Speaker 1: Welcome to Righteous Convictions with Jason Flam, the podcast where
Speaker 1: I speak with people who see the wrong in the
Speaker 1: world and are driven to make it right. Today, I'm
Speaker 1: speaking with a thirty year veteran corrections officer who rose
Speaker 1: through the ranks of his union to bring his own
Speaker 1: perspective to the conversation around our criminal legal system. I
Speaker 1: believe that that's what leaders should do, tell the truth
Speaker 1: about a system that I believe wasn't designed for success,
Speaker 1: was built around a racist ideology that exploits anyone that
Speaker 1: comes into contact with it, and when they work there,
Speaker 1: they perpetuated, but they also collectively have the strength to
Speaker 1: change it. He launched the national campaign One Voice United
Speaker 1: in two thousand sixteen with the aim to bring about
Speaker 1: long lasting reform that will actually work. Andy Potter right
Speaker 1: now on Righteous Convictions. Welcome back to Righteous Convictions with
Speaker 1: Jason Flom today's episode. You're gonna be a little surprised,
Speaker 1: I think by by first of all, because our guest
Speaker 1: is somebody that you might say, Flom, really you can
Speaker 1: interview that guy. But when you find out why, it's
Speaker 1: all gonna make a lot of sense. And without further ado,
Speaker 1: I'm going to introduce Andy Potter. Andy is a thirty
Speaker 1: year veteran of the Michigan Department of Corrections, but moreover,
Speaker 1: he is the founder of an organization called One Voice United.
Speaker 1: So Andy, well, first of all, thanks for being here. Thanks,
Speaker 1: I appreciate it. And Andy, you know, there aren't enough
Speaker 1: people like you in my opinion, right, somehow or other,
Speaker 1: our system has gone from one well it's called the
Speaker 1: corrections system, right, but it's gone to a punishment system.
Speaker 1: It seems to me sort of holistically across this country.
Speaker 1: And I'm hoping that the pendulum is going to swing
Speaker 1: back in the other direction, and people like you are
Speaker 1: leading the charge. So I want to thank you for that.
Speaker 1: But you know, how did this start? I mean, you've
Speaker 1: been in this work since the since the eighties, right
Speaker 1: late eighties. I don't want to date you, but what
Speaker 1: led you to this type of work? You know, like
Speaker 1: a lot of other corrections officers would say that our
Speaker 1: story is this corrections allowed a lot of us and
Speaker 1: still does allow a lot of folks to come into
Speaker 1: the middle class. And when you live in rural Michigan
Speaker 1: where I grew up, I grew up in a very
Speaker 1: broken town and we didn't have a lot of options.
Speaker 1: My friends and I, you know, we had broken families,
Speaker 1: most of us, and a lot of the friends and
Speaker 1: neighbors that I had a lot of them went to
Speaker 1: prison or worse. And so for me and my friends,
Speaker 1: we just higher education wasn't an option for us. The
Speaker 1: options that we had in front of us were the military.
Speaker 1: You could go to work in a factory um like
Speaker 1: Oldsmobile that no longer exists, or you could go to corrections.
Speaker 1: It was in the eighties there was a boom going
Speaker 1: on tough on crime. They were building a lot of
Speaker 1: correctional institutions inside of these rural areas where there may
Speaker 1: have been another viable industry that left, like logging or
Speaker 1: mining or something, and this is what was there. So
Speaker 1: it was an option for us, and that's the option
Speaker 1: that I took. So you're a thirty year veteran of
Speaker 1: the Michigan Department of Corrections, and around two thousand four
Speaker 1: you were elected to the m c O State Executive Board.
Speaker 1: But you had been active in the union before that,
Speaker 1: So tell me a little about the m c O.
Speaker 1: So I actually had about twenty eight years in the
Speaker 1: Michigan Department of Corrections. I'm retired and I've been the
Speaker 1: executive director for Michigan Corrections Organization, which is a union
Speaker 1: that represents just the corrections officers in the state of Michigan.
Speaker 1: The way I always frame it is that I've worked
Speaker 1: in and around the Michigan Department of Corrections for over
Speaker 1: thirty years, and I'm the founder of One Voice United,
Speaker 1: which is a national campaign. I'd say it's unusual and
Speaker 1: refreshing to see somebody like yourself take it on the
Speaker 1: topic that is most near and dear to my heart,
Speaker 1: which is criminal justice reform. Tell us about One Voice United.
