Dr. Craig Miller and Ashlee Felix-Taveras: Prison Education

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Welcome to Tomorrow Makers, where we explore how we learn, live, work, and play now and

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in the future.

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I'm Carlos Ramos.

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And I'm Sumer Beatty.

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Hello again, Sumer.

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Hello.

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Here we are.

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Here we are.

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And we are joined today by two amazing guests.

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This is a fantastic conversation.

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We have Dr. Craig Miller and our very own Ashlee Felix-Taveras, who recently graduated

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from Penn College and now works in our admissions office.

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This is so cool, I think, because Dr. Miller and Ashlee have this connection.

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And I think it's clear when you listen to it, it's like, oh my gosh, they know each

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other.

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They joke around.

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It's not your typical professor-student relationship.

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Maybe, I don't know, maybe, I guess at Penn College it kind of is, you know, but it's

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fun hearing them banter back and forth.

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Yeah.

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So we don't, I don't think we talked like more than like 12.

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I know I didn't really say much in this thing, which is awesome.

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They just kept at it.

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And the topic is incredibly fascinating.

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We're talking about prison, or actually education in prison, and just how meaningful it is to

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those that are in the system, their lives.

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I was just floored by what I'm hearing.

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Oh, totally.

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And if you're like me, it's something I never really gave much thought to before that conversation.

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And afterwards, I was just like, it was impactful, so impactful.

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It was a big wow moment.

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So, yeah.

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So definitely listen all the way through on this one.

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At the end, Dr. Miller gives us a really clear call to action and how we can make an impact

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here.

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So even if you're not familiar with the topic, there's definitely a call at the end that

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you can help out with.

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Yeah.

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So worth the wait.

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Great.

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So let's get into it.

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Let's do it.

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Here it is.

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Tomorrow Makers.

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Welcome.

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Welcome.

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I think we record that later, right?

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Yeah, but we want to say hello to our guests, don't we?

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Hello, guests.

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Welcome.

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Thank you for being with us today.

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Thanks for having us.

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We're really excited to get this conversation started.

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Yeah.

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I'm excited too.

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It's going to be fun.

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It's going to be interesting.

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We have different definitions of fun.

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Yeah, we definitely do.

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I think it's the age thing.

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Here, it starts already.

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Yeah.

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I'm excited.

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I'm excited.

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I'm excited.

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I'm excited.

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I'm excited.

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I'm excited.

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I'm excited.

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I'm excited.

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I'm excited.

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I'm excited.

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I'm excited.

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It starts already.

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Okay, I'll say that again.

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It'll be very insightful.

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How's that?

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That works.

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That's a good word.

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That's a better word.

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I like that word.

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Okay, we'll go with it.

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So I'm Ashlee.

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I'm Ashlee Felix.

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I'm a recent graduate of Penn College.

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I graduated from the Human Services and Restorative Justice Program.

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I am now an employee of the college.

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I work in the admissions department, and my guest today is Dr. Craig Miller.

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I just know him by Miller, but that's okay.

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But if you don't mind introducing yourself and what is it that you actually do here?

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Because I've known you since 2019 and don't know what you actually do.

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I think that's a good thing that people don't know what I do.

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It keeps them guessing.

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My name is Craig Miller.

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As Ashlee said, I've been at the college since 2011.

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I'm a professor of history and political science.

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I also am a department head for social sciences humanities.

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So I work with the Human Services and Restorative Justice Program.

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I work with our emergency management and homeland security program.

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And that's the capacity of working with the Human Services and Restorative Justice Program,

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where I got to know Ashlee, both having her in class and as an advisee.

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And I've been here since 2011.

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Nice.

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Well, that's good to know what you do.

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I always thought you were just a person I got to complain to.

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That's my other duties as assigned.

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Yeah.

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Okay.

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I see that that's like that part of the job description.

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Okay.

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All right.

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Well, I don't know if you guys know this, but Dr. Miller actually ran a college program

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in SCI New York.

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And then for those of you who don't really know our prison education like jargon, SCI

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means State Correctional Institution.

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So he ran a program in New York and it was called the Consortium of the Niagara Frontier

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before he was employed here at Penn College.

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So can you talk a little bit about that and how that like how was that and then how that

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kind of led you to be here at Penn College?

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Sure.

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Actually, it directly led me to be here.

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I went to graduate school for my PhD at the University of Buffalo.

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While I was there, I was contacted by a colleague, a friend of mine who was working for Literacy

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Volunteers of America, and they needed somebody to do a pilot project offering literacy evaluations

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inside of correctional institutions.

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So they needed somebody to go into the city jail, the Erie County Holding Center, and

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then potentially into some of the state correctional institutions as well.

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I started working in family court, which was not what I was supposed to do.

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There was a judge who had come to a county judge who had come to visit literacy volunteers

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the day that they were doing the training to get me in the prisons.

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And she was like, hey, would you be willing to come in and sit on family court?

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I would like all of the people coming through to have literacy evaluations because she felt

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it was a barrier to a lot of the people coming into our courts in terms of regaining custody.

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One of the things you need to do is be able to find gainful employment, find housing,

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all these things that if you can't read, it's just an extra layer of hardship on top of

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what you're already trying to accomplish.

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And it was through her I got introduced to a gentleman named Bob Housewrath, who ran

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a college program inside of Wyoming County Correctional Facility, which is a medium state

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run facility in New York.

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He was the head of a consortium that included three Catholic colleges.

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I think it was Canisius, Niagara University, excuse me, and Damon College.

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And he was basically running a nonprofit that he had started in the 1970s.

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So this is 2004, 2003 when I started working with him.

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I was going to make a joke, but you keep going.

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The jokes are going to continue throughout because you can't help yourself.

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Prepare for it.

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This is something that has to do with every day of my college career.

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The fact that I keep getting older and all of you stay the same age means that I get

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ridiculed by the same jokes semester after semester.

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But he started the program as a nonprofit.

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So he wasn't an employee of the prison system.

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He was working within the prison system as an independent contractor, which gave him

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a lot of flexibility.

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And the program he constructed was, I'll get into the details of it a little bit, but it

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was inspiring to me.

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So I started, I met him and then I started tutoring inside and doing literacy evaluations

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inside the Erie County Holding Center.

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When one of his adjunct instructors, almost all the instructors who were working in his

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college program were adjuncts, he didn't really have anybody full time other than himself

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and a few part time work study people.

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But a position opened up, they needed somebody to teach an introductory history class.

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And I was like, well, I'm a PhD student in history, so I would jump at the chance to

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do that.

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And in the first class, it was the most interesting, challenging and rewarding experience I've

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ever had.

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So the first day of class, I was teaching US history, US history I, so like Columbus

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to the Civil War.

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And I get in front of the class and I do my introductory spiel, which you've probably

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heard a dozen times already.

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And I start getting into a lecture and like 30 seconds in, four hands raised and they're

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like, on page 47, paragraph six, he disagrees with everything you just said.

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I was like, you actually did all the reading before the first day of class.

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And then at dawn, I'm like, you have the time to do this.

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But one of the things that jumped out at me initially was there were some men in those

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classes who were ready on day one to start talking, to ask questions and the others were

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really hesitant.

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But by like week two, they were all like the they were all participating in ways and my

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street classes never did.

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And I guess I should street classes are like my regular college classes.

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That's just the lingo that they use inside.

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And so the more I learned about the ways in which prison education was empowering to the

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individual, I just I'd always thought about it being a leg up, it's going to help you.

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But I'd never really thought about kind of the personal growth and empowerment that comes

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from education generally.

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And obviously, in my own story, that was part of it, but I'd never really thought about

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the ways in which this could open doors for other people.

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Right.

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Yeah.

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So I started hounding Bob saying, can I teach more classes?

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And he thought at first, I just needed extra money.

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Granted, I was a graduate student making like $12,000 a year so I could use all the extra

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help I could get.

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But it was just I never knew like in my history classes when I was at the University of Buffalo,

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I kind of knew how the conversation was going to go in almost every class.

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They were all history majors.

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They'd all been in the same kind of cohorts together.

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Every time I walked into the prison class, I had no idea what was going to come out of

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somebody's mouth because their experiences were so different than the experiences of

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the students in my street classes.

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This doesn't mean I didn't have formerly incarcerated students in my street classes, but this was

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like having an entire class of formerly incarcerated people who had all these life experiences,

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like having discussions about the origins and history of welfare with a group of people

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who have spent the vast majority or a sizable portion of their life in prison was a much

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different discussion than I would have with a group of middle to upper middle class white

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kids in Buffalo.

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And so as I got closer to finishing my PhD, the director of the consortium was getting

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ready to retire and asked me if I would be interested in taking it over.

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So I started as assistant director, I think in 2006.

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I finished my PhD in 2009-ish, 2010.

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And I took it over about six months before then, and then the financial crisis hit.

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That program was completely, well, not completely, about 40% of our money was from grants, from

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private institutions.

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The rest of the money came from member item money from the New York state legislature.

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Member item money is money that they used to have in the New York state legislature

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where each member got a budget that they could basically allocate on their own without having

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to go through a normal appropriations process.

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For people listening who don't know what an appropriations process is, that means you

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have to get something voted on in order to spend the money.

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Oh, thank you.

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I didn't know what that meant.

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These member items, they would vote on a general appropriation so that each member gets X amount

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of money and then you can divert it to the organizations you want to.

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We had a lot of, one of the ways in which the prison system works is you rarely get

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incarcerated in the region or county or city that you were arrested in.

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So Wyoming County Correctional Facility is about an hour south of Buffalo, New York,

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the vast majority of the people who were in that prison were from New York City.

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So a lot of New York City legislators were willing to fund the program and we got a lot

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of really generous support.

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In fact, even the state senator who was the representative of the district that the prison

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was in was one of our biggest supporters.

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But a lot of things converged in 2008.

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The financial crisis was one of them, but there was also the reaction to the financial

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crisis.

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So for those listening who don't remember or don't know a lot, in 2008 there was a major

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mortgage crisis, a banking crisis, and the government responded to those crises in different

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ways, state governments and federal governments, but there were also outside responses.

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So one of the big challenges, one of the big responses to that was the origins of the Tea

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Party movement.

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And the Tea Party movement was largely but not exclusively within the Republican Party

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of people who were arguing that the reason the financial crisis happened was that there

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were too many regulations and that government was putting money into places that it shouldn't

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and that the way to prevent financial crises from happening in the future was to roll back

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all government spending.

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And so one of the biggest challenges we had was the Republican state senator in our district

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where the prison was who was a huge supporter was being challenged by a Tea Party person

246
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in his primary.

247
00:11:52,140 --> 00:11:54,520
And he said to me, I can't support you publicly anymore.

248
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It's like I believe in what you're doing, it works.

249
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But if I say prison and education in the same sentence, nobody's going to hear anything

250
00:12:00,120 --> 00:12:02,320
else I say in this political environment.

251
00:12:02,320 --> 00:12:08,160
The same thing happened to our legislators in New York City area.

252
00:12:08,160 --> 00:12:11,760
There was a reorganizing of the state government where the governor ended up taking away the

253
00:12:11,760 --> 00:12:12,760
member item money.

254
00:12:12,760 --> 00:12:16,080
So all that money was being housed in the governor's office.

255
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Most of the private grant organizations who were giving us money were in a position where

256
00:12:19,600 --> 00:12:24,480
they wanted to hold on to what they had because they wanted to see what the fiscal environment

257
00:12:24,480 --> 00:12:27,460
and the economic environment was going to look like over the next three years.

258
00:12:27,460 --> 00:12:31,600
We had just gotten a major grant from the Sunshine Lady Foundation.

259
00:12:31,600 --> 00:12:36,360
The Sunshine Lady Foundation is run by Doris Buffett, who is Warren Buffett's sister.

260
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And her goal is she's like, I'm giving away all of my money before I die, every single

261
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cent.

262
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She's like, I don't want to have anything left.

263
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I want it all gone.

264
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But at that point, they were just starting to seed projects and they wanted to wait a

265
00:12:45,840 --> 00:12:47,240
couple of years to see what happened.

266
00:12:47,240 --> 00:12:50,060
And we told her, I said, I don't have a couple of years.

267
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This program was dependent upon outside money.

268
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None of these men were paying.

269
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And I'll get into why that was at the time.

270
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So that program folded about 2010.

271
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I spent the last two years using the money we had left to graduate as many students as

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we could.

273
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That program was offering associates and bachelor's degrees.

274
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Most of the men were getting associates in things like accounting or marketing, mostly

275
00:13:15,600 --> 00:13:17,000
business degrees.

276
00:13:17,000 --> 00:13:21,040
And one of the bonuses for us that kept the cost so low is that Canisius, Niagara, and

277
00:13:21,040 --> 00:13:24,820
Damon, the three colleges we're working with, offered a massively reduced tuition.

278
00:13:24,820 --> 00:13:28,240
I think they were charging us like $50 a credit hour, which is literally like...

279
00:13:28,240 --> 00:13:31,000
Keep in mind, these are $2,008, right?

280
00:13:31,000 --> 00:13:33,000
But still.

281
00:13:33,000 --> 00:13:36,800
Because it was part of their mission to increase social justice.

282
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And I'll talk about that a little bit too if you want to get into the social justice

283
00:13:40,520 --> 00:13:41,520
conversation.

284
00:13:41,520 --> 00:13:43,120
Do we have enough time?

285
00:13:43,120 --> 00:13:45,340
We have all the time we'd like.

286
00:13:45,340 --> 00:13:50,940
So we graduated as many students as we could.

287
00:13:50,940 --> 00:13:52,240
And I had to get back on the job market.

288
00:13:52,240 --> 00:13:55,960
One of the challenges for me is the traditional career path for an academic is to get your

289
00:13:55,960 --> 00:13:58,320
dissertation published to get on the conference circuit.

290
00:13:58,320 --> 00:14:01,280
I didn't do any of that because I was like the prison job was the best job I'd ever had

291
00:14:01,280 --> 00:14:02,280
in my life.

292
00:14:02,280 --> 00:14:03,280
And I was like, this is what I want to do forever.

293
00:14:03,280 --> 00:14:05,640
I don't care if I publish.

294
00:14:05,640 --> 00:14:07,520
And people are like, well, you could publish about your work in the prison.

295
00:14:07,520 --> 00:14:09,120
I'm like, somebody else can publish if they want.

296
00:14:09,120 --> 00:14:10,760
Like I like boots on the ground.

297
00:14:10,760 --> 00:14:12,240
I like working with this population.

298
00:14:12,240 --> 00:14:15,520
I like the work I'm doing lobbying in the legislature.

299
00:14:15,520 --> 00:14:17,820
That was satisfying to me.

300
00:14:17,820 --> 00:14:21,000
But it put me at a disadvantage when I was going back on the job market because all of

301
00:14:21,000 --> 00:14:23,880
my peers and all the other graduate students already had publications.

302
00:14:23,880 --> 00:14:26,360
They had been presenting at more conferences.

303
00:14:26,360 --> 00:14:29,920
And I saw a job posting for the Pennsylvania College of Technology.

304
00:14:29,920 --> 00:14:32,640
No history major whatsoever.

305
00:14:32,640 --> 00:14:35,320
They have a social sciences and humanities department.

306
00:14:35,320 --> 00:14:38,120
But it ended up being perfect for me because they were looking for a teacher more than

307
00:14:38,120 --> 00:14:40,640
they were looking for a researcher.

308
00:14:40,640 --> 00:14:44,640
And I loved being here too because my colleagues at UB were like, you're going to hate it there.

309
00:14:44,640 --> 00:14:45,640
They're going to hate you.

310
00:14:45,640 --> 00:14:46,640
They're going to hate history.

311
00:14:46,640 --> 00:14:47,640
Engineers don't like history.

312
00:14:47,640 --> 00:14:50,560
And I was like, well, it's a job.

313
00:14:50,560 --> 00:14:51,720
So I'm going to take the job.

314
00:14:51,720 --> 00:14:56,240
But I found that this is in some ways not similar to the prison population, but it's

315
00:14:56,240 --> 00:15:01,160
similar in that the students who come to my classes have much different experiences here

316
00:15:01,160 --> 00:15:02,160
too.

317
00:15:02,160 --> 00:15:03,160
Of course.

318
00:15:03,160 --> 00:15:04,160
A lot of first generation students here as well.

319
00:15:04,160 --> 00:15:08,640
But also I found that the engineers and the other, like the welders who were in labs all

320
00:15:08,640 --> 00:15:11,960
day long were just happy to be doing something different than being in the lab all day long.

321
00:15:11,960 --> 00:15:15,800
And it was a chance for them to kind of get engaged in stuff that they didn't before.

322
00:15:15,800 --> 00:15:18,760
So this ended up being the perfect transition for me.

323
00:15:18,760 --> 00:15:19,760
That's cool.

324
00:15:19,760 --> 00:15:23,080
I'm going to keep my feet wet in the prison rubble, which I'm guessing we'll get to in

325
00:15:23,080 --> 00:15:24,080
a bit.

326
00:15:24,080 --> 00:15:25,080
Yeah.

327
00:15:25,080 --> 00:15:27,920
And I'll say from first person experience, because I've had you as a professor, you're

328
00:15:27,920 --> 00:15:32,360
really good at playing devil's advocate with everybody.

329
00:15:32,360 --> 00:15:37,640
And I really appreciate that because you give everybody the chance to speak their side,

330
00:15:37,640 --> 00:15:41,040
to speak their perspective and say their experiences.

331
00:15:41,040 --> 00:15:46,860
But you also present the other side in a way that's very respectful to the person.

332
00:15:46,860 --> 00:15:53,360
And that you're able to get the full picture of a situation rather than just focus on your

333
00:15:53,360 --> 00:15:54,360
side.

334
00:15:54,360 --> 00:16:00,920
Because I know from my experience in your class, I was very different than a lot of

335
00:16:00,920 --> 00:16:02,480
the other students in the class.

336
00:16:02,480 --> 00:16:05,080
And so our perspectives clashed a lot.

337
00:16:05,080 --> 00:16:09,840
But you were really good at making me see their side and them see my side.

338
00:16:09,840 --> 00:16:17,480
And I came out of that more understanding, and I feel like a more well-rounded person.

339
00:16:17,480 --> 00:16:21,440
So I appreciate that that's the way you run your classes.

340
00:16:21,440 --> 00:16:22,440
That's the goal.

341
00:16:22,440 --> 00:16:23,440
And I appreciate that.

342
00:16:23,440 --> 00:16:26,040
It means a lot because I can't inflate your grade at this point.

343
00:16:26,040 --> 00:16:27,040
You've already graduated.

344
00:16:27,040 --> 00:16:28,040
I know.

345
00:16:28,040 --> 00:16:29,040
He already failed me, guys.

346
00:16:29,040 --> 00:16:30,040
It's okay.

347
00:16:30,040 --> 00:16:33,360
But this is something that I loved about history from the get-go is that I think one of the

348
00:16:33,360 --> 00:16:38,080
things that frustrates people who take history classes is that is the thing that I love about

349
00:16:38,080 --> 00:16:41,280
history is that there aren't right answers.

350
00:16:41,280 --> 00:16:42,760
The revolution happened when it happened.

351
00:16:42,760 --> 00:16:44,240
The Civil War happened when it happened.

352
00:16:44,240 --> 00:16:48,320
But when you're talking about why it happened, what the consequences of it happening were,

353
00:16:48,320 --> 00:16:51,120
that really depends on the perspective of who you're looking at it from.

354
00:16:51,120 --> 00:16:56,240
If you're talking about the American Revolution, we think of liberty and representation and

355
00:16:56,240 --> 00:16:58,420
no taxation without representation.

