Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right, y'all. Welcome to another episode of Civic
Speaker 1: cipher I'm your host, Ramsy's Jah and a big shout
Speaker 1: out to q Ward, who is still dealing with the
Speaker 1: real but you know, true to form, we are still
Speaker 1: bringing you everything that is newsworthy and noteworthy in the
Speaker 1: world of black and brown folks. And this show has
Speaker 1: been a long time coming. You and I talked about
Speaker 1: this issue once or twice on the show so far,
Speaker 1: but plenty of times behind the scenes. And you know,
Speaker 1: I really didn't know how to script the show like
Speaker 1: the one that I want to do today, And it
Speaker 1: wasn't until I sat down with a friend of mine
Speaker 1: recently over the holidays and we got to talking about
Speaker 1: some things that took place in the past but led
Speaker 1: to some incarceration. And you know, on the show here
Speaker 1: we've discussed, you know, prison reform, we've discussed things like
Speaker 1: do prisons work, but you know, we haven't really gone
Speaker 1: into detail about that. And as it turns out, you know,
Speaker 1: you know a lot of my friends are brilliant people,
Speaker 1: but none quite as brilliant as my friend Gonzo, who
Speaker 1: has decided to join me today on Civic Ciphers. So
Speaker 1: thank you for joining us.
Speaker 2: For having me us. Yeah. Yeah, so appreciate the little
Speaker 2: confidence there, absolutely absolutely.
Speaker 1: So you know, let's uh, you know, I I know
Speaker 1: that you are not.
Speaker 2: Just this thing.
Speaker 1: You know, we we've known each other since we were children.
Speaker 1: But for today's purposes, we're going to talk about one
Speaker 1: facet of what I believe to be a very rich
Speaker 1: life that you live. And so I certainly don't want
Speaker 1: to reduce you to just an inmate, but I do
Speaker 1: want you to discuss your time as an inmate and
Speaker 1: your relationship with the prison system, so that we can
Speaker 1: bring our listeners up to speed and they'll know who
Speaker 1: they're talking to.
Speaker 2: Well, definitely, you know, as you said, I've lived, I
Speaker 2: try to live a full life. I'm just not you know,
Speaker 2: the incarcerated number that they decide to give you. It
Speaker 2: does actually play though a large part in the overall
Speaker 2: development of my life. Sure, so you know to speak
Speaker 2: to that, you know I've done you know, I went
Speaker 2: through a period in my life where I felt like
Speaker 2: I had to do crime because I had been convicted
Speaker 2: of a crime. And so upon getting out of you know, prison,
Speaker 2: you know your options are limited. Sure, I mean, so
Speaker 2: the mindset of a young man at that time, so
Speaker 2: I figured, well, I may as well commit more crime.
Speaker 2: You know, got into a lot of fraud I ended
Speaker 2: up doing you know, long extent extent of I did
Speaker 2: about a four year stretch. So within that time, you know,
Speaker 2: I've seen a lot of different things. I've seen a
Speaker 2: lot of policy that has affected other people that I
Speaker 2: care about, not only myself, and how laws are changed
Speaker 2: and how they're kind of skew to actually target our community. So,
Speaker 2: you know, as far as that, I try to live
Speaker 2: my life as best I can of put the past
Speaker 2: behind me. But you know, when I see programs like
Speaker 2: yourself and gentlemen out there trying to make a difference
Speaker 2: in our community, it's just something that needs to be
Speaker 2: addressed because I don't think the public truly understands, you know,
Speaker 2: to debauchery that goes on behind the scene, and how
Speaker 2: the system is almost skewed the way to kind of
Speaker 2: keep people incarcerated.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. Now you've you've been in and out a handful
Speaker 1: of times. Can you describe the different places that you've been.
Speaker 1: I know you went to a jail one time and
Speaker 1: then a prison a different time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely, there's well, the difference between jail and prison.
Speaker 2: So jail is where you will wait to basically you're
Speaker 2: your charge, you're arrested, and if you can't make bail
Speaker 2: or you're not, they call it where if you're o ard,
Speaker 2: sometimes you release on your own recognizance. If you can't
Speaker 2: make that, you have to in turn put up a bail,
Speaker 2: which is this whole other system of a funny exciting
Speaker 2: ways to go. But for there, then you sit in
Speaker 2: the county. So at one point I know a lot
Speaker 2: of Arizonians if they're familiar with it, was Sheriff Joe So.
Speaker 2: And then there's various jails that I've been to. I've
Speaker 2: done my tour of a lot of them, you know.
Speaker 2: So there's there's Lower Buckeye Jail, there's Downtown, there's Madison,
Speaker 2: and then these are where you will wait to where
Speaker 2: you ultimately go to trial or where most people sign
Speaker 2: a pola parking deal or you know, if you're found
Speaker 2: innocent or sometimes you usually reduce I think they have
Speaker 2: a ninety five percent conviction, right wow, So yeah.