Speaker 1: One Voice United is a nonprofit that I founded in
Speaker 1: two thousand and sixteen. And in two thousand and sixteen
Speaker 1: in Michigan, we had a riot in the Upper Peninsula.
Speaker 1: There had been some uprises all around in the United States.
Speaker 1: I had been tracking them because I track and I
Speaker 1: do a lot of forecasting where I can and when
Speaker 1: I can inside of our profession, and so I was
Speaker 1: a little bit expecting something because across the country they
Speaker 1: had and making changes policy changes inside of the corrections institutions,
Speaker 1: and in Michigan they had lowered the wages for those
Speaker 1: incarcerated who were working throughout the institution. They lowered their wages,
Speaker 1: they raised the prices in the store, and they had
Speaker 1: a private food vendor. This private food vendor we in
Speaker 1: Michigan really rallied against. We had a lot of officers
Speaker 1: that took a lot of chances, took pictures of food
Speaker 1: that had maggots in it and stuff like that, and
Speaker 1: sent them in so that we could take that to
Speaker 1: the legislature and argue to get rid of the private
Speaker 1: food vendor. There wasn't enough oversight. There was a lot
Speaker 1: of things happening inside the institutions that were dangerous, and
Speaker 1: nobody liked it. Those incarcerated didn't like it, the staff
Speaker 1: didn't like it. A lot of staff felt it was
Speaker 1: just immoral what they were feeding folks. And so the
Speaker 1: riot broke out, and it was over a series of
Speaker 1: these issues. You know. I interviewed a lot of those
Speaker 1: officers afterwards. Not one of them was physically harmed, and
Speaker 1: a lot of comments were made throughout the night and
Speaker 1: day that you're not going to be hurt because, look,
Speaker 1: you took on some of our plight here, and a
Speaker 1: lot of officers said they couldn't blame anybody like you
Speaker 1: get to a certain point and there's a boiling point
Speaker 1: and you know. So they told me, basically, this is
Speaker 1: an issue. It's a moral issue, and we stand on
Speaker 1: this moral issue, and we should be taking this as
Speaker 1: far and wide as we can to make sure this
Speaker 1: doesn't happen in other places. So, just looking at that issue,
Speaker 1: I'm saying to myself, how is it and why is
Speaker 1: it that we're in a system where something really affects
Speaker 1: everybody that's working there, And how is it that we
Speaker 1: can't bring ourselves to a place to work together to
Speaker 1: get that figured out and stopped when we know that's
Speaker 1: an issue. So that led me down the road to
Speaker 1: come together with some of the smartest people that I
Speaker 1: had know, people that I've done research with and different
Speaker 1: kinds of projects with, along with corrections officers and others,
Speaker 1: and we created One Voice United, which is really designed
Speaker 1: to unearth those places of alignment. Even though you may
Speaker 1: not see someone as the most ideal partner or an
Speaker 1: unlikely partner in an issue. I'm trying to bridge that
Speaker 1: gap so that folks can come together, unearthed those places
Speaker 1: of alignment, and really go at that together with one
Speaker 1: voice instead of different sides because that's the way this
Speaker 1: system is designed. It's designed us versus them, and I'm
Speaker 1: trying to take a little bit of that out of
Speaker 1: this in order to save lives, create something that's different
Speaker 1: than what we have. People deserve basic humanity, right. The
Speaker 1: food is like the most basic of human needs. And
Speaker 1: if you're serving people food that's rotten, that's infected with
Speaker 1: maggots as you describe, as well as the other deprivations
Speaker 1: that they're dealing with, of course it's going to get
Speaker 1: to a point where it boils over. And it's a
Speaker 1: miracle that nobody on the staff was hurt. I think
Speaker 1: it speaks a lot to the character of the incarcerated
Speaker 1: people there. But you know, in lesson, until we start
Speaker 1: treating our incarcerated population with some semblance of decency, I
Speaker 1: think we can expect that these situations will get worse.
Speaker 1: You know, people talk about the private prisons. Only six
Speaker 1: per cent of prisons the United States are private. But
Speaker 1: the services, as you described, Andy, the services, the people
Speaker 1: that are making money on these things, they're incentivized to
Speaker 1: do everything and cut as many quarters as they can,
Speaker 1: as cheaply as they can, and the people on the
Speaker 1: short end of that stick are always going to be
Speaker 1: the incarcerated population. In all of my years inside of
Speaker 1: the system, what it's done for me is allowed me
Speaker 1: to scrape my eyes clear and see that system for
Speaker 1: what it really is. And I wouldn't be any kind
Speaker 1: of a leader at all if I couldn't try to
Speaker 1: make an impact, try and make a difference for everybody
Speaker 1: that comes into contact with it. Folks who worked there
Speaker 1: and folks who lived there. I mean, they're inextrictably late
Speaker 1: in order for the reform where it works, when it works,
Speaker 1: how it works. To really have a legacy, we've got
Speaker 1: to bring those who live there, those who worked there.