356
00:16:58,420 --> 00:17:02,160
But there are native people who picked up guns and fought for both sides, and they didn't

357
00:17:02,160 --> 00:17:03,360
care at all about representation.

358
00:17:03,360 --> 00:17:04,880
They didn't care at all about taxes.

359
00:17:04,880 --> 00:17:08,120
They had their own rationales and reasons for picking things up.

360
00:17:08,120 --> 00:17:10,680
And then the historical question is, well, whose perspective is the one that we should

361
00:17:10,680 --> 00:17:11,680
focus on?

362
00:17:11,680 --> 00:17:14,280
And that really depends on what it is you're trying to get out of the past.

363
00:17:14,280 --> 00:17:17,720
And so one of the things I love about history that I know frustrates everybody else is that

364
00:17:17,720 --> 00:17:18,720
there aren't right answers.

365
00:17:18,720 --> 00:17:19,720
There's analysis.

366
00:17:19,720 --> 00:17:22,420
There's debate.

367
00:17:22,420 --> 00:17:23,960
But it should also be utilitarian, right?

368
00:17:23,960 --> 00:17:27,580
We're all going to take something different away from the past because we all have a different

369
00:17:27,580 --> 00:17:28,580
connection to it.

370
00:17:28,580 --> 00:17:30,520
We're working this semester in world history.

371
00:17:30,520 --> 00:17:35,360
We're going to be in the fall on myth and the myths that connect every society, right?

372
00:17:35,360 --> 00:17:36,720
The myth of America is this myth.

373
00:17:36,720 --> 00:17:41,400
And I'm not saying myth because it's not true, but every society has its founding origin

374
00:17:41,400 --> 00:17:42,400
myths.

375
00:17:42,400 --> 00:17:43,400
Yeah.

376
00:17:43,400 --> 00:17:48,320
And for us, it's that defining moment in 1776, the Declaration of Independence, the revolution

377
00:17:48,320 --> 00:17:50,960
that comes after it, the Constitution.

378
00:17:50,960 --> 00:17:54,160
But everybody in America doesn't have the exact same experience.

379
00:17:54,160 --> 00:17:58,040
So one of the things I love to do in my class is, particularly in American government and

380
00:17:58,040 --> 00:18:01,480
in US history is on the first day, try to see if we can come up with a common definition

381
00:18:01,480 --> 00:18:02,880
of what it means to be an American.

382
00:18:02,880 --> 00:18:04,840
Yeah, that was fun.

383
00:18:04,840 --> 00:18:06,520
And nobody can ever do it.

384
00:18:06,520 --> 00:18:10,320
We can all say, yeah, well, we value freedom and we value liberty and we value order.

385
00:18:10,320 --> 00:18:13,780
But what those things actually mean has a lot to do with the experience you've had of

386
00:18:13,780 --> 00:18:16,720
America, the ways in which you connect to that founding myth.

387
00:18:16,720 --> 00:18:18,120
And that's never going to be the same for anybody.

388
00:18:18,120 --> 00:18:21,580
It's one of the things I'm trying to do in my classes is give people the space to figure

389
00:18:21,580 --> 00:18:25,040
out how they connect to it, but also how other people connect to it.

390
00:18:25,040 --> 00:18:28,700
The hope being that there's kind of some common ground you can find within that.

391
00:18:28,700 --> 00:18:30,800
Which is the cool part, because it's always a common ground.

392
00:18:30,800 --> 00:18:36,840
Even if we leave the conversation with like, we can agree to disagree, but there's common

393
00:18:36,840 --> 00:18:37,840
ground, you know?

394
00:18:37,840 --> 00:18:38,840
That's the hope.

395
00:18:38,840 --> 00:18:39,840
Yeah.

396
00:18:39,840 --> 00:18:40,840
Was that guy Voltaire?

397
00:18:40,840 --> 00:18:42,840
He was a French author?

398
00:18:42,840 --> 00:18:43,840
He was.

399
00:18:43,840 --> 00:18:48,680
He said, I may not agree with the words you say, but I will defend to the death your right

400
00:18:48,680 --> 00:18:49,680
to say it.

401
00:18:49,680 --> 00:18:50,680
Yeah.

402
00:18:50,680 --> 00:18:53,400
Free speech is one of the most important components of an open society.

403
00:18:53,400 --> 00:18:54,400
Yeah.

404
00:18:54,400 --> 00:18:58,040
So let's go back to the topic, though, which is prison education.

405
00:18:58,040 --> 00:19:00,040
We could do four hours on free speech.

406
00:19:00,040 --> 00:19:01,040
I know.

407
00:19:01,040 --> 00:19:02,040
Okay.

408
00:19:02,040 --> 00:19:05,280
So you talked about how you started in New York, and then you ended up here at Penn College.

409
00:19:05,280 --> 00:19:09,960
And then you recently started here, which is going to be funny because the acronyms

410
00:19:09,960 --> 00:19:10,960
are funny.

411
00:19:10,960 --> 00:19:13,080
You started prison to college.

412
00:19:13,080 --> 00:19:14,080
Yeah.

413
00:19:14,080 --> 00:19:15,080
PTC, PCT.

414
00:19:15,080 --> 00:19:19,920
You say that five times fast.

415
00:19:19,920 --> 00:19:22,640
I'm not going to, because I'll embarrass myself on the podcast.

416
00:19:22,640 --> 00:19:26,120
Yeah, I haven't really come up with a good name for it yet, but prison to college is

417
00:19:26,120 --> 00:19:27,600
just kind of what's stuck so far.

418
00:19:27,600 --> 00:19:28,920
Yeah, no, I like it.

419
00:19:28,920 --> 00:19:34,640
So what made you, because I know obviously it was such a passion for you, and you were

420
00:19:34,640 --> 00:19:39,100
there, and then you came here, and it kind of, you know, you really dove into teaching.

421
00:19:39,100 --> 00:19:45,200
What made you kind of pick it back up and start it up here?

422
00:19:45,200 --> 00:19:51,020
As a historian, it's always difficult to figure out where to start the story.

423
00:19:51,020 --> 00:19:57,960
So the thing that drew me to this world in the first place was my own personal experience.

424
00:19:57,960 --> 00:19:59,440
I was a high school dropout.

425
00:19:59,440 --> 00:20:03,680
I was running with people I probably shouldn't have been running with, doing things I probably

426
00:20:03,680 --> 00:20:05,640
shouldn't have been doing.

427
00:20:05,640 --> 00:20:11,360
And it took me probably four or five years to really get myself back together.

428
00:20:11,360 --> 00:20:13,940
And one of the things that happened in that period is on a dare, a friend of mine dared

429
00:20:13,940 --> 00:20:16,640
me to take a class at a community college.

430
00:20:16,640 --> 00:20:17,640
And so I did.

431
00:20:17,640 --> 00:20:20,680
I took a class at Monroe Community College in Rochester, New York.

432
00:20:20,680 --> 00:20:24,440
This will shock you, but it was a history class.

433
00:20:24,440 --> 00:20:30,400
And I was astounded by how much I didn't know versus what I thought I knew.

434
00:20:30,400 --> 00:20:35,800
And I enrolled the next semester, and education was literally transformative for me.

435
00:20:35,800 --> 00:20:40,600
My life was going in a pretty bad direction, and higher education was one of the things

436
00:20:40,600 --> 00:20:42,040
that pulled me out of it.

437
00:20:42,040 --> 00:20:43,560
And so I knew I wanted to teach.

438
00:20:43,560 --> 00:20:45,800
And originally I thought I wanted to teach high school.

439
00:20:45,800 --> 00:20:49,200
And then I did, when I was in college, I was in an education program, and I sat in a high

440
00:20:49,200 --> 00:20:50,800
school class.

441
00:20:50,800 --> 00:20:54,400
And I know you, you're like the crankiest man ever.

442
00:20:54,400 --> 00:20:56,080
High school kids?

443
00:20:56,080 --> 00:21:01,560
See cranky is a very subjective term.

444
00:21:01,560 --> 00:21:04,080
But so like I wasn't even doing student teaching.

445
00:21:04,080 --> 00:21:07,200
This was just like an observation and the professor, the teacher's hair was all messed

446
00:21:07,200 --> 00:21:08,200
up.

447
00:21:08,200 --> 00:21:09,200
Half his shirt was untucked.

448
00:21:09,200 --> 00:21:10,680
His class was a hot mess.

449
00:21:10,680 --> 00:21:14,520
And we sat down after for a debrief, and I started to like, I had my prepared questions

450
00:21:14,520 --> 00:21:15,520
kind of like you do now.

451
00:21:15,520 --> 00:21:16,520
And he said, shut up.

452
00:21:16,520 --> 00:21:17,520
Nope.

453
00:21:17,520 --> 00:21:18,520
You like teaching.

454
00:21:18,520 --> 00:21:19,520
And I said, yeah.

455
00:21:19,520 --> 00:21:20,520
He said, do you like history?

456
00:21:20,520 --> 00:21:21,520
I said, yeah.

457
00:21:21,520 --> 00:21:22,520
And he said that this isn't the job for you.

458
00:21:22,520 --> 00:21:23,520
All I do is manage people all day long.

459
00:21:23,520 --> 00:21:30,040
And I was like, okay, maybe I should explore other options.

460
00:21:30,040 --> 00:21:33,680
But so and my college professor had been pushing me to try to go for the PhD, not just to get

461
00:21:33,680 --> 00:21:36,320
the master's in education.

462
00:21:36,320 --> 00:21:37,320
And so I did.

463
00:21:37,320 --> 00:21:41,720
But the moral of the story is that for me, education really like allowed me to look at

464
00:21:41,720 --> 00:21:45,240
myself in a different light to see the way in which I connect to my community, the way

465
00:21:45,240 --> 00:21:48,960
in which I connect to people in my family and friends, that everything I was doing was

466
00:21:48,960 --> 00:21:54,520
not just about me, that whether I liked it or not, it had had a broader impact.

467
00:21:54,520 --> 00:21:55,880
And I didn't know it at the time.

468
00:21:55,880 --> 00:21:59,720
But the word that encapsulated all this was empowerment.

469
00:21:59,720 --> 00:22:00,720
Education empowered me.

470
00:22:00,720 --> 00:22:01,720
Definitely.

471
00:22:01,720 --> 00:22:02,720
And so that's what I wanted to do.

472
00:22:02,720 --> 00:22:06,320
I wanted to be able to provide that opportunity and experience to other people.

473
00:22:06,320 --> 00:22:10,040
It wasn't like my college professors opened doors for me and they got me interested in

474
00:22:10,040 --> 00:22:11,040
stuff.

475
00:22:11,040 --> 00:22:12,560
But at the end of the day, I was the one that had to walk through.

476
00:22:12,560 --> 00:22:16,360
I was the one that had to do the work, as you well know.

477
00:22:16,360 --> 00:22:19,680
And so when I taught in that first prison class, it was just astounding to me.

478
00:22:19,680 --> 00:22:24,080
A lot of the men in that class, it was clearly the first time anybody had ever asked them

479
00:22:24,080 --> 00:22:25,080
what they thought.

480
00:22:25,080 --> 00:22:26,080
Yeah, probably.

481
00:22:26,080 --> 00:22:29,680
Probably the first time that their opinion actually mattered to anybody.

482
00:22:29,680 --> 00:22:32,640
And anybody who's been in the criminal justice system knows the criminal justice system is

483
00:22:32,640 --> 00:22:34,680
not designed to empower you.

484
00:22:34,680 --> 00:22:35,680
No.

485
00:22:35,680 --> 00:22:36,680
Right?

486
00:22:36,680 --> 00:22:41,880
And I don't want to just talk extremely poorly about the criminal justice system, but I feel

487
00:22:41,880 --> 00:22:44,560
like our criminal justice system in a lot of ways was not well put together and not

488
00:22:44,560 --> 00:22:48,000
well thought through in terms of what the goals are of having it.

489
00:22:48,000 --> 00:22:49,000
Right.

490
00:22:49,000 --> 00:22:51,600
For a lot of these men, they had spent the...

491
00:22:51,600 --> 00:22:54,520
The vast majority of men I worked with, and I was primarily working in men's prisons,

492
00:22:54,520 --> 00:22:58,840
I taught one semester in Albion, which was a women's facility.

493
00:22:58,840 --> 00:23:00,840
That was a struggle because they had no program there.

494
00:23:00,840 --> 00:23:05,600
And I'll talk a little bit more about the benefits of having an educational culture

495
00:23:05,600 --> 00:23:06,880
inside of a prison.

496
00:23:06,880 --> 00:23:08,680
Albion did not have one at all.

497
00:23:08,680 --> 00:23:11,040
And so it almost felt like teaching a high school class.

498
00:23:11,040 --> 00:23:14,000
That particular high school class, in fact, where I was managing behavior more than I

499
00:23:14,000 --> 00:23:17,120
was teaching content.

500
00:23:17,120 --> 00:23:22,280
But most of the men I worked with had been through at an eighth grade education, probably

501
00:23:22,280 --> 00:23:23,280
60 to 70% of them.

502
00:23:23,280 --> 00:23:26,200
And I was like, okay, well, there's clearly a correlation here, if nothing else, between

503
00:23:26,200 --> 00:23:29,320
your level of education and your likelihood of getting caught up in the system.

504
00:23:29,320 --> 00:23:30,320
Oh, yeah.

505
00:23:30,320 --> 00:23:34,160
The vast majority of the men that I worked with were people of color.

506
00:23:34,160 --> 00:23:37,520
There's that connection too.

507
00:23:37,520 --> 00:23:43,320
But I witnessed a lot of these men recognizing for the first time that there's somebody out

508
00:23:43,320 --> 00:23:45,680
there that actually cares what I think.

509
00:23:45,680 --> 00:23:49,120
What I think actually matters beyond what's going on in my own head.

510
00:23:49,120 --> 00:23:54,640
And the criminal justice system in many ways convinces you on a daily basis to not invest

511
00:23:54,640 --> 00:23:59,800
in yourself and to not really think about what you want to do or what your values or

512
00:23:59,800 --> 00:24:01,000
opinions are.

513
00:24:01,000 --> 00:24:04,440
The system basically tries to fit everybody into the same both figurative and literal

514
00:24:04,440 --> 00:24:06,360
box.

515
00:24:06,360 --> 00:24:11,440
And then we have this strange expectation that people who spend four, five, 10, 15,

516
00:24:11,440 --> 00:24:15,880
20, 25 years in that figurative and literal box are somehow going to be able to magically

517
00:24:15,880 --> 00:24:18,040
transform themselves the instant they get out.

518
00:24:18,040 --> 00:24:19,040
Yeah, of course.

519
00:24:19,040 --> 00:24:20,860
How can you not?

520
00:24:20,860 --> 00:24:26,880
So when I got here, I never gave up on the desire to be engaged with that particular

521
00:24:26,880 --> 00:24:27,880
population.

522
00:24:27,880 --> 00:24:31,640
And I love the population I work with at Penn College, because again, this is a very unique

523
00:24:31,640 --> 00:24:33,880
population.

524
00:24:33,880 --> 00:24:40,080
But about six years ago, our current president, who at that time was the dean of the school,

525
00:24:40,080 --> 00:24:44,600
had been contacted by somebody from Bucknell who was looking to put together what's called

526
00:24:44,600 --> 00:24:47,600
a consortium of higher education in prison.

527
00:24:47,600 --> 00:24:51,980
There's a national association called NAHEP, the National Association for Consortiums of

528
00:24:51,980 --> 00:24:54,800
Higher Education in Prison.

529
00:24:54,800 --> 00:24:58,080
Lots of states have chapters, and they're all put together by colleges and universities

530
00:24:58,080 --> 00:25:03,840
who band together and pool resources to try to increase educational access inside of prisons.

531
00:25:03,840 --> 00:25:07,760
To lobby state legislatures to increase funding.

532
00:25:07,760 --> 00:25:11,420
But then also, and this is the more complicated part, to build what are called articulation

533
00:25:11,420 --> 00:25:13,440
agreements between those colleges.

534
00:25:13,440 --> 00:25:19,240
The challenge could be if I get incarcerated, say, in Cole Township, but then I get released

535
00:25:19,240 --> 00:25:23,840
on the other side of the state before I finish my degree, do I then have to try to get all

536
00:25:23,840 --> 00:25:26,640
the way back to where I was taken to the college or whatever?

537
00:25:26,640 --> 00:25:29,480
Let's say it was Bucknell that I was taking classes with, I've got to then go back to

538
00:25:29,480 --> 00:25:30,480
Bucknell.

539
00:25:30,480 --> 00:25:33,440
I might have restrictions on not being able to leave the county if I'm still on probation.

540
00:25:33,440 --> 00:25:35,580
So I can't do that.

541
00:25:35,580 --> 00:25:38,040
Some people will get transferred while they're serving their sentence.

542
00:25:38,040 --> 00:25:42,280
So I might be in Cole Township and they get transferred to Benner.

543
00:25:42,280 --> 00:25:45,760
In those instances, what we're trying to do is have educational programming in all of

544
00:25:45,760 --> 00:25:49,480
those facilities, but say that if you're taking Bucknell's program at Benner, but you go

545
00:25:49,480 --> 00:25:52,840
to Cole Township where Penn College has a program, we'll accept the credits and vice

546
00:25:52,840 --> 00:25:55,840
versa.

547
00:25:55,840 --> 00:25:56,840
Most colleges already do this.

548
00:25:56,840 --> 00:26:00,280
So when a transfer student comes into Penn College, if they've come from another institution,

549
00:26:00,280 --> 00:26:03,880
one of the first things we do is a transcript review and we already have some pre-existing

550
00:26:03,880 --> 00:26:07,480
articulation and say, yeah, the psychology you took there is the same as the psychology

551
00:26:07,480 --> 00:26:08,480
here.

552
00:26:08,480 --> 00:26:09,480
We'll take the credits.

553
00:26:09,480 --> 00:26:11,400
But sometimes we just don't have those built in.

554
00:26:11,400 --> 00:26:13,640
So there has to be a review done of them.

555
00:26:13,640 --> 00:26:17,480
One of the things that this consortium is trying to do is do all that legwork now.

556
00:26:17,480 --> 00:26:24,760
Say if Penn College was going to offer a CNC machining degree that had a math requirement

557
00:26:24,760 --> 00:26:29,680
as well as an English requirement and somebody transferred out but still needed that English

558
00:26:29,680 --> 00:26:32,400
and math, could they take it somewhere else or could English and math that they've taken

559
00:26:32,400 --> 00:26:33,400
somewhere else transfer in here?

560
00:26:33,400 --> 00:26:37,760
We just want to have those agreements kind of baked in the cake already.

561
00:26:37,760 --> 00:26:41,240
So we've been working with that or I've been working with that organization.

562
00:26:41,240 --> 00:26:45,120
It's currently Bucknell, Villanova, Temple, Penn State.

563
00:26:45,120 --> 00:26:47,720
I think one of the reasons that Penn College is in the room is because of the uniqueness

564
00:26:47,720 --> 00:26:49,560
of the degrees we offer.

565
00:26:49,560 --> 00:26:53,220
This will be a conversation when we talk about politics in a little bit.

566
00:26:53,220 --> 00:26:56,960
So we've been working on that, but because a lot of the work that's going there is lobbying

567
00:26:56,960 --> 00:27:01,000
and grant writing, it takes a lot longer to get things done.

568
00:27:01,000 --> 00:27:04,800
One of the other challenges is right about the time we're ready to hit this up and take

569
00:27:04,800 --> 00:27:07,080
off, COVID hit.

