May 30, 2023 • 37 mins
Did you know that the prison system is a 14 billion dollar industry?! Meaning everytime your family member, cousin, or friend goes COMPANIES are getting paid! How you ask...recidivism is at the core of it! Friend of the show, Jason B. Allen guest corresponds. Today we welcome back Attorney David Windecher! He updates us on the progress of his organizations battle with Recidivism!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
All right, buddy, welcome toanother edition of the Leadership in All Out
podcast with your host Ricardi Rice.All Right, So, if you're looking
at this and you notice that myhomegirl's not in today, Simona's out today,
but y'all know I like to swapout and switch in, so I
got my guy in today with ustoday. Introduce yourself really quickly for the
people. Hey, everybody, Iam Jason b. Allen, also known
as Professor JBA, and I amsuper super excited to be back in the
(00:23):
house on today. And I wasthinking about smile. I was like,
I need somebody, and I hadsomebody. I was like, no,
at least if I get Jason,I know what I'm getting if I get
Jason. So I was like,let me see if he's free. And
he happened to be free. Sowe're very excited to happen with us.
Also in the studio, you guysknow this phase from season three of the
podcast. Mister David Windeker, howare we doing today, sir? I'm
doing good. Riccardo, good tosee you again, and nice to meet
(00:45):
you, Professor JBA. Nice tomeet you as well. Wait, now
I feel like I should have aspecial name too, Like okay, fine,
all right, So we're gonna lookagain at recidivism. We talked about
that in his season in season threeam so you know, we're doing our
updates on our special guests. Sogonna get right and to explain to the
people who don't know what is recidivism. So recidivism is defined as someone's propensity
(01:06):
to relapse into criminal behavior, meaningthis person has committed a crime and when
they committed that crime, they receivethe punishment, and then after having been
sentenced for that crime, they relapseand commit another crime. So a recidivism
rate is the rate of our peoplein our community committing crimes again after they
committed an original crime. So recidivismis affecting all of us because we have
(01:33):
a very high recidivism rate in Georgia, which for folks age seventeen to twenty
eight, our recidivism rate is sixtyfive percent. Seriously, within three years
meanings that someone get commits a crime, is sentenced on that crime, and
within three and a half years they'regoing to recidivate, meaning they'll commit another
crime. You know what I wantto start with, you tell everybody your
(01:55):
story because this is a very interestto look at you. Nobody would guess
that. So I want you totell your story for me. So the
short version of my story is Igrew up in poverty. I moved from
Buenoscireus, Argentina, to Los Angeles, excuse me, to California. I
wouldn't how to edit that out.So I moved from Buenoscius, Argentina to
Miami, Florida. I was bornin California, but we ended up moving
(02:19):
to BUENOSCIREUS when I was very young, where I experienced a lot of poverty.
So we got to Miami when Iwas ten years old, and at
eleven, I had my first arrest. It was a poverty driven charge.
I stole something from a retail store. I ended up getting commuted to the
juvenile court. And once I gotput into the juvenile court, I got
adjudicated to linquent and they put meon probation. They made me do theft
(02:43):
to term programs, and my wholelife change at that point. The school
to prison pipeline term that we hearabout, that's exactly what happened to me.
So I started at eleven. Atthirteen, I witnessed a murder in
the neighborhood I grew up in Jesus. Yeah, it was rough. At
fourteen, I was initiated into acriminal street gang. At sixteen, I
dropped out of high school. Bythe time I was nineteen, I had
been arrested at thirteen times. Ispent the majority of my adolescent life incarcerated,
(03:07):
and I was dragging my younger siblingsinto the same process because they were
observing me. I was the oldestof four and seeing them become who I
didn't want to be. But thecommunity that he was living in kind of
had a role in that. Idecided that I wanted to try to focus
on something different. If they followedme down the destructive path, would they
(03:28):
follow me down the constructive path?And that was my first catalyst to getting
out of the criminal justice system.Geez okay questions, because I figured you
have some at this point, Well, you know, I'm listening, and
my mind is going right back tothe eighteen years I spent in education,
and so many of my students whohave similar stories. Growing up in Atlanta,
(03:52):
even coming from a two parent household, there was always the factor of
street gangs recruiting young people being veryintentional about being at probably dating myself now,
but being at things like vacation Bibleschool that's in the community, the
community fairs, some churches are Butthat's a whole another conversation will get there
(04:17):
maybe one day. But I'm reallyintentional about the school to prison pipeline because
it does start with early education,and so the educator in me is very
curious about your journey, but alsohow you were able to get connected to
resources because one of the things thatin preparing for this conversation talking to parents
(04:39):
in Georgia but also talking to felloweducators now, we have a lack of
restorative programming specifically here in Georgia.So yes, we have a lot of
children going through the school to prisonpipeline, but I would say less than
twenty percent of them are actually gettingconnected to the sources that you were able
(05:00):
to experience so they can make adecision to either go in a different pathway.
So I wanted to hear a littlebit more about how you were able
to get connected to those resources sothat those hearing this conversation can maybe re
enact that in their communities or schools. So I'm glad to hear that coming
from an educator where the career inthat specific space. Because one of the
(05:24):
things that I always talk about isif we want long substantive criminal justice reform
to take place, we need educationalreform. And what I mean by that
is our lower socioeconomic compulsory education systemis not providing young folks with the resources
they need to self actualize and bean adult, tax pain contributing member of
(05:46):
society. When I was young inthe ninth grade in John F. Kennedy
Middle School in Dade County, Florida, they were teaching me things that I
had already learned in Argentina. Mathematicwise, they were way behind, and
then they would tell me I'm astudent at risk, They're going to put
me in this program. But thereality was it was the curriculum that was
failing. I was already capable ofprocessing those things without having to have a
(06:10):
year long process for it, soI was not motivated to continue. The
problem becomes that we're teaching young folksthings that don't help them get a job,
open up a bank account, learnhow to get housing. And so
that's what the junior and senior levelsshould look like. Provide them with social,
civic, financial literacy, the typeof programming that my nonprofit implements into
(06:32):
the criminal justice system. It's unfortunatethat we have to do it through the
criminal justice system because now they havethis case and that's how we end up
interacting with them. We are anintervention program. But the reality is is
if we went back and tried toremedy some of the issues in the curriculums
in the high schools, we wouldactually prevent people from becoming first time non
violent offenders because they would know,as soon as I graduate, I can
(06:54):
prepare a resume, I know howto interview for a job, I know
exactly what blodget I need to createin order to sustain my life. And
we're not teaching those things. Imean, we teach kids, you know,
how to bake a muffin, However, we don't teach them how to
prepare the resume that will get themthe job, that will get them the
ingredients to make that muffin. Sowe're kind of a little bit backwards in
the compulsory education system. But thereis hope because there's so much overlap with
(07:16):
what we're doing. This restorative workthat you're talking about. It's just a
matter of going back into those areasand implementing it there. So people just
don't ever interact with the criminal justicesystem. And to answer your question about
how I came into those resources,I never came into those resources, right,
So what ended up happening with mewas I had to kind of go
through the difficult process of self actualizingwithout rehabilitative measures in place. And that's
(07:40):
why me and my partner. Icalled my partner. He's a director of
programming for the organization zeus Luby.We created this program because we knew what
folks going through the criminal justice systemneed to stay out permanently, and we
thought that if we create this resourcefor them in a way that's scalable,
we can impact lives, we canreduce crime duse for cidivism, and we
(08:01):
can also be more fiscally responsible withtaxpayer of moneies. I love that.
Now, you know, I haveanother question. I was gonna let you
ask. I saw your wheels going, okay, so let's go to literacy.
I'm the national organizing director for theNational Parents Union, So again you
know, talking to parents around thesethings and what is happening, but what
(08:22):
also can be done? I haveliteracy on my list because the legal aid
component of this is so heavy becauseyou also brought up poverty, which is
another area I'll get into later,but the support around health literacy, having
young people being able to advocate forwhat they need for mental support, dealing
(08:43):
with trauma, dealing with a lotof the violence is happening at home and
also in the community. Wanting tohear a little bit more about how you
guys are bridging the gap with supportingpeople in Georgia who need that support.