Speaker 1: They're the two largest stakeholders in this. All those stakeholders
Speaker 1: should be in that conversation about why it should be different.
Speaker 1: Righteous Convictions with Jason flam is super excited and honored
Speaker 1: to have the support of a great organization like Galaxy Gives.
Speaker 1: Galaxy Gives leads the filanthropic efforts of the Novograds family.
Speaker 1: They invest in organizations, campaigns, and leaders who are directly
Speaker 1: impacted by and working to dismantle the current punitive justice system.
Speaker 1: Galaxy Gives also builds power for the community's most harmed
Speaker 1: by mass and parceration and forges transformative solutions for responding
Speaker 1: to that harm. They envision a society where the structural
Speaker 1: barriers created by racist and poverty and inequality are no more. Instead,
Speaker 1: all people have the dignity, freedom and rights needed to thrive.
Speaker 1: Reformers have all done a great job highlighting issues and
Speaker 1: bringing the problems to the surface, and I think the
Speaker 1: impact that One Voice United is made is that I
Speaker 1: do think a lot of reformers now see that there
Speaker 1: has to be room. There has to be some space
Speaker 1: made for the understanding of how this isn't extrictably linked
Speaker 1: between those who worked there and those who are incarcerated.
Speaker 1: So just getting the recognition that those that are doing
Speaker 1: the work every day know that system better than anyone,
Speaker 1: and they should be consulted to how do we make
Speaker 1: it better. The idea that you are take in best
Speaker 1: practices and ideas from people who I'm guessing around the
Speaker 1: country have no voice. Right they go to work, they
Speaker 1: go home, they probably experienced things that don't have to experience.
Speaker 1: And I don't think it's a job that most people
Speaker 1: would want if they couldn't have some ability to affect change. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know in Michigan, most of the corrections officers that
Speaker 1: go through the academy, I get a chance to talk
Speaker 1: to them, and most that I ask, I always ask,
Speaker 1: why are you taking this job? And most of them,
Speaker 1: Jason tell me that they of course want to have
Speaker 1: a good job, a reliable job, but they also want
Speaker 1: to make a difference. They believe that there's a way
Speaker 1: for them to impact somebody in a positive way. Now
Speaker 1: I can tell you not just in Michigan. The system.
Speaker 1: The light goes out of their eyes from the time
Speaker 1: they're in the academy to the time they walk through
Speaker 1: the front gates to do their work because you're trained
Speaker 1: they in a day out to desensitize yourself and that
Speaker 1: takes a toll. That's the system that we have, and
Speaker 1: that's why I'm trying so hard to change this system
Speaker 1: because it's killing people on both sides of us. I've
Speaker 1: had thirty years of experience. I've seen pain on both
Speaker 1: sides of this, and we haven't done a good enough
Speaker 1: job as leaders to bring our unions to the table
Speaker 1: to have these conversations about how do we make it better,
Speaker 1: not just for folks incarcerated, because they do need schooling.
Speaker 1: They do need education, so do those corrections officers in
Speaker 1: order to be a legacy for that change that we're
Speaker 1: all looking for. It's so strange right now, Andy, Right,
Speaker 1: I'm in New York where we've had sixteen people be
Speaker 1: murdered or died under to be as circumstances. Nobody died
Speaker 1: of old age. I'm talking about inside Rikers Island, right,
Speaker 1: which is sort of five miles from where I'm sitting
Speaker 1: right now. Sixteen people and the photographs that have come
Speaker 1: out of that institution are horrendous, like just you would
Speaker 1: think this would be in a fourth World country. And
Speaker 1: at the same time, just across the ocean, in places
Speaker 1: in Western Europe, you have facilities where they treat the
Speaker 1: incarcerated people as their neighbors. I mean, they have cells
Speaker 1: that look more like college dorm rooms. Some places they
Speaker 1: have cells that locked from the inside so they can
Speaker 1: have privacy, right, they have their own phones in there
Speaker 1: and things like that, and all of it is designed
Speaker 1: to create sort of a ramp to success on the
Speaker 1: outside where it feels like here we build walls to
Speaker 1: not only in terms of the way we treat our
Speaker 1: incarcerated population, but also in terms of how we stigmatize
Speaker 1: them when they come out. Have you studied the European model,
Speaker 1: particularly Scandinavia and Germany and some of those places. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I have. I've been to Norway a couple of different
Speaker 1: times and One Voice United work with the Norway Union
Speaker 1: in fact, and I've been to Germany, and like, if
Speaker 1: you look at all the especially to Scandinavian countries, as
Speaker 1: you just pointed out, their value on life is so
Speaker 1: much different than it is in America, and why they
Speaker 1: incarcerate is different than it is in America. It's an
Speaker 1: interesting thing to understand though, because it helps you to
Speaker 1: try to understand how do we get back to a
Speaker 1: place where we can normalize some things here before somebody
Speaker 1: just goes and hits the streets, and how do we
Speaker 1: take care of them after they hit the streets so
Speaker 1: that they don't come back, and and even how are
Speaker 1: the staff treated? How is that profession looked at in
Speaker 1: Scandinavian countries has looked at much more of a desired
Speaker 1: profession than it is here in America. And there's a reason.