570
00:27:07,080 --> 00:27:10,520
And the year before COVID hit, I don't know if any of you remember, there was an issue

571
00:27:10,520 --> 00:27:13,880
in prisons where people were smuggling in drugs on paper.

572
00:27:13,880 --> 00:27:17,800
And this shut down the availability to bring paper in.

573
00:27:17,800 --> 00:27:23,720
And the other challenge is if you're incarcerated, most SCIs in the state do not allow any internet

574
00:27:23,720 --> 00:27:24,720
access.

575
00:27:24,720 --> 00:27:28,400
So I can't use digital forms, I can't get somebody onto a learning management system

576
00:27:28,400 --> 00:27:33,160
like our desire to learn our Plato system, and I can't bring paper in, which just really

577
00:27:33,160 --> 00:27:36,840
made things even more challenging for the existing programs.

578
00:27:36,840 --> 00:27:44,240
The other challenge, and we're going to get to this later, is that most prison programs,

579
00:27:44,240 --> 00:27:50,280
the few prison programs that exist currently, at least up until about a year ago, had no

580
00:27:50,280 --> 00:27:52,480
access to federal funding.

581
00:27:52,480 --> 00:27:55,920
Because federal funding was cut off in 94, which I know we're going to get to.

582
00:27:55,920 --> 00:28:00,520
So because of COVID, because of the long, derayed kind of nature of what we were trying

583
00:28:00,520 --> 00:28:05,000
to work, I was still chomping at the bit to get something concrete done.

584
00:28:05,000 --> 00:28:11,960
And so I approached President Reid when he was provost, this is 2021, I think, maybe

585
00:28:11,960 --> 00:28:18,320
2020, and said, excuse me, would you be willing to run a pilot program in the county prison

586
00:28:18,320 --> 00:28:25,160
where we offer them one class free of tuition in the hopes that, one, the education itself

587
00:28:25,160 --> 00:28:29,320
just is still empowering to those individuals and reduces recidivism and the likelihood

588
00:28:29,320 --> 00:28:30,840
that people are going to go back to prison.

589
00:28:30,840 --> 00:28:31,840
That's what recidivism is.

590
00:28:31,840 --> 00:28:33,840
It measures the likelihood of somebody going back to prison.

591
00:28:33,840 --> 00:28:34,840
Wow.

592
00:28:34,840 --> 00:28:37,200
He just answered my next question before I even asked.

593
00:28:37,200 --> 00:28:40,520
It's a complicated one, though, so we're going to have to unpack that a little more.

594
00:28:40,520 --> 00:28:43,920
And the agreement I made with him is if he would be willing to do this for two years,

595
00:28:43,920 --> 00:28:50,200
I would write grants to see if, to support tuition for some of these, this population

596
00:28:50,200 --> 00:28:54,320
if they took the class when they were released, wanted to enroll at the college.

597
00:28:54,320 --> 00:28:58,200
We enrolled our first two, and there's possibly a third that are going to happen within the

598
00:28:58,200 --> 00:28:59,200
next week.

599
00:28:59,200 --> 00:29:00,400
We successfully got some grants.

600
00:29:00,400 --> 00:29:03,600
We're in the process of writing more.

601
00:29:03,600 --> 00:29:07,200
But so that, and the class we're offering there is a communications course that focuses

602
00:29:07,200 --> 00:29:16,120
on workplace communication, conflict resolution, resume writing, interpersonal communication.

603
00:29:16,120 --> 00:29:20,360
So and the instructor's teacher, Anjara Campbell, is an English instructor on campus who's phenomenal.

604
00:29:20,360 --> 00:29:21,360
Yes, she is.

605
00:29:21,360 --> 00:29:26,680
Ashlee and a former, a friend of hers, a former student at the college too, Rachel Thompson,

606
00:29:26,680 --> 00:29:32,560
have both come into the class to talk to these students about, you know, they both have a

607
00:29:32,560 --> 00:29:35,680
pretty good understanding of restorative justice and restorative practice as well as experience

608
00:29:35,680 --> 00:29:37,480
with the criminal justice system.

609
00:29:37,480 --> 00:29:38,740
They're both non-traditional students.

610
00:29:38,740 --> 00:29:42,480
That's one of the big challenges for a lot of people coming out of the criminal justice

611
00:29:42,480 --> 00:29:45,520
system who want to get education is, they're like, one, I'm going to be the oldest person

612
00:29:45,520 --> 00:29:46,520
in class.

613
00:29:46,520 --> 00:29:49,320
Two, what if people find out I've been inside?

614
00:29:49,320 --> 00:29:53,520
And I tell these students, I say all the time, the non-traditional students from a professor's

615
00:29:53,520 --> 00:29:56,400
perspective, we gravitate towards you, right?

616
00:29:56,400 --> 00:29:59,840
Because I know that you're not here to party, right?

617
00:29:59,840 --> 00:30:01,180
You've had some life experience.

618
00:30:01,180 --> 00:30:03,320
This is probably, you're paying for this out of your own pocket.

619
00:30:03,320 --> 00:30:06,640
You're invested in it, not to say that other traditional students aren't.

620
00:30:06,640 --> 00:30:10,880
But when I see somebody who's older than a traditional student, I know that they're focused

621
00:30:10,880 --> 00:30:11,880
and dedicated.

622
00:30:11,880 --> 00:30:12,880
Yeah.

623
00:30:12,880 --> 00:30:15,440
But so that's what I'm currently doing.

624
00:30:15,440 --> 00:30:19,220
That's how, the reason I got back to this at Penn College is because I saw the impact

625
00:30:19,220 --> 00:30:20,220
that this has.

626
00:30:20,220 --> 00:30:23,960
And just to give you another quick recidivism, which I think is where you want to go next,

627
00:30:23,960 --> 00:30:27,280
that measure of how likely somebody has to go back to prison.

628
00:30:27,280 --> 00:30:33,640
In 2008, 2009, my last ditch effort to save that program was I did a recidivism study,

629
00:30:33,640 --> 00:30:37,920
10 years, where I compared New York State's overall average recidivism rate for their

630
00:30:37,920 --> 00:30:42,560
general population, and then the 10-year rate for people who had been through our program.

631
00:30:42,560 --> 00:30:46,720
The rate for New York State at that point was 46% or 47% of the people went back to

632
00:30:46,720 --> 00:30:47,720
prison.

633
00:30:47,720 --> 00:30:48,720
In my program, it was 7%.

634
00:30:48,720 --> 00:30:49,720
Nice.

635
00:30:49,720 --> 00:30:50,720
Wow.

636
00:30:50,720 --> 00:30:51,720
That's incredible.

637
00:30:51,720 --> 00:30:52,720
Which was insane.

638
00:30:52,720 --> 00:30:55,780
And again, I gave these numbers to the state legislature and they're like, we know it works,

639
00:30:55,780 --> 00:30:56,780
but we can't help you.

640
00:30:56,780 --> 00:30:57,780
Right.

641
00:30:57,780 --> 00:30:58,780
Yeah.

642
00:30:58,780 --> 00:31:00,680
So this is one of the things to anybody who's listening, when you want to make change, it's

643
00:31:00,680 --> 00:31:03,440
not just about the change you want to make, it's about the environment in which you want

644
00:31:03,440 --> 00:31:04,760
to make the change.

645
00:31:04,760 --> 00:31:08,300
One of the things that's working to our advantage right now is that there does seem to be more

646
00:31:08,300 --> 00:31:14,080
of a push towards criminal justice reform that's focused in cost savings.

647
00:31:14,080 --> 00:31:18,800
Because of the pandemic, because of the unprecedented economic stimulus and fiscal stimulus, monetary

648
00:31:18,800 --> 00:31:22,440
and fiscal stimulus that were put out there, we're starting to see a contraction, right?

649
00:31:22,440 --> 00:31:26,960
The Federal Reserve is raising interest rates, state budgets are getting tighter.

650
00:31:26,960 --> 00:31:30,080
And one of the arguments I've always made, I've never focused on social justice.

651
00:31:30,080 --> 00:31:31,760
I've always focused on dollars and cents.

652
00:31:31,760 --> 00:31:37,360
So with that New York program, they made an investment of $3.5 million over 10 years from

653
00:31:37,360 --> 00:31:41,680
the state to the program and they saved $37.5 million in reduced incarceration costs.

654
00:31:41,680 --> 00:31:42,680
Wow.

655
00:31:42,680 --> 00:31:46,160
And that's the low estimate, right?

656
00:31:46,160 --> 00:31:48,840
If you don't go back to prison, it stands to reason, the reason you're not going back

657
00:31:48,840 --> 00:31:50,360
to prison is you got a job.

658
00:31:50,360 --> 00:31:51,360
Exactly.

659
00:31:51,360 --> 00:31:53,920
You're working, which means you're paying taxes, which means you're also a consumer,

660
00:31:53,920 --> 00:31:55,440
so you're contributing to the economy.

661
00:31:55,440 --> 00:31:58,040
So there's all those associated benefits.

662
00:31:58,040 --> 00:32:01,600
And then there's the social cost of the crimes that aren't being committed to that community.

663
00:32:01,600 --> 00:32:08,880
The fact that people who are successfully reenter society after being incarcerated reconnect

664
00:32:08,880 --> 00:32:10,640
with family, reconnect with friends, right?

665
00:32:10,640 --> 00:32:12,360
So those bonds.

666
00:32:12,360 --> 00:32:14,360
But those are kind of the unquantifiable benefits, right?

667
00:32:14,360 --> 00:32:19,080
I can't show you a chart of how many men or women reconnected with family and follow that

668
00:32:19,080 --> 00:32:20,140
chain down.

669
00:32:20,140 --> 00:32:21,880
But it is a generational effect.

670
00:32:21,880 --> 00:32:22,880
Yeah, of course.

671
00:32:22,880 --> 00:32:23,880
Yeah.

672
00:32:23,880 --> 00:32:24,880
A generational impact.

673
00:32:24,880 --> 00:32:25,880
Definitely.

674
00:32:25,880 --> 00:32:28,760
When you take a parent, for example, out of a home that has a big effect on a child and

675
00:32:28,760 --> 00:32:32,720
how they grow up and then it keeps going because then that could affect how they, if they have

676
00:32:32,720 --> 00:32:35,000
children and it goes down the line.

677
00:32:35,000 --> 00:32:37,980
And the reverse of that is too, if you're having somebody who has been inside of a state

678
00:32:37,980 --> 00:32:41,280
correctional facility or a federal prison or even a county jail and then they're trying

679
00:32:41,280 --> 00:32:44,680
to reintegrate into the family, what baggage are they bringing with them?

680
00:32:44,680 --> 00:32:45,680
Yes.

681
00:32:45,680 --> 00:32:46,680
No, definitely.

682
00:32:46,680 --> 00:32:50,920
And you know, we've kind of had that conversation because, you know, my partner, he was in a

683
00:32:50,920 --> 00:32:55,320
state correctional facility for four years and that was like, it was a lot.

684
00:32:55,320 --> 00:32:59,840
And now he's about to graduate in a semester with a bachelor's degree in engineering.

685
00:32:59,840 --> 00:33:05,320
So just to see like how you said before, like education is very empowering.

686
00:33:05,320 --> 00:33:11,600
And that word is so, it has a lot behind it to empower somebody like that.

687
00:33:11,600 --> 00:33:18,280
We see studies in higher education around upward mobility and the results that come

688
00:33:18,280 --> 00:33:21,440
from students coming in.

689
00:33:21,440 --> 00:33:28,140
Are there studies in prison education that are attempting to make that same connection?

690
00:33:28,140 --> 00:33:31,880
More so in the last 10 years than before.

691
00:33:31,880 --> 00:33:35,400
One of the challenges with doing research with a population of people who are incarcerated

692
00:33:35,400 --> 00:33:39,480
is one they're elusive, particularly upon release.

693
00:33:39,480 --> 00:33:45,000
So the program that I worked at at New York, the directors, one of his philosophies was

694
00:33:45,000 --> 00:33:47,760
I don't contact them after they've gotten released.

695
00:33:47,760 --> 00:33:51,680
I give them all my information and they can contact me anytime they want.

696
00:33:51,680 --> 00:33:54,200
But he got a lot of flack from some of his grantors because they're like, well, we want

697
00:33:54,200 --> 00:33:55,960
you to do some research and collect data.

698
00:33:55,960 --> 00:33:59,360
And he's like, some of these men need to leave this behind the minute they step out those

699
00:33:59,360 --> 00:34:03,160
doors and I don't want to draw them back in by calling them up.

700
00:34:03,160 --> 00:34:09,200
So it's a challenge to monitor that population after release because the state doesn't do

701
00:34:09,200 --> 00:34:11,440
it like, well, people are incarcerated.

702
00:34:11,440 --> 00:34:16,680
Recidivism is relatively, I should say, easy but easier to track than mobility because

703
00:34:16,680 --> 00:34:19,720
those are longitudinal studies you're talking about when you're talking about mobility.

704
00:34:19,720 --> 00:34:23,280
Like, can I track this person over five or 10 years and how many people can I?

705
00:34:23,280 --> 00:34:27,160
So there's a lot of anecdotal work that's out there that talks about individual stories.

706
00:34:27,160 --> 00:34:29,600
There is a guy and I cannot remember his name.

707
00:34:29,600 --> 00:34:35,760
I think he went through the Bard Prison Initiative program in New York.

708
00:34:35,760 --> 00:34:36,760
Max Kenner runs that program.

709
00:34:36,760 --> 00:34:38,840
It's the gold standard that in San Quentin.

710
00:34:38,840 --> 00:34:42,360
Max Kenner was able to keep that program running through every financial crisis that's ever

711
00:34:42,360 --> 00:34:43,360
happened.

712
00:34:43,360 --> 00:34:44,360
He's impressive.

713
00:34:44,360 --> 00:34:49,400
But one of his graduates who had been arrested twice for armed robbery is now a clerk for

714
00:34:49,400 --> 00:34:52,600
the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in California.

715
00:34:52,600 --> 00:34:53,600
Wow.

716
00:34:53,600 --> 00:34:54,600
Awesome.

717
00:34:54,600 --> 00:34:59,320
So there are a lot of anecdotal stories like that, but the kind of the broader longitudinal

718
00:34:59,320 --> 00:35:01,200
studies that just don't exist yet.

719
00:35:01,200 --> 00:35:04,400
And a lot of that, again, is not just the elusiveness but also funding.

720
00:35:04,400 --> 00:35:07,880
I could probably track down the vast majority of the men who went through the New York program

721
00:35:07,880 --> 00:35:11,440
over the last 10 years, but I would need resources to do that.

722
00:35:11,440 --> 00:35:15,280
And one of the challenges for people who do this work is what's the best use of the resources?

723
00:35:15,280 --> 00:35:19,880
On the one hand, the more you can convince people that this works, the more traction

724
00:35:19,880 --> 00:35:20,880
you're going to get.

725
00:35:20,880 --> 00:35:21,880
But at the same time, the resources are limited.

726
00:35:21,880 --> 00:35:25,040
I want them all being directed towards the education and reentry itself.

727
00:35:25,040 --> 00:35:28,800
But it's a great question and it's one of the challenges for the field.

728
00:35:28,800 --> 00:35:29,800
Thank you.

729
00:35:29,800 --> 00:35:36,220
You kind of touched on this before, so we'll kind of bring it back.

730
00:35:36,220 --> 00:35:43,480
So recently, I think it was in 2020, the FAFSA Simplification Act, which for anybody is also

731
00:35:43,480 --> 00:35:46,140
known as the Act, was signed into law.

732
00:35:46,140 --> 00:35:52,520
So the law restored the federal Pell Grant eligibility to confined or incarcerated individuals.

733
00:35:52,520 --> 00:35:56,360
And you mentioned it was for the first time since 1994.

734
00:35:56,360 --> 00:36:00,480
Side note, I was born in 1995, just saying.

735
00:36:00,480 --> 00:36:03,880
And it went into effect in July 1st of this year.

736
00:36:03,880 --> 00:36:09,040
So for the listeners and even for me, because I'm not exactly sure, can you break it down?

737
00:36:09,040 --> 00:36:10,500
What exactly is it?

738
00:36:10,500 --> 00:36:16,460
How does it affect and help the prison reform movement and the prison education?

739
00:36:16,460 --> 00:36:19,200
So because I'm a historian, I have to start there.

740
00:36:19,200 --> 00:36:24,160
In 94, Bill Clinton cut a deal with the—at the time, they were calling the Contract for

741
00:36:24,160 --> 00:36:25,160
America Congress.

742
00:36:25,160 --> 00:36:29,000
The Republicans had taken majorities in the House and Senate.

743
00:36:29,000 --> 00:36:35,880
And excuse me, Bill Clinton worked with them on welfare reform and other measures that

744
00:36:35,880 --> 00:36:38,280
didn't necessarily please a lot of the Democratic base.

745
00:36:38,280 --> 00:36:43,120
But Clinton's argument was, I have to kind of work down the middle if I want to get anything

746
00:36:43,120 --> 00:36:44,120
done.

747
00:36:44,120 --> 00:36:48,560
So one of the consequences of the welfare reform that they did was they eliminated prisoners'

748
00:36:48,560 --> 00:36:49,960
access to Pell Grants.

749
00:36:49,960 --> 00:36:53,680
Now, a Pell Grant, for people who are listening and don't know, is a grant from the federal

750
00:36:53,680 --> 00:36:56,620
government that you do not have to pay back.

751
00:36:56,620 --> 00:37:01,120
And you are eligible for it based on your income and your family's income.

752
00:37:01,120 --> 00:37:05,940
So the metric changes, but it's a certain percentage, if you're a certain percentage

753
00:37:05,940 --> 00:37:10,280
below the poverty line, you qualify.

754
00:37:10,280 --> 00:37:16,260
Cutting off that access was killed about 95% of all the higher education college offerings

755
00:37:16,260 --> 00:37:19,880
inside of prisons in the country, because that's how the vast majority of them were

756
00:37:19,880 --> 00:37:20,880
funded.

757
00:37:20,880 --> 00:37:21,880
Wow.

758
00:37:21,880 --> 00:37:25,040
Now, keep in mind, too, the cost of a college degree going back to 1994 was significantly

759
00:37:25,040 --> 00:37:32,280
less than it is now, because of not just inflation, but also just when the financial crisis hit

760
00:37:32,280 --> 00:37:36,100
too, a lot of colleges started competing with one another for a more limited population

761
00:37:36,100 --> 00:37:37,100
of people.

762
00:37:37,100 --> 00:37:41,780
And so you get colleges doing things like building fancier dorms and offering more ancillaries

763
00:37:41,780 --> 00:37:44,240
to try to attract students.

764
00:37:44,240 --> 00:37:48,260
But the vast majority of programs were funded through Pell Grants.

765
00:37:48,260 --> 00:37:51,760
And when the Pell Grants got cut off, most of the prison programs went away.

766
00:37:51,760 --> 00:38:01,300
So beginning with President Obama in 2008, or 2009, don't quote me on the year, there

767
00:38:01,300 --> 00:38:05,700
had been more of a push for criminal justice reform, particularly, and we're going to talk

768
00:38:05,700 --> 00:38:10,100
about restorative justice in a little bit, too, but different approaches to trying to

769
00:38:10,100 --> 00:38:15,660
deal with crime overall, but the people convicted of crimes, too.

770
00:38:15,660 --> 00:38:18,860
Ironically, and this is one of the things that still astounds me, the state of Texas

771
00:38:18,860 --> 00:38:21,420
was at the forefront of some of this criminal justice reform.

772
00:38:21,420 --> 00:38:22,420
Really?