Speaker 1: You know, I I read something about that not too
Speaker 1: long ago, and that's kind of a phenomenon. It's just
Speaker 1: a weird little quirk of the the criminal justice system
Speaker 1: in this country at least, where a lot of cases
Speaker 1: never go to trial because you know, folks will try
Speaker 1: to they'll take a plea deal and admit that they
Speaker 1: did something sometimes that they didn't even do to avoid
Speaker 1: going to trial. So there's this idea, and we saw
Speaker 1: that with the the They now call them the Exonerated Five,
Speaker 1: but it's the Central Park Five that they may be
Speaker 1: more commonly known as. And they did a movie on
Speaker 1: Netflix when they see Us, But you saw these people
Speaker 1: admitting to crimes that they didn't commit because of police coercion,
Speaker 1: et cetera, and ending up during prison sentences accepting plea
Speaker 1: deals that they shouldn't have taken anyway. And this is
Speaker 1: something that actually has happened to one of my older brothers.
Speaker 1: He actually went to prison for twelve years for he
Speaker 1: was there was some issue of confrontation in a parking lot.
Speaker 1: This was back when the new Escalade came out, and
Speaker 1: he had a gun on him. You know, California, there
Speaker 1: was a lot of carjackings, so he had a gun
Speaker 1: in the car. He pulled the gun out and shot
Speaker 1: the gun in the air to scare the guys. Off
Speaker 1: from you know, messing with his now his wife, and
Speaker 1: it was on video, but they for some reason it
Speaker 1: couldn't submit the video in court like they.
Speaker 2: Sometimes there's lawyer posturing sometimes to get you know, certain evidence.
Speaker 1: Sure, and so they couldn't submit the video of him
Speaker 1: shooting the gun in the air. And so what it was.
Speaker 1: It ended up being an attempted murder case that he
Speaker 1: had to fight as opposed to you know, just discharging
Speaker 1: a weapon to scare these guys off. And so he
Speaker 1: was looking at eighteen years, but he could plead a
Speaker 1: twelve year deal, and he accepted the plea and fortunately
Speaker 1: he just got out after twelve years. But that's twelve
Speaker 1: years I missed with my big brother. So I'm familiar
Speaker 1: with that part of it.
Speaker 2: And that's a scary thing too, because it's when you
Speaker 2: do enter a plea bargain. It's funny to judge, ask
Speaker 2: you have you been have you ever been coursed or
Speaker 2: intimidated to take this deal? Yeah, well you're like I've
Speaker 2: been sitting in this jail.
Speaker 1: You're you're coursing me right now. I'm not my friend,
Speaker 1: you know, this is a scary environment, et cetera. But yeah, well,
Speaker 1: that's part of uh, I think what we'll get into today,
Speaker 1: because the very nature of the criminal justice system, it's
Speaker 1: it's sort of like a snake that's eating its own tail.
Speaker 1: It's a it's a it's a very weird, unusual thing.
Speaker 1: You would think that, like most places in the world,
Speaker 1: the criminal justice system is supposed to, you know, restore
Speaker 1: justice to society or harmed individuals and rehabilitate the criminals.
Speaker 1: And neither of those two things are true, and very
Speaker 1: little of justice, almost none, and then everybody is just
Speaker 1: okay with that. And so recently, obviously, there's been this
Speaker 1: push to rethink what does it mean because if you're
Speaker 1: just used to it, if you're born into a world
Speaker 1: where bad people go to jail and then they go
Speaker 1: back to jail, and they go back to jail, you know,
Speaker 1: that's just kind of the norm. And that's something we'll
Speaker 1: get into today. But a lot of folks recently have
Speaker 1: been thinking rethinking what it means to actually lower crime.
Speaker 1: You know, obviously we talk about this a lot on
Speaker 1: the show, but the idea of defunding the police means
Speaker 1: reallocating police resources into community programs that prevent crime from
Speaker 1: happening in the first place, and believe it or not,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of people that don't want that to happen,
Speaker 1: not just police, but like people that you know are
Speaker 1: in this in the prison business, you know, exactly. So
Speaker 1: the nature of criminal justice is very different. It's not
Speaker 1: it's not meant they don't want to rehabilitate it, and
Speaker 1: they lobby and they get politicians on their side, et cetera.
Speaker 1: And the ready assumption, and again we'll get into this
Speaker 1: little later, but the ready assumption is that there needs
Speaker 1: to be a certain amount of criminals as opposed to
Speaker 1: there will always be a some number of criminals, you know.
Speaker 1: And those are two different approaches to criminal justice. One
Speaker 1: is like, we need it to be at least here.
Speaker 1: One of them is that, well, we're always going to
Speaker 1: have some so we need some institutions. But you know,
Speaker 1: it's not in us versus them sort of situation. And
Speaker 1: so we'll get into that. One of the things that
Speaker 1: I do want to start the show off with is
Speaker 1: a fact, you know, and for those that don't know,
Speaker 1: African Americans are imprisoned incarcerated at a rate five times
Speaker 1: as much as whites. And then for Latinos, it's almost
Speaker 1: one and a half times as whites. And so you
Speaker 1: know that the three of our groups make up a
Speaker 1: good amount of folks in this country. I'd say somewhere
Speaker 1: in the neighborhood of eighty five percent ish maybe more
Speaker 1: with those three groups. And you know, you, being someone
Speaker 1: who can identify with being black and then obviously can
Speaker 1: identify with being a Latino man as well, have been
Speaker 1: able to see what that looks like, you know, along
Speaker 1: those color lines as well. And so I want to
Speaker 1: I wanna what I want to get into first is
Speaker 1: do prisons work. I think I know the answer, but
Speaker 1: let me qualify the question. So one thing that I
Speaker 1: want you to talk about is I came across this.
