Episode 144

full
Published on:

18th Dec 2025

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

America cages 1.9 million people and burns $80 billion a year doing it. Rafael (15 years inside), Jason, and Jennifer walked out and actually stayed out—built businesses, hired the formerly incarcerated, and crushed the odds. Jerremy Alexander Newsome and Dave Conley sit them down and ask the raw questions: what really changes a person behind bars, why most “rehab” is fake, and how mentorship + personal accountability drops recidivism through the floor. Zero preaching, all proof.

Timestamps:

  • (00:00) Incarceration Nation – the numbers that should piss you off
  • (01:32) Meet Rafael, Jason, Jennifer – real stories, no filters
  • (03:36) Jennifer’s glow-up – dropout to valedictorian to boss
  • (05:26) Jason rewires his brain after lockup
  • (07:53) Ralph (Rafael) beats 15 years and flips the script
  • (09:58) Darkest moments inside – what actually breaks people
  • (19:23) Mental health in a place built to crush it
  • (26:37) Rehab vs. punishment – why we keep choosing wrong
  • (38:07) Private prisons chasing profit, not people
  • (51:31) Mentorship that actually works
  • (52:02) Consistency and owning your mess
  • (01:00:10) Reentry barriers nobody talks about
  • (01:09:00) Financial literacy + rides = freedom
  • (01:15:07) Soft skills > degrees when you’re starting over
  • (01:34:03) Final fire – the wisdom you only get from doing the time

Connect:


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Transcript
Alex:

Solving America’s Problems drops into a story most people never expect.

Alex:

Rafael Quiroz — fifteen years behind bars, sentenced to life as a kid — walks

Alex:

out in 2021, applies for a home loan six months later, and gets approved

Alex:

for a HALF-MILLION-DOLLAR home loan.

Alex:

SIX MONTHS.

Alex:

No decades of credit history, no co-signer, just a man who refused

Alex:

to let the system’s label stick.

Alex:

Jerremy and Dave sit down with Rafael, Jason Holland, and Jennifer Morehouse

Alex:

— three Defy Ventures graduates who turned cages into companies, pain into

Alex:

payrolls that hire the overlooked.

Alex:

They expose an $80 billion punishment machine that still somehow lets people

Alex:

like Rafael buy houses, build seven-figure businesses, and prove the system can

Alex:

be beaten… but only if you’re willing to fight it from the inside out.

Alex:

The raw truth of how they did it — and what it really takes to stop America from

Alex:

locking up another 1.9 million souls…

Jerremy Newsome:

Dave, the people want to know what are we talking about today?

Dave Conley:

In this week's episode of Solving America's Problems, we

Dave Conley:

confront an $80 billion prison system that traps 1.9 million people in a

Dave Conley:

cycle of punishment over possibility.

Dave Conley:

We're joined by three leaders who faced years behind bars, yet rows above and

Dave Conley:

built lives of purpose and impact.

Dave Conley:

Their triumph shows the system's potential to empower more if it prioritizes change.

Dave Conley:

And that's this week on solving America's problems.

Dave Conley:

From bars to Breakthroughs with Jason Holland, Jennifer Nancy

Dave Conley:

Morehouse, and Raphael Kiros.

Jerremy Newsome:

You served your time.

Jerremy Newsome:

You fought for a second chance.

Jerremy Newsome:

You fought.

Jerremy Newsome:

The hardest part was over, but out here, freedom comes with change.

Jerremy Newsome:

You did not see coming.

Jerremy Newsome:

Finding work, rebuilding trust, reclaiming purpose, every step

Jerremy Newsome:

is harder when the system's built to break you and not rebuild you.

Jerremy Newsome:

I'm Jerremy Alexander Newsom, alongside my co-host Dave DC Conley, and

Jerremy Newsome:

this is solving America's Problems.

Jerremy Newsome:

Today we are sitting down with three extraordinary human beings who refused

Jerremy Newsome:

to let their worst day define them.

Jerremy Newsome:

They did not just rebuild their lives, but they are continuously

Jerremy Newsome:

leading others to do the exact same.

Jerremy Newsome:

Holland, also known as just Jason, program manager for Defi Ventures,

Jerremy Newsome:

co-founder of Reentry Wheels and creator of the Move Your Mountain

Jerremy Newsome:

program is igniting human potential.

Jerremy Newsome:

Jennifer, Nancy Morehouse, founding partner of Long Beach City Lifestyle

Jerremy Newsome:

Magazine is a top interior designer for Compass Realty is not just designing

Jerremy Newsome:

homes, she's rebuilding communities by hiring those others who they overlook.

Jerremy Newsome:

And we have Raphael a dynamic entrepreneur and nonprofit leader,

Jerremy Newsome:

spent 15 years incarcerated and turned his story into one of executive

Jerremy Newsome:

leadership transformational growth.

Jerremy Newsome:

All three are graduates, entrepreneurs in training through the Defi Ventures

Jerremy Newsome:

program, which is a revolutionary organization proving that who you were

Jerremy Newsome:

does not define who you can become.

Jerremy Newsome:

Family, thank you for being here.

Jerremy Newsome:

Really tremendously excited to have an open, amazing conversation

Jerremy Newsome:

about well prison reform.

Jerremy Newsome:

going if anything, and what we can all do better.

Jerremy Newsome:

So I'm gonna start with a general question, and I'm gonna have

Jerremy Newsome:

generous Jennifer, go first.

Jerremy Newsome:

Let's start with your fight today.

Jerremy Newsome:

What is something that you're building in your life now?

Jerremy Newsome:

Family purpose or a new path that shows the world who you really are

Generous Jennifer:

For sure.

Generous Jennifer:

For sure.

Generous Jennifer:

So I'm growing a business.

Generous Jennifer:

It's actually growing now this year, like a few months ago,

Generous Jennifer:

it finally became profitable.

Generous Jennifer:

And I honestly I'm terrible.

Generous Jennifer:

I have no sense of scarcity and I really, still working to manage my money

Generous Jennifer:

better, but I already have started paying people to help me, even though I can't,

Generous Jennifer:

not for sure that I could afford to.

Generous Jennifer:

But I have a, it, it's really important to me to make sure that

Generous Jennifer:

I scale this business by hiring people with barriers to employment.

Generous Jennifer:

And mostly that's for return citizens and formerly incarcerated folks.

Generous Jennifer:

And it's also people that, have little ones.

Generous Jennifer:

It's really hard to find affordable daycare.

Generous Jennifer:

It's really hard to be a single parent, not just for women, like

Generous Jennifer:

anybody who's a single parent.

Generous Jennifer:

Shortly after I left my nine to five last January, another colleague

Generous Jennifer:

of mine also got let go and she was the breadwinner in her home.

Generous Jennifer:

So immediately I was like I'm about to collect a big B on one of my projects.

Generous Jennifer:

Why don't you come over and help me with some consulting?

Generous Jennifer:

That's what I do.

Generous Jennifer:

Anytime money comes into my business, I try to disperse it

Generous Jennifer:

immediately to people that need it.

Generous Jennifer:

And I hope I get better at that and less reckless.

Jerremy Newsome:

Yeah,

Generous Jennifer:

Yeah,

Jerremy Newsome:

But hey, you also mentioned that it's becoming profitable

Jerremy Newsome:

now, and so there's a corner getting turned, and so you're showing the

Jerremy Newsome:

cool universal energy of money that I love to discuss, which is the

Jerremy Newsome:

more you give, the more you receive.

Generous Jennifer:

for sure.

Jerremy Newsome:

Yeah.

Generous Jennifer:

And the nice thing is that I just started

Generous Jennifer:

back up a class with Defy again, and we are looking at financial

Generous Jennifer:

modeling, which I need desperately.

Generous Jennifer:

So I'm getting the support in the areas that I'm weak, like from Defy actually.

Jerremy Newsome:

Beautiful.

Jerremy Newsome:

Yeah, I love that.

Jerremy Newsome:

All right speaking of Defy, let's hop over to my boy Jason, just Jason,

Jerremy Newsome:

who as I mentioned right now, is very much still involved in the Defi

Jerremy Newsome:

organization as a program manager.

Jerremy Newsome:

So Jason, what's in your life right now that you've walked

Jerremy Newsome:

through fire, what's one truth?

Jerremy Newsome:

About you and who you are that you want every listener to hear loud and clear.

Jason Holland:

Oh, wow.

Jason Holland:

That's a really great question.

Jason Holland:

First of all, thank you for the awesome intro, by the way, and for having us.

Jason Holland:

So one truth that I want everyone to know yeah, I think that I'm

Jason Holland:

still onto my way to becoming.

Jason Holland:

All that I can be.

Jason Holland:

And in that process, I'm relearning myself in a new context versus who

Jason Holland:

I thought I was even when I left prison just in August of 2023.

Jason Holland:

I think it's a really important thing that I've learned, and you

Jason Holland:

alluded to this earlier, Jerremy.

Jason Holland:

When I left prison, I had done a lot of work to reshape to unpack so much

Jason Holland:

of who I was that brought me to that place to reshape and my relationships

Jason Holland:

with myself and the world and how I connect to other people and what

Jason Holland:

outcomes that I wanna see from that.

Jason Holland:

But, and I really thought I had a good idea on who I was coming home.

Jason Holland:

And then I came home and learned and am learning who I am in a world

Jason Holland:

that's coming at me in ways that is vastly different than what I expected.

Jason Holland:

And so I think that what I would want people to know is

Jason Holland:

that, hey, I'm still learning.

Jason Holland:

I'm gonna continue to grow and I'm gonna continue to bring value through

Jason Holland:

that to others because I recognize that others are still learning

Jason Holland:

and continuing to grow as well.

Jason Holland:

Every day it's about I wanna wake up with the right intention to

Jason Holland:

the best of my ability serve.

Jason Holland:

Receive and give all that I can, and then just continue to be open to what

Jason Holland:

Life provides and what life offers me in terms of opportunity to learn and grow.

Jerremy Newsome:

Let's go, man, let's go.

Jerremy Newsome:

That's a, that constant never ending improvement.

Jerremy Newsome:

It's a skillset and a mindset, and I would even say a heart set, that if we

Jason Holland:

Yeah.

Jerremy Newsome:

and adopt, we continually find ways to become

Jerremy Newsome:

better and look for ways to always improve, which is incredible reliable.

Jerremy Newsome:

Ralph, what a legend.

Jerremy Newsome:

A Love

Jerremy Newsome:

Ralph.

Jerremy Newsome:

Here's gonna me a fun one for you.

Jerremy Newsome:

So tell us, tell me a moment in a moment in time that made you feel unstoppable.

Jerremy Newsome:

What was that moment?

Rafael Quiroz:

Oh man, there's been so many both while I was

Rafael Quiroz:

incarcerated and since I've been home.

Rafael Quiroz:

I wanna speak specifically to, since I've been home.

Rafael Quiroz:

One that made me feel unstoppable is when I got approved for a home loan six

Rafael Quiroz:

months after being released af after serving nearly 15, 16 years in prison.

Rafael Quiroz:

And within six months I got qualified for half a million dollar home loan.

Jerremy Newsome:

Wow.

Rafael Quiroz:

And I really thought it was impossible.

Rafael Quiroz:

And I thought, you need years of income history and you need this, you need

Rafael Quiroz:

all these things I thought you needed.

Rafael Quiroz:

But I was able to navigate that.

Rafael Quiroz:

So at that point, I've been home, that was probably one of the

Rafael Quiroz:

biggest points professionally that made me feel unstoppable.

Rafael Quiroz:

Hey, I can do this.

Rafael Quiroz:

I could be like, just like anybody else, any other American, any

Rafael Quiroz:

other person that's been out here, I could be a homeowner.

Rafael Quiroz:

I knew that was my goal, to purchase a home, to raise my family.

Rafael Quiroz:

I've been married for years already.

Rafael Quiroz:

We now have a beautiful baby boy.

Rafael Quiroz:

But at that point I knew that was my goal, but when it happened,

Rafael Quiroz:

within six months of being released, I was like, wow, I can do this.

Rafael Quiroz:

And that really made me feel unstoppable.

Rafael Quiroz:

A few min, a few months later I scaled my my company to over $2 million.

Jerremy Newsome:

you did.

Jerremy Newsome:

Well

Dave Conley:

Wow.

Jerremy Newsome:

That's what I'm

Rafael Quiroz:

Yeah.

Jerremy Newsome:

Well done.

Jerremy Newsome:

And for my listeners out there, our thousands of listeners you

Jerremy Newsome:

have on your Zoom profile in the, like in a photo, if you don't

Jerremy Newsome:

risk anything, you risk even more.

Jerremy Newsome:

It's such a beautiful statement.

Jerremy Newsome:

'cause I think so many people are just generally afraid of risk.

Jerremy Newsome:

And for all three of you, we have just learned that you continually

Jerremy Newsome:

look for ways to optimize and to grow.

Jerremy Newsome:

And it's a risk.

Jerremy Newsome:

It's scary 'cause it's the unknown, right?

Jerremy Newsome:

generous, Jennifer's over here I don't know.

Jerremy Newsome:

I'm gonna make it work.

Jerremy Newsome:

But here we go.

Jerremy Newsome:

gonna hire people and I'm gonna recycle money and I'm not really

Jerremy Newsome:

sure, but we're gonna make it work.

Jerremy Newsome:

I think it's just a remarkable testament to to power.

Jerremy Newsome:

So here we go.

Jerremy Newsome:

dive in.

Jerremy Newsome:

And this is gonna be like a round robin question for the three beautiful people

Jerremy Newsome:

sitting here with myself and Dave, take us into a day behind those walls.

Jerremy Newsome:

was the hardest thing to endure and what kept you holding on?

Jerremy Newsome:

Maybe it was a person, maybe it was a moment.

Jerremy Newsome:

Let's go with Jason first.

Jason Holland:

Yeah, so the har I think for me the hardest thing to endure

Jason Holland:

towards the end was I. I had been denied for parole, and I felt that I

Jason Holland:

had done everything right at that point.

Jason Holland:

There was nothing I could do with the denial to make it go faster.

Jason Holland:

There was nothing I could do to change that decision.

Jason Holland:

It was really just a matter of due to time.

Jason Holland:

And it was difficult because was one of those situations where

Jason Holland:

like even spiritually, I would question like, what would be the

Jason Holland:

meaning or the purpose of this?

Jason Holland:

And I didn't know, had to sit with just not knowing.

Jason Holland:

And then it was like I need to find value in this some point at some way.

Jason Holland:

I need to have faith that there's gonna be a value for this, that

Jason Holland:

I can take from this for myself or that I can give to others.

Jason Holland:

And so at that point, dealing with what seemed like such a defeat and

Jason Holland:

having to sit with it while also saying, look, I still wanna live

Jason Holland:

into the possibility of this future.

Jason Holland:

I still want to do everything I can to move forward in the right way.

Jason Holland:

While at the same time being uncertain with how some of these

Jason Holland:

things that I was conflicted with, how it was going to work out.

Jason Holland:

I think towards the end that would be something that, that I was faced with.

Jason Holland:

And then earlier in my sentence, I was serving a life without parole

Jason Holland:

sentence, which felt very much like hopelessness on a continual basis and.

Jason Holland:

me at that time, enduring that.

Jason Holland:

Again, just that sense of this is how my life is gonna go.

Jason Holland:

This is what it is.

Jason Holland:

And finally coming to a place where I was able to break that mindset and

Jason Holland:

being defeated and taking ownership of my life and turning that around.

Jason Holland:

I think that there's these those are the two answers that come up for me

Jason Holland:

when you ask that question, right?

Jason Holland:

Because there was two different phases in my life where I was

Jason Holland:

enduring two types of things.

Jason Holland:

And ultimately all of those things now have become gifts

Jason Holland:

that I can share with others.

Jason Holland:

One of the bigger takeaways of my entire journey is that all of it in some

Jason Holland:

way was an opportunity to be a gift.

Jerremy Newsome:

There it is.

Dave Conley:

Wow.

Jerremy Newsome:

Turn the mess into the message.

Jason Holland:

There you go.

Jerremy Newsome:

life will change so dramatically.

Jerremy Newsome:

Ralph, what about yourself, man?

Jerremy Newsome:

What was one of those moments behind bars that was just so strenuously, difficult

Rafael Quiroz:

Man, I guess like Jason, at different points in my life.

Rafael Quiroz:

When I was younger, when I first started my incarceration, the hardest thing was

Rafael Quiroz:

getting a sentence of life in prison.

Rafael Quiroz:

It's oh shoot, this is it.