773
00:38:22,420 --> 00:38:24,740
Texas has a part-time state legislature.

774
00:38:24,740 --> 00:38:26,320
They don't work full time.

775
00:38:26,320 --> 00:38:30,620
I think they only meet like two or three months out of the year, and they just get like stuff

776
00:38:30,620 --> 00:38:33,860
thrown in front of them like, well, we're spending this much on education.

777
00:38:33,860 --> 00:38:37,640
And somebody in the Texas state legislature read that you can reduce recidivism by offering

778
00:38:37,640 --> 00:38:41,100
education to inmates inside, and Texas is like, well, it's a way to save money, so we're

779
00:38:41,100 --> 00:38:42,100
going to do it.

780
00:38:42,100 --> 00:38:43,100
Wow.

781
00:38:43,100 --> 00:38:45,060
And so that kind of got the ball rolling.

782
00:38:45,060 --> 00:38:46,060
Go Texas.

783
00:38:46,060 --> 00:38:51,180
On some things, go Texas.

784
00:38:51,180 --> 00:38:54,660
But when Obama was elected, he had run partially on a criminal justice reform.

785
00:38:54,660 --> 00:38:59,580
What was dominating the 2008 election was Afghanistan primarily and Iraq.

786
00:38:59,580 --> 00:39:03,060
But I think because, again, context matters, because there was so much attention being

787
00:39:03,060 --> 00:39:07,100
paid to Iraq and Afghanistan, and particularly because of the financial crisis that emerged

788
00:39:07,100 --> 00:39:12,800
during that campaign, these ideas about spending a little bit of money to save money started

789
00:39:12,800 --> 00:39:13,800
to gain traction.

790
00:39:13,800 --> 00:39:15,680
And this is a truism in business.

791
00:39:15,680 --> 00:39:17,380
You can't cut your way to growth.

792
00:39:17,380 --> 00:39:20,300
You're going to have to invest somewhere if you're trying to get somewhere.

793
00:39:20,300 --> 00:39:21,300
Exactly.

794
00:39:21,300 --> 00:39:24,580
So he started with what he called a second chance Pell program.

795
00:39:24,580 --> 00:39:30,540
A second chance Pell said that if you were a college who wanted to offer a full program

796
00:39:30,540 --> 00:39:36,140
inside of a prison, that you had to go through a process to become what's called a PEP, a

797
00:39:36,140 --> 00:39:37,140
prison education program.

798
00:39:37,140 --> 00:39:40,700
So you made an application to the Department of Education.

799
00:39:40,700 --> 00:39:45,300
And if you were approved, then every inmate who enrolled in your program could qualify

800
00:39:45,300 --> 00:39:46,980
for Pell.

801
00:39:46,980 --> 00:39:49,580
So Bloomsburg University was actually one of the first to do this.

802
00:39:49,580 --> 00:39:51,100
I think Villanova did it too.

803
00:39:51,100 --> 00:39:53,220
I'm pretty sure Temple was on board with it.

804
00:39:53,220 --> 00:39:56,900
Bucknell may have been for a little while too, but I'm not sure about Bucknell.

805
00:39:56,900 --> 00:39:58,220
But it was a pilot program.

806
00:39:58,220 --> 00:40:02,540
So it ran throughout the Obama administration when Trump was elected.

807
00:40:02,540 --> 00:40:06,300
Trump also got involved in criminal justice reform with the First Step Act that allowed

808
00:40:06,300 --> 00:40:08,240
a lot of nonviolent offenders out.

809
00:40:08,240 --> 00:40:10,500
And Trump's education department said, we want to continue this.

810
00:40:10,500 --> 00:40:12,140
And so they continued it.

811
00:40:12,140 --> 00:40:16,780
Then the Biden administration finally with the FAFSA Simplification Act made it permanent.

812
00:40:16,780 --> 00:40:21,700
So the challenge, it's great on one hand because it provides opportunities.

813
00:40:21,700 --> 00:40:26,620
The biggest challenge for prison education is how the tuition is paid for.

814
00:40:26,620 --> 00:40:29,780
There are lots of colleges and universities who want to offer these programs.

815
00:40:29,780 --> 00:40:31,700
The demand for the coursework is there.

816
00:40:31,700 --> 00:40:34,580
A lot of the state departments of corrections are on board with it.

817
00:40:34,580 --> 00:40:37,620
The question is, who's paying the tuition?

818
00:40:37,620 --> 00:40:40,380
Pell doesn't come close to covering tuition.

819
00:40:40,380 --> 00:40:45,520
So the maximum Pell amount, I think, for 23, 24 is about $7,500.

820
00:40:45,520 --> 00:40:48,660
But that has to be split in between two semesters.

821
00:40:48,660 --> 00:40:52,460
That probably could get you about two to three classes.

822
00:40:52,460 --> 00:40:58,060
So the other challenge is that it is really, really cumbersome to apply to become an approved

823
00:40:58,060 --> 00:40:59,580
prison education program.

824
00:40:59,580 --> 00:41:02,620
Penn College is in the process of trying to do this because of a grant we just applied

825
00:41:02,620 --> 00:41:06,980
for through the Department of Justice to offer that programming inside of Muncie, expand

826
00:41:06,980 --> 00:41:10,180
the programming we're offering inside of...

827
00:41:10,180 --> 00:41:11,180
Muncie is a women's state...

828
00:41:11,180 --> 00:41:13,020
Muncie is the SCI Muncie is a women's state prison.

829
00:41:13,020 --> 00:41:14,020
Thank you.

830
00:41:14,020 --> 00:41:16,220
...and they're going to have to claim in the county pre-release center.

831
00:41:16,220 --> 00:41:18,500
The challenge for the pre-release center is that it's just one class.

832
00:41:18,500 --> 00:41:21,540
None of the men enrolled in that class are enrolled in a program, so they're not eligible

833
00:41:21,540 --> 00:41:23,660
for Pell anyway.

834
00:41:23,660 --> 00:41:26,940
And so we've got to go through this cumbersome paperwork process to demonstrate...

835
00:41:26,940 --> 00:41:27,940
I mean, it makes sense, right?

836
00:41:27,940 --> 00:41:30,620
You don't want people just calling out of the woodwork and saying, yeah, this is a college

837
00:41:30,620 --> 00:41:33,020
degree and we're offering it to them and they're totally going to be able to use this when

838
00:41:33,020 --> 00:41:34,020
they get out.

839
00:41:34,020 --> 00:41:37,580
We don't want the University of Phoenix model that got people in trouble.

840
00:41:37,580 --> 00:41:41,100
But at the same time, it becomes a barrier if that institution doesn't have the resources

841
00:41:41,100 --> 00:41:43,200
to develop to get to this program.

842
00:41:43,200 --> 00:41:47,500
Anybody who's ever dealt with a federal grant or a federal agency before has learned what

843
00:41:47,500 --> 00:41:51,140
bureaucracy means and not necessarily a good way.

844
00:41:51,140 --> 00:41:56,380
The other challenge is that for a program to be approved, not just approved by the federal

845
00:41:56,380 --> 00:41:59,380
government, all colleges and universities or most colleges and universities choose to

846
00:41:59,380 --> 00:42:00,380
be accredited.

847
00:42:00,380 --> 00:42:05,100
So it's another way of letting the prospective student and parent know that this institution

848
00:42:05,100 --> 00:42:08,100
has, there's outside review going on.

849
00:42:08,100 --> 00:42:10,900
Well, our accrediting bodies like this is new for us.

850
00:42:10,900 --> 00:42:15,060
So generally speaking, a prison program would be the same as an offsite location.

851
00:42:15,060 --> 00:42:16,140
We have one in Wellsboro.

852
00:42:16,140 --> 00:42:18,500
We have the Earth Science Center, right?

853
00:42:18,500 --> 00:42:22,660
So those students need access to the exact same services that every student on main campus

854
00:42:22,660 --> 00:42:23,660
has.

855
00:42:23,660 --> 00:42:26,140
I can't do that inside of a prison.

856
00:42:26,140 --> 00:42:29,160
And Middle States knows this and the Department of Education knows this, but because nobody's

857
00:42:29,160 --> 00:42:34,980
done this since 1994, there's no kind of institutional historical knowledge about how you approach

858
00:42:34,980 --> 00:42:35,980
doing this.

859
00:42:35,980 --> 00:42:37,220
So everybody's just like, we don't know yet.

860
00:42:37,220 --> 00:42:39,740
We don't know yet.

861
00:42:39,740 --> 00:42:44,500
So on the one hand, like with everything in terms of the criminal justice system in particular,

862
00:42:44,500 --> 00:42:48,420
but when you're talking about kind of nationwide system in general, change is always going

863
00:42:48,420 --> 00:42:49,900
to happen slowly.

864
00:42:49,900 --> 00:42:51,820
The Confucian in me says that's a good thing, right?

865
00:42:51,820 --> 00:42:56,220
The Confucian idea was that change that happens too fast has too many unpredicted unintended

866
00:42:56,220 --> 00:42:57,220
consequences.

867
00:42:57,220 --> 00:42:58,220
You don't know what's going to happen.

868
00:42:58,220 --> 00:43:00,700
Sometimes it's better to move slow.

869
00:43:00,700 --> 00:43:02,620
And I agree with that on the one hand.

870
00:43:02,620 --> 00:43:04,140
But the other side.

871
00:43:04,140 --> 00:43:07,580
Well, to make a historical analogy, right, that was Lincoln's argument about slavery,

872
00:43:07,580 --> 00:43:08,580
right?

873
00:43:08,580 --> 00:43:12,660
If you cut it off in these places, it'll die slowly and it'll give people time to adjust.

874
00:43:12,660 --> 00:43:14,540
And slaves are like, well, we're ready to adjust now.

875
00:43:14,540 --> 00:43:15,540
Right.

876
00:43:15,540 --> 00:43:16,540
Right.

877
00:43:16,540 --> 00:43:17,980
So it's everybody else that needs to figure out the adjusting.

878
00:43:17,980 --> 00:43:19,340
It's the same for inmates, right?

879
00:43:19,340 --> 00:43:21,460
They're like, we're ready to make the adjustment now.

880
00:43:21,460 --> 00:43:22,460
Right.

881
00:43:22,460 --> 00:43:23,460
Yeah.

882
00:43:23,460 --> 00:43:24,620
So it's a step in the right direction.

883
00:43:24,620 --> 00:43:26,140
I were working the other challenge.

884
00:43:26,140 --> 00:43:28,700
I don't know if we want to get here now because this isn't exactly Pell.

885
00:43:28,700 --> 00:43:30,740
I think you have a question about state funding later.

886
00:43:30,740 --> 00:43:31,740
Yep.

887
00:43:31,740 --> 00:43:33,980
That's going to be my next question if you just want to start.

888
00:43:33,980 --> 00:43:34,980
Yeah.

889
00:43:34,980 --> 00:43:36,540
I mean, Pell is going to Pell.

890
00:43:36,540 --> 00:43:40,620
I think there's a movement right now amongst a lot of academics who are involved in this

891
00:43:40,620 --> 00:43:45,940
work to try to, and this is not just about prisons, this is about anybody because any

892
00:43:45,940 --> 00:43:51,460
student, any potential student who is not incarcerated is eligible for Pell too based

893
00:43:51,460 --> 00:43:52,900
on their income.

894
00:43:52,900 --> 00:43:54,680
But it's not enough.

895
00:43:54,680 --> 00:43:58,740
And so there's a movement to try to increase the overall Pell amount so that it makes college

896
00:43:58,740 --> 00:44:02,380
more accessible to a larger population of people.

897
00:44:02,380 --> 00:44:08,260
The state aid challenge is that in 19...you had a specific question before I actually

898
00:44:08,260 --> 00:44:09,260
go down.

899
00:44:09,260 --> 00:44:12,540
No, I was just going to be because obviously we're in the state of Pennsylvania.

900
00:44:12,540 --> 00:44:19,000
So Pennsylvania State Grant, there's an eligibility section where it talks about the good moral

901
00:44:19,000 --> 00:44:20,500
standing clause.

902
00:44:20,500 --> 00:44:21,500
Character.

903
00:44:21,500 --> 00:44:22,500
Right.

904
00:44:22,500 --> 00:44:30,260
So for the listeners, can you elaborate a little more on what it is and how that affects

905
00:44:30,260 --> 00:44:34,380
not only maybe inmates, but other populations as well too?

906
00:44:34,380 --> 00:44:35,380
Sure.

907
00:44:35,380 --> 00:44:40,620
In the 1960s, and I don't remember the name of the act, but is when the Pennsylvania State

908
00:44:40,620 --> 00:44:44,860
Legislature created a grant program for higher education.

909
00:44:44,860 --> 00:44:48,780
And one of the clauses in there, and this was typical of virtually every state in the

910
00:44:48,780 --> 00:44:52,740
union did this, they said you had to be a person of good moral standing or good moral

911
00:44:52,740 --> 00:44:56,580
character I think is the phrase, which astounds me that I was even able to get into the state

912
00:44:56,580 --> 00:45:01,260
governing that law exists, but here we sit.

913
00:45:01,260 --> 00:45:07,620
And what the law does is it also creates an agency called FIA, P-H-E-A-A, which I believe

914
00:45:07,620 --> 00:45:11,420
stands for the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Association, but I'm not sure that's

915
00:45:11,420 --> 00:45:13,180
exactly what the acronym stands for.

916
00:45:13,180 --> 00:45:15,500
They're the agency that doles out the money from the state.

917
00:45:15,500 --> 00:45:18,300
So the state appropriates the money, FIA gives it out.

918
00:45:18,300 --> 00:45:21,500
So there was this debate for a long time that FIA was the one that was holding it up because

919
00:45:21,500 --> 00:45:26,860
their interpretation of good moral character was people who were incarcerated couldn't

920
00:45:26,860 --> 00:45:28,300
get access to the money.

921
00:45:28,300 --> 00:45:29,940
It's actually not on them.

922
00:45:29,940 --> 00:45:34,820
It's literally in the law that says there's a good moral character part that can be applied.

923
00:45:34,820 --> 00:45:40,060
So it says things like if you have been convicted of a felony, it may disqualify you.

924
00:45:40,060 --> 00:45:44,580
But it specifically says incarcerated people fall into the bad moral character and they

925
00:45:44,580 --> 00:45:47,100
are ineligible for that funding.

926
00:45:47,100 --> 00:45:52,660
So in order for that to change, the colleges I'm working with through the consortium, Bucknell,

927
00:45:52,660 --> 00:45:58,860
Temple, Villanova, Penn State, have all been trying to figure out how to change the rules.

928
00:45:58,860 --> 00:46:01,980
And the first step of that process is figuring out who you actually need to talk to.

929
00:46:01,980 --> 00:46:03,700
So we actually met with FIA.

930
00:46:03,700 --> 00:46:06,740
There was a representative from Philadelphia, and I can't remember her name.

931
00:46:06,740 --> 00:46:09,740
I think it's Cynthia, Cynthia Gar, maybe.

932
00:46:09,740 --> 00:46:11,780
But that might not be her name.

933
00:46:11,780 --> 00:46:17,060
She actually, FIA was being, during an appropriations subcommittee meeting, she brought the money

934
00:46:17,060 --> 00:46:19,900
up to them and they were the ones that said on the record, like, this isn't up to us.

935
00:46:19,900 --> 00:46:24,460
If you guys change the law, we'll dole out the aid to anybody who qualifies.

936
00:46:24,460 --> 00:46:27,900
So now the challenge is finding people in the state legislature who are willing to sign

937
00:46:27,900 --> 00:46:28,900
on.

938
00:46:28,900 --> 00:46:33,980
We've had some initial interest from state legislatures in changing that provision, which

939
00:46:33,980 --> 00:46:38,860
would open up state access for people who are currently incarcerated, which would be

940
00:46:38,860 --> 00:46:40,820
very helpful and would definitely expand access.

941
00:46:40,820 --> 00:46:41,820
Of course.

942
00:46:41,820 --> 00:46:46,500
So what can like listeners or citizens, taxpayers, like what can they do if they want to help

943
00:46:46,500 --> 00:46:49,260
and help that situation?

944
00:46:49,260 --> 00:46:52,700
Writing your representative from the assembly and the state senate, if this is something

945
00:46:52,700 --> 00:47:00,260
that you're interested in, in terms of increasing the access to educational aid, writing your

946
00:47:00,260 --> 00:47:05,860
state legislator and saying, this is something that I support, it's pretty easy to find out

947
00:47:05,860 --> 00:47:09,480
who your state legislator is by looking online if you don't already know.

948
00:47:09,480 --> 00:47:14,980
And most state legislator's websites have an email button or a contact button.

949
00:47:14,980 --> 00:47:16,820
There is an election coming up.

950
00:47:16,820 --> 00:47:19,380
I was going to say, I get those phone calls all the time.

951
00:47:19,380 --> 00:47:23,820
So but yeah, I mean, right now, this is basically just about a consciousness raising campaign

952
00:47:23,820 --> 00:47:26,940
because my suspicion is the vast majority of state legislatures don't even know that

953
00:47:26,940 --> 00:47:30,700
this barrier actually exists because there's a law passed in the sixties.

954
00:47:30,700 --> 00:47:31,700
Yeah, yeah.

955
00:47:31,700 --> 00:47:35,140
Yeah, because I didn't know about that till we were having that conversation about it.

956
00:47:35,140 --> 00:47:36,620
And I was like, oh, that's...

957
00:47:36,620 --> 00:47:41,900
And this is there about 33 states who I think have changed this.

958
00:47:41,900 --> 00:47:47,020
The group, the colleges I'm working with was working with a lawyer from, I think, Illinois.

959
00:47:47,020 --> 00:47:50,780
She was either Illinois or Ohio.

960
00:47:50,780 --> 00:47:53,660
But they successfully lobbied their state legislator to remove the barrier.

961
00:47:53,660 --> 00:47:54,660
Oh, awesome.

962
00:47:54,660 --> 00:47:59,140
And there's an organization called Vera that does a lot of criminal justice reform too.

963
00:47:59,140 --> 00:48:04,400
They've been big on this and trying to network people with resources in states who have made

964
00:48:04,400 --> 00:48:07,700
these changes with people who are living in states that haven't made these changes.

965
00:48:07,700 --> 00:48:08,700
Okay.

966
00:48:08,700 --> 00:48:10,660
So there's a kind of a full court press going on right now.

967
00:48:10,660 --> 00:48:11,660
All right.

968
00:48:11,660 --> 00:48:15,540
So, you know, me and you, we always, because I've learned it from you, play devil's advocate

969
00:48:15,540 --> 00:48:17,300
and play on the other side.

970
00:48:17,300 --> 00:48:20,540
So kind of, let's talk about the other side a little bit.

971
00:48:20,540 --> 00:48:21,540
So...

972
00:48:21,540 --> 00:48:23,980
I'm starting to regret teaching you these things.

973
00:48:23,980 --> 00:48:26,500
So there are, you know, there's a different perspective.

974
00:48:26,500 --> 00:48:30,740
There are people who say like hardworking American citizens fight every day to be their

975
00:48:30,740 --> 00:48:34,480
best and striving to be the best they can be.

976
00:48:34,480 --> 00:48:39,540
So why is it fair that inmates or citizens who have committed crimes are able to receive

977
00:48:39,540 --> 00:48:42,220
funding for a college education?

978
00:48:42,220 --> 00:48:45,260
So I used to, these are reasonable questions, right?

979
00:48:45,260 --> 00:48:49,180
And in an open society like this, we shouldn't just blindly accept things because the argument

980
00:48:49,180 --> 00:48:51,980
is made by somebody we like or because it sounds like a good argument.