Speaker 1: It's that the idea that low risk offenders people who
Speaker 1: might do things like you know, maybe they do a
Speaker 1: fraud thing, you know, maybe they just they see an
Speaker 1: opportunity to get ahead. Whatever their story is, I don't know,
Speaker 1: and not trying to justify anything, but they do something
Speaker 1: and they're a low risk offender, they are also exposed
Speaker 1: to high risk offenders or they kind of get introduced
Speaker 1: into this kind of school of crime. Have you seen
Speaker 1: anything like that definitely, definitely.
Speaker 2: So what we can agree on that, we'll just stay
Speaker 2: you know, some basic facts. So poverty, but you gots crime.
Speaker 2: It's not like, oh, this certain demographic is you know
Speaker 2: a little bit more has propensity to do crime. It's
Speaker 2: not that it's it's it's poverty. So a large part
Speaker 2: of what I'm seeing here lately is you know, the
Speaker 2: opioid crisis. So we'll take for example, so right now
Speaker 2: there are people who you know, for whatever reason, because
Speaker 2: doctors were prescribing oxycoton like it was skittles back in
Speaker 2: the day. Now that there's a crackdown, a lot of
Speaker 2: these people are resorting to other drugs like fentanyl. So
Speaker 2: now to buy the illegal drugs look expensive, so there's
Speaker 2: there's no way you can work a regular job and
Speaker 2: in turn, you know, support your habit. So a lot
Speaker 2: of these people will resort to crime. So I'll use
Speaker 2: you know, just because it kind of feeds into you know,
Speaker 2: other aspects. We'll use Walmart for example. So Walmart at
Speaker 2: one point was part of a law being group called
Speaker 2: ALEC and you know, that can be looked up and
Speaker 2: we can talk about that later. So what they did
Speaker 2: is Walmart was getting hit over the head with these
Speaker 2: people going into their store and stealing. So let's say you,
Speaker 2: you know, you stole something over a certain dollar amount,
Speaker 2: it could be deemed felony, but usually it got pleated
Speaker 2: out to where it was a simple shoplifting. Well, now,
Speaker 2: because they were taking such losses, they then in turn
Speaker 2: had the law changed to where now if you steal
Speaker 2: something and you have intent, they can prove you had
Speaker 2: intent to steal. It's called an organized retail theft. So
Speaker 2: with an organized retail theft, that's a class four felony.
Speaker 2: So usually on your frat first time, if you get caught,
Speaker 2: you can get some type of probation or some type
Speaker 2: of like deferment program. But let's say you know it's
Speaker 2: your second time or whatever, and you decide, they decide
Speaker 2: to go ahead and push prison time to you're looking
Speaker 2: at two and a half now with a prior years
Speaker 2: two and a half years now, right, But with the privor.
Speaker 2: The thing is is when you get arrested, though they
Speaker 2: charge you throw everything against you. So throw everything against
Speaker 2: the wall, see it sticks, to see if it sticks.
Speaker 2: And then what happens is you have a historical prior.
Speaker 2: So with a prior that same f four now turns
Speaker 2: into four point five years. So that's four and a
Speaker 2: half years. If you think of it's almost half a decade.
Speaker 2: You're being locked up four And I'm not saying stealings, right,
Speaker 2: but I think that's a little extreme that someone goes
Speaker 2: in and you know, steal some items or and you know,
Speaker 2: and and the way the laws are written, those laws
Speaker 2: are still being changed now. I mean there are people
Speaker 2: who go in and try to return things with like
Speaker 2: a new guy he tried to return an item with
Speaker 2: his brother's ID. Walmart will give you or credit for it.
Speaker 2: Sometimes what they'll do is you know, but that's that's
Speaker 2: changed now. Now the game is if they catch you,
Speaker 2: that's an identity theft charge.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so they're trying to do that and sometimes I
Speaker 2: even heard depending on what you steal, they'll hit you
Speaker 2: with a burglary charge. You know, the days when people
Speaker 2: would go in and do a beer run and do
Speaker 2: things like, they're considering some of this burglary. So these
Speaker 2: corporations now, because they have the ear of certain politicians
Speaker 2: and they're in league with them, it would it behooves
Speaker 2: them to push harsher sentences because then what happens is
Speaker 2: now these harsher sentences are are giving out. That's longer
Speaker 2: prison time. Longer prison time means more bodies to be
Speaker 2: put in these cages or to be warehoused. And with
Speaker 2: private prisons here running rampant, I don't know if you've
Speaker 2: ever heard of CCA. Yeah, they're a private prison here.
Speaker 2: So if they benefit immensely off of that because they
Speaker 2: need bodies, Like you said, we need that certain degree
Speaker 2: of something that maybe you know, five ten years ago, oh,
Speaker 2: wasn't such a large crime. Now in turn, I can
Speaker 2: give you real prison time for it. And it's the
Speaker 2: rates are alarming because they target our communities. Of course,
Speaker 2: we're borck and brown or poor people, black and brown people,
Speaker 2: and surprising, I've seen a lot of women who are
Speaker 2: being getting incarcerated. Before it was you know, the joke was, okay,
Speaker 2: well they're nicer on ladies, but they're not stopping, and
Speaker 2: it's it's lack of it's a it's a big money grab.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So when you get into okay, well are we
Speaker 2: incarcerating people so that we can in turn rehabilitate them,
Speaker 2: which it's all a joke. There's no rehabilitation or are
Speaker 2: we just you know, warehousing bodies so that then we
Speaker 2: can go ahead and you know, build the taxpayers for
Speaker 2: so much because a private prison gets typically about thirty
Speaker 2: two thousand dollars for readmade. So as a private prison,
Speaker 2: I want to stack as many bodies, as many healthy
Speaker 2: bodies as I can because you know that thirty two
Speaker 2: two thousand pays pays for my guards, pays for my food,
Speaker 2: and they try to run it at you know, the
Speaker 2: lowest possible costs to where I mean the food rations
Speaker 2: you get are they're they barely hit the caloric requirements
Speaker 2: that you need.