That's a great question, Professor Jba. So the truth of that is that
(09:03):
you have to have targeted treatment forthose folks right who are going who are
in a household that they may havesome trauma that they don't have the resources
to address and heal from. Right. So, to give you an idea,
one of the things that we doat the beginning of our program is
we implement emotional intelligence training, andit's a two month module that requires them
to do some learning of a subjectmatter that involves personal awareness and controlling emotions.
(09:30):
So we help them understand when they'rein a toxic environment and they're hijacked,
how that impacts their ability to makesounded decisions for themselves, so they
know how to control their emotions andreset themselves when they're hijacked. Then they're
personally aware and that helps them bemore composed and make great decisions. Now
we don't teach these things anywhere inschool. We should be teaching these things
as well as it relates to healthand wellness. We have a separate module
(09:56):
where we teach them the importance ofproper sleep, proper nutritional intake, physical
activity and how that impacts your overallhealth, and how your health being optimal
creates more opportunities for you because you'remore personally aware, you're more in tune
with your system, you have betternetworking development capacities. So all of those
things kind of work in unison together. You teach them emotional intelligence training,
(10:20):
You provide them with understanding of howhealth and wellness is an important aspect of
life in general. And in oneof the other things that I know you
didn't bring up, but it kindof factors into this process is substance use
disorder. Right, people struggling throughpoverty tend to not have the means to
pay for certain things, but they'llhave access to drugs because those communities just
(10:41):
provide it very easy, and sounderstanding how a substance use disorder can create
a mental health disorder is very importantfor folks, and that's why we advocate
for sobriety to help them become thebest version of themselves. Okay, less
segue because we talk about organization thatyou haven't explained. Yes, explain your
organization. Rid THO stand for andall that stuff. Well, Red it
(11:01):
used to be my nickname when Iwas a gangster for obvious reasons, and
it just happened to be perfect acronymfor Rehabilitation Enables Dreams. Now, Rehabilitation
Enables Dreams is a nonprofit five orone C three restorative justice charitable organization,
and so we were founded on thebasis that punitive measures that have been implemented
(11:24):
through the traditional aspects of the criminaljustice system have only perpetuated high recidivism rates
and a misuse of taxpayer moneies.So implementing rehabilitative, educational, workforce,
employment opportunity measures into this process fornon violent defend there's people struggling through drug
offenses, deaf defenses, things ofthat sort. When you provide them with
(11:45):
rehabilitative measures, these people self actualizeand what they do is they go into
the community and they get a joband they become a taxpayer rather than a
tax burden. And so we knowthat age seventeen to twenty eight has the
highest recivism rate in Georgia, sowe started targeting folk seventeen to twenty eight.
We help them get their GDS,we help them get a job,
we help them do the emotional intelligencetraining, we provide them with peer forensic
(12:07):
mentoring, and if they complete therequirements of our twelve month program, we
get their cases dismissed, the recordrestricted, and their file sealed. And
that's extremely important and impactful for everybodyin the community because it advances public safety.
Right historically, the system has punishedsomeone put a criminal record on them,
and that person now is restricted fromgetting employment, safe and adequate housing,
occupational licensing. You can't become anentrepreneur. You really couldn't do anything.
(12:31):
And in Georgia we have a seriousissue because in the last census,
we had ten point eight million peoplein our population with four point five million
people having a criminal conviction on therecord. So we have more than a
third of our population struggling with accessto opportunity, and so how do we
fix that. We fix that bycreating more intelligent measures that include rehabilitative tools
in a criminal justice system that reintegratespeople effectively, efficiently, and permanently.
(12:56):
This is good, Okay, Ihave I know because I want to see
where you want to go with thisconversation. And I love that this house
specifically around Georgia. Because data Georgiaranks highly in regards to the human sex
trafficking pipeline and also the school toprison pipeline. We're actually in the top
five for both, which means thatwe have a great need for more organizations
(13:20):
like red. But we also aremissing the gap here because the children are
being grown between the ages of tenthrough sixteen, which happens when they're coming
through what public education. Yes,now I'm saying this because forty eight percent
of offenders are a literate we alsohave a huge literacy issue here in the
state of Georgia. But when youlook at dollars and cents, this is
(13:43):
what I teach my students when theydo research projects around this. This is
a billion dollar industry. Matter offact, it is a fourteen point eight
billion dollar industry in our state inregards to the school to prison pipeline.
So my question to both of youguys, and even for people who are
listening to the conversation, is whois making this money and how are our
(14:07):
tax dollars actually being impacted by this. You're going to jump in on that.
So Georgia has the highest rated correctionalcontrol in the entire country. That's
defined by the name of the numberof people in jail, prison, on
probation, on parole, or ina detention center for youth. That's where
the money is going. So that'swhere the funds are being directed to.
(14:31):
And so it's a business, andwe have to kind of deal with the
fact that this has become a majorindustry in our country. We have the
largest population of incarcerated people in theentire world. This is the land of
the free right, but the largestpopulation of incarcerated peoples is here in America.
It has become a tremendous business.And if you look at companies like
(14:52):
error Mark, if you look likecompanies like Cisco, they're providing food,
they're providing phones, they're providing soof Haynes clothes. So all these companies
providing resources to the criminal justice systementities. There's an interest in them continuing
to keep people housed in these inthese entities, right in these in these
(15:13):
buildings, in jails, in detentioncenters, in prisons, because there's money
to be made. And so yousee that some of our laws actually are
conducive to keeping people on their longterm. Our website is stop Recidivism dot
org. Stop Recidivism is important becausewe have a recidivious statue here in Georgia.
And the recidivious statue means that ifyou have four misdemeanor convictions, which
(15:35):
is not very hard to do.You know, I have thirteen arrests.
I got four of those easily.After four misdemeanor convictions, you could be
sentenced under felony sentencing, you canhave an enhancement in your sentencing. And
so all of a sudden, youjust got caught with a little bag of
weed. But it's your fourth time, and so you're going up the row
for a little bit, and that'sa ton of you know, operational flows
are going to be there, there'sgonna be revenue made there, and those
(15:56):
whoever's housing this person, whoever's providingthe supervision that they get out. And
that's the unfortunate side of this thing, is that there's a lot of money
involved, and so there's people thatare benefiting from the old order. We
talk about criminal justice reform, butthere's some people that don't want to see
any changes. People tell us thesystem is broken, and I would question
that is the system broken or isit producing the results of the people who
are benefiting from those results want tokeep it that way. So we have
(16:21):
an issue there, right, howdo we influence those people to do the
right thing? And the way thatwe do is by advocacy, by creating
awareness that look, if you,you and I are taxpayers and we're paying
into a system that is telling methat sixty five percent of the people that
we are supervising, incarcerating, watchingover, they're coming back for forty years
(16:41):
at sixty we're doing something wrong.Why aren't we motivated to stop that process?
Our program has a less than tenpercent recidivism rate, because that's we
treat people like humans, like theymatter, And if you don't have access
to opportunity, you're going to figureit out, right, survival of the
fittest, you gonna have to dowhat you have to do. And these
environments don't provide people with the accessto the opportunity that they need. And
(17:03):
then you have on the flip sidethat the criminal justice system is is a
cash cow machine. And so that'sanother battle that we have to fight.
Creating advocacy around what has been happeningover the last forty years has only created
higher crime, has diminished public safety, because at the end of the day,
if you think about this, it'spublic safety. You see, people
(17:25):
are like, oh, Atlanta isso saturated with crime right now, there's
so much crime. Well, whydo you think that's happening. That's the
aggregate effect of something not working forso long and reaching a tipping point.