981
00:48:51,980 --> 00:48:55,060
In fact, arguments that sound like good arguments are the ones that should probably question

982
00:48:55,060 --> 00:48:56,060
the hardest.

983
00:48:56,060 --> 00:48:57,060
Exactly.

984
00:48:57,060 --> 00:48:58,060
What was the Socrates phrase?

985
00:48:58,060 --> 00:48:59,740
I used to throw at you guys all the time.

986
00:48:59,740 --> 00:49:02,620
The only thing I'm absolutely certain of is that I'm not certain of anything.

987
00:49:02,620 --> 00:49:03,620
Yes.

988
00:49:03,620 --> 00:49:04,620
I like that.

989
00:49:04,620 --> 00:49:05,620
So...

990
00:49:05,620 --> 00:49:07,900
He should have it tattooed on him as his favorite phrase.

991
00:49:07,900 --> 00:49:12,420
Too old for tattoos now, they hurt too much.

992
00:49:12,420 --> 00:49:15,860
This was one of the biggest complaints I got from corrections officers when I was working

993
00:49:15,860 --> 00:49:17,340
inside the New York State Prison.

994
00:49:17,340 --> 00:49:18,340
Okay.

995
00:49:18,340 --> 00:49:21,180
Some of them were like on board with it and they were like, look, these guys are clearly

996
00:49:21,180 --> 00:49:22,820
well more well behaved.

997
00:49:22,820 --> 00:49:24,740
I have no issues with them whatsoever.

998
00:49:24,740 --> 00:49:25,740
This program clearly works.

999
00:49:25,740 --> 00:49:28,940
But I know those who are like, well, I'm paying for my son's education and he didn't commit

1000
00:49:28,940 --> 00:49:29,940
a crime.

1001
00:49:29,940 --> 00:49:32,220
So why, how is this fair?

1002
00:49:32,220 --> 00:49:34,960
And if they were my age or a little bit older, I could throw at them, well, didn't your parents

1003
00:49:34,960 --> 00:49:37,260
ever tell you life wasn't fair?

1004
00:49:37,260 --> 00:49:41,620
But I think that's a generational comment that I'm not sure works as much.

1005
00:49:41,620 --> 00:49:47,500
The argument that I make is that this isn't about what's fair.

1006
00:49:47,500 --> 00:49:48,620
It's not even about what's right.

1007
00:49:48,620 --> 00:49:51,180
It's about what makes sense.

1008
00:49:51,180 --> 00:49:56,940
In any society that has the number of people we do, we have 350 plus million people, you've

1009
00:49:56,940 --> 00:50:01,140
got to make decisions about what the best way to allocate public resources are.

1010
00:50:01,140 --> 00:50:06,540
And we are currently allocating public resources to a system that doesn't work.

1011
00:50:06,540 --> 00:50:09,820
And by doesn't work, I mean, remember we were talking about recidivism before?

1012
00:50:09,820 --> 00:50:13,780
And the recidivism rate in Pennsylvania, excuse me, New York was 44% in 2008.

1013
00:50:13,780 --> 00:50:17,400
The recidivism rate in Pennsylvania, and these are not my study, this is the Pennsylvania

1014
00:50:17,400 --> 00:50:21,260
Department of Corrections study, the recidivism rate in the state of Pennsylvania is 67%.

1015
00:50:21,260 --> 00:50:22,260
Oh my gosh.

1016
00:50:22,260 --> 00:50:28,260
67% of people go back to prison, at least, excuse me, once after they've been incarcerated.

1017
00:50:28,260 --> 00:50:32,140
And so the question for me isn't about what's fair, it's about what's the best use of public

1018
00:50:32,140 --> 00:50:33,720
resources.

1019
00:50:33,720 --> 00:50:39,220
And if you want to see less crime, if you want to see, I mean, workforce participation

1020
00:50:39,220 --> 00:50:40,740
is a huge issue right now, right?

1021
00:50:40,740 --> 00:50:44,500
I have a lot of employers that have jumped in on these programs, these prison programs,

1022
00:50:44,500 --> 00:50:48,260
because they're having a hard time finding qualified, dependable employees.

1023
00:50:48,260 --> 00:50:51,100
And I often tell some of these employers, I'm like, if you're looking for people who

1024
00:50:51,100 --> 00:50:54,500
know how to navigate a diverse environment, the people coming out of prison know how to

1025
00:50:54,500 --> 00:50:57,980
navigate a diverse and stressful environment.

1026
00:50:57,980 --> 00:51:01,300
But so the other thing I say is the vast majority of these students, if they were on the street,

1027
00:51:01,300 --> 00:51:04,580
would qualify for every kind of aid that's available anyway.

1028
00:51:04,580 --> 00:51:07,580
Because if the vast majority of people go to prison, there are people who live below

1029
00:51:07,580 --> 00:51:11,420
the poverty line at the time they were arrested, charged, and then eventually convicted and

1030
00:51:11,420 --> 00:51:12,740
incarcerated.

1031
00:51:12,740 --> 00:51:14,780
So they're going to qualify for aid anyway.

1032
00:51:14,780 --> 00:51:19,260
This is taxpayer money that I argue would just be being used more wisely than it currently

1033
00:51:19,260 --> 00:51:23,340
is, because again, the education reduces recidivism.

1034
00:51:23,340 --> 00:51:26,700
But the question I always ask people is, do you want somebody who's going to get locked

1035
00:51:26,700 --> 00:51:31,620
up in a gladiator canopy for five years and then get out with fewer options?

1036
00:51:31,620 --> 00:51:37,700
Or do you want somebody who has the space inside that time, as well as the opportunity

1037
00:51:37,700 --> 00:51:41,080
to become empowered, to become a little bit more educated, to become more trained?

1038
00:51:41,080 --> 00:51:42,820
So is that the person you want getting out?

1039
00:51:42,820 --> 00:51:46,500
Or is it the angry person who's been fighting and throwing in with gangs, because that's

1040
00:51:46,500 --> 00:51:49,660
basically the only way to survive prison?

1041
00:51:49,660 --> 00:51:55,740
And so society is rarely about what's fair, particularly when you're talking about large

1042
00:51:55,740 --> 00:51:57,300
nations.

1043
00:51:57,300 --> 00:51:59,100
We have to make tradeoffs all the time.

1044
00:51:59,100 --> 00:52:00,460
Especially in a democracy.

1045
00:52:00,460 --> 00:52:02,260
I know we've had that during class.

1046
00:52:02,260 --> 00:52:07,860
We talk about even in a democracy, there's a losing side, regardless of the majority

1047
00:52:07,860 --> 00:52:08,860
is 95%.

1048
00:52:08,860 --> 00:52:11,580
That 5% on the other side is still losing too.

1049
00:52:11,580 --> 00:52:12,580
So either way.

1050
00:52:12,580 --> 00:52:14,780
I remember we talked about this in American government on the first day.

1051
00:52:14,780 --> 00:52:18,100
The biggest lie in American politics is that there's a right solution that makes everybody

1052
00:52:18,100 --> 00:52:19,100
happy.

1053
00:52:19,100 --> 00:52:20,100
Exactly.

1054
00:52:20,100 --> 00:52:21,580
There are always winners and there are always losers.

1055
00:52:21,580 --> 00:52:25,640
And so the question is, what can you do in a system that's never going to please anybody

1056
00:52:25,640 --> 00:52:27,220
to get the best outcomes?

1057
00:52:27,220 --> 00:52:31,580
And in my opinion, the best outcome here are that people who are going to prison, who get

1058
00:52:31,580 --> 00:52:35,620
out of prison have more options or as many options as they possibly can when they're

1059
00:52:35,620 --> 00:52:37,860
released because that's better for them.

1060
00:52:37,860 --> 00:52:38,900
It's better for their families.

1061
00:52:38,900 --> 00:52:40,040
It's better for the communities they live in.

1062
00:52:40,040 --> 00:52:41,140
But it's also better for us.

1063
00:52:41,140 --> 00:52:45,860
I would prefer my tax dollars going to something other than incarceration.

1064
00:52:45,860 --> 00:52:50,460
But the current system means that my tax dollars are going to currently to just re-incarcerate

1065
00:52:50,460 --> 00:52:51,980
people over and over again.

1066
00:52:51,980 --> 00:52:54,340
And I don't take away personal responsibility.

1067
00:52:54,340 --> 00:52:55,340
Personal responsibility matters.

1068
00:52:55,340 --> 00:52:59,460
When I worked in New York state prison, I worked with members of the MS-13 gang.

1069
00:52:59,460 --> 00:53:03,060
I was pretty happy that they were locked up because those guys straight up to my face

1070
00:53:03,060 --> 00:53:07,300
told me that if you let me out of here, I'm going to do exactly what I did.

1071
00:53:07,300 --> 00:53:11,500
And those are issues that are beyond or above my pay grade.

1072
00:53:11,500 --> 00:53:15,420
I can deal with education, but when you're talking about gang initiation and membership

1073
00:53:15,420 --> 00:53:18,660
like that, that there's a whole psychology around that that that population to get somebody

1074
00:53:18,660 --> 00:53:22,460
out of that situation is something else.

1075
00:53:22,460 --> 00:53:25,660
But for somebody who's drug dealing because they didn't have other options, because one

1076
00:53:25,660 --> 00:53:29,140
of their parents or both of their parents themselves were drug dealers or engaging in

1077
00:53:29,140 --> 00:53:33,500
prostitution or one of their parents were incarcerated, and that person ends up dropping

1078
00:53:33,500 --> 00:53:38,700
out of school in the eighth grade for whatever reason, that person has some level of personal

1079
00:53:38,700 --> 00:53:39,700
responsibility.

1080
00:53:39,700 --> 00:53:44,100
But to a degree, like society needs to step up and say, OK, do we just want to keep re-incarcerating

1081
00:53:44,100 --> 00:53:47,680
these people or do we want to do something constructive with it right now?

1082
00:53:47,680 --> 00:53:49,220
This doesn't solve society's ills.

1083
00:53:49,220 --> 00:53:53,940
I'm not trying I'm not in a position to say I know how to fix people from going to prison.

1084
00:53:53,940 --> 00:53:58,860
All I'm trying to do is suggest that if people who do go to prison, the programming that

1085
00:53:58,860 --> 00:54:02,820
we're offering and the money we're investing means that they're less significantly less

1086
00:54:02,820 --> 00:54:04,780
likely to go back and let's benefit everybody.

1087
00:54:04,780 --> 00:54:12,140
Yeah, I read somewhere in like 2015, they said we spend like $87 billion in jails in

1088
00:54:12,140 --> 00:54:13,700
prison.

1089
00:54:13,700 --> 00:54:14,700
And they were saying like 40.

1090
00:54:14,700 --> 00:54:15,700
Was it 40 years ago?

1091
00:54:15,700 --> 00:54:19,380
I think I've ever written down.

1092
00:54:19,380 --> 00:54:23,780
In 1975, it was only $7.4 billion.

1093
00:54:23,780 --> 00:54:27,100
Thank you, Richard Nixon and the War on Drugs.

1094
00:54:27,100 --> 00:54:30,020
Nixon's such a fascinating character because on the one hand, he's like responsible for

1095
00:54:30,020 --> 00:54:32,820
like most of our innovation in space.

1096
00:54:32,820 --> 00:54:39,020
He's the person who proposed the EPA, which doesn't seem very Nixonian.

1097
00:54:39,020 --> 00:54:42,060
But then he also wrote and passed the Controlled Substances Act.

1098
00:54:42,060 --> 00:54:46,660
The Controlled Substances Act, if you look at a chart of incarceration from like 70 or

1099
00:54:46,660 --> 00:54:51,380
1950 up to now, there's a spike from like 1978 to the present day.

1100
00:54:51,380 --> 00:54:55,700
And the vast majority of those are straight drug convictions or drug related convictions.

1101
00:54:55,700 --> 00:54:59,620
And again, like when you criminalize something and this is the other thing I like to point

1102
00:54:59,620 --> 00:55:02,660
out to people who like to say, you know, that this isn't fair.

1103
00:55:02,660 --> 00:55:07,980
Well, criminalizing drugs in the way we did in the 1970s drove all of drug dealing and

1104
00:55:07,980 --> 00:55:11,020
all of the distribution into America's inner cities.

1105
00:55:11,020 --> 00:55:12,020
Right.

1106
00:55:12,020 --> 00:55:15,100
But most people aren't driving up and I mean, I'm not saying there aren't drugs in places

1107
00:55:15,100 --> 00:55:16,180
like oil sock, right?

1108
00:55:16,180 --> 00:55:21,140
But the vast majority of drug distribution is happening outside of suburbs.

1109
00:55:21,140 --> 00:55:25,540
And so and policing the job of police and many of these communities became how do you

1110
00:55:25,540 --> 00:55:29,740
keep that crime from getting out of the suburbs where the higher tax bases are?

1111
00:55:29,740 --> 00:55:32,580
We could get into a discussion about redlining and why does there's very little tax base

1112
00:55:32,580 --> 00:55:34,380
to begin with in a lot of American cities?

1113
00:55:34,380 --> 00:55:35,380
That's another episode.

1114
00:55:35,380 --> 00:55:36,380
Indeed.

1115
00:55:36,380 --> 00:55:39,700
I like your thinking, Ashlee.

1116
00:55:39,700 --> 00:55:43,060
But at the end of the day, right, that what we're dealing with are the consequences, not

1117
00:55:43,060 --> 00:55:46,260
just of individuals choices, but societal choices.

1118
00:55:46,260 --> 00:55:50,640
Society made a choice in the 1970s to back a plan to criminalize drugs and we are dealing

1119
00:55:50,640 --> 00:55:51,820
with the aftermath of it.

1120
00:55:51,820 --> 00:55:52,820
Right.

1121
00:55:52,820 --> 00:55:54,940
We can kind of say the same thing about like prohibition, right?

1122
00:55:54,940 --> 00:55:58,380
Like that was a whole thing that spiked up a lot.

1123
00:55:58,380 --> 00:55:59,700
And I think that went all that well.

1124
00:55:59,700 --> 00:56:00,700
Yeah, I don't think so either.

1125
00:56:00,700 --> 00:56:03,500
You think we'd have learned a little bit from that.

1126
00:56:03,500 --> 00:56:04,500
We don't.

1127
00:56:04,500 --> 00:56:07,340
There's a line from a television show I love called The Wire where there's two cops talking

1128
00:56:07,340 --> 00:56:10,140
about the war on drugs and the one cop says, you can't even call it a war.

1129
00:56:10,140 --> 00:56:11,460
And the other guy's like, why not?

1130
00:56:11,460 --> 00:56:15,060
And he's like, because wars end.

1131
00:56:15,060 --> 00:56:17,740
I love that episode.

1132
00:56:17,740 --> 00:56:18,740
That's a Dave.

1133
00:56:18,740 --> 00:56:19,740
Professor Bjorkman.

1134
00:56:19,740 --> 00:56:24,100
Professor Bjorkman episode for him.

1135
00:56:24,100 --> 00:56:27,420
Okay, but kind of following about that.

1136
00:56:27,420 --> 00:56:31,220
So there's people also, because there's like a safety aspect that I want you to kind of

1137
00:56:31,220 --> 00:56:36,600
touch on because you work obviously with inmates and in that setting, there are people that

1138
00:56:36,600 --> 00:56:40,220
are going to say things like, well, you're putting professors and teachers in a very

1139
00:56:40,220 --> 00:56:46,540
dangerous environment and situation where they can risk things if the student, let's

1140
00:56:46,540 --> 00:56:49,260
say, gets out of hand.

1141
00:56:49,260 --> 00:56:53,740
And there's also that aspect of people say things like, well, you're giving somebody

1142
00:56:53,740 --> 00:56:59,100
who could have went to prison, who put time and effort into thinking about their crime

1143
00:56:59,100 --> 00:57:03,420
and now you're giving them that education and you're giving them kind of making them

1144
00:57:03,420 --> 00:57:09,700
smarter, more knowledgeable and they can use that to get better at their criminal activities.

1145
00:57:09,700 --> 00:57:11,300
So what do you say to people?

1146
00:57:11,300 --> 00:57:15,020
How do you see the other side of that?

1147
00:57:15,020 --> 00:57:16,580
Great questions.

1148
00:57:16,580 --> 00:57:20,140
To the first question about safety, I've been teaching in prisons for the better part of

1149
00:57:20,140 --> 00:57:21,140
the last 20 years.

1150
00:57:21,140 --> 00:57:23,980
I've had more fights in my street classes than I've ever had inside.

1151
00:57:23,980 --> 00:57:28,620
In fact, I don't think I've ever seen a fight inside of a prison class.

1152
00:57:28,620 --> 00:57:34,900
I'm trying to think, there was a screaming match between two women in my out-being class.

1153
00:57:34,900 --> 00:57:37,740
Two had been dating and then broke up and then started dating somebody else who was

1154
00:57:37,740 --> 00:57:39,700
in the class and it turned into a screaming match.

1155
00:57:39,700 --> 00:57:40,700
This happened in the prison?

1156
00:57:40,700 --> 00:57:41,700
In the women's prison.

1157
00:57:41,700 --> 00:57:47,020
I was trying to teach colonial New England history.

1158
00:57:47,020 --> 00:57:49,780
Maybe that was what sparked it.

1159
00:57:49,780 --> 00:57:53,860
But I've never had any kind of physical altercation in any of the men's classes ever.

1160
00:57:53,860 --> 00:57:56,620
I have at the University of Buffalo.

1161
00:57:56,620 --> 00:58:00,060
I think here there was an altercation in the class that I wasn't in, but it was across

1162
00:58:00,060 --> 00:58:03,860
the hall for me.

1163
00:58:03,860 --> 00:58:07,500
What I would say is that it's about designing the right program.

1164
00:58:07,500 --> 00:58:10,860
So in the consortium of the Niagara Frontier, the program in New York, the thing I loved

1165
00:58:10,860 --> 00:58:14,400
about it was that the men in the program read it.

1166
00:58:14,400 --> 00:58:18,700
So I had men who had been in the program, some of whom were lifers, who might have gotten

1167
00:58:18,700 --> 00:58:23,300
out on parole, might not, were meeting and doing advising with the other students in

1168
00:58:23,300 --> 00:58:25,380
the program to figure out what classes needed to be offered.

1169
00:58:25,380 --> 00:58:28,060
And they'd give that information to me so I could build a schedule.

1170
00:58:28,060 --> 00:58:32,220
I had guys who had been white collar criminals who were locked up for financial crimes.

1171
00:58:32,220 --> 00:58:35,700
Anytime I had a computer problem, they fixed my computers.

1172
00:58:35,700 --> 00:58:39,820
They did tutoring sessions to teach men how to type.

1173
00:58:39,820 --> 00:58:43,220
What happened in that program is that the men in that program, it became a fellowship

1174
00:58:43,220 --> 00:58:46,020
for them in a way where they were invested in it.

1175
00:58:46,020 --> 00:58:49,900
I never had to police bad behavior because they did.

1176
00:58:49,900 --> 00:58:53,160
Even if somebody wasn't doing their homework or turning stuff in, they would get to sit

1177
00:58:53,160 --> 00:58:55,980
down with some of the other guys in the program and be like, look, you could ruin this for

1178
00:58:55,980 --> 00:58:56,980
all of us.

1179
00:58:56,980 --> 00:58:57,980
Wow.

1180
00:58:57,980 --> 00:58:58,980
Right.

1181
00:58:58,980 --> 00:58:59,980
No, definitely.

1182
00:58:59,980 --> 00:59:00,980
Yeah.