Speaker 1: You're saying it's not a lot of food or it's not.
Speaker 2: Not a lot of food at all, and a lot
Speaker 2: of it is high carbs, you know, something cheap like
Speaker 2: so you'll eat a lot of pasta's something that's cheap
Speaker 2: to feed a large population. Because they're trying to run
Speaker 2: a profit. So with that thirty two thousand per inmate,
Speaker 2: they have to clear after they pay all expenses, like
Speaker 2: I said, guards, you know, you know, food, clothing, I
Speaker 2: mean there's now they're charging inmates. They'll give them maybe
Speaker 2: an issue two or three outfits and then they'll charge
Speaker 2: them to buy other outfits. So now you're you have
Speaker 2: to pay you know, after you get a job on
Speaker 2: the yard, and typically, you know, your jobs can pay
Speaker 2: anywhere from fifteen cents to fifty cents an hour. So
Speaker 2: imagine having to buy clothing, you know, on the yard
Speaker 2: with that money, which should be issued by the state.
Speaker 1: But and then with that amount of time, you know
Speaker 1: that that's just even more time in that crime school.
Speaker 2: Right, Okay, so you look at so we'll take you
Speaker 2: take county jail. Sure, so in county jail, depending on
Speaker 2: how many times you've been there, and you know, a
Speaker 2: lot of times, I mean, the statistics are unreal, how
Speaker 2: they a lot of these people will have mental illness. Okay,
Speaker 2: so a lot of times these the mentally ill and
Speaker 2: homeless are picked on all the time. So you might go,
Speaker 2: you might have gone to jail. I knew a guy
Speaker 2: who's like, yeah, I've been arrested thirty times last year,
Speaker 2: and you're just like, that is an unbelievable amount of
Speaker 2: times to be arrested. Really, oh yeah, and you know
Speaker 2: it might be just a turnaround. He might have something
Speaker 2: like paraphernalia, You'll have a pipe on him or something,
Speaker 2: or a trespassing, and so it's a revolt. So they
Speaker 2: get to clock every time they keep him into jail.
Speaker 2: And what happens is the guy might be nonviolent, he
Speaker 2: just might have a drug habit. So with his drug habit, though,
Speaker 2: he progressively gets a higher ranking because the more times
Speaker 2: he's been to prison. So you know there's times too,
Speaker 2: and if there's any violence, which nowadays, you know, if
Speaker 2: you have a domestic violence dispute, if you punch the wall,
Speaker 2: that's considered criminal damage. It's considered violent. So you might
Speaker 2: be in you know what I mean, you had a
Speaker 2: bad night with your wife, punched the wall, whatever, Well,
Speaker 2: you might be locked up with a murderer, a guy
Speaker 2: who like, yeah, I just shot two of my cousins
Speaker 2: right now, passed the bread and so wow yeah, and
Speaker 2: so you know it's like you look at this and
Speaker 2: because of myself, I've been to prison, you know what
Speaker 2: I mean, I've had violent crimes in the past. So
Speaker 2: now when I go in, I might go in for
Speaker 2: shoplifting and my bunkie might be a murderer to where
Speaker 2: I'm like, wait a minute, here, I'm here for you know,
Speaker 2: simple shoplifting, trespassing, whatever. This guy is looking at a
Speaker 2: hundred years you know, what's to say, He's not going
Speaker 2: to stomp on my head in the middle of the night. Sure,
Speaker 2: So you know, it's definitely one of those situations where
Speaker 2: you have a certain degree of anxiety in the pod
Speaker 2: as they call it, and then everything is run you know,
Speaker 2: is political. So when I say political, it's and it's
Speaker 2: something animated to do, you know. And I don't know
Speaker 2: if it all started out as you know, to protect,
Speaker 2: but everybody's kind of separated by race.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I know that.
Speaker 2: And I mean you'll even have guards that in turn
Speaker 2: will you know, talk to a certain race of people.
Speaker 2: So if you have a young kid who's being becoming problematic,
Speaker 2: they'll go to maybe his older the older guys in
Speaker 2: his race and be like, hey, talk to the youngster them. Man,
Speaker 2: he's willing out. And it keeps order to a certain extent,
Speaker 2: but at the same time, it keeps us all on
Speaker 2: edge at each other's throat. It's brown against black and
Speaker 2: black against white. And even there's Mexican nowals who are
Speaker 2: locked up in there, which you know, you didn't think,
Speaker 2: you wouldn't think there'd be a distinction, but there's actually
Speaker 2: high contention between Chicano's who live here and pissas as
Speaker 2: they call them from Mexico. So a lot of times
Speaker 2: since I've been locked up, I've seen those two go
Speaker 2: at it more so than the other races.