Rafael Quiroz:

Being in the hole by myself and coming to a realization that because

Rafael Quiroz:

I had been so cold and heartless and just shut my heart up to the world.

Rafael Quiroz:

I remember being in the hole at one point early on and thinking to

Rafael Quiroz:

myself like, I don't have anybody.

Rafael Quiroz:

I don't have, no,

Jerremy Newsome:

is the whole solitary confinement.

Rafael Quiroz:

yeah.

Rafael Quiroz:

Solitary confinement.

Rafael Quiroz:

Yeah, sorry.

Jerremy Newsome:

You're good.

Rafael Quiroz:

Solitary confinement.

Rafael Quiroz:

Getting in trouble and then being sent to solitary confinement.

Rafael Quiroz:

Sorry, I referred to it as the whole.

Rafael Quiroz:

And and just being in there and having a moment to think to myself for one

Rafael Quiroz:

of the first times early in my young life, and just like how isolated

Rafael Quiroz:

I really felt like I was always like, good at talking to people,

Rafael Quiroz:

manipulating really good at manipulating and getting the things I wanted.

Rafael Quiroz:

And then when I was in the hole with my own, to my own thoughts, I was like, man,

Rafael Quiroz:

I have nobody, like I, I have nobody.

Rafael Quiroz:

And it was really hard to swallow that pill.

Rafael Quiroz:

Pill.

Rafael Quiroz:

And that was a point where I'm like I want something more.

Rafael Quiroz:

I want something more.

Rafael Quiroz:

That's when I, so that's when I decided to open up and stuff like that.

Rafael Quiroz:

So that was earlier.

Rafael Quiroz:

So sentenced to life coming to the realization that, how far I

Rafael Quiroz:

distanced myself from the world.

Rafael Quiroz:

And those are some hard truths to swallow early on.

Rafael Quiroz:

But then later on, some of the hard things were just taking responsibility, like

Rafael Quiroz:

taking a hundred percent responsibility.

Rafael Quiroz:

For so long I had blamed my choices off of my childhood.

Rafael Quiroz:

Oh, I didn't have my mom or my dad around, it's because of the neighborhood

Rafael Quiroz:

I grew up in and all these things.

Rafael Quiroz:

Those were my crutches, those were my excuses.

Rafael Quiroz:

So if I failed, I always had something to point the point, the blame at

Rafael Quiroz:

or point the point, the finger at.

Rafael Quiroz:

that was a hard part, realizing I need to take a hundred percent

Rafael Quiroz:

ownership from my own life.

Rafael Quiroz:

And so that was another hard part.

Rafael Quiroz:

As I transitioned Jason said, just that due through different phases in my

Rafael Quiroz:

life, there was different hard parts.

Rafael Quiroz:

And one of the lar, one of the hard parts.

Rafael Quiroz:

Right before I was released, I was actually the chairman for the Men's

Rafael Quiroz:

Advisory Council during covid.

Rafael Quiroz:

So during Covid I was the chairman for the Men's advisory Council.

Rafael Quiroz:

And so I was the go between, between the inmate population and

Rafael Quiroz:

the staff, prison staff, and I felt like I couldn't do anything.

Rafael Quiroz:

The inmate population said, Hey, you need to have, give us yard

Rafael Quiroz:

time and blah, blah, blah, blah.

Rafael Quiroz:

I would go to the staff and say, Hey, we need yard time,

Rafael Quiroz:

we need sports, we need this.

Rafael Quiroz:

And the prison staff would be like, look, bro, it's out of our hands.

Rafael Quiroz:

I don't know what to tell you.

Rafael Quiroz:

It's coming down from Sacramento.

Rafael Quiroz:

So the officers got tired of hearing from me.

Rafael Quiroz:

inmate population felt like I wasn't doing enough, and I felt every day for

Rafael Quiroz:

almost a whole year, I felt like the most hated man on that entire yard.

Rafael Quiroz:

And that was hard.

Rafael Quiroz:

was really hard.

Rafael Quiroz:

But I'll tell you what, I learned important leadership skills during that

Rafael Quiroz:

time, during my last year in prison.

Rafael Quiroz:

I came home in 2021.

Rafael Quiroz:

And during that last year of prison, I really learned some crucial

Rafael Quiroz:

and critical leadership skills that I didn't know I had before.

Rafael Quiroz:

And so that was one of the hardest times as well for me.

Jerremy Newsome:

man.

Jerremy Newsome:

Thank you for sharing that.

Jerremy Newsome:

I really heard you say is you chose to be a victor and not a victim.

Jerremy Newsome:

We all have circumstances regardless to what they are.

Rafael Quiroz:

Right.

Jerremy Newsome:

you're right, they can happen to us, they can happen for us.

Jerremy Newsome:

We can be born, we can have all the things and the cards are gonna be

Jerremy Newsome:

against us, but at the same time, single person is making some level of choice.

Jerremy Newsome:

And once we get to go, yeah, but I did do that.

Jerremy Newsome:

That was me.

Jerremy Newsome:

Even though other people did or said or whatever.

Jerremy Newsome:

You turn that spotlight inward and then you started turning

Jerremy Newsome:

it outward again, which

Rafael Quiroz:

hundred percent.

Jerremy Newsome:

awesome.

Jerremy Newsome:

Ah, thank you.

Jerremy Newsome:

Thank you.

Jerremy Newsome:

Thank you, Jennifer.

Jerremy Newsome:

Generous.

Jerremy Newsome:

Jennifer, how'd you get over those hard moments?

Jerremy Newsome:

What were they like?

Generous Jennifer:

Okay.

Generous Jennifer:

So I always feel the need to.

Generous Jennifer:

Disclose this when I'm in these spaces.

Generous Jennifer:

But I got arrested two times and both times I was able to bail myself out.

Generous Jennifer:

So I didn't do time like some of the other folks here.

Generous Jennifer:

But the second time, my sense of self-worth was like still completely

Generous Jennifer:

in the dumps and it stayed that way until my dad approached me,

Generous Jennifer:

like he saw what I was doing.

Generous Jennifer:

He was nice and hands off, but he could tell that I was still on drugs.

Generous Jennifer:

I was never coming home.

Generous Jennifer:

And he approached me and just said, why don't you go back to school?

Generous Jennifer:

I will help you pay for it.

Generous Jennifer:

And it was like a light bulb went off.

Generous Jennifer:

I could not believe that somebody still believed in me.

Generous Jennifer:

So you, Ralph say that you felt like the most hated person on the yard, that would

Generous Jennifer:

be so fucking hard to deal with because I've realized that the esteem of others

Generous Jennifer:

is what affects me more than anything.

Generous Jennifer:

so getting my dad's esteem and knowing that he still believed

Generous Jennifer:

in me, I was like, that's it.

Generous Jennifer:

I'm getting straight A's.

Generous Jennifer:

I'm gonna get valedictorian.

Generous Jennifer:

I'm not just going back to school.

Generous Jennifer:

I have to be the best.

Generous Jennifer:

And I did, I went back to school and I did get straight A's and I volunteered

Generous Jennifer:

so much that I got an award from Obama and I did make valedictorian

Generous Jennifer:

and I was probably the most decorated valedictorian they ever had.

Generous Jennifer:

I was the first, architecture major, valedictorian amongst a lot of other

Generous Jennifer:

things, but, so that's what's made me like, I'm giving that back to the world.

Generous Jennifer:

I'm starting this business, I'm starting a scholarship.

Generous Jennifer:

It's gonna go to other people that didn't have the same resources I did.

Generous Jennifer:

Also, my husband served 11 years.

Generous Jennifer:

He's also an ex-felon and now he's an electrical engineer.

Generous Jennifer:

So it's just really important to both of us to give that back to the world,

Generous Jennifer:

the same opportunities that we were lucky enough to have, because we still

Generous Jennifer:

have the support from a strong family network not everybody has, which can be

Generous Jennifer:

a make or break difference for people.

Generous Jennifer:

Like the resources you have and how much people believe in you, I think

Generous Jennifer:

is really what goes a long ways.

Generous Jennifer:

Yeah.

Generous Jennifer:

Did that answer the question?

Dave Conley:

Oh yeah.

Generous Jennifer:

Okay.

Dave Conley:

And Jennifer I want to piggyback on that.

Dave Conley:

It's like I heard, like it was important to you that, your

Dave Conley:

dad was proud of you in this.

Dave Conley:

And when Jeremiah, when Jerremy and I were at the women's prison last week, one

Dave Conley:

of the things I brought back with me was what an honor it was and how the remarks

Dave Conley:

from the other EITs that were there.

Dave Conley:

Was just to, to actually just see them and be with them and ha have

Dave Conley:

them just being treated normal.

Dave Conley:

And I got more than one comment that it's you're not judging me.

Dave Conley:

And I'm like,

Generous Jennifer:

oh

Generous Jennifer:

We,

Dave Conley:

I will judge your business idea, but not not you and I'm, this

Dave Conley:

system is supposed to help and, but, 50% of the people who are inside deal

Dave Conley:

with real mental health struggles.

Dave Conley:

So how, what were those, what was that like for you?

Dave Conley:

What, what were the conditions, how did those conditions hit you?

Generous Jennifer:

I'm sorry, I'm struggling.

Generous Jennifer:

The mental health struggles, sorry, I'm trying to think.

Generous Jennifer:

I think for me it was definitely the issue of self-worth and I think in, I was in a

Generous Jennifer:

world with a lot of sex work being around the men in that world that were powerful,

Generous Jennifer:

they were doctors and lawyers and had lots of money and not being held in their

Generous Jennifer:

esteem, like all of that, definitely just like that message to me was not helpful,

Generous Jennifer:

obviously for my self worth and for what I thought my future was gonna be.

Generous Jennifer:

sorry, what were you asking?

Dave Conley:

I think it's at that, particularly inside, there's a, it's

Dave Conley:

a big mental game and some of it's like real, you're gonna run into

Dave Conley:

or even have your own mental issues and you're gonna run into people

Dave Conley:

who have untreated mental issues.

Dave Conley:

What's that, what's the mental game like?

Dave Conley:

Because, coming from that place, just the simple act of treating somebody with

Dave Conley:

some basic humanity was almost a relief.

Dave Conley:

Like they weren't feeling judged.

Dave Conley:

It was.

Generous Jennifer:

can speak better to this because it sounds like it's also

Generous Jennifer:

really rooted in toxic masculinity, like this being okay with kindness.

Dave Conley:

What about you, Ralph?

Dave Conley:

What's the mental game like?

Rafael Quiroz:

Man, there's so much, there's so much, what comes to mind

Rafael Quiroz:

for me speaking for myself, early on, young, full of pride and ego.

Rafael Quiroz:

I want to be the tough guy.

Rafael Quiroz:

I'm stronger, I'm better than you.

Rafael Quiroz:

I'll beat you up.

Rafael Quiroz:

That mentality, that persona adopting that, and it's tough.

Rafael Quiroz:

Everybody's who's gonna fold and so he it can be tough and it puts, sometimes

Rafael Quiroz:

it puts it, it can break a lot of people.

Rafael Quiroz:

It can break a lot of people, so the mental game is it's definitely in

Rafael Quiroz:

there, especially speaking against, speaking for myself, being young and

Rafael Quiroz:

immature, wanting to fit in, wanting to be cool, wanting to be that guy.

Rafael Quiroz:

Then just putting all this additional stress on myself.

Rafael Quiroz:

And then later on as I'm growing and maturing that you're right.

Rafael Quiroz:

Remember actually defy, I remember when we had a graduation at Defy

Rafael Quiroz:

Ventures, one of our first visitors.

Rafael Quiroz:

We had some visitors come in and they spoke to us like regular people.

Rafael Quiroz:

The exercise that really brought it all together for me regarding

Rafael Quiroz:

mental health and those type of things was step to the line exercise.

Rafael Quiroz:

I'm not sure if you guys are familiar with the step to the line exercise,

Rafael Quiroz:

but they said, I remember across from me was a sheriff or a detective

Rafael Quiroz:

or a somebody in law enforcement.

Rafael Quiroz:

I remember that specifically.

Rafael Quiroz:

He was in law enforcement.

Rafael Quiroz:

And the question was, have you ever committed a crime

Rafael Quiroz:

and not got caught for it?

Rafael Quiroz:

I get the goosebumps thinking about it even now to this day.

Rafael Quiroz:

And he stepped to the line.

Rafael Quiroz:

He stepped to the line, and in my head, my mind was blown.

Rafael Quiroz:

I'm like, this sheriff or detective or this law enforcement person stepping

Rafael Quiroz:

to the line talking about crimes he committed and didn't get caught.

Rafael Quiroz:

Did you ever get in fight when you're in high school?

Rafael Quiroz:

That's a crime.

Rafael Quiroz:

And he stepped to the line and it it brought me back to like humanity.

Rafael Quiroz:

I don't have to have this persona.

Rafael Quiroz:

I'm not so far different from everybody else in America.

Rafael Quiroz:

So that took a burden off of my mental health that took a burden off

Rafael Quiroz:

of that stress of thinking I have to have a certain persona in this place.

Rafael Quiroz:

And then and then coming after, after that.

Rafael Quiroz:

Just staying strong.

Rafael Quiroz:

This is, for me I think this is something, whether you're in prison or

Rafael Quiroz:

out of prison, just staying mentally strong and fit is an ongoing thing.

Rafael Quiroz:

Self-development is a lifelong journey and not a destination.

Rafael Quiroz:

I say it's a lifelong journey and not a destination.

Rafael Quiroz:

So after getting to that place of more confidence, comfortability, living life

Rafael Quiroz:

based on principles, now the mental game is just, Ralph, be honest with yourself.

Rafael Quiroz:

Stop making excuses, discipline, type of things.

Rafael Quiroz:

And that can just be an everyday struggle, even now to this day.

Rafael Quiroz:

Hey, did I really need to eat that extra slice of pizza?

Rafael Quiroz:

Did I really need to skip my leg day?

Rafael Quiroz:

Right now, it's the, that's where the, that's where the mental game

Rafael Quiroz:

has come, but it's definitely come from a long journey though.

Rafael Quiroz:

So I hope that answered your question, Dave.

Dave Conley:

Man, we talked about that exact same question.

Dave Conley:

It was, and for a lot of us that stepped up to that line, it's like, how many

Dave Conley:

times did we get behind the wheel, when we shouldn't have, and I absolutely talked

Dave Conley:

to a person who was in the exact same situation and she got into an accident and

Dave Conley:

now she's behind bars and that's for real.

Dave Conley:

Yeah.

Dave Conley:

Thank you Ralph.

Rafael Quiroz:

Percent.

Dave Conley:

Jason, you have anything to come in with on

Dave Conley:

the mental game around this?

Jason Holland:

Yeah, no I think that my experience is much like what Ralph

Jason Holland:

was describing early on for myself and many of my, associates in there.

Jason Holland:

I think we were just trying to, hang on.

Jason Holland:

I think we were just trying to survive and we saw a we just saw

Jason Holland:

ourselves in a situation where it was like, Hey man, we're gonna make

Jason Holland:

the best out of this as possible.

Jason Holland:

But we didn't, I don't think that, speaking for myself, I don't think that

Jason Holland:

I realized that what had happened was all of us had had this inheritance in

Jason Holland:

the prison system that we didn't really realize was there, like adopting the

Jason Holland:

ideals and the values and the behaviors and the way of coping in that environment.

Jason Holland:

And so in that, I think that there was this sort of.

Jason Holland:

Hanging on thing.

Jason Holland:

I just don't wanna break as Ralph alluded to.

Jason Holland:

then eventually, once I started unpacking of that, ev all the scripts

Jason Holland:

that I had adopted along the way in there started thinking more for myself,

Jason Holland:

I remember I, when I really started having the turnaround in my life,

Jason Holland:

I read a Tony Robbins book and it

Jason Holland:

The way I viewed my potential and the way that I viewed the, how I

Jason Holland:

was interacting with the world.

Jason Holland:

And once I started surrounding myself with new people, once I started really looking

Jason Holland:

at my belief system and how I could create something new for myself, I realized

Jason Holland:

that my life had become like a garden.

Jason Holland:

And I could cultivate it, right?

Jason Holland:

I could cultivate the relationships, I could cultivate my mental health.

Jason Holland:

And it became easier because before that, I thought that I was

Jason Holland:

just a victim of circumstance.

Jason Holland:

And I thought that I was a victim of like my mood swings and my depression,

Jason Holland:

and I was just fending it off.

Jason Holland:

It was like a constant battle of fending these things off and could I just survive?