1183
00:59:00,980 --> 00:59:02,020
And so it kind of self-policed and they were all of the opinion.

1184
00:59:02,020 --> 00:59:05,540
They knew how unique the opportunity they were getting was.

1185
00:59:05,540 --> 00:59:08,220
They became invested in keeping it going.

1186
00:59:08,220 --> 00:59:10,980
And so I never had any disciplinary issues in that program whatsoever.

1187
00:59:10,980 --> 00:59:12,500
It's the same at the PRC.

1188
00:59:12,500 --> 00:59:16,580
I mean, Andrea Campbell is in a room with eight men by herself.

1189
00:59:16,580 --> 00:59:18,980
And she said to me that she has never felt threatened at all.

1190
00:59:18,980 --> 00:59:23,780
I was going to say, she never looks like she's always so happy and she loves being there.

1191
00:59:23,780 --> 00:59:24,780
And it reverberates out.

1192
00:59:24,780 --> 00:59:25,780
They love her.

1193
00:59:25,780 --> 00:59:26,780
They love Andrea.

1194
00:59:26,780 --> 00:59:27,780
Yes, she is amazing.

1195
00:59:27,780 --> 00:59:33,100
But one of the things that I went to visit one of the inmates at the PRC in the middle

1196
00:59:33,100 --> 00:59:36,980
class, he was struggling with something else.

1197
00:59:36,980 --> 00:59:40,220
And then it was a day they were taking their final exam.

1198
00:59:40,220 --> 00:59:43,060
And so I'm sitting there talking to him and there's like guys who are not in the class

1199
00:59:43,060 --> 00:59:46,780
walking past the classroom where the men are sitting there like getting ready, like going,

1200
00:59:46,780 --> 00:59:47,780
you're going to get it.

1201
00:59:47,780 --> 00:59:48,780
You got this.

1202
00:59:48,780 --> 00:59:51,460
Like guys just mopping as they're walking by.

1203
00:59:51,460 --> 00:59:54,660
But like the entire facility knew what was going on.

1204
00:59:54,660 --> 00:59:57,940
And so I would say that it's not only a safe environment.

1205
00:59:57,940 --> 01:00:03,260
Yeah, there's like a stereotype, I think, that people don't understand that inmates

1206
01:00:03,260 --> 01:00:04,900
want what's better for them.

1207
01:00:04,900 --> 01:00:11,420
They don't want to live in a crappy place or have crappy resources.

1208
01:00:11,420 --> 01:00:14,300
And if they have something precious, they're going to protect it and they're going to do

1209
01:00:14,300 --> 01:00:15,300
their best.

1210
01:00:15,300 --> 01:00:18,700
You can take human beings away from humanity, but you can't take humanity out of it.

1211
01:00:18,700 --> 01:00:19,700
Yeah.

1212
01:00:19,700 --> 01:00:27,060
So ironically, the prison environment actually ends up being more safe, in my opinion, because

1213
01:00:27,060 --> 01:00:28,940
again, and there's always guards around, right?

1214
01:00:28,940 --> 01:00:31,340
There's correctional officers around for most of my classes.

1215
01:00:31,340 --> 01:00:33,980
But even at the New York program, I got to the point where like the corrections officer

1216
01:00:33,980 --> 01:00:36,740
was down the hall listening to the radio the whole time because they weren't going to be

1217
01:00:36,740 --> 01:00:37,740
issues.

1218
01:00:37,740 --> 01:00:40,340
And they would tell me like, I get to catch up on my reading because I don't have to worry

1219
01:00:40,340 --> 01:00:41,340
about what's going on right now.

1220
01:00:41,340 --> 01:00:42,340
Right.

1221
01:00:42,340 --> 01:00:43,340
Yeah.

1222
01:00:43,340 --> 01:00:46,180
What was the second part of the question you asked about like them gaining knowledge to

1223
01:00:46,180 --> 01:00:48,700
maybe help their criminal activity?

1224
01:00:48,700 --> 01:00:50,740
I mean, that's a risk you take with educating anybody, right?

1225
01:00:50,740 --> 01:00:51,740
I was, yeah, definitely.

1226
01:00:51,740 --> 01:00:56,340
I mean, didn't you just say you had like their Wall Street guys?

1227
01:00:56,340 --> 01:01:00,220
Yeah, the Wolf of Wall Street types for sure.

1228
01:01:00,220 --> 01:01:02,540
But I mean, it's a risk of educating people on the street too, right?

1229
01:01:02,540 --> 01:01:06,020
I'm quite sure that Hitler had some form of education at some point in his life.

1230
01:01:06,020 --> 01:01:07,620
Stalin was educated, right?

1231
01:01:07,620 --> 01:01:14,140
So it's a risk you take with educating anybody.

1232
01:01:14,140 --> 01:01:15,260
But like with anything else, right?

1233
01:01:15,260 --> 01:01:18,900
I mean, if you have a, are you going to not have a public education system because it

1234
01:01:18,900 --> 01:01:22,940
offers people the opportunity to engage in violence in the public education system?

1235
01:01:22,940 --> 01:01:24,300
That's true.

1236
01:01:24,300 --> 01:01:26,460
And so again, society always has to make choices.

1237
01:01:26,460 --> 01:01:27,460
There's always trade-offs.

1238
01:01:27,460 --> 01:01:28,460
There's always winners and losers.

1239
01:01:28,460 --> 01:01:31,940
I might end up training, you know, the next criminal mastermind.

1240
01:01:31,940 --> 01:01:33,180
I doubt it.

1241
01:01:33,180 --> 01:01:36,220
I'm not very good at training criminal masterminds.

1242
01:01:36,220 --> 01:01:39,100
I might train the next annoying historian.

1243
01:01:39,100 --> 01:01:41,540
You better not be looking at me.

1244
01:01:41,540 --> 01:01:45,660
But so it's not something I think about too much because there's, and again, it's something

1245
01:01:45,660 --> 01:01:48,740
that would be impossible to quantify in any meaningful way.

1246
01:01:48,740 --> 01:01:54,300
But again, the way you could quantify it is the reverse, that the recidivism rates for

1247
01:01:54,300 --> 01:01:57,620
people get that education are significantly lower.

1248
01:01:57,620 --> 01:02:01,460
So maybe they're becoming such criminal masterminds that they don't get caught anymore.

1249
01:02:01,460 --> 01:02:02,820
But that's typically not the case.

1250
01:02:02,820 --> 01:02:05,020
So we're going to switch gears a little bit.

1251
01:02:05,020 --> 01:02:07,940
Now we're going to talk about restorative justice.

1252
01:02:07,940 --> 01:02:11,140
So I know I mentioned in the beginning, that was my major, it was called human services

1253
01:02:11,140 --> 01:02:15,420
and restorative justice, and you're the department head for that major.

1254
01:02:15,420 --> 01:02:18,980
And our major is kind of broken into two parts, you know, human services and the restorative

1255
01:02:18,980 --> 01:02:19,980
justice part.

1256
01:02:19,980 --> 01:02:25,000
And my niche, my heart was always in the restorative justice part of it.

1257
01:02:25,000 --> 01:02:30,780
So kind of for our listeners, can you explain kind of what restorative justice and restorative

1258
01:02:30,780 --> 01:02:32,460
justice practices are?

1259
01:02:32,460 --> 01:02:33,460
Yeah.

1260
01:02:33,460 --> 01:02:40,060
So the concept of restorative practice, restorative justice goes back several decades, in fact.

1261
01:02:40,060 --> 01:02:44,860
In the 1960s, part of the counterculture and hippie movements and anti-establishment movements

1262
01:02:44,860 --> 01:02:50,580
argued for things like abolishing prisons, for completely rethinking the way in which

1263
01:02:50,580 --> 01:02:54,020
we understand concepts like punishment and victimhood.

1264
01:02:54,020 --> 01:02:59,100
Again, it was the 60s, they were pretty, you know, transformative times and people push

1265
01:02:59,100 --> 01:03:03,060
things pretty far and got pretty radical.

1266
01:03:03,060 --> 01:03:06,820
But I think this is just the kind of normal ebb and flow of things.

1267
01:03:06,820 --> 01:03:12,820
And this started to really gain traction nationally and internationally, it was after the Rwandan

1268
01:03:12,820 --> 01:03:14,420
genocide.

1269
01:03:14,420 --> 01:03:17,540
One of the challenges, and for those of you who aren't familiar, the Rwandan genocide

1270
01:03:17,540 --> 01:03:24,180
broke out in 1994, over about a four-month period, in which two populations, Hutus and

1271
01:03:24,180 --> 01:03:30,900
Tutsis, engaged in a conflict where the Hutus tried to massacre and kill every single Tutsi

1272
01:03:30,900 --> 01:03:35,940
and any so-called moderate Hutu who might be sympathetic to the Tutsis.

1273
01:03:35,940 --> 01:03:38,860
The challenge was, the only way you could really tell the difference between Hutus and

1274
01:03:38,860 --> 01:03:42,860
Tutsis was by identification cards that the Belgians had passed out when they colonized

1275
01:03:42,860 --> 01:03:48,580
the place in the late 19th century, throughout the middle of the 20th century.

1276
01:03:48,580 --> 01:03:51,340
Not to say that the Hutus and Tutsis weren't separate populations, but you couldn't tell

1277
01:03:51,340 --> 01:03:55,020
by looking at somebody necessarily.

1278
01:03:55,020 --> 01:03:59,260
So one of the challenges was when the genocide broke out, the vast majority of the killings

1279
01:03:59,260 --> 01:04:02,580
were done with machetes, which means close quarter combat, and the vast majority of the

1280
01:04:02,580 --> 01:04:04,620
killings were done by people who were not members of the government.

1281
01:04:04,620 --> 01:04:07,220
They were literally like neighbors killing neighbors.

1282
01:04:07,220 --> 01:04:13,900
There was this radio called RTLF that's basically hate radio where the Hutus controlled it,

1283
01:04:13,900 --> 01:04:16,340
and they were saying that Tutsis are cockroaches.

1284
01:04:16,340 --> 01:04:18,900
And if you see a cockroach, what do you do with a cockroach?

1285
01:04:18,900 --> 01:04:20,020
You stamp it out.

1286
01:04:20,020 --> 01:04:22,500
But then you want to make sure that other cockroaches don't come, so you have to kill

1287
01:04:22,500 --> 01:04:24,500
all the cockroaches' family.

1288
01:04:24,500 --> 01:04:27,580
And so you literally had a situation where neighbors were just macheting and hacking

1289
01:04:27,580 --> 01:04:29,460
other people to death.

1290
01:04:29,460 --> 01:04:34,060
And the challenge was, well, when it was over, how does society put the pieces back together?

1291
01:04:34,060 --> 01:04:37,980
How do you live next door to somebody who you know may have tried to kill you or kill

1292
01:04:37,980 --> 01:04:41,620
people you knew, not because they knew you or you had done anything to them, simply because

1293
01:04:41,620 --> 01:04:43,100
of your identity?

1294
01:04:43,100 --> 01:04:47,060
And so they started to put together what are called Truth and Reconciliation Commissions.

1295
01:04:47,060 --> 01:04:50,580
And the idea of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission is that you think of criminal justice

1296
01:04:50,580 --> 01:04:51,860
as a two-way street.

1297
01:04:51,860 --> 01:04:54,820
It's not just about the crime that's committed.

1298
01:04:54,820 --> 01:05:00,740
It's about the victim who the crime impacted, but also the victim understanding from the

1299
01:05:00,740 --> 01:05:03,180
criminal's perspective why they did what they did.

1300
01:05:03,180 --> 01:05:09,340
And so these Truth and Reconciliation Commissions would take men who had been accused of participating

1301
01:05:09,340 --> 01:05:15,580
in the genocide and bring them out into public parks with police there and then a facilitator

1302
01:05:15,580 --> 01:05:16,580
there.

1303
01:05:16,580 --> 01:05:20,040
And then people who were members of society who had experienced the genocide could stand

1304
01:05:20,040 --> 01:05:26,340
up and either accuse somebody directly and say, I watched you do X, Y, and Z, or I want

1305
01:05:26,340 --> 01:05:28,880
you to know the impact of what your actions were.

1306
01:05:28,880 --> 01:05:31,100
And people just told their stories.

1307
01:05:31,100 --> 01:05:35,580
And the idea was it was a chance for the catharsis for the victims, for people to be able to

1308
01:05:35,580 --> 01:05:37,780
tell their stories in a public venue.

1309
01:05:37,780 --> 01:05:41,340
But for the part of the punishment, and punishment isn't really the right word for it, but part

1310
01:05:41,340 --> 01:05:45,700
of the process for the people who had committed these crimes but were going to be let back

1311
01:05:45,700 --> 01:05:50,820
into society at some point for them to understand the broader impact of what they had done.

1312
01:05:50,820 --> 01:05:54,600
And so what's kind of grown out of that over the last 30 years is taking a more holistic

1313
01:05:54,600 --> 01:06:01,040
approach to understanding what we really mean when we say punishment and what we really

1314
01:06:01,040 --> 01:06:03,620
mean when we say crime.

1315
01:06:03,620 --> 01:06:08,100
The idea is that, again, punishment is going to be something that is going to be limited

1316
01:06:08,100 --> 01:06:09,240
in duration, right?

1317
01:06:09,240 --> 01:06:11,980
For most people who go to prison, they're going to get out at some point.

1318
01:06:11,980 --> 01:06:16,540
And so the idea is what's the best path to helping this person reenter society?

1319
01:06:16,540 --> 01:06:19,540
And part of that is including the victim in the process.

1320
01:06:19,540 --> 01:06:23,820
So there are laws passed in Pennsylvania that are, the restorative justice practitioners

1321
01:06:23,820 --> 01:06:26,660
debate this, but there are laws in Pennsylvania that basically say if somebody is going to

1322
01:06:26,660 --> 01:06:30,660
get early paroled or petition early parole, the family gets a say, the family of the victim

1323
01:06:30,660 --> 01:06:33,700
or the victim themselves gets a say in that.

1324
01:06:33,700 --> 01:06:38,020
There are restorative circles, right, in which they have support groups in which people who

1325
01:06:38,020 --> 01:06:42,060
have been victims of particular crimes can speak their piece in front of people who have

1326
01:06:42,060 --> 01:06:43,960
committed those kinds of crimes.

1327
01:06:43,960 --> 01:06:46,660
And the idea is even if I'm the person who has committed that crime, I didn't commit

1328
01:06:46,660 --> 01:06:48,420
it against any one of these people.

1329
01:06:48,420 --> 01:06:49,420
It's helpful for me.

1330
01:06:49,420 --> 01:06:54,960
Remember when I talked about the idea of education kind of empowering me to see how my actions

1331
01:06:54,960 --> 01:06:56,420
impacted other people?

1332
01:06:56,420 --> 01:07:00,100
So this is the idea of restorative practice and those restorative circles that you understand

1333
01:07:00,100 --> 01:07:03,140
that the world is more than just you.

1334
01:07:03,140 --> 01:07:07,580
The world is a place in which every single choice you make has an impact on other people.

1335
01:07:07,580 --> 01:07:11,740
And hearing those specific stories is part of your path to recovery as well as the victim's

1336
01:07:11,740 --> 01:07:13,880
path to recovery.

1337
01:07:13,880 --> 01:07:18,660
So restorative practice argues and restorative justice argues that incarceration isn't enough.

1338
01:07:18,660 --> 01:07:22,980
Incarceration, I talk about this in class a lot, like it feels good sometimes if you're

1339
01:07:22,980 --> 01:07:26,540
the victim of a crime to know like justice has been done.

1340
01:07:26,540 --> 01:07:30,620
And societies that don't have any kind of justice can have all other kinds of social

1341
01:07:30,620 --> 01:07:31,620
problems.

1342
01:07:31,620 --> 01:07:35,100
I use a terrible example in my class of imagine that I was a serial killer and all I did was

1343
01:07:35,100 --> 01:07:38,460
kill grandmas and I'd killed all your grandmas like I had blue haired wigs hanging up in

1344
01:07:38,460 --> 01:07:39,460
my basement.

1345
01:07:39,460 --> 01:07:40,780
But I get off on a technicality, right?

1346
01:07:40,780 --> 01:07:42,780
I don't go to jail, I don't get incarcerated.

1347
01:07:42,780 --> 01:07:46,020
And every time you go to the grocery store, you see me shopping.

1348
01:07:46,020 --> 01:07:48,600
Knowing I killed your grandmother and knowing that I'm walking free.

1349
01:07:48,600 --> 01:07:51,100
How long is it before you decide to take justice in your own hands?

1350
01:07:51,100 --> 01:07:55,740
Or how does that impact your belief in the systems of society, the legitimacy of government

1351
01:07:55,740 --> 01:08:00,620
overall, and that the less quote unquote justice there is, the more social problems you can

1352
01:08:00,620 --> 01:08:05,020
have vigilantism but also just the things that are associated with people not believing

1353
01:08:05,020 --> 01:08:07,340
that the system works.

1354
01:08:07,340 --> 01:08:10,180
The challenge right now is that the system doesn't work.

1355
01:08:10,180 --> 01:08:14,620
But it works well enough for people who aren't in it to make everybody think that it does

1356
01:08:14,620 --> 01:08:15,620
work.

1357
01:08:15,620 --> 01:08:19,220
If you lock people up, they did something bad, that's where they should be.

1358
01:08:19,220 --> 01:08:21,920
The restorative practice, I'd say that this isn't enough.

1359
01:08:21,920 --> 01:08:24,840
And there are people who have made the arguments that a lot of the mental health issues we're

1360
01:08:24,840 --> 01:08:29,940
seeing across the country are interrelated to our inability to really deal with the victims

1361
01:08:29,940 --> 01:08:34,940
of crime as well as dealing with the perpetuators of crime, that you can't separate the two.

1362
01:08:34,940 --> 01:08:37,340
There's a symbiosis between them.

1363
01:08:37,340 --> 01:08:45,580
So do you think doing restorative practices can lower the recidivism rate more than compared

1364
01:08:45,580 --> 01:08:47,420
to the traditional system that we have now?

1365
01:08:47,420 --> 01:08:48,420
I think it's unquestionable.

1366
01:08:48,420 --> 01:08:53,000
I mean, this is one of the places I tend not to be too definitive about anything.

1367
01:08:53,000 --> 01:08:55,940
Because I don't think there's any question that the more restorative practice, the more

1368
01:08:55,940 --> 01:09:00,460
counseling that's available, the more education that's available to people incarcerated.

1369
01:09:00,460 --> 01:09:05,200
But the same is true on the other side, the more that's available for victims, the fewer

1370
01:09:05,200 --> 01:09:09,820
people you're going to see recommitting crimes and getting incarcerated, but the more, for

1371
01:09:09,820 --> 01:09:13,180
lack of a better word, the healthier society is going to be.

1372
01:09:13,180 --> 01:09:21,420
When we recognize that people, I don't personally believe in good and evil in a clear cut way.

1373
01:09:21,420 --> 01:09:24,500
Maybe Hitler and Stalin fall into that category.

1374
01:09:24,500 --> 01:09:29,980
But I think for the vast majority of people, it's about your circumstances and choices.

1375
01:09:29,980 --> 01:09:31,060
And people make bad choices.

1376
01:09:31,060 --> 01:09:33,100
There are people who do bad things to other people.

1377
01:09:33,100 --> 01:09:36,300
But I do believe that most people have the capability for change.

1378
01:09:36,300 --> 01:09:39,620
I have to believe that people have the capability for change, or I wouldn't do what I do for

1379
01:09:39,620 --> 01:09:40,620
a living.