Speaker 1: So one of the things that I read is that
Speaker 1: half that's fifty of inmates return in the first two
Speaker 1: years of release. Oh yeah, and you mentioned something about,
Speaker 1: you know, the revolving door of I'm guessing this person
Speaker 1: might have been homeless. You said he had a drug
Speaker 1: habit or something, which, again, at least on this show,
Speaker 1: we are of the persuasion that drug use is indicative
Speaker 1: of a health issue, not of criminal activity, be it
Speaker 1: mental health or otherwise. You know, self medicating for whatever
Speaker 1: your ailment is, or even for recreation is not indicative
Speaker 1: of you're not harming anyone else or society by you
Speaker 1: know that, that's just the persuasion that we are of
Speaker 1: on this on this program. So you know, to hear
Speaker 1: that half of the inmates returned in two years or
Speaker 1: less suggests to me that prisons are not working as
Speaker 1: far as rehabilitating people. Because anything that you do where
Speaker 1: it only works half the time, that's that's not that's
Speaker 1: not a passing grade and anywhere, if you were to.
Speaker 2: Buy a product and it works half the time, would
Speaker 2: you not return it?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I wouldn't get on the airline where half the
Speaker 1: flights it uh And and so you know, so we'll
Speaker 1: go ahead and speak to like the drug problem.
Speaker 2: So where you look at other countries such as you know, Amsterdam, Portugal,
Speaker 2: a lot of these they come with it as you know,
Speaker 2: a compassion approach and have higher success rates of people,
Speaker 2: you know, getting off drugs. And then you look as
Speaker 2: far as a homeless situation. Number one reason for homelessness
Speaker 2: is there's usually like uh, you know, loss of family,
Speaker 2: so there's no loss of support system. So now to
Speaker 2: have that demographic of society be so criminalized, it's it's
Speaker 2: it's it's it's horrible. And I'll just running through a
Speaker 2: quick scenario of course. So you have a guy, he
Speaker 2: has a drug habit, He comes into a into a
Speaker 2: into a jail hasso environment. Nobody's happy to be nobody
Speaker 2: wants to be there. Let's say he's hurting. He's hurting
Speaker 2: really bad because the effects of you know, getting off
Speaker 2: of an opioid, you know, you actually feel physical pain.
Speaker 2: So now this person is at the mercy of those
Speaker 2: prisoners around him be victimized. Hey, we don't want to
Speaker 2: see him. I mean I've seen people, you know, they
Speaker 2: come in and they're throwing up, and the guy's gotten
Speaker 2: beat up because he's you know, throwing up, making a mess.
Speaker 2: So mind you in an environment horrible food, okay, I
Speaker 2: mean they give rice on Friday sometimes where you're like,
Speaker 2: everyone looks forward to it. The rest is you get
Speaker 2: that sloppy rule. It's it's really discussing. It doesn't even
Speaker 2: look like it's fit for human consumption. And now you're
Speaker 2: going to a courtroom full of people who don't look
Speaker 2: like you, who you know, they almost don't even understand
Speaker 2: a lot of the legalese atret speaking, and they pop
Speaker 2: aloi in front of you. Okay, hey, this is your
Speaker 2: public pretender as we call it, or your public defender.
Speaker 2: He's gonna get you the best deal you can get.
Speaker 2: So a lot of times guys will take deals, like
Speaker 2: you said, just to get out of that environment. So
Speaker 2: they came up with things because they were so I
Speaker 2: want to say it was back in maybe ninety seven
Speaker 2: ninety eight, they came up with something called Prop two hundred.
Speaker 2: This this is gonna be fun, all right. So Pop
Speaker 2: two hundred came up, and what it was, they sold
Speaker 2: it to the public because drugs wire affect everyone's families.
Speaker 2: So there was an outcry like, hey, you can't lock
Speaker 2: my little Johnny up, my sweet little you know, for
Speaker 2: drugs and give him hard time with those other animals.
Speaker 2: So he gave him a Prop two hundred. So it
Speaker 2: was kind of a diversion program. You went in if
Speaker 2: you basically did probation, and if you got tested for drugs,
Speaker 2: you know, they would keep you incarcerated for a little
Speaker 2: bit while. But it was basically they couldn't send you
Speaker 2: to prison on this drug because you had a drug problem.
Speaker 2: The problem with it was, so let's say Johnny had
Speaker 2: went in and he got caught with, you know, for
Speaker 2: personal use, you know it's methamphetamine. He would then let's say,
Speaker 2: they would have given him a sentence of one point
Speaker 2: five two point five. Well, the thing is is now
Speaker 2: with this Prop two hundred, Johnny has a problem that's
Speaker 2: not being addressed, and so he's coming in and out
Speaker 2: of prison and their oh, violation, here's thirty days, Ope, violation,
Speaker 2: here's sixty days. And then they're letting him write back
Speaker 2: out for him to go ahead and get high again.
Speaker 2: Well by the time he's done after so much time.
Speaker 2: There a people who have been on this prop two
Speaker 2: hundred for five years. They could have done the prison time,
Speaker 2: They would have done less time incarcerated if they had
Speaker 2: just taken the original one point five or a two
Speaker 2: point five. Because he spent so much time in and
Speaker 2: out of jail two months here, three months here, ninety
Speaker 2: days here, six months here, there's no way to keep
Speaker 2: any type of semblance of really, you can't keep a job,
Speaker 2: you can't hold an apartment. So this program that was
Speaker 2: made to help people to keep them out of prison
Speaker 2: actually cripple people, and in terms people like that who
Speaker 2: are coming in and out instead of addressing because there's
Speaker 2: no real rehab.
