programs and family and parent support. Like if the family
does better, if the parent is in powered, then you
the kids won't fail.

Speaker 1 (35:41):
Right.

Speaker 6 (35:42):
If we have more resources in the community, that you
wouldn't have ended up.

Speaker 5 (35:44):
In prison if you felt like you had somebody comfortable
to show you arount, Right, you don't want somebody to
just come and talk to you about something that you
can't see. Right, You're like showing me how to get somebody,
showing me how that's gonna.

Speaker 6 (35:55):
Work out for me.

Speaker 4 (35:56):
Times is different now Now it's still because kids can
actually go out and find people.

Speaker 2 (36:01):
Now it's a lot of programs. Yeah, he's sixteen.

Speaker 6 (36:06):
Yeah, I'm the first to be incarcerated in my family.
Not my son is incarcerated. It's not an accident.

Speaker 5 (36:11):
You know how much the government get, the jail gets
for my son being incarcerated and across roads over eight
hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year.

Speaker 6 (36:19):
It's a lot of money.

Speaker 2 (36:20):
No, it's business.

Speaker 5 (36:21):
So why can't that money go to create programming?

Speaker 6 (36:24):
Pay them?

Speaker 4 (36:26):
Just part of the system, man, change it's just part
of the system.

Speaker 2 (36:29):
All we could do being that as part of the system.

Speaker 4 (36:32):
And it's and it's like it's like almost breaking the
barrier of what they got going on and how they
look at us and everything right and what they got
planned for us, right, which is really jail or death,
because that's all you get is to change the narrative
by by us changing the narrative, by us that we
come from there, us that we are able to have

(36:53):
these stories and be able to share with these brothers
and sisters out there to show them that the jail
was not it. You know that you could any given contact,
hit me on my Instagram and tell me I'm having
an issue, I'm going through this, I'm confused about this,
that and the other. We will reach back out to
you and try to help you out and have you
make it better, better decisions, you know, stuff like that.

Speaker 2 (37:15):
So you won't go through what we went through. Community,
do you feel me?

Speaker 4 (37:18):
So now it's like more options out there. And then
especially when I want me, I don't know, I look
young and I've been around for a long time, right,
so you go so for sure one so I always
kept myself and that's young. So but you know they
didn't have that when I was upbringing, when I was

(37:39):
in the street, they didn't have what I could.

Speaker 2 (37:41):
Programs.

Speaker 4 (37:42):
They got so much, you know, they got guns down, life,
you know, life's up, all kind of programs. They got
family and friends, people that you could just reach out to.
They got so many programs out there, so many they.

Speaker 5 (37:52):
Need more money. If kids could go to a workshop
and make money. You a kid, you a youth. Why
do these crimes to make money to get Balinciaga. Why
can't we create a program where the kid can come
and go to this program and be paid. You know
how many opportunities I look for for my son before
he got locked up.

Speaker 6 (38:12):
It was slim.

Speaker 5 (38:13):
They got mentors, they got people that's gonna do a
lot of talking. But once the kids leave that mentor,
you still living in yours.

Speaker 4 (38:20):
You're still going back to reality because it's still tough
out there.

Speaker 6 (38:23):
Those teens need money, they want money. You remember being
there looking.

Speaker 2 (38:27):
For I'm looking for the mayor of Adams.

Speaker 4 (38:29):
I'm looking for before he leave office, Me and him,
Me and him being him with agree on some businesses
and some nice things. That's gonna help our youth, for
help our brothers and sisters when they come home from jail,
so they can have jobs, so they won't have to
go out there. And he's stuck and be out there
looking at scheming and robbing and wondering whether they're gonna

(38:50):
get the next chicken and all that policy you feel,
so me and him meaning the Adams, the mayor of
New York City. We agree on some things. Uh, and
I'm trying to find him because I can't find him.

Speaker 6 (39:03):
Maybe somebody contact mayor Adams.

Speaker 2 (39:06):
Yeah, please, were looking for him.

Speaker 4 (39:09):
But my point to you is, I know it's tough
on you if your son is in prison and.