1380
01:09:40,620 --> 01:09:44,940
So do you think it will help also with the community's fear of crime and kind of how

1381
01:09:44,940 --> 01:09:50,460
we, as a community, how we look at incarcerated people and them coming back to society?

1382
01:09:50,460 --> 01:09:53,140
Sure, stigmas are one of the biggest challenges, right?

1383
01:09:53,140 --> 01:09:56,660
Everybody, the vast majority of people, I should say, have opinions about, well, if

1384
01:09:56,660 --> 01:10:00,620
you've ever been in jail, that there's something, you're bad, or you're a person I need to

1385
01:10:00,620 --> 01:10:03,180
be careful around.

1386
01:10:03,180 --> 01:10:05,380
And I mean, human beings are human beings, right?

1387
01:10:05,380 --> 01:10:06,900
Human beings are the most dangerous animal out there.

1388
01:10:06,900 --> 01:10:09,700
You need to be careful about human beings wherever you are, regardless of whether they've

1389
01:10:09,700 --> 01:10:11,060
been incarcerated or not.

1390
01:10:11,060 --> 01:10:15,100
And I've always been a person that's saying, I had to cut you off that.

1391
01:10:15,100 --> 01:10:19,020
Just because a person hasn't been to like jail or prison doesn't mean that they're

1392
01:10:19,020 --> 01:10:23,180
a good person, or that they don't do bad things.

1393
01:10:23,180 --> 01:10:25,820
They could have just not been caught yet.

1394
01:10:25,820 --> 01:10:26,820
Exactly.

1395
01:10:26,820 --> 01:10:33,220
So, yeah, the stigmas, the restorative justice also is about reintegration into society,

1396
01:10:33,220 --> 01:10:34,220
right?

1397
01:10:34,220 --> 01:10:42,740
The typical approach to reentry was you did your time, you're out, get it together.

1398
01:10:42,740 --> 01:10:44,420
And that's a real struggle.

1399
01:10:44,420 --> 01:10:48,700
Reentry is, when I was in the New York program, I had a guy who had gotten released in the

1400
01:10:48,700 --> 01:10:52,340
county he was incarcerated in, but the county he was incarcerated in was not the county

1401
01:10:52,340 --> 01:10:53,340
he lived in.

1402
01:10:53,340 --> 01:10:57,580
So he had no family there, no resources there, but that's where they released him.

1403
01:10:57,580 --> 01:10:59,340
And there was no available housing.

1404
01:10:59,340 --> 01:11:00,340
He couldn't find it.

1405
01:11:00,340 --> 01:11:03,820
They put him on a bus, they dropped him off in the county at like two o'clock in the morning,

1406
01:11:03,820 --> 01:11:04,820
and they're like, good luck.

1407
01:11:04,820 --> 01:11:06,660
Guy had no money.

1408
01:11:06,660 --> 01:11:10,340
He collected a call through a payphone, which to many of the people listening are probably

1409
01:11:10,340 --> 01:11:12,540
going to know what a collect call or a payphone is.

1410
01:11:12,540 --> 01:11:15,100
And he's like, I don't know what to do.

1411
01:11:15,100 --> 01:11:16,100
And he's like, I'm kind of stuck.

1412
01:11:16,100 --> 01:11:19,780
And he's like, the only place that has an open bed is a halfway house that's also a

1413
01:11:19,780 --> 01:11:21,380
drug rehabilitation place.

1414
01:11:21,380 --> 01:11:25,220
And he's like, if I go there, I'm in violation of my parole because the only way you can

1415
01:11:25,220 --> 01:11:26,580
get in there is by saying you have a drug problem.

1416
01:11:26,580 --> 01:11:28,940
And if I say I have a drug problem, that means I'm going back to prison.

1417
01:11:28,940 --> 01:11:32,740
He's like, so he slept on a park bench for three nights until a bed finally opened in

1418
01:11:32,740 --> 01:11:34,260
a halfway house that wasn't.

1419
01:11:34,260 --> 01:11:38,420
I'm like, so you get out of prison, you have to spend your time, you have to figure out

1420
01:11:38,420 --> 01:11:39,420
how to navigate the system.

1421
01:11:39,420 --> 01:11:41,780
And the one place that's available to help you, you can't go to because they'll send

1422
01:11:41,780 --> 01:11:43,420
you back to prison for going there to get help.

1423
01:11:43,420 --> 01:11:47,100
So you sleep on a park bench and then everybody's supposed to just say, yeah, well, why can't

1424
01:11:47,100 --> 01:11:48,820
this person get it together?

1425
01:11:48,820 --> 01:11:49,820
Exactly.

1426
01:11:49,820 --> 01:11:50,820
Yeah.

1427
01:11:50,820 --> 01:11:55,620
I worked at a bank when I lived in Hazelton and there was like a bus station right there.

1428
01:11:55,620 --> 01:11:59,340
So a lot of the prison, once they got released, they would exactly like you said, give them

1429
01:11:59,340 --> 01:12:03,140
their little check, send them on the bus, give them a bus ticket, send them on their

1430
01:12:03,140 --> 01:12:04,140
way.

1431
01:12:04,140 --> 01:12:08,700
And then they would come in to cash the check and it would be like this whole big process.

1432
01:12:08,700 --> 01:12:13,340
And I would feel so bad because they have like their inmate card.

1433
01:12:13,340 --> 01:12:15,540
So I can clearly see it's you.

1434
01:12:15,540 --> 01:12:20,420
But bank policy is like, well, you need two forms of ID if you don't have a bank account

1435
01:12:20,420 --> 01:12:21,420
with us.

1436
01:12:21,420 --> 01:12:23,220
And they're looking at me like, are you stupid?

1437
01:12:23,220 --> 01:12:24,300
I just got out of prison.

1438
01:12:24,300 --> 01:12:26,260
How do I have ID?

1439
01:12:26,260 --> 01:12:29,580
And then if you don't have the ID, there's all kinds of other types of quote unquote

1440
01:12:29,580 --> 01:12:30,580
criminals out there.

1441
01:12:30,580 --> 01:12:32,780
So you go to the check cashing place and the check cashing place knows you're coming out

1442
01:12:32,780 --> 01:12:33,780
of a prison and you don't have ID.

1443
01:12:33,780 --> 01:12:37,220
So it's like, oh, there's a 35% processing fee.

1444
01:12:37,220 --> 01:12:39,700
And then it was the criminal.

1445
01:12:39,700 --> 01:12:41,260
So I mean, and this is the world.

1446
01:12:41,260 --> 01:12:44,100
And then again, like you learn when you get out that that's the world you're going to

1447
01:12:44,100 --> 01:12:45,100
have to navigate.

1448
01:12:45,100 --> 01:12:48,500
You can't go to a regular bank, but you can go to Joey, the loan shark check casher, who's

1449
01:12:48,500 --> 01:12:49,980
going to take 30% of your stuff.

1450
01:12:49,980 --> 01:12:52,700
But that's the world you ended up getting ingratiated back into.

1451
01:12:52,700 --> 01:12:56,780
And the money is usually like a lot of them wouldn't even have been from Hazelton or any

1452
01:12:56,780 --> 01:12:58,180
of the surrounding areas.

1453
01:12:58,180 --> 01:13:02,500
So now the money from the check is not even enough to get them a bus ticket to really

1454
01:13:02,500 --> 01:13:03,500
go home.

1455
01:13:03,500 --> 01:13:04,500
And it's just a cycle.

1456
01:13:04,500 --> 01:13:08,140
And again, for people listening, like the personal responsibility is still there, right?

1457
01:13:08,140 --> 01:13:09,140
People committed crimes.

1458
01:13:09,140 --> 01:13:10,420
But these are people who are getting let out.

1459
01:13:10,420 --> 01:13:12,820
Yes, and back into society with us.

1460
01:13:12,820 --> 01:13:16,540
And so the arguments that you've already paid your supposed debt, right?

1461
01:13:16,540 --> 01:13:19,860
But then society throws up more and more the system, I shouldn't say society.

1462
01:13:19,860 --> 01:13:22,420
Well, I guess I will say society because the system is us.

1463
01:13:22,420 --> 01:13:29,100
Yes, the system is what it is because of either our apathy towards it or our indifference.

1464
01:13:29,100 --> 01:13:30,100
Right.

1465
01:13:30,100 --> 01:13:34,620
So with costs, because we were talking about money and costs, to compare like what are

1466
01:13:34,620 --> 01:13:38,420
the associated costs with restorative justice when you compare them to like the traditional

1467
01:13:38,420 --> 01:13:40,220
system that we have now?

1468
01:13:40,220 --> 01:13:41,540
Top front, it's more, right?

1469
01:13:41,540 --> 01:13:45,740
If you're going to be take the like, Homing County Prison, one of the challenges in like

1470
01:13:45,740 --> 01:13:48,740
Homing County Prison is that a lot of people who get incarcerated are people who are having

1471
01:13:48,740 --> 01:13:49,980
mental health crises.

1472
01:13:49,980 --> 01:13:50,980
Yes.

1473
01:13:50,980 --> 01:13:55,980
So if I'm having a mental health breakdown in the middle of the street somewhere, and

1474
01:13:55,980 --> 01:14:01,060
it looks to other people as though I have a potential threat, you don't call a psychologist

1475
01:14:01,060 --> 01:14:02,060
in that, right?

1476
01:14:02,060 --> 01:14:04,420
You call the police and the police show up and the police have limited options.

1477
01:14:04,420 --> 01:14:07,860
If you're having that mental health crisis and you do something that looks like what

1478
01:14:07,860 --> 01:14:11,340
Professor Bjorkman would call a furtive move, right, you can end up in handcuffs and end

1479
01:14:11,340 --> 01:14:12,340
up in jail.

1480
01:14:12,340 --> 01:14:16,300
The like, Homing County Prison has no staff psychiatrist or psychologist.

1481
01:14:16,300 --> 01:14:20,020
And it's not because they don't want one, it's the question of where do we get the money

1482
01:14:20,020 --> 01:14:21,020
for this?

1483
01:14:21,020 --> 01:14:22,020
How do we pay for it?

1484
01:14:22,020 --> 01:14:24,220
Then it's also a challenge of finding someone who's willing to work in a prison because

1485
01:14:24,220 --> 01:14:27,220
there's all kinds of not just stigmas about prisoners themselves, but there's stigmas

1486
01:14:27,220 --> 01:14:29,620
about working in a prison system.

1487
01:14:29,620 --> 01:14:37,100
So the upfront costs are, I mean, they're substantial.

1488
01:14:37,100 --> 01:14:42,540
So you would in any kind of in carceral setting, I mean, most state correctional institutions

1489
01:14:42,540 --> 01:14:46,660
do have a staff psychologist and a staff psychiatrist, they just don't have enough of them.

1490
01:14:46,660 --> 01:14:51,760
The county prisons are the bigger challenges and city jails because they're totally underfunded.

1491
01:14:51,760 --> 01:14:53,900
The populations in those places are much more transient.

1492
01:14:53,900 --> 01:14:57,900
I was going to say they change a lot.

1493
01:14:57,900 --> 01:15:03,100
But like anything else, the upfront cost is justified if you're seeing back end results

1494
01:15:03,100 --> 01:15:04,540
in terms of reduced recidivism.

1495
01:15:04,540 --> 01:15:08,020
And again, that reduced recidivism is reduced cost too.

1496
01:15:08,020 --> 01:15:10,860
So that program in New York, right, they had to make it the state of New York made a three

1497
01:15:10,860 --> 01:15:12,940
and a half million dollar investment over three years.

1498
01:15:12,940 --> 01:15:14,980
They were giving us about $350,000 a year.

1499
01:15:14,980 --> 01:15:19,700
That was enough to run a program with about 100 to 120 students a year.

1500
01:15:19,700 --> 01:15:24,060
But again, the state saved 37 and a half million off that three and a half million investment.

1501
01:15:24,060 --> 01:15:26,900
And so this is one of the challenges in a democracy, right?

1502
01:15:26,900 --> 01:15:29,540
Look at things like climate change or any other kind of problem that's going to take

1503
01:15:29,540 --> 01:15:30,540
a long term solution.

1504
01:15:30,540 --> 01:15:33,460
Like people are like, well, I want change now and nothing I'm going to do is going

1505
01:15:33,460 --> 01:15:35,100
to make change now, so why would I bother?

1506
01:15:35,100 --> 01:15:36,980
Somebody else can deal with that.

1507
01:15:36,980 --> 01:15:41,220
You're not going to see the savings from the investments upfront.

1508
01:15:41,220 --> 01:15:43,540
And this is one of the big challenges.

1509
01:15:43,540 --> 01:15:47,180
And quite frankly, it would be either easier sometimes if you're in an authoritarian system

1510
01:15:47,180 --> 01:15:49,100
where the leader is like, it doesn't matter what the rest of you think.

1511
01:15:49,100 --> 01:15:50,100
We're doing this.

1512
01:15:50,100 --> 01:15:51,100
Right.

1513
01:15:51,100 --> 01:15:56,020
And in smaller societies too, the Iroquois, I studied a lot of native history in college.

1514
01:15:56,020 --> 01:15:59,220
The native, the Iroquois perspective was you don't do anything unless you think about how

1515
01:15:59,220 --> 01:16:02,660
it's going to affect at least three or four generations down the road.

1516
01:16:02,660 --> 01:16:06,260
That's easier to do when your society is a few thousand people or a few, maybe tens of

1517
01:16:06,260 --> 01:16:07,260
thousands of people.

1518
01:16:07,260 --> 01:16:09,580
When you're talking about hundreds of millions of people with, as we were talking about at

1519
01:16:09,580 --> 01:16:13,620
the beginning, everybody has a very different experience of this place we call America.

1520
01:16:13,620 --> 01:16:16,900
And getting them all on the same page to say, I know this is going to be investment right

1521
01:16:16,900 --> 01:16:20,180
now that you may not see the benefit to in your lifetime.

1522
01:16:20,180 --> 01:16:23,980
But if I can go off on a quick tangent, we don't do generational thinking in America

1523
01:16:23,980 --> 01:16:24,980
anymore.

1524
01:16:24,980 --> 01:16:25,980
No.

1525
01:16:25,980 --> 01:16:26,980
I don't think anybody does anyway.

1526
01:16:26,980 --> 01:16:30,620
Think about like what it was like to be the first person to lay a brick on the Sistine

1527
01:16:30,620 --> 01:16:37,020
Chapel knowing that it would be your grandchildren who would finish that project.

1528
01:16:37,020 --> 01:16:40,820
Because of the speed of technology, the speed of change, we don't think that way anymore.

1529
01:16:40,820 --> 01:16:42,780
We think about everything happening within our lifetimes.

1530
01:16:42,780 --> 01:16:47,260
I think in some ways, and this is another podcast topic, it makes us a little bit more

1531
01:16:47,260 --> 01:16:51,220
self-centered and it prevents change, the kind of long-term change from happening.

1532
01:16:51,220 --> 01:16:56,620
I think if we could find a way as a society to engage in generational projects, stuff

1533
01:16:56,620 --> 01:16:58,020
like this would be easier to change.

1534
01:16:58,020 --> 01:17:01,700
We want immediate self-indulging.

1535
01:17:01,700 --> 01:17:07,220
I can see that.

1536
01:17:07,220 --> 01:17:11,660
When I tell people what my major was and I break down the restorative justice, I always

1537
01:17:11,660 --> 01:17:16,740
see myself breaking down what restorative justice means and always getting people that

1538
01:17:16,740 --> 01:17:19,060
are like, ugh.

1539
01:17:19,060 --> 01:17:20,060
Having to break down that it's...

1540
01:17:20,060 --> 01:17:23,380
I'm not saying I don't want people to go to prison or people shouldn't have personal

1541
01:17:23,380 --> 01:17:24,380
accountability.

1542
01:17:24,380 --> 01:17:28,900
What I'm saying is you have to look at the person as a whole and you have to look at

1543
01:17:28,900 --> 01:17:32,820
the situation around the crime and involve the victim.

1544
01:17:32,820 --> 01:17:38,860
Because like you said, that I feel like sometimes people, the stigma is lock them up, cool.

1545
01:17:38,860 --> 01:17:44,260
But a lot of people that are inmates, they're like, I can do this.

1546
01:17:44,260 --> 01:17:46,140
I can do this time and then go back.

1547
01:17:46,140 --> 01:17:48,660
And then they don't even think about the crime that they committed.

1548
01:17:48,660 --> 01:17:50,500
And they just go about their lives.

1549
01:17:50,500 --> 01:17:55,180
But when you have that restorative justice practice to it and you have that back and

1550
01:17:55,180 --> 01:18:01,060
forth with the victim or finding out why the person committed the crime, you can pinpoint

1551
01:18:01,060 --> 01:18:04,420
things that you can change in that person's direction.

1552
01:18:04,420 --> 01:18:06,140
You can change somebody for the better.

1553
01:18:06,140 --> 01:18:10,440
And the recidivism rate, like you mentioned, you can see that in that.

1554
01:18:10,440 --> 01:18:11,740
You're absolutely right.

1555
01:18:11,740 --> 01:18:17,020
There are men and women who have figured out how to navigate the prison system.

1556
01:18:17,020 --> 01:18:23,340
There's a strange phenomenon in a lot of systems where you can get early paroled, early probation.

1557
01:18:23,340 --> 01:18:28,420
So there's a couple of guys I worked with in New York who had like nine months or six

1558
01:18:28,420 --> 01:18:31,740
months left on their sentence, but they got early parole.

1559
01:18:31,740 --> 01:18:34,340
And the condition was if you get released before you finish your sentence, you got five

1560
01:18:34,340 --> 01:18:35,340
years of probation.

1561
01:18:35,340 --> 01:18:40,100
And these guys are like, I'm going to violate my first day out because I can do nine months

1562
01:18:40,100 --> 01:18:42,780
or six months standing on my head and I don't want to deal with these people for five years

1563
01:18:42,780 --> 01:18:43,780
of probation afterwards.

1564
01:18:43,780 --> 01:18:45,820
So I'll just go back to prison.

1565
01:18:45,820 --> 01:18:49,500
But the other part of that is education is hard.

1566
01:18:49,500 --> 01:18:52,780
I'm not saying prison isn't hard, but like if you throw in with a gang, if you fall into

1567
01:18:52,780 --> 01:18:58,020
a routine, if you don't mind the regimented nature of that life, there are people who

1568
01:18:58,020 --> 01:19:01,220
can like, yeah, I can do a few years and then I'll get out and I'll do what I need to do.

1569
01:19:01,220 --> 01:19:04,700
But if you're also pressing that population, education is about self-reflection too.

1570
01:19:04,700 --> 01:19:05,700
Yes.

1571
01:19:05,700 --> 01:19:08,740
So that's kind of where the restorative piece of education comes in.

1572
01:19:08,740 --> 01:19:13,680
When I started taking those college classes, I started thinking about the choices that

1573
01:19:13,680 --> 01:19:16,260
I'd made and why I had made them and what the impact of those was.

1574
01:19:16,260 --> 01:19:17,260
And that was hard, right?

1575
01:19:17,260 --> 01:19:20,260
There were a lot of times I wanted to be like, no, I'm fine.

1576
01:19:20,260 --> 01:19:21,260
I'm a good person.

1577
01:19:21,260 --> 01:19:22,260
Everything I do is okay.

1578
01:19:22,260 --> 01:19:23,260
It doesn't really hurt anybody.

1579
01:19:23,260 --> 01:19:27,900
But confronting yourself is probably one of the hardest things to do in any situation.

1580
01:19:27,900 --> 01:19:30,780
And education can be a vehicle to help you get there.