Jason Holland:

But once I started making these shifts, slowly but surely, I. was

Jason Holland:

no longer me fending things off.

Jason Holland:

It was like, what can I create?

Jason Holland:

What can I take part in generating for myself and others?

Jason Holland:

And then surrounding myself with new people getting involved with

Jason Holland:

reeducating myself investing in my personal development.

Jason Holland:

Everything that comes with the whole development process in prison that's now

Jason Holland:

offered with groups, education, et cetera.

Jason Holland:

Suddenly my life was changed and I found a whole new level of freedom

Jason Holland:

that I had never enjoyed before, right?

Jason Holland:

It just, I was waiting physically to be free and come home, but in there I was

Jason Holland:

operating on a whole new level of what was possible for me, and my mental health

Jason Holland:

as a result was drastically improved.

Jason Holland:

And so I think that's one way of describing how the

Jason Holland:

process unraveled for me.

Jason Holland:

And it was really just about becoming increasingly open to en

Jason Holland:

entertaining new ideas about what could be for myself and others.

Jerremy Newsome:

Yeah.

Jerremy Newsome:

Yes.

Jerremy Newsome:

So speaking of others, talking plural here, right?

Jerremy Newsome:

America locks up 1.9 million people more than almost anywhere in the world.

Jerremy Newsome:

Was the system that you saw or you experienced, was it trying to rebuild

Jerremy Newsome:

you, you, or keep you locked in?

Jerremy Newsome:

Tell us a story.

Jerremy Newsome:

Let's go with Jason first.

Jason Holland:

Yeah, in 1995, was sentenced to life without parole.

Jason Holland:

and I was guilty of everything that they accused me of.

Jason Holland:

I went in and I think at that time, when I look back at what prison was in

Jason Holland:

California prison, especially level four institutions, I don't think that there

Jason Holland:

was much intention for rehabilitation in

Jason Holland:

Releasing of us who had been deemed unsalvageable, maybe that's too

Jason Holland:

extreme, but I think that life without parole is a sentence that indicates

Jason Holland:

that you sh shouldn't come home.

Jason Holland:

I'm not gonna say that there was no opportunities available.

Jason Holland:

think that there were, I just was too, I was not ready to see them or take

Jason Holland:

advantage of them where I was at the time.

Jason Holland:

Cut to 20 years later, suddenly the California prison system started

Jason Holland:

infusing many yards with groups.

Jason Holland:

They started making educational programs increasingly easier to access vocational

Jason Holland:

programs, increasingly easier to access.

Jason Holland:

And I'm not gonna say that it's a perfect system.

Jason Holland:

I'm gonna say that there has been a lot of work from people both in CDCR

Jason Holland:

and outside to provide opportunities for people that they know were

Jason Holland:

gonna be coming home at some point to have the most success possible.

Jason Holland:

And so I would say that in the beginning it did not seem to me like

Jason Holland:

there was a lot of opportunity or a lot of intention for letting us go.

Jason Holland:

It seemed like a warehousing system at the time.

Jason Holland:

Towards the end, I think that they realized that they had made a big

Jason Holland:

mistake in that, and that they were gonna have to release people.

Jason Holland:

And if they were gonna release them, they were gonna do it as safely as

Jason Holland:

possible by helping them upgrade and skill education and personal development.

Jason Holland:

And I think there's been a lot of strides to towards that.

Jason Holland:

And it, that's what's impacted my life in a lot of ways.

Jason Holland:

But is it perfect?

Jason Holland:

No.

Jason Holland:

Has it changed?

Jason Holland:

To a large degree, I would say yes.

Jason Holland:

In my opinion, I.

Jerremy Newsome:

And Jason, you said they had to make that change.

Jerremy Newsome:

Why the imperative impetus to make that change?

Jason Holland:

In my opinion, I think that basically it was costing too much money.

Jason Holland:

It was a failing business model,

Jason Holland:

That it was unsustainable and it was basically like the pig that's

Jason Holland:

gotten too fat to support its own weight and it's gonna go down.

Jason Holland:

And so the feds came in at one point, and basically, if I understand it

Jason Holland:

correctly, we're the CDCR, you gotta release people, you gotta release 'em.

Jason Holland:

It's, it just cannot continue.

Jason Holland:

And so had to release people what are you gonna do?

Jason Holland:

You wanna do it as responsibly as possible?

Jason Holland:

'cause if these guys have been in here, and these women have been in

Jason Holland:

here for 20 years and they've had no rehabilitative programming, what do you

Jason Holland:

expect them to do when they go home?

Jason Holland:

If they haven't been upskilled, if their education hasn't increased,

Jason Holland:

if they haven't learned any kind of like causative factors for what

Jason Holland:

brought 'em here in the first place, they're gonna go home and be met with

Jason Holland:

a whole bunch of new stress factors.

Jason Holland:

How are they gonna react to that?

Jason Holland:

So I think that this is my, my theory that they recognize that th

Jason Holland:

this was the writing on the wall.

Jason Holland:

And so to release people as responsibly as possible they've done what they can

Jason Holland:

up until now to provide programming.

Jason Holland:

Is it perfect?

Jason Holland:

No, but I do take it as there, there has been increased opportunities for growth.

Jerremy Newsome:

Gotcha.

Jerremy Newsome:

Thank you.

Jason Holland:

Yep.

Jerremy Newsome:

about you?

Jerremy Newsome:

What did you feel or see or experience or notice?

Rafael Quiroz:

Yeah, I would say kinda like Jason said, in

Rafael Quiroz:

hindsight, hindsight's 2020, right?

Rafael Quiroz:

There

Rafael Quiroz:

Available.

Rafael Quiroz:

For example, if you wanna be really proactive, go to the library,

Rafael Quiroz:

get a book, a self-help book, read that, start from there.

Rafael Quiroz:

And there was opportunities available.

Rafael Quiroz:

But, especially in that prison culture, the prison mentality, and just taking

Rafael Quiroz:

responsibility for myself, I'm not looking for those opportunities.

Rafael Quiroz:

I'm more focused and like what Dave was asking earlier, the

Rafael Quiroz:

mental game being this tough guy.

Rafael Quiroz:

And so if there was opportunities, I just wasn't looking for them.

Rafael Quiroz:

I didn't see them.

Rafael Quiroz:

And but as Jason mentioned, things definitely changed

Rafael Quiroz:

the whole prison culture.

Rafael Quiroz:

People were started fighting to go home.

Rafael Quiroz:

Pri people just started fighting to go home, signing up for

Rafael Quiroz:

programs and things of that nature.

Rafael Quiroz:

So it did become more available.

Rafael Quiroz:

But I think going back a little bit, I think part of it is also

Rafael Quiroz:

part of the officers, right?

Rafael Quiroz:

And I'm not trying to I'm not, I'm big on taking a hundred percent responsibility,

Rafael Quiroz:

not pointing the finger, but just speaking in general terms, I think the officers,

Rafael Quiroz:

as a young man in prison, the officers, it feels like the officers, either

Rafael Quiroz:

talk down to you or look down on you.

Rafael Quiroz:

You feel less thin.

Rafael Quiroz:

And then you already, for me, speaking for myself, you have a

Rafael Quiroz:

separation between officer civilian, good guy, me, inmate bad guy.

Rafael Quiroz:

In, in my mind, I had created that separation.

Rafael Quiroz:

I'm not them.

Rafael Quiroz:

I'm not a good guy.

Rafael Quiroz:

I'm a bad guy.

Rafael Quiroz:

And at least that was my experience.

Rafael Quiroz:

I felt maybe if the officers had more, just talk to us like regular people.

Rafael Quiroz:

For example, going back to Defy when visitors are coming in and they talk

Rafael Quiroz:

to us like regular human beings, it's it's almost foreign at first.

Rafael Quiroz:

It's oh, I'm not, we're not supposed to talk like this.

Rafael Quiroz:

We're not supposed to have this kind of relationship and dialogue.

Rafael Quiroz:

I'm just like, Hey, sir. Yes.

Rafael Quiroz:

Take me to myself.

Rafael Quiroz:

That's it.

Rafael Quiroz:

That's all right.

Rafael Quiroz:

so I think the officers, maybe being able to dialogue differently with inmates.

Rafael Quiroz:

And what I think of is I was at a yard and man, the leadership there from the

Rafael Quiroz:

lieutenant on down his name the lieutenant that I'm speaking about knows who he is.

Rafael Quiroz:

I'm not sure if I should say his name or not, but I'm gonna

Rafael Quiroz:

just keep it to myself for now.

Rafael Quiroz:

But I was on a yard, the lieutenant down was freaking super cool, and

Rafael Quiroz:

he talked to us like regular people.

Rafael Quiroz:

That's where I actually did the five entrance program.

Rafael Quiroz:

That's actually where I did the Defy Ventures program.

Rafael Quiroz:

And when the officers talk to you, like a regular person.

Rafael Quiroz:

When they talk to me like a regular person, it made me feel

Rafael Quiroz:

like I am a regular person.

Rafael Quiroz:

Wait, maybe I should sign up for these programs.

Rafael Quiroz:

Maybe I was in a program and one of the officers came in, they

Rafael Quiroz:

listen, one of the officers came in.

Rafael Quiroz:

He's oh, that's cool.

Rafael Quiroz:

That's something I'm learning from you guys.

Rafael Quiroz:

Him saying that I'm an officer and I'm learning from you

Rafael Quiroz:

guys, meant something to us.

Rafael Quiroz:

Oh shoot, we're human.

Rafael Quiroz:

Where there's not that separation between officer and inmate, closed down.

Rafael Quiroz:

So that particular yard the leadership from the officers, the leadership

Rafael Quiroz:

from the officers, close that gap between inmates and officers.

Rafael Quiroz:

And man, we can go to yard, say, Hey, officer how's it going?

Rafael Quiroz:

Good morning.

Rafael Quiroz:

And that made you wanna be more proactive, more pro-social, go in

Rafael Quiroz:

there, take programs, go to school, get be encouraged At some prisons,

Rafael Quiroz:

you sign up for college and it's hard to get into the college program.

Rafael Quiroz:

hard to get, 'cause you need a what's the role, Jason, please help me out.

Rafael Quiroz:

What's the, who's the person that helps with the college?

Rafael Quiroz:

The staff that coordinates between colleges and inmates?

Rafael Quiroz:

I can't think of the term right now.

Jason Holland:

Oh yeah, it's a it's just a coordinator between the it,

Jason Holland:

that's all, that's really all it is.

Jason Holland:

It's just a staff

Rafael Quiroz:

So just a staff coordinator, let's go with that.

Rafael Quiroz:

And at other prisons, they'll just be like, Hey, if you don't get your,

Rafael Quiroz:

if you don't get enrolled in college in time, it's too bad for you.

Rafael Quiroz:

But at this particular prison, the coordinator was on it like,

Rafael Quiroz:

Hey, who do we need a write to?

Rafael Quiroz:

Let me send an email to this school.

Rafael Quiroz:

Let me send an email to that school.

Rafael Quiroz:

Let me, oh, you're trying to go to another school that we don't have available.

Rafael Quiroz:

Let me send an email, print out the information and get it to you guys.

Rafael Quiroz:

That kind of behavior from the leadership at the staff leadership

Rafael Quiroz:

really made me want to be more engaged.

Rafael Quiroz:

It made me wanna be more engaged.

Rafael Quiroz:

So I think that really has a lot to do with the leadership of the

Rafael Quiroz:

officers and not necessarily just the programs that were available alone.

Rafael Quiroz:

And that made me want to be more proactive, more pro-social,

Rafael Quiroz:

and get into these programs.

Jerremy Newsome:

That's fascinating and that, that brings a lot of

Jerremy Newsome:

awareness and kind of thoughts that I had in just general as we

Jerremy Newsome:

keep having this conversation.

Jerremy Newsome:

And Jennifer, we know that you mentioned earlier that your experience was a little

Jerremy Newsome:

bit different, and of course everyone's experience is a little bit different, but

Jerremy Newsome:

was there anything in the system that was actually right for you that was correct,

Jerremy Newsome:

that you feel was made accurately?

Generous Jennifer:

My personal experience, I think everything went really bad,

Generous Jennifer:

like from the judge that I saw in court, giving me extra time while dismissing

Generous Jennifer:

people that had DUIs when my crime was nonviolent and didn't affect anybody.

Generous Jennifer:

Like I, it really was geared towards punishment.

Generous Jennifer:

And I think a lot of our institutions are geared towards punishment.

Generous Jennifer:

And a big theme from what these guys are talking about is how

Generous Jennifer:

just like a simple message can really help with your self-worth.

Generous Jennifer:

And that message coming from just somebody showing that they believe in

Generous Jennifer:

you and your goodness and your value.

Generous Jennifer:

And I think the fact that we spend more sending people to prison than we

Generous Jennifer:

would spend on college tuition, and the fact that we send more people to

Generous Jennifer:

prison than to college is just, I think we're all geared towards punishment.

Generous Jennifer:

I'm a little less optimistic in that regard, in this topic.

Jerremy Newsome:

Yeah, and that's okay.

Jerremy Newsome:

That's why we're here.

Jerremy Newsome:

Have that conversation.

Jerremy Newsome:

Jason, what's your thoughts, my man?

Jerremy Newsome:

With your hand up.

Jason Holland:

Yeah, I just I wanted to lean in on this one.

Jason Holland:

The, absolutely I agree with Ralph in terms of I want to be able to look

Jason Holland:

back and take full responsibility for my decisions while saying that yeah I

Jason Holland:

think that I inherited a culture when I came into prison that was very much

Jason Holland:

coming at me from different angles, reinforcing the narrative that like

Jason Holland:

my way of living now is to do X, Y, Z.

Jason Holland:

It's to commit violence, it's to be involved with smuggling, it's

Jason Holland:

to be involved with criminality.

Jason Holland:

I need to do this so that, whatever my reasoning was.

Jason Holland:

And so there was a cultural thing happening there that I was enmeshed

Jason Holland:

in, and I definitely could have pulled myself out at any given

Jason Holland:

time had I had the courage, right?

Jason Holland:

Had I had the awareness to do I lacked those things at that time.

Jason Holland:

That being said, when it shifted and when I was able to finally find

Jason Holland:

the courage and, make all these different changes in my life, I also

Jason Holland:

think that the staff had a culture that they were dealing with, right?

Jason Holland:

In terms of while our culture was shifting, their culture was shifting.

Jason Holland:

And I think that, 'cause I've had conversations with them where it wasn't

Jason Holland:

as easy as simply getting behind the rehabilitation because I think that

Jason Holland:

a lot of them felt or what they were catching from their end of things

Jason Holland:

was this is gonna cost us our jobs.

Jason Holland:

This is gonna change the way that we've done things and what

Jason Holland:

they were familiar with, right?

Jason Holland:

And so when we talk about this conversation in terms of prison

Jason Holland:

reform, a lot of complexity to it.

Jason Holland:

it's, you wanna simplify it and be break it down to simply, we

Jason Holland:

should provide opportunities for people to change and grow.

Jason Holland:

Absolutely.

Jason Holland:

We should do that while also me, while also understanding

Jason Holland:

look, this these questions.

Jason Holland:

And specifically in California, there's a whole cultural thing that's

Jason Holland:

happening on many different levels.

Jason Holland:

Inside of these institutions, right?

Jason Holland:

And so while we look at it, it's just, I think it's important to note that these

Jason Holland:

are complexities that are occurring.

Jason Holland:

But I do have hope that in time people can come to see that really in the humanity

Jason Holland:

of the people that are inside, both the officers and the staff or, and the inmates

Jason Holland:

and the residents, that that there's actually more to gain out of investing

Jason Holland:

in the humanity and the shared connection there than there is in simply creating a

Jason Holland:

greater divide between good guy, bad guy, us versus them and in just punishing.

Jerremy Newsome:

Yeah.

Jason Holland:

that's my 2 cents on that.

Jason Holland:

Thank you.

Jerremy Newsome:

Thank you.

Jerremy Newsome:

Thank you for your 2 cents, because ultimately, I, me and Dave, and I think

Jerremy Newsome:

a lot of people who are listening to the show are learning more and more about this

Jerremy Newsome:

recently, but private raking billions.

Jerremy Newsome:

I did not know this was a thing.

Jerremy Newsome:

Again, I just thought all P prisons were government.

Jerremy Newsome:

But private prisons, they're pushing for full occupancy.

Jerremy Newsome:

Did any of the three of you experience a private prison?