Speaker 1: I mean in Scandinavian there's usually an intensive two year
Speaker 1: trading program and it raises that profession up in a
Speaker 1: way that makes them not just a stakeholder. What a
Speaker 1: piece of how that success has met for those who
Speaker 1: are incarcerated. As you've mentioned, most correction officers are taking
Speaker 1: this job straight out of high school, where they're not
Speaker 1: getting the training they need for the kinds of mental
Speaker 1: health issues and situations that they're about to experience and
Speaker 1: face inside prison. Right and to your point, with a
Speaker 1: higher professional standard and more respect for the position, we'd
Speaker 1: probably find a better prepared staff for those situations and
Speaker 1: experiences and then inevitably a result that would be better outcomes.
Speaker 1: Is that fair to say? Yeah, I think it's very fair.
Speaker 1: So the reasons why people give in to this line
Speaker 1: of work, as you've mentioned, they don't have a lot
Speaker 1: of other options in the communities that they live in,
Speaker 1: and for some it seems like there are only options
Speaker 1: other than the military are either go into crime or
Speaker 1: go into corrections. And then there's that other element of
Speaker 1: people who may even look at this as an opportunity
Speaker 1: to be violent in a place where they and you know,
Speaker 1: get away with it for lack of a better way
Speaker 1: of putting it. Have you found that to be a
Speaker 1: common recurrence in your line of work. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: that's the case for some men and women that take
Speaker 1: this job. You can never always tell why somebody takes
Speaker 1: a job, and especially a job that has authority to it,
Speaker 1: and it's really up to us to try to weed
Speaker 1: those people out. There is nothing that bothers a good
Speaker 1: corrections officer more than a bad one. And I can
Speaker 1: tell you I've identified my share of folks that come
Speaker 1: in there and do things that are just wrong. But
Speaker 1: I've also far outnumbering them. And we say this even
Speaker 1: in law enforcement too, and I'm not sure that's the
Speaker 1: the the right way to approach that is to say, well,
Speaker 1: we have you know, bad apples, and so does Wall Street.
Speaker 1: These are positions that come with authority over other human beings.
Speaker 1: That's much different how we get through that layer to
Speaker 1: be able to determine this person is not for the
Speaker 1: right thing, and we need to get them out. That's
Speaker 1: a systems change, and that's bigger than just being able
Speaker 1: to identify somebody and say they don't do the right
Speaker 1: things and they are assaulted and things, So we need
Speaker 1: to get rid of them because the system is designed
Speaker 1: two desensitize and dehumanize, and if we don't get at
Speaker 1: that component. If we don't change that piece and how
Speaker 1: we're trained and how well we're trained, and how we
Speaker 1: looked at respected and the roles that we play, then
Speaker 1: you will never get at how you weed out bad apples.
Speaker 1: This is the common theme, right, I mean, whenever some
Speaker 1: tragedy strikes, you know, how do you make it so
Speaker 1: that a person like that isn't even allowed into that position?