And so now people with the criminalrecords that are having a hard time surviving
and providing for their family, guesswhat they're doing. They're doing whatever it
takes to provide. And I getthat this is good. I'm letting you
(17:52):
be the question person today because Ifigured this is well, let's go here.
Juvenile justice is an area that issuffering in Georgia, not getting a
lot of resources there to really combatthe gang violence that is growing throughout our
state. And I really want tohighlight our state because the media is a
(18:14):
wonder we would only believe that crimeand violence is out of control in the
city of Atlanta, and it's actuallystatewide. There's a huge issue with violence
that's happening in our communities across thestate. A part of me believes that
this is strategic because when you lookat what these families are going through and
(18:34):
how it's impacting them. People whoare having to provide health services are seeing
an increase. That's revenue the policereports that are coming in from people having
to call the police and send thepolice out. And we don't have enough
police, So let's get them newpolice cars and let's build cops city.
(18:55):
I'm coming down that owl in thepicture that I'm painting. We're putting the
resources in policing people and not thejustice aspect of restoration. So I'm curious
about conversations that you may have withlaw enforcement those who are actually on the
other end of this, who maybe seeing some things that we can do
(19:17):
on a grassroots level to help moreparents in communities that are struggling with crime,
violence, and poverty. So itgoes back to educational reform, right,
because if you look at the communitiesthat are struggling with gang issues.
It's mostly the lower socioeconomic environment.Right. You can go to Bankhead and
(19:37):
you're going to find gang issues,but you're going to go to Buckhead and
you're not going to find them.Right. It's a completely different world.
It's a completely different socioeconomic cast level. And so the gangs are in an
environment where the young folks need toprovide for themselves for their families, and
so they target young folks and they'lllie to them and they'll say, hey,
if you commit this offense or ifyou do this thing for us,
(20:00):
will take care of you this way, and if you get caught, it's
not that big of a deal becauseyou're a kid. But that's not the
reality of it. But that's whatgangs do. Gangs target young folks,
and that's why you're seeing young folkscommit so many crimes because there's some big
homie if you will hire up thefood chain that's saying hey, here's some
money, you go ahead and dothis. And we're not combating those issues
because in school, we're not providingthose kids with any hope that there's a
(20:22):
better future for them other than whatthe gangs can provide. Basically, the
government is doing a disservice to themby not giving them access to opportunity where
gangs are. And so if youknow, when you're broke, you're not
worried about where the money's coming from. You just need it right. And
so if the gang is providing youwith access to economic opportunity, but the
school system is not doing that foryou, what are you going to do?
(20:45):
What are you gonna do? Veryinteresting perspective, So I want to
kind of go here with this.Sixty percent of our schools in Georgia are
identified as Title one or at risk. Some of them are classified as failing
schools. Now, to your pointof gangs are in lower income areas,
(21:10):
a lot of people have that notion. I think that this influences data and
stigma that targets our students. Andthis is why I say this, because
most of the schools in Georgia,sixty percent of them are Title one.
Title one. For those who don'tunderstand or don't know what that may mean,
it equates to lower income. Lowerincome equates to poverty. So that
(21:33):
means sixty percent of our students inGeorgia who are in schools that are Title
one or at risk are already beinglooked at as violent offenders. It's also
reinforcing the notion that our children inpoverty are going to commit crimes. Now,
I also want to give this tothe people that lower income also means
(21:56):
working poor. It also equates toghettos and who but also sloans and trailer
parks. And so when a lotof people think of games, they automatically
think of black and brown communities,and this crosses over into different sectors.
And so I want to ask aquestion around how are we providing restorative support
(22:17):
to different families in areas where povertyshows up differently, Because for me,
poverty may look like boys in thehood, but for others it may look
different because poverty does look different acrossour states. So I'm very curious around
how we can make sure the familiesand communities that are experiencing these things have
(22:38):
adequate resources for what actually would benefitthem. Yeah, that's a great thought
and a great question. And whatI would say to add to that is
if sixty percent of our community isstruggling through being indigent, being poor,
then you factor in the level ofpeople, the number, the volume of
people that have a criminal conviction inGeorgia, which is a third of our
(22:59):
population. So it creates a perfectstorm for what you're seeing, the historic
uptick of our criminal genetic behavior.Right. So you're seeing this uptick in
criminal in crimes, and it's acombination of things. A lack of access
to opportunity. If we have accessto gainful employment, and I'm not talking
at seven dollars an hour job that'snot going to get you anywhere. I'm
talking about gainful employment, something thatcan pay for your car, pay for
(23:23):
your insurance, pay for your house, pay for your food. And these
environments tend to lack those resources,and that's because folks outside of those environments
are not going into those environments toallow the opportunities to manifest there. And
so if private sector employers or evenpublic sector employers are not giving W two
(23:47):
wages, livable wages to folks inthose communities, those communities will continue to
commit crimes, and the people livingin those communities will become influenced by gangs
to do criminal activity to generate income. So it's a tough solution. The
problem is that they're you're asking aboutwhat kind of restorative work we need to
(24:08):
do. Well, the number onething that is causing crime or recidivism is
access to employment. And so ifwe can create incentives for employers to hire
people with a background, or incentivesfor them to consider raising their wages so
people are not doing other things whilethey're focused on their job, that's what's
(24:29):
going to stop it jobs. Everytime we orient a cohort, I always
ask, because no one in thereis evil, no one in there is
broken beyond repair. You know,there's always redemption and hope for these folks.
Right, they've committed a crime mostlybased on circumstance, mostly circumstance being
poverty, right, And I alwaysask, hey, if at the end
(24:52):
of our program we can get youa sixty five thousand dollars a year job,
would you ever go back to committingcrime? And this like an uproar
of like when can we start that? Because no one wants to sell small
amounts of drugs, No one wantsto break into houses, no one wants
to steal from people. People arenot born broken, they're born into bad
situations, so they have to makebad decisions. And if you give someone
a job, you train them,you provide them with emotional intelligence training,
(25:15):
You help them understand how to workin a diverse environment, and you give
them this opportunity with a livable wage, you're going to reduce crime. But
the problem is that private sector employersare not incentivized to hire people with a
background. That's very true. Iwant to say this. I know I'm
looking at time as well. AtlantaPublic Schools just celebrated one hundred and fifty
(25:36):
years. When you think about that, it's like, wow, one hundred
and fifty years of this school system. Now Atlanta has two dynamics that are
happening. We have Cops City,which will be the largest training facility for
police officers. But also it's sayingEMT firefighters, et cetera, so forth.
(25:57):
However, in the community meetings,from a lot of the paperwork the
community is not seen where other departmentsthat would influence the training of police are
being incorporated, which is a veryalarming thing, especially when you think about
Atlanta. It's the most inequitable cityin this country, not just in Georgia,
(26:18):
but in this country economically for blackand brown people to live. So
it's a very scary thing to realizethat we have leadership pushing for Cops City.
We have leadership that is working againstthings that organizations like red and many
others in Georgia are doing to reallygive people the resources that they need.
(26:38):
Because the school to prison pipeline industryis a billion dollar industry. I'm sharing
this because the access to employment isinfluenced by our leadership. What can we
do to make sure that we're oneelecting people like Stacy Abrams who ran for
governor, who talked a lot aboutthis. People don't remember, and maybe
(27:00):
because recidivism is a big word formany, they don't remember these conversations from
her on the road, But shewas an advocate for this, and many
Georgians voted against that. And somy question is what can we do now
to really make sure that residents thatleadership are going to be willing to invest
(27:22):
in these corporations that are coming toour state that are making lots of good
money but aren't investing in the accessto employment for all, regardless of what
their background may be, and alsomaking sure that when they do employ these
persons, they have an equitable wage. Any thoughts around that, Okay,
before you asker that, I'm gonnaadd to that, because we're in a
(27:45):
last sector. Any legislation that's currentlyon the table that they can support as
well that you guys have are workingon. So just kyd that together.