Speaker 6 (39:18):
In the youth facility, and I.

Speaker 4 (39:20):
Mean he's still in jail. He still can't you know, Yeah,
but hopefully it's something something will happen so he's in
there for long term.

Speaker 5 (39:29):
But well he's still fighting this case, so okay, navigating that.
So I shared my story on social media. You gotta
be it's so surprising. You'll be so surprised. How they
come for me for sharing that? Or you exploiting your son?
How you going to the Beyonce concert and you're talking
about your son locked up?

Speaker 6 (39:46):
I'm like, am I not supposed to live my life?

Speaker 2 (39:48):
What you mean you're supposed to? I don't understand that.

Speaker 6 (39:51):
I promise you. How they black they tear black women.

Speaker 4 (39:56):
Down, just fucking ignorance. I believe you know, because I mean,
you're not supposed to erase your son. That's your son.
That's just gotta be killed me and we are not.

Speaker 2 (40:08):
Shamed of who is in jail.

Speaker 4 (40:10):
So what your son is in jail exactly, So he's
not the first son that's in jail.

Speaker 2 (40:15):
You know what I'm saying.

Speaker 4 (40:15):
Like my mother had all all of her sons in jail, Yes,
and my dad, anybody was in jail. Mother, and then
she went to jail. How about that? And she didn't
have nothing to do with it. She was in the
house watching TV. You know what I'm saying. So a
lot of times, a lot of shit happens, believe me, man,
So nobody can't all that you supposed to share. And

(40:36):
you gotta let you know it's good, so that that
they could see how tough it is and.

Speaker 2 (40:40):
How you be able.

Speaker 4 (40:41):
You are able to manage that, you know what I'm say,
Because it's not easy. You went to jail, You was
in jail. You know how the feeling Now you're childing.
I don't want none of my kids to be in jail.
You gotta be killing me. I should have been. I'd
be like, I'll be encouraging my kids, yo, get it
being CEO. I'll be telling my kids to be a
CEO that get that, te do something, got good, benefits, this,
that and the other. Just because you see all doesn't

(41:03):
make you a bad person just because your police doesn't
make it. It's the person that makes a bad person.

Speaker 2 (41:09):
Their choices.

Speaker 5 (41:11):
To protect It's a job they're not supposed to. It's
a job they think this was, Oh get the bad guys,
But their job is to protect the community.

Speaker 4 (41:20):
Yes, it's to protect the community. Now I understand that
they go about it the wrong way, and we hope
we go through. That's just part of life and people
raw decisions and right choices and who they are on everything.
Whether you down with whatever, you down with, you know
what I'm saying. So when you came.

Speaker 6 (41:38):
Home twenty sixteen and what.

Speaker 4 (41:41):
You did while you was incocerated to change the fighting
and nothing.

Speaker 6 (41:46):
In the end, I started to get it.

Speaker 5 (41:48):
Like the last year, I started croicheing, I started knitting,
I taught a class.

Speaker 6 (41:53):
I was into fitness.

Speaker 5 (41:54):
Okay, I really tried to stay to myself. I got
provoked a lot, but I learn how to kind of
manage my emotions.

Speaker 6 (42:02):
I was dealing.

Speaker 5 (42:03):
I don't want to spoil my book, so I have
a book about it. But I had went through a
lot with my relationship and just a lot of trauma,
like me leaving my son. It was something that just
kind of broke me, you know, And which is why
I was acting out and getting involved is trying to
keep myself busy shaking and moving. I got you, but honestly,

(42:25):
I just wasn't dealing with myself.

Speaker 2 (42:26):
You were trying to shape the reality.

Speaker 6 (42:28):
Yes, that's perfectly said.

Speaker 4 (42:30):
Yeah, you were trying to shake the reality, because that's
the way it is, you trying to shake the reality.
I was trying to shake the reality. Ken to jail
was like, oh, ship, I was waiting for me. I
was all comfortable, and ship you.

Speaker 5 (42:41):
Come through, you get it's like you get complacent, you
become a part of your environment.

Speaker 6 (42:46):
Facts, and you fit in and you.