1581
01:19:30,780 --> 01:19:31,780
Yeah, no, definitely.

1582
01:19:31,780 --> 01:19:36,540
Because I know in our courses, because it's about restorative justice, so we have those

1583
01:19:36,540 --> 01:19:41,220
practices like we do that in our class, so we can have that real world experience like

1584
01:19:41,220 --> 01:19:42,720
how we do here.

1585
01:19:42,720 --> 01:19:48,940
And in those courses, it was a lot of self-reflection of who I am and how I got here.

1586
01:19:48,940 --> 01:19:50,140
And it's tough.

1587
01:19:50,140 --> 01:19:54,460
It's tough to think about who you were before and those choices that you've made and how

1588
01:19:54,460 --> 01:19:59,860
they have impacted the people around you or how they've impacted your future, how much

1589
01:19:59,860 --> 01:20:03,020
harder things are when they could have been easier and things like that.

1590
01:20:03,020 --> 01:20:08,220
So it is, I think people throw it off like, oh, it's just this hippie thing.

1591
01:20:08,220 --> 01:20:09,700
But it's hard.

1592
01:20:09,700 --> 01:20:14,860
I think it's harder than just saying, yeah, I'll be in a box for two years and then I'll

1593
01:20:14,860 --> 01:20:16,500
get out and live life.

1594
01:20:16,500 --> 01:20:18,060
I agree.

1595
01:20:18,060 --> 01:20:19,060
Definitely.

1596
01:20:19,060 --> 01:20:26,260
But there are people who say like restorative options, they're more intrusive than like

1597
01:20:26,260 --> 01:20:28,360
the traditional option.

1598
01:20:28,360 --> 01:20:32,620
So consequently, wouldn't it be like a net whiting mechanism?

1599
01:20:32,620 --> 01:20:35,940
How do you mean on the latter part?

1600
01:20:35,940 --> 01:20:44,300
So like we're getting more, you're getting more involved in somebody's life.

1601
01:20:44,300 --> 01:20:46,340
Getting more up in somebody's business.

1602
01:20:46,340 --> 01:20:47,340
Yeah.

1603
01:20:47,340 --> 01:20:53,140
So how do you think that's appropriate in the sense that we're kind of, you know, like

1604
01:20:53,140 --> 01:20:56,740
the government, the system, we're getting more involved in somebody's life, which is

1605
01:20:56,740 --> 01:21:02,420
kind of not really the American way we see things.

1606
01:21:02,420 --> 01:21:03,420
Not necessarily.

1607
01:21:03,420 --> 01:21:06,980
But at the end of the day, I don't think prisons are going away.

1608
01:21:06,980 --> 01:21:07,980
Right?

1609
01:21:07,980 --> 01:21:12,380
I don't think they're always going to be, my dad used to say choices have consequences.

1610
01:21:12,380 --> 01:21:16,940
And so one of the consequences of the choice to commit a crime, regardless of what drove

1611
01:21:16,940 --> 01:21:20,860
you to that choice in the first place, is that you are subjecting yourself to more oversight

1612
01:21:20,860 --> 01:21:24,660
by the state and more intrusiveness by the state in your life.

1613
01:21:24,660 --> 01:21:30,460
I honestly think that the restorative piece of this is a way of the, in my perfect world,

1614
01:21:30,460 --> 01:21:32,540
the restorative practice wouldn't be being done by the state.

1615
01:21:32,540 --> 01:21:34,020
It would be being funded by it.

1616
01:21:34,020 --> 01:21:35,020
Okay.

1617
01:21:35,020 --> 01:21:37,060
So like that program that we had in New York, one of the best things about it was that it

1618
01:21:37,060 --> 01:21:40,500
was an independent agency that operated within the system.

1619
01:21:40,500 --> 01:21:44,300
If New York state had owned the system, if the government was basically responsible for

1620
01:21:44,300 --> 01:21:48,500
it, there would have been, it would have turned into a bureaucratic mess with reporting requirements

1621
01:21:48,500 --> 01:21:53,340
that were more about justifying the existence of the program than actually measuring the

1622
01:21:53,340 --> 01:21:55,100
impact of the program.

1623
01:21:55,100 --> 01:21:56,100
Right.

1624
01:21:56,100 --> 01:21:59,480
So, and as we were just talking about, I mean, the intrusiveness that we're kind of trying

1625
01:21:59,480 --> 01:22:03,980
to talk about here is putting people in a position where they have the ability to engage

1626
01:22:03,980 --> 01:22:08,500
in that self-reflection, but also quite frankly, part of restorative practice is making you

1627
01:22:08,500 --> 01:22:09,500
uncomfortable, right?

1628
01:22:09,500 --> 01:22:13,740
It is not easy as a person who has committed crime to sit in a room full of victims, hearing

1629
01:22:13,740 --> 01:22:16,780
about the impact of crime on them.

1630
01:22:16,780 --> 01:22:24,500
And quite frankly, I think I'd prefer that level of intrusiveness than mass incarceration.

1631
01:22:24,500 --> 01:22:26,900
Because again, like I said, we have to make choices.

1632
01:22:26,900 --> 01:22:31,780
And in my experience, anecdotally anyway, that works better than mass incarceration.

1633
01:22:31,780 --> 01:22:34,420
Again, it's uncomfortable.

1634
01:22:34,420 --> 01:22:37,140
But I think sometimes, what did Mandela say?

1635
01:22:37,140 --> 01:22:39,460
There's no progress without struggle, right?

1636
01:22:39,460 --> 01:22:44,300
Anytime you want to get anywhere that's meaningful and worth it, it shouldn't be easy to get

1637
01:22:44,300 --> 01:22:45,300
there.

1638
01:22:45,300 --> 01:22:46,300
Yeah.

1639
01:22:46,300 --> 01:22:48,460
I know if you put me in an uncomfortable position, I don't want to be in that position again.

1640
01:22:48,460 --> 01:22:52,300
So nine times out of 10, I'm probably not going to do that again to put myself there.

1641
01:22:52,300 --> 01:22:54,820
So I can see that.

1642
01:22:54,820 --> 01:23:01,740
So with everything that we've talked about, though, what are maybe one or two things that

1643
01:23:01,740 --> 01:23:07,220
you want our listeners to take away as a whole from our whole conversation?

1644
01:23:07,220 --> 01:23:10,340
The easy question last, huh?

1645
01:23:10,340 --> 01:23:15,180
I think one of the big takeaways for me would be that I hope that people are willing to

1646
01:23:15,180 --> 01:23:19,540
take a critical and skeptical look at the existing criminal justice system.

1647
01:23:19,540 --> 01:23:22,240
As I say in class all the time, your opinions are your own.

1648
01:23:22,240 --> 01:23:25,140
My job is not to lead you to think one way or another about anything.

1649
01:23:25,140 --> 01:23:28,740
My job is to provide you information and an environment in which you can substantively

1650
01:23:28,740 --> 01:23:32,660
engage with that information based on your belief system, your experience, and take away

1651
01:23:32,660 --> 01:23:34,860
what you're going to take away.

1652
01:23:34,860 --> 01:23:38,900
But I think we uncritically as a society accept too many facets of our society because that's

1653
01:23:38,900 --> 01:23:41,120
just the way things have always been.

1654
01:23:41,120 --> 01:23:44,380
And so my hope is that people who have listened to this would be willing to take a critical

1655
01:23:44,380 --> 01:23:48,340
look at what we're currently doing when it comes to criminal justice and particularly

1656
01:23:48,340 --> 01:23:51,620
incarceration and ask the question, why are we doing it?

1657
01:23:51,620 --> 01:23:53,380
What are the outcomes we're looking for?

1658
01:23:53,380 --> 01:23:55,660
And are we getting those outcomes in the system?

1659
01:23:55,660 --> 01:24:00,980
And I would argue that the answer to all those questions is no.

1660
01:24:00,980 --> 01:24:06,840
Second is to remember that people are human beings and that all of us have made choices

1661
01:24:06,840 --> 01:24:08,340
that we're probably not proud of.

1662
01:24:08,340 --> 01:24:11,980
All of us have done things that have negatively impacted other people and just not all of

1663
01:24:11,980 --> 01:24:15,100
us have had the same kind of repercussions of those choices.

1664
01:24:15,100 --> 01:24:19,260
So I'd hope that people would also reconsider the stigmas that they have or the kind of

1665
01:24:19,260 --> 01:24:22,500
internalized beliefs they have about people who have been through the criminal justice

1666
01:24:22,500 --> 01:24:28,540
system because that is one of the other barriers.

1667
01:24:28,540 --> 01:24:35,780
This is similar to anybody who is of a population that's not the majority population.

1668
01:24:35,780 --> 01:24:38,820
So I have conversations with white students who are like, I don't understand this whole

1669
01:24:38,820 --> 01:24:40,580
race issue and I don't understand why.

1670
01:24:40,580 --> 01:24:42,340
I'm nice to every black person I see.

1671
01:24:42,340 --> 01:24:46,400
And I'm like, do you wear a shirt around that says I'm not a racist?

1672
01:24:46,400 --> 01:24:49,700
Because if you're a person of color who has had any kind of interaction in America where

1673
01:24:49,700 --> 01:24:53,380
you've been the only person of color in a room over and over again and you know that

1674
01:24:53,380 --> 01:24:56,040
there's a chance that some of those people are treating you and thinking about you differently

1675
01:24:56,040 --> 01:25:00,820
because of that, it's understandable that that person would be apprehensive in that

1676
01:25:00,820 --> 01:25:04,140
situation regardless of your level of racism.

1677
01:25:04,140 --> 01:25:08,140
Well when you're talking about formerly incarcerated people, it's even more challenging because

1678
01:25:08,140 --> 01:25:12,820
most of those people don't wear on their shirt, I just got out of jail.

1679
01:25:12,820 --> 01:25:17,860
But you're always wondering who might know, how might they think about me?

1680
01:25:17,860 --> 01:25:21,180
And imagine, and I try to tell people, imagine thinking that way.

1681
01:25:21,180 --> 01:25:24,860
My white students, I'm like, imagine going into a room and every room you go into you're

1682
01:25:24,860 --> 01:25:28,380
wondering who hates you because you're white.

1683
01:25:28,380 --> 01:25:32,100
And then think about how well you're going to learn that day, how good your note taking

1684
01:25:32,100 --> 01:25:35,860
is going to be, how good your participation is going to be.

1685
01:25:35,860 --> 01:25:41,860
And so I guess the take would be to re-examine the stigmas and the kind of thought process

1686
01:25:41,860 --> 01:25:42,860
you have.

1687
01:25:42,860 --> 01:25:46,100
But one of the other things that I've learned to do at Penn College, I just smile at everybody

1688
01:25:46,100 --> 01:25:47,100
I see.

1689
01:25:47,100 --> 01:25:48,100
Yeah.

1690
01:25:48,100 --> 01:25:50,060
Right, and there have been times when I'm walking down the hall and I can see somebody

1691
01:25:50,060 --> 01:25:53,460
who's kind of outwardly just looking a little anxious and you smile at it.

1692
01:25:53,460 --> 01:25:55,700
It's amazing what one smile can do.

1693
01:25:55,700 --> 01:25:59,120
And so I'd encourage students to do the same thing, like you don't know who on this campus

1694
01:25:59,120 --> 01:26:02,860
is walking around feeling like they don't belong and I guarantee you the vast majority

1695
01:26:02,860 --> 01:26:06,100
of students on this campus want all the other students to feel like they belong.

1696
01:26:06,100 --> 01:26:07,100
Yes.

1697
01:26:07,100 --> 01:26:09,660
Like my students constantly, nobody, like there are very few students in my class who

1698
01:26:09,660 --> 01:26:12,900
are like, I want everybody to know that I'm a racist.

1699
01:26:12,900 --> 01:26:15,640
The vast majority of students, like I just, I don't want people to, I don't want to say

1700
01:26:15,640 --> 01:26:16,900
anything that offends anybody.

1701
01:26:16,900 --> 01:26:19,220
I don't want to put anybody off.

1702
01:26:19,220 --> 01:26:22,500
But because of that fear, I just don't say anything and outwardly to other people that

1703
01:26:22,500 --> 01:26:23,500
looks like, well, you're indifferent.

1704
01:26:23,500 --> 01:26:24,500
Yeah.

1705
01:26:24,500 --> 01:26:25,500
You don't care.

1706
01:26:25,500 --> 01:26:28,860
So I guess the other thing would be as hokey as it sounds, smile at people you don't know

1707
01:26:28,860 --> 01:26:32,020
because you never know who that person is, what they're carrying with them, right?

1708
01:26:32,020 --> 01:26:35,500
That trauma-informed approach that's going to make that day easier for that person.

1709
01:26:35,500 --> 01:26:36,500
Yeah.

1710
01:26:36,500 --> 01:26:43,940
And I think here at Penn College, that's really easy because we are such a, it's such a different

1711
01:26:43,940 --> 01:26:45,660
community when you come here.

1712
01:26:45,660 --> 01:26:51,140
And I think, you know, not just like, because we get that hands-on experience from all different

1713
01:26:51,140 --> 01:26:58,540
angles, I think it gives us as a person knowing, it just shows you that it's more beyond the

1714
01:26:58,540 --> 01:26:59,540
books.

1715
01:26:59,540 --> 01:27:00,620
It's more than just what you learn.

1716
01:27:00,620 --> 01:27:05,340
You have to take people for, you know, remembering that they're people and get to know them.

1717
01:27:05,340 --> 01:27:08,420
And I think that's really easy here.

1718
01:27:08,420 --> 01:27:12,300
One of my closest friends that I've gotten close to is a welding major.

1719
01:27:12,300 --> 01:27:14,980
And we would have never thought that, you know what I mean?

1720
01:27:14,980 --> 01:27:16,540
But it's just across the board.

1721
01:27:16,540 --> 01:27:20,060
So I'm really appreciative of the campus for that, you know?

1722
01:27:20,060 --> 01:27:22,820
I've even made some friends with some dirty welding professors.

1723
01:27:22,820 --> 01:27:23,820
It's crazy.

1724
01:27:23,820 --> 01:27:24,820
Exactly.

1725
01:27:24,820 --> 01:27:25,820
No, but you're right.

1726
01:27:25,820 --> 01:27:27,460
I mean, the small class sizes here are huge.

1727
01:27:27,460 --> 01:27:31,100
When I taught at the University of Buffalo, I was in like 300-person lecture halls.

1728
01:27:31,100 --> 01:27:32,100
Yeah.

1729
01:27:32,100 --> 01:27:33,460
How can you get to know somebody like that?

1730
01:27:33,460 --> 01:27:35,660
Yeah, but like it's harder to hide here, right?

1731
01:27:35,660 --> 01:27:38,500
You're in a room with 15, 20, 25 people at the most.

1732
01:27:38,500 --> 01:27:39,860
So I agree completely.

1733
01:27:39,860 --> 01:27:40,860
Yeah.

1734
01:27:40,860 --> 01:27:46,900
And it's okay if we have different perspectives and different, you know, we think things different.

1735
01:27:46,900 --> 01:27:53,260
It's just a matter of we still have to learn to coexist in the same room, in the same classroom.

1736
01:27:53,260 --> 01:27:57,660
So I know at least in all of my classes, but I've really valued that in your class because

1737
01:27:57,660 --> 01:28:02,940
you really made us look at that of we're all going to be stuck here with each other for

1738
01:28:02,940 --> 01:28:04,500
16 weeks.

1739
01:28:04,500 --> 01:28:05,500
So...

1740
01:28:05,500 --> 01:28:08,020
College should be a magical place where it's okay for people to disagree.

1741
01:28:08,020 --> 01:28:11,060
I mean, I tell people on the first day of class, if you agree with everything I say,

1742
01:28:11,060 --> 01:28:12,980
this is going to be a really boring semester.

1743
01:28:12,980 --> 01:28:13,980
Exactly.

1744
01:28:13,980 --> 01:28:14,980
But I thank you for this.

1745
01:28:14,980 --> 01:28:16,980
I always enjoy our conversations.

1746
01:28:16,980 --> 01:28:17,980
I do.

1747
01:28:17,980 --> 01:28:24,260
You know, I'm always a person that I always say, well, you know, I always tell you, and

1748
01:28:24,260 --> 01:28:28,380
you guys might have to cut this part out, but I always say like, real, recognize real.

1749
01:28:28,380 --> 01:28:34,740
And I'm very grateful to have met you and to have you in my life because you have made

1750
01:28:34,740 --> 01:28:40,620
me be able to see other sides of things because I have been the only person like of color

1751
01:28:40,620 --> 01:28:42,980
in rooms where I'm like thinking that.

1752
01:28:42,980 --> 01:28:49,820
But you have given me the tools to be able to understand better the other side of it

1753
01:28:49,820 --> 01:28:53,300
and not take it so personal anymore.

1754
01:28:53,300 --> 01:28:56,660
So I, you know, I, that's just a personal thank you for me.

1755
01:28:56,660 --> 01:29:00,100
But I've always been a person to say, you know, real, recognize real.

1756
01:29:00,100 --> 01:29:02,740
And I recognize you, Dr. Miller.

1757
01:29:02,740 --> 01:29:03,740
I appreciate it.

1758
01:29:03,740 --> 01:29:04,740
I appreciate you.

1759
01:29:04,740 --> 01:29:07,460
It's students like you and Rachel and a lot of the other students I've had from all the

1760
01:29:07,460 --> 01:29:11,660
other walks of life that this is why I want to, when I, when I, when I think back on why

1761
01:29:11,660 --> 01:29:14,580
I started doing this and I look at the work that I've done with students like you, I'm

1762
01:29:14,580 --> 01:29:17,620
like, okay, this is what this is exactly where I wanted to be and exactly who I wanted to

1763
01:29:17,620 --> 01:29:18,620
be working with.

1764
01:29:18,620 --> 01:29:19,620
So I should be thanking you.

1765
01:29:19,620 --> 01:29:22,980
Hopefully they'll call us back for another episode.

1766
01:29:22,980 --> 01:29:27,660
We got this one for free, so I'm going to talk about wages.

1767
01:29:27,660 --> 01:29:28,660
You guys were great.

1768
01:29:28,660 --> 01:29:29,660
You were awesome.

1769
01:29:29,660 --> 01:29:31,140
You made it so easy.

1770
01:29:31,140 --> 01:29:32,140
Absolutely.

1771
01:29:32,140 --> 01:29:33,140
Thank you, Ashlee.

1772
01:29:33,140 --> 01:29:34,140
Thank you, Dr. Miller.

1773
01:29:34,140 --> 01:29:35,140
Thank you so much.

1774
01:29:35,140 --> 01:29:36,140
Thank you for having us.

1775
01:29:36,140 --> 01:29:39,820
Thanks for hanging out with us today.

1776
01:29:39,820 --> 01:29:44,480
Don't forget to rate, review and subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts.

1777
01:29:44,480 --> 01:29:48,460
Check out our show notes for bookmarks to your favorite sections and links to resources

1778
01:29:48,460 --> 01:29:50,500
that we mentioned in today's episode.

1779
01:29:50,500 --> 01:29:55,820
You can also find past episodes and see what's on deck for upcoming ones at pct.edu slash

1780
01:29:55,820 --> 01:29:56,820
podcasts.

1781
01:29:56,820 --> 01:30:00,980
And of course we are open to your thoughts, ideas and suggestions.

1782
01:30:00,980 --> 01:30:06,020
So send those over at podcast at pct.edu.

1783
01:30:06,020 --> 01:30:07,020
It's been real.

1784
01:30:07,020 --> 01:30:21,220
We'll catch you next time.