Yeah, so I appreciate that,A Ricardo. So to answer your question
out the cops City thing and allof that, the problem becomes is what
you said, how do we electthe right people? Now? We do
(28:07):
have some good elected officials in office. Now, I am. I was
a huge fan of Stacey Abrams simplyand I'm politically agnostic. I'll say that
simply because of the work that Ido is kind of bipartisan, helps everybody.
But she did want to advance publicsafety, and so she's pegged as
this like defund the police person whereshe actually wanted to increase police salaries,
which I think is a factor inthis process when we talk about cop city.
(28:32):
I can say this with a withconfidence that I have seen uglier things
on this side of the law.Once I got a law license and I
started going behind the scenes and seeingthings. I've seen more nefarious issues,
more perversion, and more corruption onthis side of it then I saw on
the streets. And that's what wehave to actually get to and figure out,
(28:53):
right, because we have this culturethis culture that promotes safe for law
enforcement, and that's important, butat what cost is it? Are we
insulating them from being accountable when theycommit some kind of act that is extremely
offensive because you've taken this oath thatyou're going to protect and serve, but
(29:14):
then you kind of like self dealthat's a problem, and we don't even
think about that, we don't evenaddress it. I've had I mean,
I can tell you I've had peoplein law enforcement approached me about, hey,
you're that TV lawyer. If theycan afford you, what else can
they afford it? Basically insinuating canyou bring me a bag, you know,
so we can make this work.And I'm like, look, man,
I got thirteen arrests. I'm noteven trying to go back down that
(29:36):
road and lose my law license.But I've seen these things, right,
and so it becomes a problem.And so the legislation should be that people
in office should be held accountable whenthey violate that oath. And the enhancement
should be just like a gang enhancement. Right, if you commit a crime
and you're a gang member and soyou're creating terrorism in our community, you
deserve to be enhanced in your sense, right, and so why what is
(30:00):
it different if a police officer hasbeen operating in a covert fashion, self
dealing, absorbing opportunity and depriving inthe community, Well it should be enhancement
as well. But we don't havethat kind of legislation. Now we do
have a gang problem in the stateof Georgia, so it becomes difficult.
Right now, We're not Baltimore,we're not Chicago, we're not la But
(30:22):
the reality is is that we havelimited resources and we need to figure out
where we should channel these resources,where how do we allocate them? And
right now, because we see thisupticking crime, the goal is to reduce
crime at whatever means necessary, whichI support as well. You know,
you have to be able to figureout what you can do and or what
(30:42):
you should do right and what weshould do is not start cops city because
one of the things that we needto do is train officers better. And
again I'm not a defund the policeperson. I believe that we need to
be more intelligent with the police culture. But the reality is we're not hand
them enough money for them to betrustworthy and loyal. If you're making forty
(31:03):
grand a year, and you pullover a young kid with one hundred thousand
dollars in the car, what you'regonna do. You're gonna report that hundred
thousand dollars. You're gonna have anice Christmas bonus. Let's just be real.
Yes, no, this is I'mloving the points that you are making
because when I have conversations with myyoung people, my students, these are
things that they're realistically saying are happeningin their community, and so we also
(31:27):
have to look at how this isimpacting those who are seeing it the most,
and a lot of times we don'thear their stories. So I'm really
appreciative of you sharing the aspect thatjust because you're a police officer, just
because you're the mayor, just becauseyou're the governor, just because you're the
secretary of state or whatever position thatyou may hold, doesn't automatically mean that
(31:51):
you are just exempt from not doingthe right or wrong thing. Yes,
And you know, it's interesting tosay that because I think the onus is
on law enforcement to bridge the gapbetween community and them. They're the ones
that need to start reaching out andsaying we are trustworthy, because there's more
good officers than there are bad officers. The problem is that social media and
media overall will paint the bad officersand say they're all like this. And
(32:14):
I know so many good officers.I know so many investigative agents, prosecuting
officials that are well to do,goodhearted people that want to advance public safety.
But the reality is we have thesebad apples that create a mess.
And what we most people don't evenrealize is that COP stands for community oriented
policing. COP is community oriented policing, and we've gotten really far away from
(32:37):
that. It used to be anoble profession and when now they're viewed as
untrustworthy, and so the onus ison them to reach out to the community
and say, hey, guys,look, you can approach us and you
don't have to be fearful of it. But right now, if I'm a
black or brown person, would Inot? Of course I'm fearful of approaching
them. I see all the stuffthat I see on TV. And so
that's why I say the onus ison law enforcement. Creat events, meet
(33:00):
an officer, get to know yourlocal officer. Instead of shying away from
talking to a police officer. Youngkids should be able to say Hey,
officers selling, So how's your daygoing. Those interactions don't happen. We
need to get back to that,and that's why bridging the gap is so
important. One of the things thatwe do at READ is we have a
module what we work to get lawenforcement and our program students together in a
(33:22):
room to have open, honest dialogue. The police officer is someone that needs
to go safely back home to theirfamily, and not every kid who's charged
with a crime is a thug thatthreatens police officers safety. And we've gotten
to the point where we created thesenarratives rather than just talking to one on
each other. And that's what ourprogram does. It's focusing on bridging the
gap between law enforcement community. That'sgood. Okay, final thoughts, anything
(33:44):
you want to leave with the peopleand how did you get in touch with
you? Thank you Ricardo? Firstof all, thank you for having me
back. It's always fun chatting withyou guys. So the way that you
can get in contact with us isyou go to our website www. Dot
Stop Recidivism dot org, dot orgdot com and you can learn all about
our program, our results, whatit costs, how it can get into
(34:06):
your community, and what I meanby that is if it's not in the
courthouse where you live, thereby reachout to us. We'll do whatever we
can to install our program there.And final thoughts is this, if everybody
does a little bit, no onehas to do a whole lot. We
started this conversation before we were recordingabout this takes a village, and so
I want people to know that advocacyincludes not just us doing it, people
(34:30):
finding out about intelligent programs that areintelligently applied to help us reduce crime,
reduce for cidivism, and be moreintelligent with our fiscal funds from taxpayers.
That's the important part. So Iwould ask people to just go on our
website, learn about what we do, and if your local community, your
local courthouse doesn't have our program,reach out to them and ask or reach
(34:52):
out to us and say, hey, can we make a connection to get
our program installed here because we wantto see crime reduced. Final thoughts Jason
Allen again from the National Parents Union. Check us out at National Parents Union
dot org. Parents and Georgie aredefinitely concerned about this and are wanting to
see more effective programming that really canhelp us decrease the numbers of young people
(35:16):
that are going into the system overthe next ten years. And so what
I'm encouraging people to do is toconnect with us. We're looking and seeking
more organizations like RID that we canmake sure we connect community leaders, parent
advocates and parent leaders too, sothat we can start to see more change.
So again, let's do this collectively. I love the notion of the
(35:38):
village because it does take a villageto raise a child. And y'all helped
us today right like this, righthere, this recording, somebody hopefully will
watch it. Even if one personis impacted by it and inspired to do
something about it, that's what matters, because together it will grow in numbers
like this. So and thank you. You had great questions. I thoroughly
enjoyed it. Yeah, I wasprepared, now I did. It's a
(36:00):
big conversation. And so I'm lookingforward to our organizations coming together and we're
building an alliance around social emotional learning. So there are other organizations that are
focusing on this aspect with the Schoolto Prison Pipeline pushing forward storative programming and
policies. And so I think thatwhen you have more voices at the table,
(36:22):
who are also doing this in differentpathways and avenues. We can see
more positive results. Amen to that. And if I can, Ricardo,
say glory to the most high,you know, because without him, none
of this is possible. So I'mgrateful for this platform and the purpose that
he has given me, and theplatform that you have given me as well.
Thank you well. In my closingremarks, thank you to you too,
(36:45):
astute gentleman for joining us again,Attorney David Windeker, Thank you sir
for coming, Friends of the show, thank you for coming. Baging.