Speaker 1: So how do you address that? I mean, do you
Speaker 1: have any ideas other than like just the most basic
Speaker 1: we should be taking about drinking and see what kind
Speaker 1: of things that person says after a couple of Jamison's future. Well,
Speaker 1: that's the old school why of doing it. Yeah, right,
Speaker 1: when you're on boarding people, right, I think that is
Speaker 1: your best chance of identifying and when you can recognize
Speaker 1: certain things. So those people that are on boarding new
Speaker 1: staff have to be trained and there should be maybe
Speaker 1: a psychological exam and different criteria that has to be met,
Speaker 1: and there should be a much lengthier time that that
Speaker 1: person is exposed to people who can identify it than
Speaker 1: there is today because today, in many cases, somebody is
Speaker 1: like brought on for a couple of weeks, they're handed
Speaker 1: a set of keys, because they need bodies, they need staff,
Speaker 1: they need people to come in the door. I can
Speaker 1: point to a lot of prisons that are so understaffed
Speaker 1: that they can't possibly keep track of everything that takes
Speaker 1: place in a day's time. Any administrator can check any
Speaker 1: one of their boxes and say, yep, we're about reform,
Speaker 1: and we've done this, that and the other thing. But
Speaker 1: if they've hired a bunch of people with two weeks
Speaker 1: of training or six weeks of training even in some cases,
Speaker 1: and they haven't done their due diligence on what kind
Speaker 1: of person they're hiring, then it's not real. Any good
Speaker 1: intentions are essentially worthless. That's right. They're just doing that
Speaker 1: for themselves. They're checking a box so they can say
Speaker 1: to anyone given community of people, I'm about reform, and
Speaker 1: you can see by the policies that I keep that
Speaker 1: I'm about reform. If they're not really getting at the
Speaker 1: humanity of this, they're not reforming anything. At the end
Speaker 1: of the day, they're going to be as big as
Speaker 1: part of the problem as the originators were. You know,
Speaker 1: I've worked on a number of issues nationally and worked
Speaker 1: in and around other circles with other corrections leaders. But
Speaker 1: what really made me want to create One Voice United
Speaker 1: and make that a national campaign is that these are
Speaker 1: not the kinds of issues that we can any longer
Speaker 1: tackle at a state by state level because it's too
Speaker 1: easy for those particular states, because of the way they're
Speaker 1: set up, can possibly just ignore what those issues are
Speaker 1: very easily and with no accountability. And I think One
Speaker 1: Voice United is on its way to building such a
Speaker 1: strong coalition of union leaders and other frontline staff, not
Speaker 1: just officers, maintenance, healthcare, teachers, and others that work in
Speaker 1: those facilities. It's creating such a momentum. So before we
Speaker 1: wrap up the show, I'd like to point out to
Speaker 1: our listeners who have heard what you said, maybe they
Speaker 1: want to show some support. So if you do, and
Speaker 1: I hope you do, please head to One Voice United
Speaker 1: dot org. We'll have that linked in the bio as well.
Speaker 1: And he's didn't write it down. And now we go
Speaker 1: to part one of our clothing, which is something we
Speaker 1: always look forward to. It's called the magic wand question.
Speaker 1: I give you a magic want, I give you one wish,
Speaker 1: what do you change? If I could wave a want
Speaker 1: and make a change, the change would be that we
Speaker 1: wouldn't incarceraate as many people, and those that were incarcerated
Speaker 1: and those who worked in those places could have a
Speaker 1: much more meaningful experience, a much healthier experience, and a
Speaker 1: safer experience. Whatever that looks like. That's a good answer.
Speaker 1: And then on that note, I'd like to invite our
Speaker 1: audience in tune in next week when we speak with
Speaker 1: civil rights lawyer, trial attorney and founder of Civil Rights
Speaker 1: Core Alec carkatsan Us. He's a man on a mission
Speaker 1: to end systemic injustice in our criminal legal system, and
Speaker 1: that's no exaggeration. And he's also one of my great
Speaker 1: personal heroes. And now we go to the closing of
Speaker 1: our show, which is called Words of Wisdom. This is
Speaker 1: where I first of all, thank you Andy Potter for
Speaker 1: joining us and for everything you're doing trying to make
Speaker 1: our system a little bit bearer and better for everyone.
Speaker 1: And then I'm going to turn my microphone off, leave
Speaker 1: my headphones on, kick back in my chair, and just
Speaker 1: listen to your closing thoughts. Well, I mean, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of things that I wish I could have covered.
Speaker 1: You know, we didn't get into the risk part of this.
Speaker 1: Jason and not for a lot of leaders. The reason
Speaker 1: that I'm one of the only ones that step forward
Speaker 1: on a national level, and I wish that more we're
Speaker 1: willing to take the same risk, because at any given point,
Speaker 1: I could say something that's a little over the top
Speaker 1: for a majority of people that listen to me and
Speaker 1: follow me, and they're going to say, you're just too soft.