Speaker 5 (42:48):
You know, if I was a man out there, well
the woman in my case, then that's what I'm.

Speaker 6 (42:53):
Gonna be in here.

Speaker 5 (42:54):
Absolutely, and so I had I felt like I had
a point to prove.

Speaker 6 (42:58):
But it was all foolishness at the end.

Speaker 4 (43:00):
Absolutely right, shouldn't amount to nothing.

Speaker 6 (43:02):
It didn't matter.

Speaker 2 (43:03):
I don't even because what he was doing is hurting yourself.

Speaker 6 (43:06):
Most of the people I was in prison where I
don't remember.

Speaker 4 (43:09):
Them me too. I had a guy here I interviewed.
He was like in the middle of the interview, he said,
they will Pete. Remember you saved my life one time.
This that happened. He did this to me and I
was like, right, remember that guy. I was like, yeah,
it's me Mike Man. I got stabbed there. It was
it almost lost my life and you did that and
you did this for.

Speaker 2 (43:29):
That, and I was like, oh shit. I was like damn.

Speaker 4 (43:34):
So you know it's like that, you know, we forget,
but you've been home since twenty sixteen and what you've
been doing.

Speaker 5 (43:41):
When I first came home, it was rough. I didn't
fully know what I was going to be walking into.
You think you got it right, you if nobody doesn't
tell you, you think, oh I did that that that you know.
But I didn't realize how much I suffered psychologically, how
much PTSD I had, Like I was aggressive and even
know people were shy away from me. And I didn't

(44:04):
understand why one of my.

Speaker 2 (44:05):
You don't even look like that type.

Speaker 6 (44:09):
Speaking know that's who I am?

Speaker 2 (44:13):
Hey, hi ship.

Speaker 5 (44:16):
It took work to be this girl. I took atigude classes,
all type of personal DIGSI books, I'm still working on me.

Speaker 6 (44:24):
I didn't want to be that girl. I would me.

Speaker 2 (44:29):
Thank you.

Speaker 6 (44:30):
It took a lot of work working.

Speaker 5 (44:31):
You can't think you've been incarcerated and leave prison and
you don't work on yourself. You need mental health treatment therapy, right,
I need to. I needed somebody to be a sounding board.
I needed to take communication classes and skills, and I
was on YouTube trying to figure out how to find
me right, being self aware and just learning more and
more about myself.

Speaker 6 (44:50):
I realized I didn't even want to be.

Speaker 5 (44:51):
By myself at one time, right, I didn't even want
to sit with myself too long. I wanted to call
somebody and go somewhere. Now I just love my own company. Right,
That's when you find peace, and it's a healing journey.
And the reason why I'm so proud of who I
am today is because now I'm able to reach back
and help people who are now transitioning out of prison. Right,

(45:15):
I'm able to like talk to them and say, I
know about the yard, I know about solitary, I know
about losing my kids. I lost my kids when I
came home. I fought for two years to get my
kids back. There's nothing that you could tell me that
you're going through that you can't overcome because I've.

Speaker 6 (45:29):
Been through it.

Speaker 2 (45:29):
Talk to them and they see me a.

Speaker 5 (45:31):
Little differently and they're like, Okay, this girl could be polished,
she could speak well, she could. I went to school.
I'm going back to school. I want to be an attorney.
And I say that, like, those are my goals. I
believe I can do that.

Speaker 2 (45:43):
What do you believe you can do? Fuck?

Speaker 6 (45:46):
Yeah, people don't think that.

Speaker 5 (45:47):
They people go back to prison because they don't believe
they can do it. They don't see an opportunity, they
don't see their future that way. So it's almost like
changing that perspective, like you are valuable. You just made
some bad choice and it's not all your fault while
you made those choices, it's the hand you was giving.
So when I let them know that, I'm able to
birth like transformation and that's why I'm not. I don't

(46:10):
regret anything that I've been through.

Speaker 4 (46:12):
No, it's all knowledge, and now you be able to
Now you're able to just share your knowledge. You know
what I'm saying. Hopefully we change two or three lives
out there.