Of course, I don't have thesame thing this guy. He knows he's
great. So we will see youguys, same time, same place on
a leadership in a podcast with yourhost Racal de Rice
All right, buddy, welcome toanother edition of the Leadership in All Out
podcast with your host Ricardi Rice.All Right, So, if you're looking
at this and you notice that myhomegirl's not in today, Simona's out today,
but y'all know I like to swapout and switch in, so I
got my guy in today with ustoday. Introduce yourself really quickly for the
people. Hey, everybody, Iam Jason b. Allen, also known
as Professor JBA, and I amsuper super excited to be back in the
(00:23):
house on today. And I wasthinking about smile. I was like,
I need somebody, and I hadsomebody. I was like, no,
at least if I get Jason,I know what I'm getting if I get
Jason. So I was like,let me see if he's free. And
he happened to be free. Sowe're very excited to happen with us.
Also in the studio, you guysknow this phase from season three of the
podcast. Mister David Windeker, howare we doing today, sir? I'm
doing good. Riccardo, good tosee you again, and nice to meet
(00:45):
you, Professor JBA. Nice tomeet you as well. Wait, now
I feel like I should have aspecial name too, Like okay, fine,
all right, So we're gonna lookagain at recidivism. We talked about
that in his season in season threeam so you know, we're doing our
updates on our special guests. Sogonna get right and to explain to the
people who don't know what is recidivism. So recidivism is defined as someone's propensity
(01:06):
to relapse into criminal behavior, meaningthis person has committed a crime and when
they committed that crime, they receivethe punishment, and then after having been
sentenced for that crime, they relapseand commit another crime. So a recidivism
rate is the rate of our peoplein our community committing crimes again after they
committed an original crime. So recidivismis affecting all of us because we have
(01:33):
a very high recidivism rate in Georgia, which for folks age seventeen to twenty
eight, our recidivism rate is sixtyfive percent. Seriously, within three years
meanings that someone get commits a crime, is sentenced on that crime, and
within three and a half years they'regoing to recidivate, meaning they'll commit another
crime. You know what I wantto start with, you tell everybody your
(01:55):
story because this is a very interestto look at you. Nobody would guess
that. So I want you totell your story for me. So the
short version of my story is Igrew up in poverty. I moved from
Buenoscireus, Argentina, to Los Angeles, excuse me, to California. I
wouldn't how to edit that out.So I moved from Buenoscius, Argentina to
Miami, Florida. I was bornin California, but we ended up moving
(02:19):
to BUENOSCIREUS when I was very young, where I experienced a lot of poverty.
So we got to Miami when Iwas ten years old, and at
eleven, I had my first arrest. It was a poverty driven charge.
I stole something from a retail store. I ended up getting commuted to the
juvenile court. And once I gotput into the juvenile court, I got
adjudicated to linquent and they put meon probation. They made me do theft
(02:43):
to term programs, and my wholelife change at that point. The school
to prison pipeline term that we hearabout, that's exactly what happened to me.
So I started at eleven. Atthirteen, I witnessed a murder in
the neighborhood I grew up in Jesus. Yeah, it was rough. At
fourteen, I was initiated into acriminal street gang. At sixteen, I
dropped out of high school. Bythe time I was nineteen, I had
been arrested at thirteen times. Ispent the majority of my adolescent life incarcerated,
(03:07):
and I was dragging my younger siblingsinto the same process because they were
observing me. I was the oldestof four and seeing them become who I
didn't want to be. But thecommunity that he was living in kind of
had a role in that. Idecided that I wanted to try to focus
on something different. If they followedme down the destructive path, would they
(03:28):
follow me down the constructive path?And that was my first catalyst to getting
out of the criminal justice system.Geez okay questions, because I figured you
have some at this point, Well, you know, I'm listening, and
my mind is going right back tothe eighteen years I spent in education,
and so many of my students whohave similar stories. Growing up in Atlanta,
(03:52):
even coming from a two parent household, there was always the factor of
street gangs recruiting young people being veryintentional about being at probably dating myself now,
but being at things like vacation Bibleschool that's in the community, the
community fairs, some churches are Butthat's a whole another conversation will get there
(04:17):
maybe one day. But I'm reallyintentional about the school to prison pipeline because
it does start with early education,and so the educator in me is very
curious about your journey, but alsohow you were able to get connected to
resources because one of the things thatin preparing for this conversation talking to parents
(04:39):
in Georgia but also talking to felloweducators now, we have a lack of
restorative programming specifically here in Georgia.So yes, we have a lot of
children going through the school to prisonpipeline, but I would say less than
twenty percent of them are actually gettingconnected to the sources that you were able
(05:00):
to experience so they can make adecision to either go in a different pathway.
So I wanted to hear a littlebit more about how you were able
to get connected to those resources sothat those hearing this conversation can maybe re
enact that in their communities or schools. So I'm glad to hear that coming
from an educator where the career inthat specific space. Because one of the
(05:24):
things that I always talk about isif we want long substantive criminal justice reform
to take place, we need educationalreform. And what I mean by that
is our lower socioeconomic compulsory education systemis not providing young folks with the resources
they need to self actualize and bean adult, tax pain contributing member of
(05:46):
society. When I was young inthe ninth grade in John F. Kennedy
Middle School in Dade County, Florida, they were teaching me things that I
had already learned in Argentina. Mathematicwise, they were way behind, and
then they would tell me I'm astudent at risk, They're going to put
me in this program. But thereality was it was the curriculum that was
failing. I was already capable ofprocessing those things without having to have a
(06:10):
year long process for it, soI was not motivated to continue. The
problem becomes that we're teaching young folksthings that don't help them get a job,
open up a bank account, learnhow to get housing. And so
that's what the junior and senior levelsshould look like. Provide them with social,
civic, financial literacy, the typeof programming that my nonprofit implements into
(06:32):
the criminal justice system. It's unfortunatethat we have to do it through the
criminal justice system because now they havethis case and that's how we end up
interacting with them. We are anintervention program. But the reality is is
if we went back and tried toremedy some of the issues in the curriculums
in the high schools, we wouldactually prevent people from becoming first time non
violent offenders because they would know,as soon as I graduate, I can
(06:54):
prepare a resume, I know howto interview for a job, I know
exactly what blodget I need to createin order to sustain my life. And
we're not teaching those things. Imean, we teach kids, you know,
how to bake a muffin, However, we don't teach them how to
prepare the resume that will get themthe job, that will get them the
ingredients to make that muffin. Sowe're kind of a little bit backwards in
the compulsory education system. But thereis hope because there's so much overlap with
(07:16):
what we're doing. This restorative workthat you're talking about. It's just a
matter of going back into those areasand implementing it there. So people just
don't ever interact with the criminal justicesystem. And to answer your question about
how I came into those resources,I never came into those resources, right,
So what ended up happening with mewas I had to kind of go
through the difficult process of self actualizingwithout rehabilitative measures in place. And that's
(07:40):
why me and my partner. Icalled my partner. He's a director of
programming for the organization zeus Luby.We created this program because we knew what
folks going through the criminal justice systemneed to stay out permanently, and we
thought that if we create this resourcefor them in a way that's scalable,
we can impact lives, we canreduce crime duse for cidivism, and we
(08:01):
can also be more fiscally responsible withtaxpayer of moneies. I love that.
Now, you know, I haveanother question. I was gonna let you
ask. I saw your wheels going, okay, so let's go to literacy.
I'm the national organizing director for theNational Parents Union, So again you
know, talking to parents around thesethings and what is happening, but what
(08:22):
also can be done? I haveliteracy on my list because the legal aid
component of this is so heavy becauseyou also brought up poverty, which is
another area I'll get into later,but the support around health literacy, having
young people being able to advocate forwhat they need for mental support, dealing
(08:43):
with trauma, dealing with a lotof the violence is happening at home and
also in the community. Wanting tohear a little bit more about how you
guys are bridging the gap with supportingpeople in Georgia who need that support.