Jerremy Newsome:

And in that situation, did you feel up more like a number versus a person or

Jerremy Newsome:

what, how did that shape what you saw?

Jason Holland:

I haven't personally experienced that.

Jerremy Newsome:

Okay,

Rafael Quiroz:

Yeah, same here.

Rafael Quiroz:

I, we were, I was never at a private prison either, so I

Rafael Quiroz:

wouldn't be able to speak to that.

Jerremy Newsome:

gotcha.

Jerremy Newsome:

Yeah, it was just mind blowing ultimately to me.

Jerremy Newsome:

Jennifer you're shaking your head a little bit.

Generous Jennifer:

Oh no, I just, when you monetize something,

Generous Jennifer:

you incentivize it, right?

Generous Jennifer:

So I know I've heard, I've done the research on this because it's horrible.

Generous Jennifer:

I've heard about like people passing out more sentences, like harassing inmates,

Generous Jennifer:

more so that they can give you more time.

Generous Jennifer:

You incentivize something.

Generous Jennifer:

What do you think will happen?

Generous Jennifer:

don't know.

Generous Jennifer:

I just.

Jerremy Newsome:

Justin said earlier just Jason said earlier

Jerremy Newsome:

that this is a failing business model, is the word that Jason used.

Jerremy Newsome:

And again, not only the privatized prisons, but also just the.

Jerremy Newsome:

Federal prisons in general, like they're getting their subsidies and their

Jerremy Newsome:

grants and the government loans and the projects and the programs, like they're

Jerremy Newsome:

receiving money and it's a system, but the system has to be profitable.

Jerremy Newsome:

And I definitely think there's some level of components, kinda what you said,

Jerremy Newsome:

Jennifer, that is focused more on how can we keep these individuals, these inmates

Jerremy Newsome:

in longer so that we can make more.

Jerremy Newsome:

Dave, what's your take and what you feeling over there?

Dave Conley:

I am just, I'm wondering if anything's working, if so seven

Dave Conley:

outta 10, that, what is that?

Dave Conley:

Almost three, almost four out of five are going back in, within three years.

Dave Conley:

That by definition is a completely failed system.

Dave Conley:

And I was talking to one EIT graduate and I was asking him, Hey, what's

Dave Conley:

what's the sunny side on this?

Dave Conley:

And he said, you know what, actually I learned a lot of discipline, and

Dave Conley:

that's really served me really well.

Dave Conley:

Being on the outside, it's I'm regimented and like I, like I'm on top of things.

Dave Conley:

And I noticed when, like when we started up this conversation, like

Dave Conley:

everybody here was a here early and on time and I, I don't know.

Dave Conley:

I don't mean to make fun of that at all, but in your opinion, is anything working?

Dave Conley:

Is anything, did the, did anything in the system go right by you?

Dave Conley:

What do you think Jen?

Generous Jennifer:

The reason why I say that it did not Okay.

Generous Jennifer:

Did anything in the system, was anything working for me?

Generous Jennifer:

Okay.

Generous Jennifer:

So I was ordered to do rehab and the group of people that I was hanging out

Generous Jennifer:

with found me a rehab that would take my money and let me keep doing drugs.

Generous Jennifer:

So

Dave Conley:

Oof.

Generous Jennifer:

work.

Generous Jennifer:

Yeah.

Generous Jennifer:

And then when I ordered to do community service and I was nine hours short on

Generous Jennifer:

my community service, and I went to court and I was in court with a lot

Generous Jennifer:

of other people that were asking for extensions for their community service.

Generous Jennifer:

A lot of people went up and some people had d UIs and people had

Generous Jennifer:

some really to me different crimes.

Generous Jennifer:

Like I was in there for prostitution.

Generous Jennifer:

So I thought, for sure she's giving all these people extensions.

Generous Jennifer:

I just have nine hours.

Generous Jennifer:

I didn't finish.

Generous Jennifer:

She was ready to send me to jail, and I could see that it was like,

Generous Jennifer:

there's this hate, like with women that I experienced that makes it hard.

Generous Jennifer:

That's the barrier that I get.

Generous Jennifer:

So I didn't do time, but I have a crime that women are especially hostile towards,

Generous Jennifer:

I'm in a field that's dominated by women.

Generous Jennifer:

I'm an interior designer, so that created some weird issues and barriers.

Generous Jennifer:

But just to speak to why I personally don't feel like anything went

Generous Jennifer:

right for me, like at any time that I should have been given

Generous Jennifer:

grace or help, I got punished and I

Generous Jennifer:

A message that.

Generous Jennifer:

You're irredeemable.

Generous Jennifer:

I don't care.

Generous Jennifer:

Yeah.

Generous Jennifer:

Think there's a lot of work to be done in that field, especially like

Generous Jennifer:

just considering the circumstances that lead women to go into

Generous Jennifer:

to, to get that kind of crime.

Generous Jennifer:

It just doesn't make sense to me.

Generous Jennifer:

It's not offer more support versus punishment.

Generous Jennifer:

And I see this as a theme in a lot of things.

Generous Jennifer:

Not to go too far off topic, but just really quickly, like I hear about

Generous Jennifer:

single moms that will there was this mom that was working at McDonald's

Generous Jennifer:

and she dropped her kid off at the park right across the street.

Generous Jennifer:

And so she got in trouble for that and they took the kid away and it was like,

Generous Jennifer:

okay, so we're gonna spend resources taking the kid away and traumatizing

Generous Jennifer:

them versus spending resources giving them to this mother that needs support.

Generous Jennifer:

Like we have a very punishment driven society.

Generous Jennifer:

I think our institutions are very punishment driven it bothers

Generous Jennifer:

me and I seek to help fix that.

Jerremy Newsome:

Me too.

Jerremy Newsome:

Me

Dave Conley:

What?

Jerremy Newsome:

or go ahead Dave.

Jerremy Newsome:

Sorry.

Dave Conley:

No.

Dave Conley:

I was just to open it up to Jason, did anything in the system work for you?

Dave Conley:

Does anything work?

Dave Conley:

I'm I'm trying to find if anything is working because I think I. One

Dave Conley:

of the reasons why it, it feels like it's around so much punishment is

Dave Conley:

that's the political easy thing to do.

Dave Conley:

Whereas everything else seem that actually works like Defi, which costs very little,

Dave Conley:

and people get out and they get jobs and they get reintegrated into society.

Dave Conley:

And like Youth three are very, quite successful by any stretch

Dave Conley:

of the imagination, not just, as somebody who's, been in the system.

Dave Conley:

I'm just trying to find anything that works and I'm not finding it, but Did

Dave Conley:

anything work for you, Ralph or Jason?

Jason Holland:

So I don't mean to be poll, what is it, Pollyanna-ish about this?

Jason Holland:

I believe back on who I was at the time when I went in,

Jason Holland:

that I needed to be detained,

Jason Holland:

A danger, right?

Jason Holland:

I was a dangerous young man I really believe that prison helped save me.

Jason Holland:

That there were plenty of opportunities, gifts, guides along the way that placed

Jason Holland:

me in a position to really change my life and to find a value that I had more to

Jason Holland:

give and more to receive from the world and to the world than just hurting people.

Jason Holland:

And I think that prison gave me that opportunity.

Jason Holland:

And the people that I met along the way, they helped me build good habits,

Jason Holland:

re-up my education, unpack what I had been carrying, and learn how to relate

Jason Holland:

to the world in a whole new way that I don't know that I would've had otherwise.

Jason Holland:

And any, even if I try to imagine another scenario, I had what I had,

Jason Holland:

And so I learned la I got lasting friendships, I got involved with

Jason Holland:

Defy and so many other just beautiful things, a result of my time in prison.

Jason Holland:

Now, I'm not saying that my experience is the same as everyone else.

Jason Holland:

I'm saying that, and I had plenty of terrible experiences in

Jason Holland:

there, like nightmare scenarios.

Jason Holland:

Plenty of nights of fear, waking up thinking I'm gonna die in here

Jason Holland:

and I'm never gonna get outta here, and all this stuff thinking that.

Jason Holland:

Just terrible stuff, right?

Jason Holland:

But it offered me a lot.

Jason Holland:

And also I think when you're talking about changing a system like this,

Jason Holland:

it requires all stakeholder buy-in.

Jason Holland:

That's not just the staff, it's not just legislators, it's

Jason Holland:

also the inmate population.

Jason Holland:

And not all inmates are ready to make the changes are necessary to grow.

Jason Holland:

And thankfully, it's becoming more and more, we're reaching a

Jason Holland:

critical mass more and more where people are willing to do that.

Jason Holland:

And thankfully for myself I've been willing to do that and seeing results

Jason Holland:

as a re as ultimately from it.

Jason Holland:

But yeah I would never say or begrudge my time.

Jason Holland:

There is horrible as some moments where there were just as many beautiful moments

Jason Holland:

and I met many beautiful people and I'm so grateful for where I am today and

Jason Holland:

that I have this as a part of my history.

Jerremy Newsome:

Yeah.

Jason Holland:

I'm while saying I'm terribly sad that committed

Jason Holland:

the harm that I've committed, and I'm definitely focused on bringing

Jason Holland:

healing to the world rather than harm.

Jason Holland:

So I.

Jerremy Newsome:

I appreciate being bold and brave enough to say that

Jerremy Newsome:

man, and having the courage, because to your point, the people that do go

Jerremy Newsome:

to prison, I don't know the statistic but ultimately there are people there

Jerremy Newsome:

that need to be there for a reason.

Jerremy Newsome:

They did something terrible, painful, scary, terrifying.

Jerremy Newsome:

And to your point, they probably don't know a different life.

Jerremy Newsome:

They don't know a different way.

Jerremy Newsome:

They're not entirely sure because that's just their environment and they

Jerremy Newsome:

might not have seen it any other di any other way, any other direction.

Jerremy Newsome:

And for you to say, I needed that because the person I was, when I

Jerremy Newsome:

got in there, I needed to be there.

Jerremy Newsome:

I was supposed to be there.

Jerremy Newsome:

That was the only way I was gonna get course corrected.

Jerremy Newsome:

I think it's huge because, again, to, to your point, some people wanna

Jerremy Newsome:

change, some people don't wanna change, but there's two things that

Jerremy Newsome:

will change someone, pain or pleasure.

Dave Conley:

There's.

Dave Conley:

So I,

Dave Conley:

I feel like we're lumping together nonviolent crimes, violent crimes,

Dave Conley:

people who are severely mentally ill.

Dave Conley:

People, terrible mistakes,

Dave Conley:

Addiction.

Dave Conley:

I, we're mixing up all, these are way different situations in my mind, right?

Dave Conley:

These are different people, yet they're treated all the same.

Dave Conley:

They're sent to prison.

Dave Conley:

I don't know.

Dave Conley:

Do I have that wrong?

Generous Jennifer:

Yeah.

Jerremy Newsome:

Yeah.

Jerremy Newsome:

I feel like you're, I feel like you're really uncovering something other, Dave,

Jerremy Newsome:

because ultimately that we just go, oh, you did something that we don't think

Jerremy Newsome:

is societally totally acceptable prison.

Jerremy Newsome:

Oh, like you, so we, we met three women in the event that we just attended last

Jerremy Newsome:

week, Dave, that were in there for DUIs.

Jerremy Newsome:

Now, again, the Step to the Line program.

Jerremy Newsome:

Has anyone ever listening to this podcast Driven while they shouldn't have?

Jerremy Newsome:

Probably.

Jerremy Newsome:

I have.

Jerremy Newsome:

I was in college once, there's really good chances that you could

Jerremy Newsome:

have been just slightly toasted and still got in that vehicle.

Jerremy Newsome:

some people got caught and some people didn't.

Jerremy Newsome:

And there were people in that organization, in that product, in that

Jerremy Newsome:

program that had gotten caught with DUI and therefore they were in prison.

Jerremy Newsome:

just this really fascinating aspect that you mentioned, Dave, where it's like

Jerremy Newsome:

we just, we blend everyone together.

Jerremy Newsome:

So on the, on this solution piece of this, on the solution

Jerremy Newsome:

piece, Ralph, I'm coming to you.

Jerremy Newsome:

You've seen the systems and the flaws up close.

Jerremy Newsome:

one change?

Jerremy Newsome:

I know you've briefly mentioned one before, and that could be the

Jerremy Newsome:

one or there could be another one.

Jerremy Newsome:

What's one change policy or program or mindset you would make

Jerremy Newsome:

right now to set things correct.

Rafael Quiroz:

That's a, that's definitely a loaded question.

Rafael Quiroz:

Man there's just so many things, right?

Rafael Quiroz:

And it starts with the leadership.

Rafael Quiroz:

It's hard to say which policy exactly.

Rafael Quiroz:

So many come to mind.

Rafael Quiroz:

So I started a nonprofit.

Rafael Quiroz:

I also started a nonprofit called The Made New Foundation and

Rafael Quiroz:

serving the reentry community.

Rafael Quiroz:

So I'm very proactive.

Rafael Quiroz:

I don't wanna wait for a policy.

Rafael Quiroz:

I don't wanna wait for this to change.

Rafael Quiroz:

I don't wanna wait for that to change.

Rafael Quiroz:

I'm gonna go do it today.

Rafael Quiroz:

If it means something to me, I'm gonna go do it today.

Rafael Quiroz:

So my first year home, I also started a nonprofit called the May New Foundation.

Rafael Quiroz:

And I can't help but to echo a lot of things that Jason says.

Rafael Quiroz:

I echo a lot of the same things, I put myself in that place.

Rafael Quiroz:

No excuses.

Rafael Quiroz:

I was given a second chance.

Rafael Quiroz:

And, again, it's hard for me to narrow on what policy would be best, but our

Rafael Quiroz:

philosophy and our approach at the May new foundation at my nonprofit,

Rafael Quiroz:

it's meet people where they're at.

Rafael Quiroz:

There's a saying, you could take a horse to water, but you can't make 'em drink.

Rafael Quiroz:

Jason said, some people are not ready to change.

Rafael Quiroz:

They're not ready to change.

Rafael Quiroz:

However, there's another part of that saying that we don't really

Rafael Quiroz:

talk about, or may, maybe I'm just making it, maybe we just made it up.

Rafael Quiroz:

Me and my peers, we talked about it was, you can't make the horse drink

Rafael Quiroz:

the water, but you can feed him salt.

Rafael Quiroz:

And when you feed him salt, he starts to thirst naturally.

Rafael Quiroz:

He's gonna get thirsty.

Rafael Quiroz:

So you're gonna incentivize him to drink this water.

Rafael Quiroz:

And what I mean by this water, personal responsibility, personal change.

Rafael Quiroz:

I've been in so many groups and programs and speaking for myself, I started taking

Rafael Quiroz:

programs just 'cause I wanted one day.

Rafael Quiroz:

I'm thinking criminally here one day, if I ever have to go to the

Rafael Quiroz:

parole board, I wanna show them.

Rafael Quiroz:

I've changed.

Rafael Quiroz:

And I started taking these programs, we call it, at least at the prison

Rafael Quiroz:

I was at, we call it paper chasing.

Rafael Quiroz:

You're just chasing chronos and certificates to fool the board

Rafael Quiroz:

and one day be let out of prison.

Rafael Quiroz:

So it's really hard to focus on what one thing.

Rafael Quiroz:

'cause there's so many things that come to mind for me.

Rafael Quiroz:

What one thing can change the whole system at the end of the day?

Rafael Quiroz:

We can take people to water, but we can't make 'em drink.

Rafael Quiroz:

But we can give them salt.

Rafael Quiroz:

We can show them an example, be a leader.

Rafael Quiroz:

Be a leader and be an example.

Rafael Quiroz:

Look, this is what the other side looks like when you take responsibility.

Rafael Quiroz:

When you take ownership and you stop worrying about,

Rafael Quiroz:

your peers or this or that.

Rafael Quiroz:

I know you have hardships, I've had hardships, but let's get

Rafael Quiroz:

through those hardships together.

Rafael Quiroz:

Don't be so disconnected.

Rafael Quiroz:

Let's actually be connected to our humanity.

Rafael Quiroz:

So those are some things, and there's a, I really believe in the compound effect.

Rafael Quiroz:

Really believe in the compound effect.

Rafael Quiroz:

I'm sure you guys have heard your listeners and the people here, would

Rafael Quiroz:

you rather take a million dollars or a penny doubled up every day for a month?

Rafael Quiroz:

And at first people are like, oh, gimme that million dollars.

Rafael Quiroz:

But when you double up the penny every day for a month, 30 days, it's

Rafael Quiroz:

$5 million on your 30, on your 31st day, it's it's 10 over $10 million.