Speaker 6 (46:22):
Even one GET platform is gonna change much more, you
know what I mean.

Speaker 2 (46:25):
Well, that's all we need.

Speaker 4 (46:27):
We need brothers and sisters out there to really really
look at our look at what we went through and
what our transition and say, wow, I don't want to
go through that bullshit, you know what I'm saying, and
find it's all it's other ways, and it's.

Speaker 2 (46:40):
A lot more help and this time and that run
than before than before.

Speaker 6 (46:44):
Yes, this is true.

Speaker 4 (46:45):
So that's the that's the that's the good. That's the
that's the benefits that they got now.

Speaker 2 (46:50):
You know what I mean.

Speaker 4 (46:51):
From when I was went up back in the days,
they ain't have ship but a bunch of banded buildings,
you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 (46:55):
So what else you're doing?

Speaker 5 (47:00):
So right now I have a whole bunch of projects.
I am in a preschool to prison film. It's on
Amazon Prime. So we travel around the country talking about
how the educational systems actually funnel prisons right teach you
how to basically operate in a prison. And it's a
film where I talk about my story and professionals. Is

(47:23):
produced by a woman, doctor k she was a mentor
to me, is doing extremely well. I also have my book,
A Black Girl in Orange, and the second one should
be dropping this year.

Speaker 6 (47:33):
A couple of.

Speaker 4 (47:34):
Months Okay, hopefully we get a copy. You can have
it up here.

Speaker 6 (47:38):
Okay, I'll send it. I should have brought one. I'm sorry.

Speaker 4 (47:40):
Yeah, so you can share it and you can let
people know where to get it from.

Speaker 5 (47:44):
I'm so sorry, but it's on Amazon. A Black girl
in Orange. I'm also a consultant. I go into organizations
and I train, I have workshops. I work for the
Fortune Society full time, where I oversee a workforce development
program for women. I teach women how to transition back
into the workplace from prison. What else I do a

(48:05):
whole bunch of stuff.

Speaker 2 (48:07):
You're doing a lot of work out there. You should
be really proud of yourself.

Speaker 6 (48:10):
I really appreciate that.

Speaker 4 (48:11):
I am feel me, be good, be proud of you.

Speaker 2 (48:15):
I can see this studio is beautiful. I thank you
so much.

Speaker 4 (48:19):
And they forgot to put my pictures off. I got
some big pictures of myself in the side, but I
don't know. For whatever reason, these guys are like, yeah,
thank you so much. We've been doing it. You know,
this platform was created almost five years ago. Doing COVID.
Everybody was caught up, and I always wanted to get back.
I almost want to have brothers and sisters to have

(48:41):
a platform because you know, as as ex convicts, you know,
and stuff like that, you don't have a voice. You
know what I'm saying, We don't. We don't have a voice.
We don't even speak to nobody. We can go years
and years and don't have.

Speaker 2 (48:52):
No voice and be fucked up and all that.

Speaker 5 (48:55):
That's another thing I'm really passionate about is public speaking.
Like the other day, I was just at the New
York State Judicial Institute talking to judges and prosecutors, and
people would think, like, why would you want to speak
to prosecutors, because.

Speaker 6 (49:08):
Honestly, they're human, They don't know the other side of it.

Speaker 2 (49:11):
They need to know.

Speaker 6 (49:12):
They have to know that this person that you see
in this file, that you see in front of you
is not who the person is.

Speaker 5 (49:18):
It's the circumstance that the person was in right and
many times it's just lack of opportunity. So I'm really
passionate about that. And as I said before, I'm going
to be an attorney.

Speaker 2 (49:30):
That's for sure. We aiming for that.

Speaker 4 (49:32):
You already know, so anywhere else they can find you
at any for any any information, anything that they might
need that you could anything you want to share.

Speaker 6 (49:40):
Yeah, sure.

Speaker 5 (49:41):
So my website is Tjvolcane dot com. You can also
find me at TJ Volcane on Instagram and TikTok on LinkedIn,
Tiffany Volcane and my last name is spelled v U
l c A.