Speaker 1: That's what I was gonna have. Is there any So
Speaker 1: if a person comes in off of the street and
Speaker 1: they very clearly have a drug problem, or they're on drugs,
Speaker 1: or they're throwing up, as you say, well, first, let
Speaker 1: me say something. So Q and I we do a
Speaker 1: show called or we do an outreach. We've done it
Speaker 1: for about ten years now. It's called hashtag lunchbag. We
Speaker 1: feed homeless people in downtown Thames. So this is a
Speaker 1: population that we're familiar with. We go, we partner with CAST,
Speaker 1: the Central Arizona Shelter Services. We have a food pantry supplier,
Speaker 1: the Midwest Food Bank. We have lots of people that
Speaker 1: have supported these initiatives over the years, including this radio
Speaker 1: station and other media outlets as well, and of course
Speaker 1: we have a thousand plus volunteer base, so this is
Speaker 1: a well established outreach. This is the first time hearing,
Speaker 1: after ten years of working with this population that there's
Speaker 1: nothing for them if they end up in cost rebrating.
Speaker 1: I know that sometimes folks will disappear because the police
Speaker 1: will pick them up for whatever. But my assumption has
Speaker 1: always been that you know, if they're involved in you know,
Speaker 1: the criminal justice system that keeps them away from their
Speaker 1: habit long enough at least to get them clean or
Speaker 1: to there, they teach them something about like the harmful
Speaker 1: effects or anything like is there anything like that?
Speaker 2: So prison economics will go ahead. Well, you can also
Speaker 2: get into that at one point there's nothing in there.
Speaker 2: There's there's nothing on the streets that you can't get
Speaker 2: in prison. Just the way the prison economic system works
Speaker 2: out and they might tell you, Okay, well we run
Speaker 2: this program or we run this program for people. Those
Speaker 2: programs are a joke. They really give there's there's really
Speaker 2: no counseling. And the only people I've seen who've been
Speaker 2: successful usually do it on their own or decide to
Speaker 2: seek out religion. There's a lot of religious based programs
Speaker 2: that are excellent. I knew a guy he got himself clean.
Speaker 2: He decided to, you know, give his life over to Mormonism.
Speaker 1: OK.
Speaker 2: And they're very involved in there to where you know,
Speaker 2: they'll come visit you and things, but.
Speaker 1: As far as the state is concerned, programs are not.
Speaker 2: I've heard like sometimes they'll give you like they will
Speaker 2: give you some type of medication to kind of help out,
Speaker 2: like if you get the DTS if you have alcoholism.
Speaker 2: That's like you get the shakes when you drink, if
Speaker 2: you if you're an alcoholic, because you have a physical
Speaker 2: dependency on that at some point to where and but
Speaker 2: very very little, like I said, there's no and I've
Speaker 2: heard a of in her rumors that even that's gone.
Speaker 2: So sometimes they'll put you on you know, sometimes they'll
Speaker 2: give you like psychological meds to try to help with
Speaker 2: but some of those things. It just seems like like
Speaker 2: it's all like experimental drugs. It almost seems like.
Speaker 1: Well, let me let me posit this. If what you're
Speaker 1: saying to me is that everything that's available outside of
Speaker 1: the prison is still available on the inside of the prison.
Speaker 1: If you're saying to me that you know, there's no
Speaker 1: programs in there to really address the root of the issue.
Speaker 1: And I think that this is another point that a
Speaker 1: person can make that you know, prisons are not working
Speaker 1: or not, you know, I think the most telling statistic
Speaker 1: is still the fact that fifty percent of the folks
Speaker 1: are back in there after two years.
Speaker 2: Well, the racism rate is even higher than that, like
Speaker 2: just people who that's within the first two years though,
Speaker 2: it's like eighty five percent racism rate of people who
Speaker 2: actually end up not coming back to prison. And it's
Speaker 2: funny because you know, there's a saying like, once you
Speaker 2: have a number, they're all they're your hooks are in you.
Speaker 2: So if you get pulled over something that something you
Speaker 2: might be able to get away with or get let
Speaker 2: go of, which a misdemeanor, you know, you have a history,
Speaker 2: you have a they love it. Hey, you've got a
Speaker 2: historical prior. We're talking prison, do not pass go, you know,
Speaker 2: so it's not like to where you can get certain
Speaker 2: you know, you're just not you're not eligible for those programs.