Rafael Quiroz:

The compound effect.

Rafael Quiroz:

So what I mean by that is it's not about trying to save everybody today.

Rafael Quiroz:

not for me.

Rafael Quiroz:

So I'm speaking for myself.

Rafael Quiroz:

It's not about trying to save everybody today.

Rafael Quiroz:

It's being a mentor and a leader.

Rafael Quiroz:

And an example for just one person.

Rafael Quiroz:

Just one person.

Rafael Quiroz:

If you could do that becomes two people.

Rafael Quiroz:

And then two people become four, eight becomes 16 and so on.

Rafael Quiroz:

And in theory in 35 to 40 years, you could reach a over

Rafael Quiroz:

a billion people on the planet.

Rafael Quiroz:

So trying to save everybody today, I don't think is the solution.

Rafael Quiroz:

I think it's raising strong men, strong leaders in our communities.

Rafael Quiroz:

And it starts with yourself.

Rafael Quiroz:

Before I went to prison, I. I was a good father figure.

Rafael Quiroz:

My, my mom was on drugs and my sister was on drugs, and they had pretty much

Rafael Quiroz:

abandoned my nieces, and so I, I stepped up as a fatherly figure for my two nieces.

Rafael Quiroz:

I raised them.

Rafael Quiroz:

I put a roof over their head.

Rafael Quiroz:

I took 'em to school.

Rafael Quiroz:

I was doing the right things.

Rafael Quiroz:

If you knew me at home, you would be like, man, that's a great guy.

Rafael Quiroz:

That's a, he's such a good guy.

Rafael Quiroz:

He's stepping up, he's taking care of his sister's kids, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Rafael Quiroz:

But I was somebody else away from home.

Rafael Quiroz:

And what I learned is you can't be two different people.

Rafael Quiroz:

You can't be a good guy at home and somebody else on the streets.

Rafael Quiroz:

It's incon that, that consistency's not gonna last.

Rafael Quiroz:

And because I was two different people came to the light and

Rafael Quiroz:

I abandoned my family, the people I said I would be there.

Rafael Quiroz:

Unfortunately, I abandoned them because I didn't deal with the

Rafael Quiroz:

trauma of being abandoned myself.

Rafael Quiroz:

I didn't deal with my trauma.

Rafael Quiroz:

And so I did the exact thing I promised I would never do.

Rafael Quiroz:

so to answer your question, I know I said a lot because I'm

Rafael Quiroz:

very passionate about this.

Rafael Quiroz:

Very passionate.

Rafael Quiroz:

I don't think a bandaid solution, politics, or policies or economies

Rafael Quiroz:

are gonna change the system today.

Rafael Quiroz:

I think it needs to be a long-term solution.

Rafael Quiroz:

It needs to be a genuine solution.

Rafael Quiroz:

And I believe in the compound effect over time, I think we have a better chance of

Rafael Quiroz:

changing more lives over the next 30 years as opposed to trying to fix everything

Rafael Quiroz:

over the next four or eight years.

Jerremy Newsome:

Sure.

Jerremy Newsome:

And one of the things I heard you say was that we need to, create

Jerremy Newsome:

strong men and do that again through a longer period of time.

Jerremy Newsome:

One of my sayings is the brokenness of this country is in direct

Jerremy Newsome:

proportion to the brokenness of men.

Jerremy Newsome:

That's a very crucial aspect.

Jerremy Newsome:

And

Rafael Quiroz:

hundred percent.

Jerremy Newsome:

ultimately, that's really only characterized and understood and

Jerremy Newsome:

probably change adapted and visualized and integrated through education.

Jerremy Newsome:

My big focus and my huge platform for the presidential run will be education reform.

Jerremy Newsome:

'cause I believe ultimately, if we know the things on the front

Jerremy Newsome:

end, to your point, Ralph, the compounding effect on the back end.

Jerremy Newsome:

If we did all the things that you both are, Jason, that you did going through and

Jerremy Newsome:

Ralph, you did to get the papers right?

Jerremy Newsome:

Those books, the courses, the programs the insight because in order to get parole,

Jerremy Newsome:

in order to become a returning citizen, has to be some level of inner work.

Jerremy Newsome:

The insights to change the person from the inside out.

Jerremy Newsome:

It's not the outside in, inside outs, the beliefs, the composition,

Jerremy Newsome:

the structure, the thoughts.

Jerremy Newsome:

The inner soul really needs to be shifted and re-categorized and reprioritized.

Rafael Quiroz:

If I I want to, I wanna just piggyback off that

Rafael Quiroz:

what you just said, Jerremy.

Rafael Quiroz:

I cannot agree with you more.

Rafael Quiroz:

It's I believe in that same idea.

Rafael Quiroz:

It's, that's what I'm so passionate about is, when we have weak men.

Rafael Quiroz:

families, weak communities.

Rafael Quiroz:

This is what's broken up, broken families.

Rafael Quiroz:

I read a statistic, this was years ago.

Rafael Quiroz:

I was watching a I was watching a interview with Denzel Washington.

Rafael Quiroz:

I was watching a, I've always really enjoyed watching Denzel

Rafael Quiroz:

movies and just him as a person.

Rafael Quiroz:

I always thought his movies were great and all that.

Rafael Quiroz:

So he is watching, he's doing it.

Rafael Quiroz:

He's in an interview and they were asking him some questions and he said the

Rafael Quiroz:

greatest indicator of prison or criminal behavior, I forgot exactly what it was,

Rafael Quiroz:

but he said, it's fatherless homes.

Rafael Quiroz:

It's not race, it's not religion.

Rafael Quiroz:

It's not these other things.

Rafael Quiroz:

It's

Jerremy Newsome:

likelihood.

Rafael Quiroz:

fatherless homes.

Rafael Quiroz:

I get the goosebumps today thinking about that because I'm like, man, I

Rafael Quiroz:

look at the statistics racially, break it down by race and class and income.

Rafael Quiroz:

It's fatherless homes.

Rafael Quiroz:

That's the number one indicator.

Rafael Quiroz:

And so for me, I've been on fire about that ever since.

Jerremy Newsome:

Oh man.

Jerremy Newsome:

Jason, what's your thoughts with that?

Jerremy Newsome:

Hand up, my bro.

Jason Holland:

Yeah.

Jason Holland:

So to the question of what policies need to change I, and I agree with Ralph.

Jason Holland:

There's not one I, what I, what came to mind as you guys were having

Jason Holland:

that conversation was I. In terms of the internal system prison.

Jason Holland:

The prison system, what needs to be fostered and what's missing

Jason Holland:

is the individual sense of agency a desired future, right?

Jason Holland:

I have any kind of agency to actually move towards a future that I want?

Jason Holland:

Or are all the forces around me telling me a story and re enforcing a story that

Jason Holland:

my life is hopeless, that it's over, that it's meaningless, that it's worthless.

Jason Holland:

To quote Jennifer, is the messaging so overpowering, that

Jason Holland:

I have no hope, I have no agency.

Jason Holland:

Right?

Jason Holland:

And I think that the more we do for prisoners through legislation through

Jason Holland:

infusing institutions with opportunities towards education, vocational training,

Jason Holland:

personal development, all everything that we're doing now just and in moving

Jason Holland:

towards a cultural change where people don't feel like they'll be ostracized,

Jason Holland:

looked down upon victimized for making changes towards a d desirable future.

Jason Holland:

If we can make those shifts, then you'll see a critical mass, because why would

Jason Holland:

you wanna stay inside of a place that cultivates and promotes fear and harm?

Jason Holland:

If, you know you have agency and opportunity to move towards

Jason Holland:

a place that promotes health, family love freedom, prosperity,

Jason Holland:

Would you do that?

Jason Holland:

Unless you believed that staying in that place of harm and fear was

Jason Holland:

your only way to maintain security?

Jason Holland:

The Greeks had this idea that everything you do is for the good, It doesn't

Jason Holland:

necessarily mean that it had a good outcome, but you believed at the time that

Jason Holland:

what you were doing was for your own good.

Jason Holland:

When I look back on all the harm that myself and the people that I used to run

Jason Holland:

around with, that we were doing, I look back on it today and I'm like I cannot,

Jason Holland:

I can't fathom what was going through our minds, but at the time, there's a lot of

Jason Holland:

times where I realized we thought we were actually doing something good, right?

Jason Holland:

But that's because of the narrative that we were telling ourselves and what

Jason Holland:

we thought was possible for ourselves.

Jason Holland:

And so what we were basically relegating ourselves towards.

Jason Holland:

there's a lot of things that need to change.

Jason Holland:

It's hard to say what exactly, but I, for me, from my per perspective,

Jason Holland:

it's should be, it should be things that promote agency within the

Jason Holland:

individual towards a desirable future.

Jason Holland:

Because if he doesn't feel that he has that agency, if he doesn't feel that he

Jason Holland:

has that hope, then he's gonna likely buy into negative narratives around him in

Jason Holland:

order to just stay as safe as possible.

Jerremy Newsome:

Dang.

Jerremy Newsome:

There we go.

Jerremy Newsome:

All right, Jennifer.

Generous Jennifer:

So I think that based on everything that we're saying,

Generous Jennifer:

like supporting places like Defy really addresses a lot of this, like through

Generous Jennifer:

those on the line exercises, like it really does cultivate self-worth in

Generous Jennifer:

these formerly incarcerated folks.

Generous Jennifer:

Like I could see that all of the work for Defy was really geared towards

Generous Jennifer:

you getting rid of self-limiting beliefs and thinking of an idea where

Generous Jennifer:

you can bring value to the world.

Generous Jennifer:

Like it really is about bringing back your sense of self-worth.

Generous Jennifer:

And I think that a policy that could help is changing this up

Generous Jennifer:

ecosystem that is this privatized, monetized, incentivized prison system.

Generous Jennifer:

There's an EIT through Defy that I met recently that is trying to

Generous Jennifer:

start a business doing procurement for prisons where he only sources

Generous Jennifer:

the items that go into the prisons from sustainable companies.

Generous Jennifer:

So now he's also gonna scale that business and hire other

Generous Jennifer:

formerly incarcerated folks.

Generous Jennifer:

And now that's a new ecosystem that maybe the prison can't just obviously

Generous Jennifer:

it can't completely go away, but it could be a healthier ecosystem.

Generous Jennifer:

So it could bring in products from sourced, sustainably sourced

Generous Jennifer:

places or places that are also hiring people that have barriers.

Generous Jennifer:

And it could just become a healthier ecosystem that way.

Generous Jennifer:

I think supporting places like Defy is the kind of policy that we need to be

Generous Jennifer:

looking towards because there's a lot of I live in a neighborhood with a lot

Generous Jennifer:

of halfway houses and I can tell that they're not doing the same work to.

Generous Jennifer:

Reform the citizens that Defy does, right?

Generous Jennifer:

Like they do get a sense of community in the halfway house, but

Generous Jennifer:

they're not getting their sense of self-worth the way that they need to.

Dave Conley:

Jen, let's dig a little deeper in that, coming home's a battle.

Dave Conley:

If 75% of people who've been in the system can't find jobs, what's ways,

Dave Conley:

communities and employers can really step up and give people a real chance?

Dave Conley:

What do they need?

Dave Conley:

I.

Generous Jennifer:

Man, it's not hard.

Generous Jennifer:

My husband has a BS in electrical engineering and made it through

Generous Jennifer:

three interviews and then had a job offer revoked because of

Generous Jennifer:

something he did almost 30 years ago.

Generous Jennifer:

that's illegal that we have laws in LA against that.

Generous Jennifer:

But there were no fucking consequences.

Generous Jennifer:

It didn't matter.

Generous Jennifer:

We could start with what we're already not doing a good job at

Generous Jennifer:

that we want to be doing a good job at, there's the Fair Chance Act.

Generous Jennifer:

So that happened and I reported the company and they tried to resend

Generous Jennifer:

the job offer, but there's not any real consequences for employers

Generous Jennifer:

to discriminate ESP even with people that are fully reformed.

Generous Jennifer:

To the point where you have a bachelor's degree and a wife and a child, and we're

Generous Jennifer:

just not helping people that are doing everything they can to help themselves.

Generous Jennifer:

So even with that 75 to 85%, even with those people that

Generous Jennifer:

didn't have a supportive network.

Generous Jennifer:

Even with the people that did have a supportive network,

Generous Jennifer:

they're still having barriers.

Generous Jennifer:

So there's a lot that we could do.

Generous Jennifer:

And then there's also some really obvious basic things we could do, like

Generous Jennifer:

starting with enforcing the laws that we passed eliminate this discrimination.

Dave Conley:

What about you, Ralph?

Dave Conley:

What are what are, what do employers and communities, what, how can they step up?

Rafael Quiroz:

Awareness.

Rafael Quiroz:

I think awareness education.

Rafael Quiroz:

Ultimately as an employer.

Rafael Quiroz:

As an employer, myself right now my company, I think I have

Rafael Quiroz:

a total of nearly 70 people.

Rafael Quiroz:

I employ 70, 60 something people I employ today.

Rafael Quiroz:

And so as an employer, you wanna make sure your company's running efficiently and

Rafael Quiroz:

effectively and that it's, you're hiring people for an ROI, you need, in order for

Rafael Quiroz:

the business to continue to exist, I need to hire people so we can keep growing.

Rafael Quiroz:

So I think employers just need to be made more aware.

Rafael Quiroz:

'cause if an employer, for example, I went to an event Ontario, California.

Rafael Quiroz:

At a HR event, and we're talking about hiring people and a lot

Rafael Quiroz:

of HR professionals don't know that, oh, we can't hire people

Rafael Quiroz:

criminal records as truck drivers.

Rafael Quiroz:

That was like an assumption a lot of them were making.

Rafael Quiroz:

And I actually got to speak to that because that's, I own a trucking company.

Rafael Quiroz:

And I was like no.

Rafael Quiroz:

No, you actually, we can hire them.

Rafael Quiroz:

And sometimes let me explain to you why it's good to hire people.

Rafael Quiroz:

Criminal records coming home, they're hungry for success.

Rafael Quiroz:

They're willing to be out there on the road.

Rafael Quiroz:

They're some of the hardest working people I've been able

Rafael Quiroz:

to hire, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Rafael Quiroz:

Educating and informing them.

Rafael Quiroz:

Some of them think, oh, criminal record, I can't hire.

Rafael Quiroz:

And then they see if an employer doesn't see an ROI or if they see

Rafael Quiroz:

risk, forget just for a moment here, forget changing this or changing that,

Rafael Quiroz:

or that this is the right thing to do, or this is a good thing to do.

Rafael Quiroz:

Or that's all gravy.

Rafael Quiroz:

Put all that to the side and just at the end of the day, especially for

Rafael Quiroz:

small and mid-sized companies who are looking to grow, the bottom line is ROI.

Rafael Quiroz:

If I hire this person, am I putting my business at risk?

Rafael Quiroz:

Or am I ensuring a return on my investment?

Rafael Quiroz:

And so what I think we just need to maybe just educate the public,

Rafael Quiroz:

educate employers, Hey, by hiring people, one of the number one reasons

Rafael Quiroz:

why people rec go back to prison recidivism, fall into recidivism

Rafael Quiroz:

is, you don't start making income.

Rafael Quiroz:

You start getting stressed out.

Rafael Quiroz:

And it's easy to fall back to the old behaviors and habits of, before

Rafael Quiroz:

I'm stressed out, how am I gonna pay my mortgage, my bills, my rent,

Rafael Quiroz:

my utilities, and, all this stress.

Rafael Quiroz:

And if they haven't picked up the skills to deal with that

Rafael Quiroz:

stress, it's back to prison.

Rafael Quiroz:

You go.

Rafael Quiroz:

So if employers and the community knew, hey, by giving people a second

Rafael Quiroz:

chance, giving them employment opportunities, one, does it break?

Rafael Quiroz:

What's, how do I mitigate the risk if there is there a risk?

Rafael Quiroz:

How do you ensure my ROI by hiring this person?

Rafael Quiroz:

So educating HR professionals, educating potential employers, then

Rafael Quiroz:

the community, by having them employed, they're gonna be paying tax dollars.

Rafael Quiroz:

There's a less likelihood that they're gonna go back to prison.

Rafael Quiroz:

There's a less likelihood they're gonna be committing crime.

Rafael Quiroz:

You get so busy, myself, I'm so busy.

Rafael Quiroz:

Crime or criminal behaviors, it's the, it's, nobody has time for that.

Rafael Quiroz:

I'm working.