That's a great question, Professor Jba. So the truth of that is that
(09:03):
you have to have targeted treatment forthose folks right who are going who are
in a household that they may havesome trauma that they don't have the resources
to address and heal from. Right. So, to give you an idea,
one of the things that we doat the beginning of our program is
we implement emotional intelligence training, andit's a two month module that requires them
to do some learning of a subjectmatter that involves personal awareness and controlling emotions.
(09:30):
So we help them understand when they'rein a toxic environment and they're hijacked,
how that impacts their ability to makesounded decisions for themselves, so they
know how to control their emotions andreset themselves when they're hijacked. Then they're
personally aware and that helps them bemore composed and make great decisions. Now
we don't teach these things anywhere inschool. We should be teaching these things
as well as it relates to healthand wellness. We have a separate module
(09:56):
where we teach them the importance ofproper sleep, proper nutritional intake, physical
activity and how that impacts your overallhealth, and how your health being optimal
creates more opportunities for you because you'remore personally aware, you're more in tune
with your system, you have betternetworking development capacities. So all of those
things kind of work in unison together. You teach them emotional intelligence training,
(10:20):
You provide them with understanding of howhealth and wellness is an important aspect of
life in general. And in oneof the other things that I know you
didn't bring up, but it kindof factors into this process is substance use
disorder. Right, people struggling throughpoverty tend to not have the means to
pay for certain things, but they'llhave access to drugs because those communities just
(10:41):
provide it very easy, and sounderstanding how a substance use disorder can create
a mental health disorder is very importantfor folks, and that's why we advocate
for sobriety to help them become thebest version of themselves. Okay, less
segue because we talk about organization thatyou haven't explained. Yes, explain your
organization. Rid THO stand for andall that stuff. Well, Red it
(11:01):
used to be my nickname when Iwas a gangster for obvious reasons, and
it just happened to be perfect acronymfor Rehabilitation Enables Dreams. Now, Rehabilitation
Enables Dreams is a nonprofit five orone C three restorative justice charitable organization,
and so we were founded on thebasis that punitive measures that have been implemented
(11:24):
through the traditional aspects of the criminaljustice system have only perpetuated high recidivism rates
and a misuse of taxpayer moneies.So implementing rehabilitative, educational, workforce,
employment opportunity measures into this process fornon violent defend there's people struggling through drug
offenses, deaf defenses, things ofthat sort. When you provide them with
(11:45):
rehabilitative measures, these people self actualizeand what they do is they go into
the community and they get a joband they become a taxpayer rather than a
tax burden. And so we knowthat age seventeen to twenty eight has the
highest recivism rate in Georgia, sowe started targeting folk seventeen to twenty eight.
We help them get their GDS,we help them get a job,
we help them do the emotional intelligencetraining, we provide them with peer forensic
(12:07):
mentoring, and if they complete therequirements of our twelve month program, we
get their cases dismissed, the recordrestricted, and their file sealed. And
that's extremely important and impactful for everybodyin the community because it advances public safety.
Right historically, the system has punishedsomeone put a criminal record on them,
and that person now is restricted fromgetting employment, safe and adequate housing,
occupational licensing. You can't become anentrepreneur. You really couldn't do anything.
(12:31):
And in Georgia we have a seriousissue because in the last census,
we had ten point eight million peoplein our population with four point five million
people having a criminal conviction on therecord. So we have more than a
third of our population struggling with accessto opportunity, and so how do we
fix that. We fix that bycreating more intelligent measures that include rehabilitative tools
in a criminal justice system that reintegratespeople effectively, efficiently, and permanently.
(12:56):
This is good, Okay, Ihave I know because I want to see
where you want to go with thisconversation. And I love that this house
specifically around Georgia. Because data Georgiaranks highly in regards to the human sex
trafficking pipeline and also the school toprison pipeline. We're actually in the top
five for both, which means thatwe have a great need for more organizations
(13:20):
like red. But we also aremissing the gap here because the children are
being grown between the ages of tenthrough sixteen, which happens when they're coming
through what public education. Yes,now I'm saying this because forty eight percent
of offenders are a literate we alsohave a huge literacy issue here in the
state of Georgia. But when youlook at dollars and cents, this is
(13:43):
what I teach my students when theydo research projects around this. This is
a billion dollar industry. Matter offact, it is a fourteen point eight
billion dollar industry in our state inregards to the school to prison pipeline.
So my question to both of youguys, and even for people who are
listening to the conversation, is whois making this money and how are our
(14:07):
tax dollars actually being impacted by this. You're going to jump in on that.
So Georgia has the highest rated correctionalcontrol in the entire country. That's
defined by the name of the numberof people in jail, prison, on
probation, on parole, or ina detention center for youth. That's where
the money is going. So that'swhere the funds are being directed to.
(14:31):
And so it's a business, andwe have to kind of deal with the
fact that this has become a majorindustry in our country. We have the
largest population of incarcerated people in theentire world. This is the land of
the free right, but the largestpopulation of incarcerated peoples is here in America.
It has become a tremendous business.And if you look at companies like
(14:52):
error Mark, if you look likecompanies like Cisco, they're providing food,
they're providing phones, they're providing soof Haynes clothes. So all these companies
providing resources to the criminal justice systementities. There's an interest in them continuing
to keep people housed in these inthese entities, right in these in these
(15:13):
buildings, in jails, in detentioncenters, in prisons, because there's money
to be made. And so yousee that some of our laws actually are
conducive to keeping people on their longterm. Our website is stop Recidivism dot
org. Stop Recidivism is important becausewe have a recidivious statue here in Georgia.
And the recidivious statue means that ifyou have four misdemeanor convictions, which
(15:35):
is not very hard to do.You know, I have thirteen arrests.
I got four of those easily.After four misdemeanor convictions, you could be
sentenced under felony sentencing, you canhave an enhancement in your sentencing. And
so all of a sudden, youjust got caught with a little bag of
weed. But it's your fourth time, and so you're going up the row
for a little bit, and that'sa ton of you know, operational flows
are going to be there, there'sgonna be revenue made there, and those
(15:56):
whoever's housing this person, whoever's providingthe supervision that they get out. And
that's the unfortunate side of this thing, is that there's a lot of money
involved, and so there's people thatare benefiting from the old order. We
talk about criminal justice reform, butthere's some people that don't want to see
any changes. People tell us thesystem is broken, and I would question
that is the system broken or isit producing the results of the people who
are benefiting from those results want tokeep it that way. So we have
(16:21):
an issue there, right, howdo we influence those people to do the
right thing? And the way thatwe do is by advocacy, by creating
awareness that look, if you,you and I are taxpayers and we're paying
into a system that is telling methat sixty five percent of the people that
we are supervising, incarcerating, watchingover, they're coming back for forty years
(16:41):
at sixty we're doing something wrong.Why aren't we motivated to stop that process?
Our program has a less than tenpercent recidivism rate, because that's we
treat people like humans, like theymatter, And if you don't have access
to opportunity, you're going to figureit out, right, survival of the
fittest, you gonna have to dowhat you have to do. And these
environments don't provide people with the accessto the opportunity that they need. And
(17:03):
then you have on the flip sidethat the criminal justice system is is a
cash cow machine. And so that'sanother battle that we have to fight.
Creating advocacy around what has been happeningover the last forty years has only created
higher crime, has diminished public safety, because at the end of the day,
if you think about this, it'spublic safety. You see, people
(17:25):
are like, oh, Atlanta isso saturated with crime right now, there's
so much crime. Well, whydo you think that's happening. That's the
aggregate effect of something not working forso long and reaching a tipping point.
And so now people with the criminalrecords that are having a hard time surviving
and providing for their family, guesswhat they're doing. They're doing whatever it
takes to provide. And I getthat this is good. I'm letting you
(17:52):
be the question person today because Ifigured this is well, let's go here.