Speaker 1: This is this is something that really speaks to I
Speaker 1: think the black experience. I'll speak for black males myself
Speaker 1: in particular. You know, my whole life, I've never drank alcohol,
Speaker 1: I've never done any drug. I've never done anything, you
Speaker 1: know like that because of my connection with you know,
Speaker 1: the police and those substances, right, and there's a lot
Speaker 1: of things I've never done because but it's very much
Speaker 1: shaped by police interactions with black men that I've seen
Speaker 1: in my lifetime. And again, I think it speaks to
Speaker 1: the fact that there's something in me that spoke to
Speaker 1: me at a young age that says, well, you know what,
Speaker 1: I can't be regular. I have to be better than
Speaker 1: regular in order to be good enough.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: And so I'm obviously not just for black and brown folks,
Speaker 1: but for anybody who's incarcerated. Once you're out, you have
Speaker 1: to be better than everyone in order to be good enough,
Speaker 1: because you know, so you can't afford to make any mistake,
Speaker 1: you know, you know, if you if you have a
Speaker 1: New Year's Eve party and you have a toaster champagne
Speaker 1: and you drive home. That could be another you know,
Speaker 1: potential years in time. I guess I never really thought
Speaker 1: about it in that way, but for me, I knew that,
Speaker 1: you know, for me, at least, blackness was enough. I
Speaker 1: don't want to ever have a reason for these people
Speaker 1: to say anything to me, and so I've always kind
Speaker 1: of kept, you know, everything clean. So's it's very interesting that,
Speaker 1: you know, that's the way that the prison system can
Speaker 1: change and shape outcomes, and I'd imagine it's obviously way
Speaker 1: worse for black and brown folks. And then the way
Speaker 1: they tell the story after they murder you, for you know,
Speaker 1: it's like, well he did one thing when he was fourteen,
Speaker 1: and you.
Speaker 2: Know, wait a bit, yeah, you know, you watch these
Speaker 2: these shows and they bring up well and he was seventeen.
Speaker 2: He's shoplifted and make you sound like you're a terrorist. Time.
Speaker 1: Well, if you're just tuning into siving side, bro, I'm
Speaker 1: your host Rams's job. Our guest today is Gonzo. He's
Speaker 1: talking to us about his time in prison. We're discussing
Speaker 1: whether or not prisons work, how effective they are. One
Speaker 1: of the most telling statistics that I've come across is that,
Speaker 1: and I'll say it exactly the way I have it,
Speaker 1: is that half of the inmates will return in within
Speaker 1: two years of their release. Now, we talked about if
Speaker 1: there are drug rehabilitation programs. I do recognize that the
Speaker 1: way this country looks at drugs like it's a criminal issue,
Speaker 1: not the whole country, because in Oregon, I know that
Speaker 1: they've recently changed the laws to where they started treating
Speaker 1: drugs like their health issues and not criminal issues, which
Speaker 1: I'm really excited to see how that program works. There's
Speaker 1: going to be some people who don't like it, but
Speaker 1: those people that don't like it are people that stand
Speaker 1: a profit from most people being in prison. Everyone else
Speaker 1: in terms of the ways Societe works, should be happy,
Speaker 1: you know, but because the effect of it should be
Speaker 1: that there's less crime, less things qualify for crime because
Speaker 1: they're not crime, and then more people get healthy when
Speaker 1: you know, we were able to realize that they have
Speaker 1: a problem. And then the neighboring state. I know they're
Speaker 1: two different places, but Seattle I was just there. I
Speaker 1: was just in both these places. Actually, in Seattle, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of homeless people there For some reason, I
Speaker 1: didn't know this, but man, they treat the homeless people
Speaker 1: like super cool. They're just like kind of they're you know,
Speaker 1: they're not they're they're just people. They just happen to
Speaker 1: be unsheltered, and so that's super cool.
Speaker 2: That's really expensive to live in.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess that might Yeah, that might be part
Speaker 1: of it as well. But yeah, the drug rehabilitation, if
Speaker 1: they give you some medicine to help you kind of
Speaker 1: wean you off of it, you know that that's that's okay.
Speaker 1: But in terms of like attacking the root of the problem,
Speaker 1: it doesn't seem like there's a whole lot that you've
Speaker 1: encountered that that's really takes place in the prisons. Now,
Speaker 1: what about folks where they very clearly have mental health issues.
Speaker 1: Do you know of any programs where you know, they
Speaker 1: are their doctors or there any anything like that that
Speaker 1: you've encountered.
Speaker 2: So, you know, so to get back kind of to
Speaker 2: to what we were talking about, as far as you know,
Speaker 2: the jails run like a business. So if I give
Speaker 2: you certain medication to keep you, you know, stabilized off
Speaker 2: of whatever drug you're coming down from, that comes out
Speaker 2: of my profit, so they try to wean you off
Speaker 2: of that as quickly as possible and if they can
Speaker 2: get something, you know, because there's FED the Feds A
Speaker 2: we look at all as the government, but you know
Speaker 2: there's a difference between the state and federal. So there
Speaker 2: are some programs that are supported by the FEDS with
Speaker 2: they'll put which is what's what they'll push. And this
Speaker 2: happens in prison a lot of times too, to where
Speaker 2: you know, they'll push a program and it's it's really
Speaker 2: just a joke. They do it to get the funding
Speaker 2: for it. You know. It's usually taught by you know,
Speaker 2: some counselor who's you know, ready to be retired, and
Speaker 2: they go through the bare minimums in order to qualify
Speaker 2: for the program. And now I know in jail a
Speaker 2: lot of times, you know you might have like AA,
Speaker 2: but see, everything in the jail is a security issue.
Speaker 2: So a lot of times those meetings that you were
Speaker 2: depending on to go to, well, you know there's security.
Speaker 2: We can't let you out. You can't go especially now
Speaker 2: with the COVID when they're short staffed. Oh we don't
Speaker 2: have anyone because they have to have a guard posted
Speaker 2: so that you can go ahead and go to those classes,
Speaker 2: so nothing overrides security there. So a lot of these
Speaker 2: programs that you think would go to help people, it don't.