Speaker 4 (49:54):
I am TJ TJ TJ and the building. So that's
right in the in the flesh if she go. So
TJ man, I'm so proud of you, man, keep doing
your thing. Anytime you want to come up here and
pull up share anything with me.

Speaker 6 (50:13):
Uh, we gotta get some more women on here, so.

Speaker 2 (50:15):
We're gonna get you. We're gonna need you then, so
you need to be needed to help us out.

Speaker 4 (50:20):
Get some some good stories out here, so we get
shade us with the sisters out there with that's going
through it, and you know.

Speaker 5 (50:26):
And absolutely and you know, women incarcerated women, I don't
know if you know, we don't get as much support
that the men get. Right, So that's why I'm pushing
this initiative, Like women are going through it and we
are the ones that keep the household together facts, So
it's like you could leave the women with the kids
and everything is still going and come back imagine if
the woman leaves, what happens to the kids.

Speaker 6 (50:47):
Many people don't you.

Speaker 2 (50:48):
Know why people don't realize that ship. That's the fuck.

Speaker 4 (50:50):
You know, that's a Whatever you want to do on
my platform, you more than welcome, like you want to,
you want to come up here, you want to have
you want to any time you want to come up
here and speak about anything that's gonna be to fit
you guys, meaning the females, especially incarcerated.

Speaker 6 (51:04):
I appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (51:05):
I'm with it because I understand and I understand that
it's real. That's if we do.

Speaker 4 (51:09):
It's true though what you're saying though, because I really
think about, like we all want to.

Speaker 2 (51:13):
About the guy went to jail. The nigga went to jail.
Oh yeah, this nigga with the jail.

Speaker 4 (51:17):
But yeah, that's cool and everybody, but about the female
when she goes to jail, she loses her kids, and
she loses her household and all the ship that she
has to do with the trauma that she goes through and.

Speaker 5 (51:26):
All that, it's traumatic for the entire family. Yes, this
old man, you know, it's hard for a man to
hold kids down.

Speaker 2 (51:33):
You know what I'm saying. I mean you know, Ship,
I believe me. I got it.

Speaker 4 (51:38):
It's hard you could be hot for a little while.
After that you're like, uh, mom, we just.

Speaker 2 (51:45):
I get it.

Speaker 4 (51:46):
Man, you know I get it. But you know you too, TZ,
You beautiful man.

Speaker 2 (51:51):
You don't even look like you. That one fucking day
in jail. I'm like, what the fuck this girl? Hell?
Focus and Ship. It took work.

Speaker 6 (51:59):
I was I was were in that prison. I'm telling you,
I was wearing it.

Speaker 2 (52:02):
He was wearing it.

Speaker 6 (52:03):
I didn't want to.

Speaker 2 (52:06):
Come on, man, be proud of you, hear me. Proud
of you. Keep doing your thing. TJ. We here for you.

Speaker 4 (52:11):
We love you, We appreciate you for free, you know
what I'm saying. And we were here to support you.
We give you your flowers. Make sure you don't forget
about us. We're definitely gonna definitely high seek. Make sure
that you get some some good females in here so
we could interview them and let they could let the
uh let them hear them. Thank you know what I'm saying.
This was about this platforms not only for the guys.

(52:34):
Thank you know what I'm saying. So with that being said,
you already knows your boy Pistol Pete. Thank you TJ
for coming on to Dog in the yard and we're
out of here. You already know your boy, Pistol, What up?

Speaker 2 (52:48):
What up?

Speaker 4 (52:49):
You already knows your boy Pistol Pete walking back to
the dog in the yard. First and foremost, I want
to thank my beautiful sister TJ for coming through. Appreciate
having you. It was different. I han't have a you know,
uh uh someone a female come through in a while.
So it's pleasure having you keep doing your thing. I'm
here to support you. The platform is here to support you,

(53:11):
and we're gonna definitely do great things later on in
the future.

Speaker 2 (53:13):
Man.

Speaker 4 (53:14):
And with that being says your boy Pens the pet
dog in the York, thank you.

Speaker 2 (53:36):
Be alive, shelf, shine alive itself. Shine