Rafael Quiroz:

I'm trying to pay my bills, I'm taking care of my family.

Rafael Quiroz:

You give people those responsibilities and sometimes it surprises you.

Rafael Quiroz:

They step up to those responsibilities.

Rafael Quiroz:

So again, just to reiterate.

Rafael Quiroz:

Educating the communities, showing them how employing people is

Rafael Quiroz:

a is in our favor for safety.

Rafael Quiroz:

'cause that's what it comes down to.

Rafael Quiroz:

It has to be safety.

Rafael Quiroz:

There has to be safety.

Rafael Quiroz:

Two, educating employers, letting 'em know, Hey, you you can hire

Rafael Quiroz:

people from these backgrounds.

Rafael Quiroz:

You can do this.

Rafael Quiroz:

And let me show you the ROI, 'cause that's the bottom line, right?

Rafael Quiroz:

For a business owner, for a small business person, a mid-size company, what's my ROI?

Rafael Quiroz:

you can tell me all day till you're blue in the face.

Rafael Quiroz:

Oh, hire people from prison.

Rafael Quiroz:

It's good for you.

Rafael Quiroz:

You're not gonna pay my bills if something happens.

Rafael Quiroz:

Are you, if they crash my truck, are you gonna gimme the money for it,

Rafael Quiroz:

Mr. Higher people criminal records?

Rafael Quiroz:

No, probably not.

Rafael Quiroz:

It's easy to try to push that on me if I'm the one who has to pay for it, right?

Rafael Quiroz:

But, so taking all that to the side, informing, educating, and

Rafael Quiroz:

creating awareness to employers.

Rafael Quiroz:

Let me show you how we mitigate risk.

Rafael Quiroz:

Let me show you how this is good for business and let me show you how it

Rafael Quiroz:

helps your ROI and your bottom line.

Rafael Quiroz:

So I hope that answered your question, Dave.

Dave Conley:

Yeah.

Dave Conley:

Yeah.

Dave Conley:

When I was in corporate, the number one question when I was hiring every

Dave Conley:

single person I hired, I asked the question what was your biggest mistake?

Dave Conley:

What happened?

Dave Conley:

What'd you do?

Dave Conley:

And when somebody was like, eh, like all over, I'm like, they never got a job.

Dave Conley:

But if they had your story, I'd be like, oh, you can do anything.

Dave Conley:

You can get through anything.

Dave Conley:

Nothing's gonna phase you.

Dave Conley:

And that's the exactly the kind of people that I want in my business

Dave Conley:

is people who have resilience that can focus and work under pressure.

Dave Conley:

I can't think of anything more pressure sensitive than something like that.

Dave Conley:

Jen, you had you had something to,

Generous Jennifer:

I just wanted to ask Ralph, because I think it would

Generous Jennifer:

be good for everybody to know, like when you're you've hired people

Generous Jennifer:

that are formerly incarcerated.

Generous Jennifer:

When you were looking, where do you go?

Generous Jennifer:

Like where exactly do you start when you're trying to find somebody?

Jerremy Newsome:

Great question.

Rafael Quiroz:

just in general.

Rafael Quiroz:

Trucking has a 92% turnover rate.

Rafael Quiroz:

We have a high turnover rate in trucking.

Rafael Quiroz:

A lot of people are gonna use, they'll start with you today and they're out of

Rafael Quiroz:

the truck with another company within a month, within six months, under a year.

Rafael Quiroz:

So we're always looking to hire drivers, dispatchers sales professionals.

Rafael Quiroz:

Sales also has a high turnover rate.

Rafael Quiroz:

A lot of people don't like doing sales.

Rafael Quiroz:

They hate the rejection.

Rafael Quiroz:

We're always looking.

Rafael Quiroz:

So we post traditionally on, indeed ZipRecruiter

Rafael Quiroz:

Craigslist we run Facebook ads.

Rafael Quiroz:

We run Facebook ads that shows that we're hiring.

Rafael Quiroz:

And then we use third party recruiters as well.

Rafael Quiroz:

So we, I am always using probably like five different sources to hire people.

Rafael Quiroz:

So I'm going through third parties Craigslist, indeed, ZipRecruiter

Rafael Quiroz:

trucking job boards, and then other job boards as well, salespeople.

Rafael Quiroz:

And I'm also able to hire globally.

Rafael Quiroz:

I also hire globally.

Rafael Quiroz:

I also hire, I actually got the opportunity to hire a couple of guys I

Rafael Quiroz:

was incarcerated with that got deported.

Rafael Quiroz:

They're actually in Mexico, and I actually got to hire a couple of them

Rafael Quiroz:

and it's been working out pretty cool.

Generous Jennifer:

Rad.

Generous Jennifer:

Awesome.

Jerremy Newsome:

Very rad.

Jerremy Newsome:

Dave, you'd like, you're about to say something, or you just warm it up.

Jerremy Newsome:

You're just getting pumped.

Dave Conley:

No, it,

Jerremy Newsome:

Yeah.

Jerremy Newsome:

Alright, cool.

Dave Conley:

Ralph, do you actually put in the job description, like felons welcome?

Dave Conley:

Like how does that work?

Rafael Quiroz:

no, I, I don't put that I put what's the term we use

Rafael Quiroz:

is don't put Fallon's welcome.

Rafael Quiroz:

It's there's a term that we use in the industry and not in the industry,

Rafael Quiroz:

but when you're looking to hire, not second Chance friendly, it's no,

Rafael Quiroz:

there's a term Jason, what's that term?

Rafael Quiroz:

I'm sure you've probably seen it.

Rafael Quiroz:

If you go on Indeed, you could literally put in the filter on Indeed.

Rafael Quiroz:

If you go to Indeed and put in it's the actual filter.

Rafael Quiroz:

It says.

Rafael Quiroz:

It doesn't say second chance hiring.

Rafael Quiroz:

It says second opportunity.

Rafael Quiroz:

Fair chance.

Generous Jennifer:

Yeah.

Rafael Quiroz:

fair chance Hiring.

Rafael Quiroz:

So we

Dave Conley:

Love it.

Rafael Quiroz:

chance hiring.

Rafael Quiroz:

And that's what that indicates to people criminal records.

Rafael Quiroz:

Oh, okay.

Rafael Quiroz:

I can apply here.

Dave Conley:

So every business should do that.

Jerremy Newsome:

yeah.

Jerremy Newsome:

Very educational for me.

Jerremy Newsome:

Thank you, Jason.

Jason Holland:

Yeah.

Jason Holland:

Just to touch back on the question, I think that David posed I personally,

Jason Holland:

I don't see employers as the issue.

Jason Holland:

I don't, granted, there's some situations that are bad where someone

Jason Holland:

doesn't get the job that they want.

Jason Holland:

I think that by and large though, most of my friends that have come home they've

Jason Holland:

had pretty good employment opportunities and a lot of that started with them

Jason Holland:

doing work while they were incarcerated, preparing to come home, right?

Jason Holland:

To put themselves in position, to be the kind of person that Dave suggested

Jason Holland:

where you can deliver your story in a way that would actually and inspire an

Jason Holland:

employer to want to give you a chance.

Jason Holland:

So I'm not I'm not sure that's necessarily the gap.

Jason Holland:

I think that for me, where I'm throwing in my hat in the reentry field is

Jason Holland:

yes, I'm a program manager for Defy and I love the fact that I can have

Jason Holland:

an impact on people and families by helping them build businesses.

Jason Holland:

That's great.

Jason Holland:

That's amazing.

Jason Holland:

of, two of the places where I see the biggest gap in reentry

Jason Holland:

is in personal transportation for people coming home, which is why

Jason Holland:

co-founded Reentry Wheels, we.

Jason Holland:

Help people coming home get reliable and personal transportation for

Jason Holland:

a couple of reasons that can help them secure employment can help

Jason Holland:

them with reduced financial strain.

Jason Holland:

And also as a result of being in our program, we want them to provide

Jason Holland:

meaningful community service, right?

Jason Holland:

So that does three things and meet the conditions of their parole.

Jason Holland:

That's one way we can help.

Jason Holland:

And it's, there's a big gap in that with reentry services,

Jason Holland:

personal transportation, right?

Jason Holland:

The other one is I think many people coming home have what they think

Jason Holland:

are ideas about financial literacy because they take personal fi finance

Jason Holland:

courses in college, or they take these financial literacy courses while inside.

Jason Holland:

But there's a difference between financial literacy and financial freedom.

Jason Holland:

And when you're coming home and you think you understand what these things mean, but

Jason Holland:

there's no clear pathway towards acquiring assets that generate cash flow, right?

Jason Holland:

You may understand what that is in theory, but not what the steps are.

Jason Holland:

I think that there is an opportunity for us to provide a service to people

Jason Holland:

coming home where they can do really well for themselves if they have a

Jason Holland:

clear plan that's currently missing.

Jason Holland:

And so what happens is a lot of people come home, they spend six months to a

Jason Holland:

year inside of transitional housing.

Jason Holland:

They don't pay rent.

Jason Holland:

They save up, say, 10 to 20 Gs.

Jason Holland:

And what they do is they squander it once they get out of transitional housing.

Jason Holland:

But if we provided the right type of.

Jason Holland:

A guidance and structure for them, they could actually build that into something

Jason Holland:

worthwhile in a few years if they had the right skills for knowing how to

Jason Holland:

move from just theory and financial literacy towards financial freedom.

Jason Holland:

So that's where I'm seeing gaps in reentry.

Jason Holland:

That could be really beneficial because then person could get a job, but then

Jason Holland:

with the money that they're making from the job they use that money to

Jason Holland:

make money that makes money, right?

Jason Holland:

Versus just simply saving it in a bank where it might not do

Jason Holland:

exactly what they're hoping for.

Jason Holland:

And especially if they haven't had 20 years of being outside here and having

Jason Holland:

their money, just compounding interest.

Jason Holland:

There's gotta be a way to find legitimate shortcuts, what M Scott Peck would

Jason Holland:

call legitimate shortcuts towards that.

Jason Holland:

And so I'm really interested in finding those things and laying out

Jason Holland:

those pathways for people coming home.

Jason Holland:

Yeah.

Jason Holland:

And that's what I think is missing currently.

Jerremy Newsome:

I love that.

Jerremy Newsome:

So fill us in, just because I think that's extremely informative and

Jerremy Newsome:

also interesting, like when you mentioned reliable transportation.

Jerremy Newsome:

Tell me more.

Jerremy Newsome:

What does that mean exactly?

Jerremy Newsome:

I.

Jason Holland:

when I came home, okay, so a lot of times when people come

Jason Holland:

home, they are given a tap card to get on public transportation, right?

Jason Holland:

Or maybe they get some kind of voucher to do Uber and Lyft,

Jason Holland:

and that's great to an extent.

Jason Holland:

But there's people that come home and they don't have access to a car right away.

Jason Holland:

And because of that, they may have had a union job waiting for in them, but

Jason Holland:

the union won't hire 'em because they can't get to the job locations because

Jason Holland:

they don't actually have a personal car.

Jason Holland:

And so what we wanna do with reentry wheels is if they're eligible and if

Jason Holland:

they meet our requirements, we wanna make them registered users in an, in

Jason Holland:

a vehicle that they have access to.

Jason Holland:

And after a probationary period, if they meet all of the requirements, we'll

Jason Holland:

transfer the title of the car to them.

Jason Holland:

Right now, if they don't meet the requirements for the car program, what

Jason Holland:

we'd like to do, we'd like to get them on an e-bike so that they can at least

Jason Holland:

have some means of mobility to and from the places that they need to be, right?

Jason Holland:

Because these expenses, so think about this.

Jason Holland:

If I come home, rather than having my family spend $5,000 on a car or me

Jason Holland:

spending my first $5,000 on a car, if I'm able to get that through an organization

Jason Holland:

that helps me do that, now I can put that $5,000 towards something else.

Jason Holland:

That's gonna, that's gonna have long term ramifications for me potentially

Jason Holland:

if I know how to use that money.

Jason Holland:

But if I don't know how to use that money and I don't have the car,

Jason Holland:

then the money goes towards the car.

Jason Holland:

Now I'm in a depreciating asset.

Jason Holland:

Or let's say that I buy a car that's not a good car and it's not reliable and

Jason Holland:

it's breaking down and it ends up costing me more money to just keep the car than

Jason Holland:

it would had I gotten a better one.

Jason Holland:

So that's what I mean by reliable, right?

Jason Holland:

We wanna provide them with reliable transportation that they can depend

Jason Holland:

on, at least for the first couple of years, so that the money that they

Jason Holland:

would've spent there goes somewhere else that can build them up long-term.

Jason Holland:

hope that answers the question.

Jerremy Newsome:

It does.

Jerremy Newsome:

I just had no clue because I, in movies, you see someone get out and they always

Jerremy Newsome:

have a car and their friend drives 'em, and so you just don't think about

Jerremy Newsome:

anything else outside of that okay, they've, if they've been in prison for

Jerremy Newsome:

X amount of time, probably don't have a car anymore, so how do, how would

Jerremy Newsome:

they get from point A to point B?

Jerremy Newsome:

And no.

Jerremy Newsome:

It's fas fascinating.

Jerremy Newsome:

It's very you'd even create that as well.

Jason Holland:

Yeah.

Jason Holland:

We're building it out yeah.

Jerremy Newsome:

Awesome.

Jerremy Newsome:

And one other thing I'll mention, and I know you all know this, but just to

Jerremy Newsome:

say it verbally, one of the industries that I'm a part of the stock market.

Jerremy Newsome:

The stock market is always welcoming participants.

Jerremy Newsome:

it doesn't matter if what your background is, what your skin color

Jerremy Newsome:

is, how much money you do or do not have, what choices you have or have

Jerremy Newsome:

not made in the past, it'll take your money and it'll give you more.

Jerremy Newsome:

so that's a very interesting skill for all of us to be aware of is that

Jerremy Newsome:

anyone at any point, if you have access to internet, have access to income.

Jerremy Newsome:

I think also too, that's a very popular misunderstanding that is

Jerremy Newsome:

something that even though it's very financially institution laden, it's

Jerremy Newsome:

open to the general public as well.

Jerremy Newsome:

So going forward to a little more education, I feel like you guys

Jerremy Newsome:

got all excited as I was talking a little bit about the educational

Jerremy Newsome:

component, which gets me pumped.

Jerremy Newsome:

There's a bunch of kids that are getting trapped, right?

Jerremy Newsome:

Ralph?

Jerremy Newsome:

So you mentioned fatherless homes, 60,000 young men and

Jerremy Newsome:

women are in detention every day.

Jerremy Newsome:

one way that we can stop that cycle early on just your either experience

Jerremy Newsome:

or just your general thoughts.

Rafael Quiroz:

For me this is something again specifically

Rafael Quiroz:

I'm very passionate about.

Rafael Quiroz:

I think we need to raise strong.

Rafael Quiroz:

Strong men, strong leaders, and it starts with themselves and then in

Rafael Quiroz:

the home, and then the community.

Rafael Quiroz:

I think sometimes it's, is just a observation I've made.

Rafael Quiroz:

Sometimes it's cool to be the leader in the community because the popularity

Rafael Quiroz:

and it's cool, but it's not so cool or easy to be that leader at home.

Rafael Quiroz:

Sometimes it's harder to be that leader at home, so it really needs to start at home.

Rafael Quiroz:

So I think some of the things like program, going back to programs and edu

Rafael Quiroz:

education again, this can be a really 'cause I've thought very deeply into this.

Rafael Quiroz:

So it could be a very lengthy segment all by itself.

Rafael Quiroz:

But just to try to bring it down.

Rafael Quiroz:

Teaching people skills, soft skills, communication skills.

Rafael Quiroz:

I think related skills.

Rafael Quiroz:

'cause that's really where it starts.

Rafael Quiroz:

The relationships are you building a healthy relationship and then you

Rafael Quiroz:

have a kid, and then you have kids.

Rafael Quiroz:

And it's if you pick the wrong partner and you guys don't have

Rafael Quiroz:

a healthy relationship, then you know it's not gonna work out.

Rafael Quiroz:

For example, my father, when my mother and my father met my mother was, an addict.

Rafael Quiroz:

My father was a drug dealer also a womanizer.

Rafael Quiroz:

And so when they connected, the relationship was very

Rafael Quiroz:

toxic from the very beginning.

Rafael Quiroz:

And so obviously it didn't work out.

Rafael Quiroz:

But when you're already picking the wrong partner, you're already

Rafael Quiroz:

setting up your possible children.