Juvenile justice is an area that issuffering in Georgia, not getting a
lot of resources there to really combatthe gang violence that is growing throughout our
state. And I really want tohighlight our state because the media is a
(18:14):
wonder we would only believe that crimeand violence is out of control in the
city of Atlanta, and it's actuallystatewide. There's a huge issue with violence
that's happening in our communities across thestate. A part of me believes that
this is strategic because when you lookat what these families are going through and
(18:34):
how it's impacting them. People whoare having to provide health services are seeing
an increase. That's revenue the policereports that are coming in from people having
to call the police and send thepolice out. And we don't have enough
police, So let's get them newpolice cars and let's build cops city.
(18:55):
I'm coming down that owl in thepicture that I'm painting. We're putting the
resources in policing people and not thejustice aspect of restoration. So I'm curious
about conversations that you may have withlaw enforcement those who are actually on the
other end of this, who maybe seeing some things that we can do
(19:17):
on a grassroots level to help moreparents in communities that are struggling with crime,
violence, and poverty. So itgoes back to educational reform, right,
because if you look at the communitiesthat are struggling with gang issues.
It's mostly the lower socioeconomic environment.Right. You can go to Bankhead and
(19:37):
you're going to find gang issues,but you're going to go to Buckhead and
you're not going to find them.Right. It's a completely different world.
It's a completely different socioeconomic cast level. And so the gangs are in an
environment where the young folks need toprovide for themselves for their families, and
so they target young folks and they'lllie to them and they'll say, hey,
if you commit this offense or ifyou do this thing for us,
(20:00):
will take care of you this way, and if you get caught, it's
not that big of a deal becauseyou're a kid. But that's not the
reality of it. But that's whatgangs do. Gangs target young folks,
and that's why you're seeing young folkscommit so many crimes because there's some big
homie if you will hire up thefood chain that's saying hey, here's some
money, you go ahead and dothis. And we're not combating those issues
because in school, we're not providingthose kids with any hope that there's a
(20:22):
better future for them other than whatthe gangs can provide. Basically, the
government is doing a disservice to themby not giving them access to opportunity where
gangs are. And so if youknow, when you're broke, you're not
worried about where the money's coming from. You just need it right. And
so if the gang is providing youwith access to economic opportunity, but the
school system is not doing that foryou, what are you going to do?
(20:45):
What are you gonna do? Veryinteresting perspective, So I want to
kind of go here with this.Sixty percent of our schools in Georgia are
identified as Title one or at risk. Some of them are classified as failing
schools. Now, to your pointof gangs are in lower income areas,
(21:10):
a lot of people have that notion. I think that this influences data and
stigma that targets our students. Andthis is why I say this, because
most of the schools in Georgia,sixty percent of them are Title one.
Title one. For those who don'tunderstand or don't know what that may mean,
it equates to lower income. Lowerincome equates to poverty. So that
(21:33):
means sixty percent of our students inGeorgia who are in schools that are Title
one or at risk are already beinglooked at as violent offenders. It's also
reinforcing the notion that our children inpoverty are going to commit crimes. Now,
I also want to give this tothe people that lower income also means
(21:56):
working poor. It also equates toghettos and who but also sloans and trailer
parks. And so when a lotof people think of games, they automatically
think of black and brown communities,and this crosses over into different sectors.
And so I want to ask aquestion around how are we providing restorative support
(22:17):
to different families in areas where povertyshows up differently, Because for me,
poverty may look like boys in thehood, but for others it may look
different because poverty does look different acrossour states. So I'm very curious around
how we can make sure the familiesand communities that are experiencing these things have
(22:38):
adequate resources for what actually would benefitthem. Yeah, that's a great thought
and a great question. And whatI would say to add to that is
if sixty percent of our community isstruggling through being indigent, being poor,
then you factor in the level ofpeople, the number, the volume of
people that have a criminal conviction inGeorgia, which is a third of our
(22:59):
population. So it creates a perfectstorm for what you're seeing, the historic
uptick of our criminal genetic behavior.Right. So you're seeing this uptick in
criminal in crimes, and it's acombination of things. A lack of access
to opportunity. If we have accessto gainful employment, and I'm not talking
at seven dollars an hour job that'snot going to get you anywhere. I'm
talking about gainful employment, something thatcan pay for your car, pay for
(23:23):
your insurance, pay for your house, pay for your food. And these
environments tend to lack those resources,and that's because folks outside of those environments
are not going into those environments toallow the opportunities to manifest there. And
so if private sector employers or evenpublic sector employers are not giving W two
(23:47):
wages, livable wages to folks inthose communities, those communities will continue to
commit crimes, and the people livingin those communities will become influenced by gangs
to do criminal activity to generate income. So it's a tough solution. The
problem is that they're you're asking aboutwhat kind of restorative work we need to
(24:08):
do. Well, the number onething that is causing crime or recidivism is
access to employment. And so ifwe can create incentives for employers to hire
people with a background, or incentivesfor them to consider raising their wages so
people are not doing other things whilethey're focused on their job, that's what's
(24:29):
going to stop it jobs. Everytime we orient a cohort, I always
ask, because no one in thereis evil, no one in there is
broken beyond repair. You know,there's always redemption and hope for these folks.
Right, they've committed a crime mostlybased on circumstance, mostly circumstance being
poverty, right, And I alwaysask, hey, if at the end
(24:52):
of our program we can get youa sixty five thousand dollars a year job,
would you ever go back to committingcrime? And this like an uproar
of like when can we start that? Because no one wants to sell small
amounts of drugs, No one wantsto break into houses, no one wants
to steal from people. People arenot born broken, they're born into bad
situations, so they have to makebad decisions. And if you give someone
a job, you train them,you provide them with emotional intelligence training,
(25:15):
You help them understand how to workin a diverse environment, and you give
them this opportunity with a livable wage, you're going to reduce crime. But
the problem is that private sector employersare not incentivized to hire people with a
background. That's very true. Iwant to say this. I know I'm
looking at time as well. AtlantaPublic Schools just celebrated one hundred and fifty
(25:36):
years. When you think about that, it's like, wow, one hundred
and fifty years of this school system. Now Atlanta has two dynamics that are
happening. We have Cops City,which will be the largest training facility for
police officers. But also it's sayingEMT firefighters, et cetera, so forth.
(25:57):
However, in the community meetings,from a lot of the paperwork the
community is not seen where other departmentsthat would influence the training of police are
being incorporated, which is a veryalarming thing, especially when you think about
Atlanta. It's the most inequitable cityin this country, not just in Georgia,
(26:18):
but in this country economically for blackand brown people to live. So
it's a very scary thing to realizethat we have leadership pushing for Cops City.
We have leadership that is working againstthings that organizations like red and many
others in Georgia are doing to reallygive people the resources that they need.
(26:38):
Because the school to prison pipeline industryis a billion dollar industry. I'm sharing
this because the access to employment isinfluenced by our leadership. What can we
do to make sure that we're oneelecting people like Stacy Abrams who ran for
governor, who talked a lot aboutthis. People don't remember, and maybe
(27:00):
because recidivism is a big word formany, they don't remember these conversations from
her on the road, But shewas an advocate for this, and many
Georgians voted against that. And somy question is what can we do now
to really make sure that residents thatleadership are going to be willing to invest
(27:22):
in these corporations that are coming toour state that are making lots of good
money but aren't investing in the accessto employment for all, regardless of what
their background may be, and alsomaking sure that when they do employ these
persons, they have an equitable wage. Any thoughts around that, Okay,
before you asker that, I'm gonnaadd to that, because we're in a
(27:45):
last sector. Any legislation that's currentlyon the table that they can support as
well that you guys have are workingon. So just kyd that together.
Yeah, so I appreciate that,A Ricardo. So to answer your question
out the cops City thing and allof that, the problem becomes is what
you said, how do we electthe right people? Now? We do
(28:07):
have some good elected officials in office. Now, I am. I was
a huge fan of Stacey Abrams simplyand I'm politically agnostic. I'll say that
simply because of the work that Ido is kind of bipartisan, helps everybody.