Speaker 1: And I run that risk all the time, and I
Speaker 1: risk my livelihood, my reputation, my professional standing. But I
Speaker 1: have to push that envelope because I believe that that's
Speaker 1: what leaders should do and tell the truth about a
Speaker 1: system that I believe is usually talked about on one
Speaker 1: side or the other, but never really talked about as
Speaker 1: a whole, and what it does to people. My journey
Speaker 1: is going to be different than others, the journey that
Speaker 1: I had to go down to understand it wasn't designed
Speaker 1: for success. It was built around a racist ideology that
Speaker 1: exploits continuously anyone that comes into contact with it, and
Speaker 1: those who come into contact with it don't understand that
Speaker 1: when they work there, they perpetuated, but they also collectively
Speaker 1: have the strength to change it. If everybody in our
Speaker 1: profession said this is wrong, it doesn't treat me right
Speaker 1: in a humane way, and it doesn't treat that person
Speaker 1: that gets incarcerated in a humane way. If somehow we
Speaker 1: had more leaders that could come together and take that
Speaker 1: risk and push that, a couple of things would happen.
Speaker 1: Those who are making the policies would start to recognize
Speaker 1: that and take much more notice, and it would allow
Speaker 1: us to have a conversation around humanity and what that means.
Speaker 1: There should be more leaders willing to step up and
Speaker 1: really tackle this problem if they've seen the things I've
Speaker 1: seen where I've lost people that I grew up with
Speaker 1: working in this profession to suicide because they're us to
Speaker 1: do things that normal people that go to work are
Speaker 1: not asked to do, and they're asked to do it
Speaker 1: sometimes twenty four hours a day. Maybe that's the extreme,
Speaker 1: but I can tell you across the country there's a
Speaker 1: crisis right now with staffing levels. And when people are
Speaker 1: exhausted mentally and physically, they're not going to do their
Speaker 1: best work. They're not going to be able to be
Speaker 1: a legacy for any reform, and if the reforms aren't real,
Speaker 1: the first people that recognize that are those who are
Speaker 1: incarcerated and those who work there. If it's just to
Speaker 1: check a box. That's where you have a lot of
Speaker 1: leaders that are cynical, and they hear a lot about
Speaker 1: what we're doing. For those who are incarcerated, they're left out.
Speaker 1: It's a blind spot. And I just wish we could
Speaker 1: talk a little bit more about that risk, because it's real,
Speaker 1: and as long as that risk is there, there's going
Speaker 1: to be certain leader is that that can't step up
Speaker 1: and won't step up to tackle the bigger conversation, and
Speaker 1: that is, how are we inextrictably linked and what can
Speaker 1: we do to create a healthier environment and raise our
Speaker 1: profession up in a way that's respected like they are
Speaker 1: in Scandinavian countries. And we can't do that if there's
Speaker 1: inadequate training, if there's so much mandatory over time, and
Speaker 1: if the staffing ratios are so outrageous that you just
Speaker 1: basically throw your hands up. You can't stop something when
Speaker 1: you're by yourself and you know, and the scrutiny is
Speaker 1: such that you're you're just you're like at a point
Speaker 1: where you're like, I can't do this. And the tough
Speaker 1: guy prison culture thing, like we got to lower some
Speaker 1: of those kinds of things to have this conversation in
Speaker 1: the right way. The big system a lot of people
Speaker 1: bull have tried, and there's a lot of people very
Speaker 1: comfortable inside of that system that don't want change. They're
Speaker 1: making money one way or the other, and they're comfortable
Speaker 1: with the way it is and they don't want anybody
Speaker 1: screwing with it. It just takes some deep insight to
Speaker 1: really understand it and to approach it in a way
Speaker 1: that says, I'm done seeing my fellow officers ruin their lives. Divorce,
Speaker 1: drug abuse, depression. I'm done with that killing us. It's
Speaker 1: killing people on both sides. Thank you for listening to
Speaker 1: Righteous Convictions with Jason plom I'd like to thank our
Speaker 1: production team Connor Hall, Jeff Claverne, and Kevin Wardis. With
Speaker 1: research by Lalla Robinson. The music in this production was
Speaker 1: supplied by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Out. Follow
Speaker 1: us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter at Lava for Good.
Speaker 1: You can also follow me on TikTok and Instagram at
Speaker 1: It's Jason Blom. Righteous Convictions with Jason Blom is a
Speaker 1: production of Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Say
Speaker 1: Look Company Number one