Rafael Quiroz:

If you guys have children together, you're setting up your possible

Rafael Quiroz:

children for a very difficult future.

Rafael Quiroz:

So educating people when they're young, one thing, even though I grew

Rafael Quiroz:

up in a very, I had a very difficult and challenging childhoods and

Rafael Quiroz:

traumas and stuff like that, being young, I'm still very impressionable.

Rafael Quiroz:

So when I was in elementary school, I would hear things in school and even

Rafael Quiroz:

though things at home were tough, I would hear the things at school like Dare the

Rafael Quiroz:

DARE Program, which is against drugs.

Rafael Quiroz:

I've never been into drugs even though I come from a family that

Rafael Quiroz:

did a lot of drugs, sold drugs.

Rafael Quiroz:

I've never been into drugs myself.

Rafael Quiroz:

The DARE program had an impact on me as a young kid.

Rafael Quiroz:

'cause I was impressionable.

Rafael Quiroz:

Even though I had negative examples and bad examples at home, those little things.

Rafael Quiroz:

So maybe educating educating a young people to be leaders, teaching 'em soft

Rafael Quiroz:

skills, not, I'm all for math, science, all those things are super important.

Rafael Quiroz:

But also teaching the soft skills, communication skills.

Rafael Quiroz:

What is a healthy relationship look like?

Rafael Quiroz:

And hopefully it's not always gonna stick to the wall, but hopefully it

Rafael Quiroz:

sticks to the wall with one at least one.

Rafael Quiroz:

And go back to that compound effect, you continue to rebuild it.

Rafael Quiroz:

What I think could potentially help fix that besides being a long-term a

Rafael Quiroz:

long-term thing, educating people when they're young and still impressionable,

Rafael Quiroz:

putting that in the back of their mind.

Rafael Quiroz:

So maybe when they get older, even if they are facing childhood trauma

Rafael Quiroz:

at home, maybe if it's in the back of their mind, they're gonna second

Rafael Quiroz:

guess their decisions later on.

Rafael Quiroz:

And so dev develop, learning how to develop communication skills,

Rafael Quiroz:

healthy relationships, what to look for in a healthy relationship.

Rafael Quiroz:

I can't tell you guys how many of my peers come home that have been

Rafael Quiroz:

incarcerated for 20 plus years.

Rafael Quiroz:

Ex lifers.

Rafael Quiroz:

And the two number, re two number one, reasons why ex lifers go back.

Rafael Quiroz:

Substances and relationships.

Rafael Quiroz:

Substances and relationships.

Rafael Quiroz:

And so just learning how to identify what's a healthy

Rafael Quiroz:

relationship look like First.

Rafael Quiroz:

Are you ready for a relationship?

Rafael Quiroz:

Are you in a position for a relationship?

Rafael Quiroz:

And two, does the other person across that you're looking at, are they not

Rafael Quiroz:

just a pretty face, but are they healthy and ready to engage in a relationship?

Rafael Quiroz:

Or do they have their life together?

Rafael Quiroz:

They don't have to be perfect, nobody's perfect, but are you both,

Rafael Quiroz:

as the Bible would say, equally yoked?

Rafael Quiroz:

Are you both equally yoked?

Rafael Quiroz:

Are we on the same page here?

Rafael Quiroz:

So you have an unhealthy relationship.

Rafael Quiroz:

You potentially have kids with somebody you don't even like, you're

Rafael Quiroz:

already setting up your kids for

Jerremy Newsome:

yeah.

Rafael Quiroz:

Some challenges.

Jerremy Newsome:

I love that you mentioned soft skills.

Jerremy Newsome:

I. That we are dozens and dozens of episodes in to solving America's problems.

Jerremy Newsome:

And again, I am always gonna bring up whatever we're discussing.

Jerremy Newsome:

I'm like, education's gonna be the main problem.

Jerremy Newsome:

It's gonna be the biggest solution to this, right?

Jerremy Newsome:

So for your point, when you're talking about soft skills, I've been saying

Jerremy Newsome:

in almost every episode, at some stage, if we have, our schools totally

Jerremy Newsome:

get massively updated and changed.

Jerremy Newsome:

Where one of the classes is just called conversation, communication, having people

Jerremy Newsome:

sit down like we're doing right now, often talking so that they no longer feel

Jerremy Newsome:

judgment or embarrassment when they speak.

Jerremy Newsome:

The number one fear is public speaking.

Jerremy Newsome:

Where do you think we get that from?

Jerremy Newsome:

One person staying in front of a room of a bunch of people.

Jerremy Newsome:

You're gonna get judged if you say something incorrectly.

Jerremy Newsome:

That's where it stems from, right?

Jerremy Newsome:

School.

Jerremy Newsome:

Learn to start nurturing.

Jerremy Newsome:

The simple ability to be open, to be vulnerable, to communicate so that way

Jerremy Newsome:

men and women can talk to each other.

Jerremy Newsome:

Girls and boys can talk to each other.

Jerremy Newsome:

Kids and other kids, parents, other parents and teachers.

Jerremy Newsome:

Teachers and kids.

Jerremy Newsome:

They could start just seeing, like I, I remember vividly when I was in

Jerremy Newsome:

third grade not thinking that my.

Jerremy Newsome:

A teacher was a person and then when I saw her in a grocery store,

Jerremy Newsome:

I'm like, what are you doing Ms.

Jerremy Newsome:

Johnson getting groceries?

Jerremy Newsome:

I didn't even know she was a human being.

Jerremy Newsome:

I was like some wizard alien that came in to teach school every so often.

Jerremy Newsome:

It was just, it's strange to me 'cause I didn't know who she was as a human.

Jerremy Newsome:

I didn't know or feel or see or understand any of her challenges or

Jerremy Newsome:

flaws or struggles or hopes or goals.

Jerremy Newsome:

Her admirations.

Jerremy Newsome:

'cause we never talked, we didn't have conversations, we

Jerremy Newsome:

didn't have communications.

Jerremy Newsome:

And that's the soft skills.

Jerremy Newsome:

Ralph, that I'm hearing you talk about, I'm hearing you say is these

Jerremy Newsome:

are aspects that Yes, are absolutely change, changeable and very easily

Jerremy Newsome:

implementable implementable.

Jerremy Newsome:

Jason, what about you, man?

Jerremy Newsome:

Starting in school, what could we do?

Jason Holland:

so I think parents need to get on the same page with

Jason Holland:

teachers and administration needs to get on the same page with teachers

Jason Holland:

that they, there's a divide a lot of times between I. and teachers.

Jason Holland:

if the student, is not necessarily doing the best that they can in the

Jason Holland:

class and the teacher is wanting to work with the student, sometimes

Jason Holland:

parents will be overly protective.

Jason Holland:

And it creates this whole dynamic where I think teachers often feel

Jason Holland:

helpless today versus where they may have felt when I was going to school.

Jason Holland:

So I think that there needs to be an overhaul there in

Jason Holland:

that, in those relationships.

Jason Holland:

For one.

Jason Holland:

And secondly one of the things that Ralph mentioned that I, that was

Jason Holland:

coming up for me is, and this is a complex thing, but just simply reducing

Jason Holland:

violence and exposure to violence as a tool to get what you want, Domestic

Jason Holland:

violence that starts in the home.

Jason Holland:

The statistics are that a kid that witnesses that is exponentially more

Jason Holland:

likely to commit violence later, right?

Jason Holland:

Because it becomes a way to solve problems.

Jason Holland:

And so I think that just exposure to that, obviously, so much of what

Jason Holland:

Ralph was saying would do that, right?

Jason Holland:

Just with healthy relationships.

Jason Holland:

And then the other thing too that I think, honestly, this is gonna be,

Jason Holland:

this is may sound controversial.

Jason Holland:

really believe that most people, most of the time want power.

Jason Holland:

They want power, period.

Jason Holland:

They want to have the ability to make something happen, which

Jason Holland:

is how I define power, right?

Jason Holland:

The difference is they don't always know the difference between abusing

Jason Holland:

power and using it in a healthy way.

Jason Holland:

And I think that if we could reeducate people on simply

Jason Holland:

that look, you want power?

Jason Holland:

Sure, we'll show you how to get it, but there's a healthy way

Jason Holland:

where it can grow sustainably.

Jason Holland:

Your ability to change things can grow sustainably or you abuse it.

Jason Holland:

And what happens is that actually reduces your opportunities in

Jason Holland:

your ability to change things.

Jason Holland:

And I think that if we serious conversations about that and just

Jason Holland:

acknowledged it and did it in a way that was smart with teachers, educators,

Jason Holland:

administrations, and parents on board for the kids to develop a sense of

Jason Holland:

agency how they could move towards a desirable future we go a far away in that.

Jason Holland:

That's my take on that.

Jerremy Newsome:

Hot take.

Jerremy Newsome:

Thank you, generous.

Jerremy Newsome:

Jennifer, what's your hot take?

Generous Jennifer:

I hear all of you guys, and I do not to go there,

Generous Jennifer:

but I feel like these are very masculine struggles, so just to bring

Generous Jennifer:

it into kind of a. Feminine space.

Jason Holland:

go

Generous Jennifer:

that, sorry, power.

Generous Jennifer:

I get it.

Generous Jennifer:

For me it's more esteem and it's more like I, I have ego too.

Generous Jennifer:

Like I want this business to be successful.

Generous Jennifer:

And I took a really honest look at myself recently and was thinking about why.

Generous Jennifer:

And my ego is very much in that, but it's because I wanna be a mentor.

Generous Jennifer:

Like when my ego comes in, it's 'cause I realize I wanna be

Generous Jennifer:

a mentor, I wanna be a hero.

Generous Jennifer:

I wanna pay for houses for people.

Generous Jennifer:

I wanna make people rich.

Generous Jennifer:

It's not about me and my power and what I wanna gain, but it's

Generous Jennifer:

what I wanna give and provide.

Generous Jennifer:

But I think that going back to the education part of this question,

Generous Jennifer:

now that I'm a mom, I understand why my mom was so terrible.

Generous Jennifer:

She was tired.

Generous Jennifer:

She did not have the resources that she needed to be present,

Generous Jennifer:

let alone encouraging for me.

Generous Jennifer:

And my mom was very abusive.

Generous Jennifer:

She was also a paranoid to schizophrenic.

Generous Jennifer:

And she said some really strange things to me about my sexuality when I was too young

Generous Jennifer:

to even know what she was talking about.

Generous Jennifer:

So if my mom had better resources, then she could have been better for me.

Generous Jennifer:

And just talking about kids and youth, I really, I get that we wanna

Generous Jennifer:

start with the kids, but I really think that starts with parents.

Generous Jennifer:

And it starts with the parents that are spending the most time

Generous Jennifer:

with their kids that are gonna have the most impact on their kids.

Generous Jennifer:

I realized really early when I was raising my son, like the toys that I

Generous Jennifer:

buy him, none of this shit matters.

Generous Jennifer:

What matters is the quality of time that I spend with him and how much

Generous Jennifer:

I encourage him and how much I help him through frustrating situations,

Generous Jennifer:

stay focused and determined.

Generous Jennifer:

Yeah, now that I'm a parent, a lot more grace from my mom and a lot

Generous Jennifer:

more understanding and realization that being a parent is really hard.

Generous Jennifer:

And that's who I wanna give my support to

Jerremy Newsome:

Yeah.

Dave Conley:

So these are these are very personally centered.

Dave Conley:

Jen, I want to, I wanna come back to something you said earlier and

Dave Conley:

think about the justice system.

Dave Conley:

The front end of this, like sentencing fuels a lot of this.

Dave Conley:

The people of color, if you're poor you ran into it with bias because of your sex.

Dave Conley:

These people are getting longer terms.

Dave Conley:

What do we need to do on the justice side so that it's just.

Generous Jennifer:

A lot of the things that we talked about today.

Generous Jennifer:

I will always say that it goes back to self-worth and every, everything

Generous Jennifer:

that we do should be helping people with their sense of self-worth

Generous Jennifer:

so that they wanna bring value.

Generous Jennifer:

So our justice system should be geared towards, you did

Generous Jennifer:

this, why did you do this?

Generous Jennifer:

And how do we address that?

Generous Jennifer:

Versus you did this, now you're being punished.

Generous Jennifer:

If we had more programs like Defy, if we had more programs that supported

Generous Jennifer:

mothers, if we had more programs that supported people that are gonna start

Generous Jennifer:

businesses with social causes, if we gave more grant money to these small

Generous Jennifer:

businesses, and it doesn't even have to just be businesses with social causes,

Generous Jennifer:

but supporting locally owned businesses, supporting small businesses, like that's

Generous Jennifer:

gives better opportunities to a lot of these places where we see crime, like

Generous Jennifer:

people commit crime because they don't have opportunities that they want,

Generous Jennifer:

or they feel like have to compete for these opportunities with people that

Generous Jennifer:

don't deserve them more than they do.

Generous Jennifer:

So they'd rather compete in another arena where it's easier

Generous Jennifer:

to win or quote unquote win.

Generous Jennifer:

I think

Generous Jennifer:

Opportunities to neighborhoods is a big it's think something I believe

Generous Jennifer:

in strongly and why I support Defy and this entrepreneur component

Generous Jennifer:

like this business component.

Generous Jennifer:

This making you a successful business oriented person and spreading that into

Generous Jennifer:

the world and not being shortsighted and having it being about profit,

Generous Jennifer:

but having it be about something you really care about, like Jason wanting

Generous Jennifer:

to bring to solve this problem that he sees as a barrier to people reentering

Generous Jennifer:

society and getting their life together.

Generous Jennifer:

Sorry, I'm rambling.

Dave Conley:

No.

Dave Conley:

Great.

Jerremy Newsome:

that's great.

Dave Conley:

Jason what do das, what do das and judges need to hear on

Dave Conley:

the front end of these sentences?

Jason Holland:

Oh gosh, that's a tough one.

Jason Holland:

I honestly I don't think that it's necessarily das and

Jason Holland:

judges that need to hear it.

Jason Holland:

I think it's legislators that need to hear that.

Jason Holland:

People need some, they need to see some tunnel or some way for how

Jason Holland:

to move towards that's desirable.

Jason Holland:

If they feel that there's no light at the end of the tunnel for them,

Jason Holland:

there's no hope, then the odds of them actually making healthy decisions as

Jason Holland:

a result or are lessened if you say, Hey if you would've if I would've came

Jason Holland:

into the prison system at 18 and you said, look, Jason, have life without

Jason Holland:

parole, but here's what you can do.

Jason Holland:

If you followed this pathway, you could potentially go home

Jason Holland:

in 15 years, and you know what?

Jason Holland:

You'll have a college degree.

Jason Holland:

You'll be worth this much in the market.

Jason Holland:

You'll be able to get a reasonable job.

Jason Holland:

You'll be able to do these things.

Jason Holland:

Yeah.

Jason Holland:

You're gonna have to spend the time and you're, it's gonna be hard work,

Jason Holland:

but there's a clear pathway for you.

Jason Holland:

Think that would've changed my entire trajectory in prison.

Jason Holland:

And I would've, instead of doing 28 years.

Jason Holland:

might have done 15 and come home a lot earlier and been able to

Jason Holland:

provide a lot more to my family and the community as a result.

Jason Holland:

And maybe I wouldn't have impacted the prison system as negatively

Jason Holland:

I, as I did for as long as I did.

Jason Holland:

So I think that the idea of locking 'em up and throwing away the key

Jason Holland:

is a terrible solution, right?

Jason Holland:

I think that we wanna provide a meaningful avenue for people to change

Jason Holland:

the outcome of or the course of their life, even if they find themselves in

Jason Holland:

really bad circumstances inside a prison.

Jason Holland:

Because otherwise what you're gonna get is just people dwelling in hopelessness

Jason Holland:

and reacting from hopelessness and fear and hurt and harm, and

Jason Holland:

that's not a recipe anything good.

Jerremy Newsome:

Wow.

Dave Conley:

I love that you both said the same thing in wildly different ways

Dave Conley:

and it it keeps coming back to that.

Jerremy Newsome:

Yep.

Jerremy Newsome:

Agreed agreed.

Jerremy Newsome:

So how about this?

Jerremy Newsome:

If we think about it on a immediate picture, again, just imagine that you're

Jerremy Newsome:

talking to thousands and thousands of people who can make a big change.

Jerremy Newsome:

This system that we're describing costs $80 billion a year, and it also

Jerremy Newsome:

blocks 6 million people from voting.

Jerremy Newsome:

What is one step every listener can take to break this cycle?