But she did want to advance publicsafety, and so she's pegged as
this like defund the police person whereshe actually wanted to increase police salaries,
which I think is a factor inthis process when we talk about cop city.
(28:32):
I can say this with a withconfidence that I have seen uglier things
on this side of the law.Once I got a law license and I
started going behind the scenes and seeingthings. I've seen more nefarious issues,
more perversion, and more corruption onthis side of it then I saw on
the streets. And that's what wehave to actually get to and figure out,
(28:53):
right, because we have this culturethis culture that promotes safe for law
enforcement, and that's important, butat what cost is it? Are we
insulating them from being accountable when theycommit some kind of act that is extremely
offensive because you've taken this oath thatyou're going to protect and serve, but
(29:14):
then you kind of like self dealthat's a problem, and we don't even
think about that, we don't evenaddress it. I've had I mean,
I can tell you I've had peoplein law enforcement approached me about, hey,
you're that TV lawyer. If theycan afford you, what else can
they afford it? Basically insinuating canyou bring me a bag, you know,
so we can make this work.And I'm like, look, man,
I got thirteen arrests. I'm noteven trying to go back down that
(29:36):
road and lose my law license.But I've seen these things, right,
and so it becomes a problem.And so the legislation should be that people
in office should be held accountable whenthey violate that oath. And the enhancement
should be just like a gang enhancement. Right, if you commit a crime
and you're a gang member and soyou're creating terrorism in our community, you
deserve to be enhanced in your sense, right, and so why what is
(30:00):
it different if a police officer hasbeen operating in a covert fashion, self
dealing, absorbing opportunity and depriving inthe community, Well it should be enhancement
as well. But we don't havethat kind of legislation. Now we do
have a gang problem in the stateof Georgia, so it becomes difficult.
Right now, We're not Baltimore,we're not Chicago, we're not la But
(30:22):
the reality is is that we havelimited resources and we need to figure out
where we should channel these resources,where how do we allocate them? And
right now, because we see thisupticking crime, the goal is to reduce
crime at whatever means necessary, whichI support as well. You know,
you have to be able to figureout what you can do and or what
(30:42):
you should do right and what weshould do is not start cops city because
one of the things that we needto do is train officers better. And
again I'm not a defund the policeperson. I believe that we need to
be more intelligent with the police culture. But the reality is we're not hand
them enough money for them to betrustworthy and loyal. If you're making forty
(31:03):
grand a year, and you pullover a young kid with one hundred thousand
dollars in the car, what you'regonna do. You're gonna report that hundred
thousand dollars. You're gonna have anice Christmas bonus. Let's just be real.
Yes, no, this is I'mloving the points that you are making
because when I have conversations with myyoung people, my students, these are
things that they're realistically saying are happeningin their community, and so we also
(31:27):
have to look at how this isimpacting those who are seeing it the most,
and a lot of times we don'thear their stories. So I'm really
appreciative of you sharing the aspect thatjust because you're a police officer, just
because you're the mayor, just becauseyou're the governor, just because you're the
secretary of state or whatever position thatyou may hold, doesn't automatically mean that
(31:51):
you are just exempt from not doingthe right or wrong thing. Yes,
And you know, it's interesting tosay that because I think the onus is
on law enforcement to bridge the gapbetween community and them. They're the ones
that need to start reaching out andsaying we are trustworthy, because there's more
good officers than there are bad officers. The problem is that social media and
media overall will paint the bad officersand say they're all like this. And
(32:14):
I know so many good officers.I know so many investigative agents, prosecuting
officials that are well to do,goodhearted people that want to advance public safety.
But the reality is we have thesebad apples that create a mess.
And what we most people don't evenrealize is that COP stands for community oriented
policing. COP is community oriented policing, and we've gotten really far away from
(32:37):
that. It used to be anoble profession and when now they're viewed as
untrustworthy, and so the onus ison them to reach out to the community
and say, hey, guys,look, you can approach us and you
don't have to be fearful of it. But right now, if I'm a
black or brown person, would Inot? Of course I'm fearful of approaching
them. I see all the stuffthat I see on TV. And so
that's why I say the onus ison law enforcement. Creat events, meet
(33:00):
an officer, get to know yourlocal officer. Instead of shying away from
talking to a police officer. Youngkids should be able to say Hey,
officers selling, So how's your daygoing. Those interactions don't happen. We
need to get back to that,and that's why bridging the gap is so
important. One of the things thatwe do at READ is we have a
module what we work to get lawenforcement and our program students together in a
(33:22):
room to have open, honest dialogue. The police officer is someone that needs
to go safely back home to theirfamily, and not every kid who's charged
with a crime is a thug thatthreatens police officers safety. And we've gotten
to the point where we created thesenarratives rather than just talking to one on
each other. And that's what ourprogram does. It's focusing on bridging the
gap between law enforcement community. That'sgood. Okay, final thoughts, anything
(33:44):
you want to leave with the peopleand how did you get in touch with
you? Thank you Ricardo? Firstof all, thank you for having me
back. It's always fun chatting withyou guys. So the way that you
can get in contact with us isyou go to our website www. Dot
Stop Recidivism dot org, dot orgdot com and you can learn all about
our program, our results, whatit costs, how it can get into
(34:06):
your community, and what I meanby that is if it's not in the
courthouse where you live, thereby reachout to us. We'll do whatever we
can to install our program there.And final thoughts is this, if everybody
does a little bit, no onehas to do a whole lot. We
started this conversation before we were recordingabout this takes a village, and so
I want people to know that advocacyincludes not just us doing it, people
(34:30):
finding out about intelligent programs that areintelligently applied to help us reduce crime,
reduce for cidivism, and be moreintelligent with our fiscal funds from taxpayers.
That's the important part. So Iwould ask people to just go on our
website, learn about what we do, and if your local community, your
local courthouse doesn't have our program,reach out to them and ask or reach
(34:52):
out to us and say, hey, can we make a connection to get
our program installed here because we wantto see crime reduced. Final thoughts Jason
Allen again from the National Parents Union. Check us out at National Parents Union
dot org. Parents and Georgie aredefinitely concerned about this and are wanting to
see more effective programming that really canhelp us decrease the numbers of young people
(35:16):
that are going into the system overthe next ten years. And so what
I'm encouraging people to do is toconnect with us. We're looking and seeking
more organizations like RID that we canmake sure we connect community leaders, parent
advocates and parent leaders too, sothat we can start to see more change.
So again, let's do this collectively. I love the notion of the
(35:38):
village because it does take a villageto raise a child. And y'all helped
us today right like this, righthere, this recording, somebody hopefully will
watch it. Even if one personis impacted by it and inspired to do
something about it, that's what matters, because together it will grow in numbers
like this. So and thank you. You had great questions. I thoroughly
enjoyed it. Yeah, I wasprepared, now I did. It's a
(36:00):
big conversation. And so I'm lookingforward to our organizations coming together and we're
building an alliance around social emotional learning. So there are other organizations that are
focusing on this aspect with the Schoolto Prison Pipeline pushing forward storative programming and
policies. And so I think thatwhen you have more voices at the table,
(36:22):
who are also doing this in differentpathways and avenues. We can see
more positive results. Amen to that. And if I can, Ricardo,
say glory to the most high,you know, because without him, none
of this is possible. So I'mgrateful for this platform and the purpose that
he has given me, and theplatform that you have given me as well.
Thank you well. In my closingremarks, thank you to you too,
(36:45):
astute gentleman for joining us again,Attorney David Windeker, Thank you sir
for coming, Friends of the show, thank you for coming. Baging.
Of course, I don't have thesame thing this guy. He knows he's
great. So we will see youguys, same time, same place on
a leadership in a podcast with yourhost Racal de Rice
Popular Podcasts
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show. Clay Travis and Buck Sexton tackle the biggest stories in news, politics and current events with intelligence and humor. From the border crisis, to the madness of cancel culture and far-left missteps, Clay and Buck guide listeners through the latest headlines and hot topics with fun and entertaining conversations and opinions.