Jerremy Newsome:

it's learn, maybe it's act, maybe it's vote a specific way.

Jerremy Newsome:

Do you have an opinion on what is one step every listener could take?

Jerremy Newsome:

I.

Jason Holland:

Yeah, I think that there's a bill coming up for, for people

Jason Holland:

that are serving life without parole that were eight under the age of 25, I

Jason Holland:

believe, when they committed their crime.

Jason Holland:

I would highly encourage everyone to look into that bill and search their

Jason Holland:

hearts on voting that bill passed.

Jason Holland:

They, the science behind juvenile offenders.

Jason Holland:

Coming home, like the science behind their brains not being fully

Jason Holland:

formed up until the age of 26.

Jason Holland:

They've passed several laws allowing juvenile offenders or

Jason Holland:

youth offenders to come home.

Jason Holland:

But for some reason, if they were sentenced to life without parole, they're

Jason Holland:

not allowing them to do in my case, I just got lucky that I got the golden

Jason Holland:

ticket and was commuted by the governor.

Jason Holland:

But there's plenty of other men and women that are just like me, and

Jason Holland:

they've, they're doing great work inside of prisons and they would be great

Jason Holland:

in the community, and they're just restricted simply because of a sentence.

Jason Holland:

And so one thing that voters could do is just look at the bill and

Jason Holland:

say, Hey, does this make sense?

Jason Holland:

If the science provides for other youth defenders to come home, why not these guys

Jason Holland:

simply based on what they were sentenced to, that's one thing that they could

Jason Holland:

do that could really transform lives.

Jerremy Newsome:

All right.

Jerremy Newsome:

One, one of my immediate answers is make sure if you are a

Jerremy Newsome:

listener, reach out, look up.

Jerremy Newsome:

right?

Jerremy Newsome:

DEFY ventures Jason?

Jason Holland:

was the mo more low hanging fruit, and I'm glad that you,

Jason Holland:

I'm glad that you filled that one in.

Jason Holland:

Thanks, Jerremy.

Jason Holland:

Tag Team.

Jerremy Newsome:

Yes.

Jerremy Newsome:

That's also something that just changed my life in a great way.

Jerremy Newsome:

I think every listener here wants to give back time, energy,

Jerremy Newsome:

effort, it feels so good to give.

Jerremy Newsome:

And the more you give, the more you receive.

Jerremy Newsome:

It's always a feeling regardless of where you are or what you're

Jerremy Newsome:

doing or why you're doing it.

Jerremy Newsome:

And I think Defi Ventures provides an incredible opportunity for any individual

Jerremy Newsome:

to be a part of helping someone journey and their entrepreneurship to really

Jerremy Newsome:

become the best version of themselves.

Jerremy Newsome:

And I think that's an awesome opportunity for all of the listeners to take part in.

Jerremy Newsome:

Jennifer what's your take something one step that a listener can do.

Jerremy Newsome:

I already got the low hanging fruit.

Jerremy Newsome:

Took that away from you.

Jerremy Newsome:

My guy.

Jerremy Newsome:

Jason talked about the voting.

Jerremy Newsome:

What should they do?

Generous Jennifer:

I guess just look at formerly incarcerated folks with more of

Generous Jennifer:

an open mind and just know that, when I was writing my vale, sorry, I'm a snob.

Generous Jennifer:

When I was writing my valedictorian speech, I had not wanted to.

Generous Jennifer:

My experience being arrested and told me, the person who was helping with

Generous Jennifer:

a speech, that it's really important that everybody out there know that

Generous Jennifer:

this is what an ex-felon looks like.

Generous Jennifer:

They're a valedictorian, ex-felons look like me.

Generous Jennifer:

They don't look like what you think.

Generous Jennifer:

And I just, if one thing, since all the low hanging fruit has been covered,

Generous Jennifer:

it's just change your perception of what you think an ex-felon is and

Generous Jennifer:

know that they can be really caring and hard, really hardworking really

Generous Jennifer:

tenacious and thirsty individuals

Generous Jennifer:

That you should allow in your life.

Generous Jennifer:

'cause they can bring a lot of value.

Jerremy Newsome:

Yeah.

Jerremy Newsome:

Yeah.

Jerremy Newsome:

Change the visual identification that, that, that initial judgment

Jerremy Newsome:

that people might be throwing out.

Generous Jennifer:

Yes.

Jerremy Newsome:

Yeah, that's a big one.

Jerremy Newsome:

Ralph, what's your take?

Jerremy Newsome:

What's one thing that listeners can do?

Rafael Quiroz:

Man.

Rafael Quiroz:

Awareness and opportunity, I think sometimes for us who are transitioning

Rafael Quiroz:

back into society sometimes sometimes we just need opportunity and awareness.

Rafael Quiroz:

We don't, we're not aware of certain resources that are available.

Rafael Quiroz:

For example, Def five ventures I know this is already covered.

Rafael Quiroz:

I'm not gonna recover it, but what I mean is.

Rafael Quiroz:

Some people who come home and they wanna start businesses or whatever

Rafael Quiroz:

that have been incarcerated, they're not aware of Def five ventures.

Rafael Quiroz:

So just, Hey just yeah, creating awareness.

Rafael Quiroz:

I think a lack of awareness sometimes is a is a, can be a little bit of a headache.

Rafael Quiroz:

I'm just thinking of something simple, something simple that

Rafael Quiroz:

anybody can do and just be proactive.

Rafael Quiroz:

Just creating opportunities spreading awareness supporting local organizations

Rafael Quiroz:

like Defy Ventures, like the main new foundation, like other nonprofits who are

Rafael Quiroz:

doing this work, who are helping returning citizens transition successfully.

Rafael Quiroz:

So those are some things that I think that your listeners can potentially do.

Jerremy Newsome:

Thank you.

Jerremy Newsome:

Thank you.

Jerremy Newsome:

All right here's another shift, and again, I don't know exactly how or what

Jerremy Newsome:

or where or when, but I'll say it anyway.

Jerremy Newsome:

You have all lived through something that most people haven't.

Jerremy Newsome:

What is one piece of wisdom that you've earned you would like to pass

Jerremy Newsome:

on to someone still on the inside?

Generous Jennifer:

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

Jerremy Newsome:

Oh, let's go Jen.

Jerremy Newsome:

It's not how you start.

Jerremy Newsome:

It's how you finish.

Jerremy Newsome:

Amen to that, Ralph.

Jerremy Newsome:

What you got for me?

Rafael Quiroz:

Principles without a doubt.

Rafael Quiroz:

Principles.

Rafael Quiroz:

One thing of my transition during my transition, I started living a life based

Rafael Quiroz:

on principles while I was incarcerated.

Rafael Quiroz:

And when I came home, those principles traveled with me.

Rafael Quiroz:

Living principles, being fair, honest, respectful.

Rafael Quiroz:

It has nothing to do with being in prison or out of prison.

Rafael Quiroz:

Being honest doesn't mean I'm honest, because you're honest with me.

Rafael Quiroz:

Being honest means I'm honest because that's a principle I dec

Rafael Quiroz:

I made a decision to live by.

Rafael Quiroz:

Being fair.

Rafael Quiroz:

Life isn't always fair, but that doesn't give me the right

Rafael Quiroz:

to not be fair to others.

Rafael Quiroz:

So what I something I've definitely learned and would love to pass on

Rafael Quiroz:

is live a life based on principles.

Rafael Quiroz:

I get it.

Rafael Quiroz:

Earlier in my transition.

Rafael Quiroz:

I want to change because of my family, my friends, my loved ones.

Rafael Quiroz:

I wanted my freedom.

Rafael Quiroz:

I wanted all these things.

Rafael Quiroz:

But what it really boiled down to was principle centered living.

Rafael Quiroz:

And when I focus on principle centered living, almost everything else followed.

Rafael Quiroz:

And my transition, I think, has been a successful one because I've been

Rafael Quiroz:

making decisions based on principles and not just on things alone.

Rafael Quiroz:

And that kind of helped shape my decisions.

Rafael Quiroz:

So that's the lesson I would wanna share for the people who are still incarcerated.

Rafael Quiroz:

Make your decisions, be principal centered.

Rafael Quiroz:

And when you transition I think it'll be a little smoother.

Jerremy Newsome:

Thank you, Jason.

Jason Holland:

For me, I think if I was speaking to anyone inside or even

Jason Holland:

someone outside that's going through something, I wanna remind them that

Jason Holland:

everything that happens is an opportunity.

Jason Holland:

Everything, not all blessings come wrapped like a Christmas gift.

Jason Holland:

Some of them come wrapped in thorns.

Jason Holland:

You have to learn how to find what's inside of that and turn it into something.

Jason Holland:

I don't believe in guarantees.

Jason Holland:

I believe in probabilities, and I believe that if we live our lives in a certain

Jason Holland:

way, day in and day out, we create a higher probability for an outcome, right?

Jason Holland:

For the negative or the positive.

Jason Holland:

And I think that if they just focus on.

Jason Holland:

Living towards a probability, we're all recognizing that everything

Jason Holland:

that comes, if they're creative, if they use their creativity, they

Jason Holland:

can turn that into an opportunity.

Jason Holland:

It might not be right away, down the line.

Jason Holland:

And having that openness and that mindset can be crucial really

Jason Holland:

turning your life into a miracle.

Jason Holland:

And that would be my message.

Jerremy Newsome:

My man.

Jerremy Newsome:

Turn your life into a miracle because it is, it truly is.

Jerremy Newsome:

Miracles are all around us.

Jerremy Newsome:

If we look for it, if we expect it, if we want miracles in

Jerremy Newsome:

our life, they're available.

Jerremy Newsome:

Ralph, Jason, thank you for your time.

Jerremy Newsome:

Thank you for your energy.

Jerremy Newsome:

Thank you for your courage to share.

Jerremy Newsome:

Thank you for your compassion towards others and still continuously

Jerremy Newsome:

daily helping others, not just yourself, but those around you so

Jerremy Newsome:

that we can live a more bright, more bold, more unified country.

Jason Holland:

For having us guys.

Jason Holland:

Appreciate it.

Rafael Quiroz:

Awesome.

Rafael Quiroz:

Thank you guys.

Jerremy Newsome:

Yep, our pleasure.

Jerremy Newsome:

Thank you so much.

Dave Conley:

So what'd you learn?

Jerremy Newsome:

Oh, what did I learn?

Jerremy Newsome:

What I learned, Dave, I learned that everyone's journey is different.

Jerremy Newsome:

Some people will need want and require different forms of discipline in order

Jerremy Newsome:

to change, in order to become better.

Jerremy Newsome:

In order to shift that discipline could be pressure.

Jerremy Newsome:

discipline could be the prison system, that pressure could just be

Jerremy Newsome:

It could be financial requirements, it could be family requirements.

Jerremy Newsome:

But ultimately, if we all ask to become stronger, we're not given more muscles,

Jerremy Newsome:

we're given more weight to carry.

Jerremy Newsome:

I think each and every one of our guests have carried their own weight.

Jerremy Newsome:

They have made decisions that they're not proud of, but I am 100% confident

Jerremy Newsome:

every single listener is human and therefore they have made at least

Jerremy Newsome:

one decision that they're probably not tremendously proud of just one.

Jerremy Newsome:

I do one a week probably, where I'm like, I could have done that differently

Jerremy Newsome:

with my three and a half year old.

Jerremy Newsome:

So I truly believe that the journeys that we're all on.

Jerremy Newsome:

It's one of remarkable opportunity and the visions and the and the

Jerremy Newsome:

rehabilitation and the growth that, the three individuals that we worked

Jerremy Newsome:

with today, Jason, Jennifer, and Ralph, have undergone a remarkable, and I have

Jerremy Newsome:

heard loud and clear that yes, there was definitely elements inside the prison

Jerremy Newsome:

system that can or could have worked, but there are very few and far in between.

Jerremy Newsome:

And they're only going to work for the individual and for the person, for the

Jerremy Newsome:

spirit, and for the soul who also says, and articulates internally that I am

Jerremy Newsome:

willing to change, I am willing to make that shift, and that is gonna be that

Jerremy Newsome:

person that we've, we need to continue to learn studying and figure out how

Jerremy Newsome:

we can make that change happen faster.

Jerremy Newsome:

How we can make the realization for that to occur quicker.

Jerremy Newsome:

Because if someone is so bold and brazen in their belief system and they

Jerremy Newsome:

cannot change, they're not gonna change through pleasure or through pain,

Jerremy Newsome:

they're gonna remain the exact same way.

Jerremy Newsome:

But if you can find ways to crack into the crack, into the spirit, into the soul

Jerremy Newsome:

that does need to be shifted or could be shifted, or would like to be shifted,

Jerremy Newsome:

you have to do it the right way, then really true, remarkable change can happen.

Jerremy Newsome:

And I think we saw that today and I, and it was really quite moving for me.

Dave Conley:

I think for me, I think the last 10 days, going to the women's prison

Dave Conley:

and then having this conversation, if.

Dave Conley:

Absolutely changed me.

Dave Conley:

I heard over and over again that the things I thought, would help, right?

Dave Conley:

All the money that we need to pour into inner cities and, opportunities and

Dave Conley:

healthcare and daycare and transportation.

Dave Conley:

Like all of these, like huge, like undertakings that we need.

Dave Conley:

I didn't hear that from these folks and I didn't hear it last week either at all.

Dave Conley:

Each one of them started with personal responsibility.

Dave Conley:

And you get in the system and you need to change your mindset.

Dave Conley:

You need to, focus on your values.

Dave Conley:

You need to grow up, you need to work on yourself.

Dave Conley:

You need to have good relationships and not hang, and everything was

Dave Conley:

about what the internal person can do.

Dave Conley:

And all of those things are near costless.

Dave Conley:

That on the very beginning of this, where they grew up and how they grew up.

Dave Conley:

They needed hope, they needed a pathway for success and they didn't have it.

Dave Conley:

And then one thing leads to another, which leads to another, and it dominoes

Dave Conley:

and their life falls apart and they make the mistakes or they're in with the

Dave Conley:

wrong thing and they're doing the wrong thing and they end up in the system.

Dave Conley:

And then once they're in the system again, they needed hope

Dave Conley:

and they needed a path and.

Dave Conley:

That is what sustained them, and that's ultimately what

Dave Conley:

got them out of that system.

Dave Conley:

And they came into being like real, like shining lights in the community.

Jerremy Newsome:

Yeah.

Dave Conley:

And I think there's a complete ignorance by the

Dave Conley:

people who are actually in charge.

Dave Conley:

And I think by the voters and the people like coming from very pri privileged

Dave Conley:

backgrounds who have hasn't really talked to somebody who's been in these systems

Dave Conley:

and realizing, Hey, that could be you too.

Dave Conley:

And you know what, it's education.

Dave Conley:

It's different things than what you think it is.

Dave Conley:

And it's not these, crazy unimaginably costly kind of things that we're talking

Dave Conley:

about because what we're doing now is incredibly costly and it's not working.

Jerremy Newsome:

Yeah.

Dave Conley:

Guess what?

Dave Conley:

The cheaper, better option are things like defi, giving people that hope

Dave Conley:

and giving people those opportunities.

Jerremy Newsome:

We've heard today many powerful stories, real lives

Jerremy Newsome:

shaped by a system locking up 1.9 million people and millions more.

Jerremy Newsome:

This isn't just a conversation, it's a call to understand and act.

Jerremy Newsome:

We want to hear your stories.

Jerremy Newsome:

Have you had someone close to you who have faced incarceration

Jerremy Newsome:

challenges or maybe found a way to rebuild and push for change?

Jerremy Newsome:

Share that with us.

Jerremy Newsome:

Tag us at Solve USA Pod on X or solving America's Problems Podcast on Instagram.

Jerremy Newsome:

Your perspective can drive progress.

Jerremy Newsome:

Feel free to please subscribe, leave a five star view and share this episode

Jerremy Newsome:

with someone who needs to hear it, because together we can build a better way.

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About the Podcast

Solving America's Problems
Solving America’s Problems isn’t just a podcast—it’s a journey. Co-host Jerremy Newsome, a successful entrepreneur and educator, is pursuing his lifelong dream of running for president. Along the way, he and co-host Dave Conley bring together experts, advocates, and everyday Americans to explore the real, actionable solutions our country needs.

With dynamic formats—one-on-one interviews, panel discussions, and more—we cut through the noise of divisive rhetoric to uncover practical ideas that unite instead of divide. If you’re ready to think differently, act boldly, and join a movement for meaningful change, subscribe now.