Speaker 2: That's not happening at all, And there's all to me,
Speaker 2: I've always thought that there was an excuse to where
Speaker 2: what they do offer it just it's not enough to
Speaker 2: really help somebody who really even if the person we're
Speaker 2: serious about trying to change their life around, there's really
Speaker 2: no incentive for them to do it. They're just warehoused
Speaker 2: to where. Okay, well to rock this time down and
Speaker 2: play some dominoes and maybe play some ball and okay,
Speaker 2: my release date comes. Now.
Speaker 1: You said something earlier. You talked about a person coming
Speaker 1: in and he's throwing out and then the people beat
Speaker 1: him up because he's throwing out, and you said he
Speaker 1: was making a mess. Now I know that this goes
Speaker 1: without saying, but have you seen a lot in the
Speaker 1: way of violence in prison?
Speaker 2: Yeah, violence is a way of life in there, so it.
Speaker 1: Certainly okay, so talk about that a little bit.
Speaker 2: So you have to think you're in a small, encapsulated
Speaker 2: environment with no one who wants to be there. No
Speaker 2: one is getting happy news, you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: Every time they go to court. You know, some of
Speaker 2: these guys are looking at some really serious time. So
Speaker 2: you know, I know the way that we were broken
Speaker 2: up in races, certain races, that's how they handle They
Speaker 2: discipline in their people. So they just you get disciplined
Speaker 2: to where if you're out of line. Let's say, you know,
Speaker 2: guy's not taking a shower. You know that's unhygienic in
Speaker 2: that small area, so they beat the guy up. The
Speaker 2: guy might be on a power trip that day. And
Speaker 2: I've seen some really ugly things happen to where there's
Speaker 2: a certain rule set in prison, which I believe nowadays
Speaker 2: has been so watered down, and it gets manipulated because
Speaker 2: these are people. A lot of these guys are the criminals.
Speaker 2: All these guys are just the biggest poles you will
Speaker 2: ever run into, people you would never ever associate with,
Speaker 2: we say in real life, to where they see you know,
Speaker 2: they prey on the week. So you know, I've seen
Speaker 2: it to where a guy is okay, you get you
Speaker 2: know some money from the front, you know, commissary, well,
Speaker 2: people will be like, oh that guy's a snitch, like
Speaker 2: what So usually you have to produce paperwork, but you know,
Speaker 2: mob rules, Oh he's a snitch, so they beat him
Speaker 2: up and take his commisary. Now, if the guy decides, hey,
Speaker 2: I don't want to get beat up and goes and
Speaker 2: tells the guard that justifies se told J was a snitch.
Speaker 2: So it's just like you'll see things like that. So
Speaker 2: in order to survive, you have to fight. So it's
Speaker 2: a lot of times, you know, I've had to fight
Speaker 2: people just because it's like fight one, fight a thousand,
Speaker 2: you know, because you don't want to seem like an
Speaker 2: easy mark, because people will manipulate you and that people
Speaker 2: will take advantage.
Speaker 1: So I think that for someone you know, obviously, you know,
Speaker 1: prison has affected my family. It cost me time with you, right,
Speaker 1: and I recognize that it is a problem just because
Speaker 1: I mean, the reason that this very show exists is
Speaker 1: to give a voice to people who otherwise don't have
Speaker 1: a voice, especially in areas where one is necessary. And
Speaker 1: you know, for as far back as this country goes,
Speaker 1: this whole criminal justice system has been very unfair to
Speaker 1: black folks, especially brown folks as well, and it seems
Speaker 1: like nowadays it's unfair to everyone. It doesn't really seem
Speaker 1: like it's you know, working at all based on the
Speaker 1: numbers that we're looking at. But there is one thing
Speaker 1: that I came across, and I want to get your
Speaker 1: thoughts on it, because I have some thoughts on it
Speaker 1: as well. But there is a school of thought that
Speaker 1: says that mass incarceration over the past will call it
Speaker 1: thirty years in this country, thirty forty years, mass incarceration
Speaker 1: has led to a marked drop in violent crime. Do
Speaker 1: you have any thoughts on that?
Speaker 2: A lot of thoughts actually, So violent crime, if you
Speaker 2: look at just historically, it's going to have an ebb
Speaker 2: and flow. Nowadays, it's not as profitable to do violent
Speaker 2: crime because usually the reasons for doing crime, unless you're
Speaker 2: as sociopath, is to have financial gang. There's no reason
Speaker 2: to do Why nowadays would I put a gun in
Speaker 2: your face when I can just steal on a computer
Speaker 2: or a laptop and never have any interaction. So I
Speaker 2: think that's what's contributing to it more so than the
Speaker 2: whole Okay, well, we're incarcerating more people because those crimes.
Speaker 2: If you take the numbers of property crime and you
Speaker 2: take the numbers of white collar crime and compare that
Speaker 2: to the drop in violent crime, well you've just replaced
Speaker 2: one crime with another. Sure, So you know, and as
Speaker 2: a society we're moving away from violence to where it's
Speaker 2: frowned upon. I mean, think about it. When's the last
Speaker 2: time you saw a fight in the street to where
Speaker 2: I know growing up that was every other day. I
Speaker 2: think just as a society, we're changing. So I think
Speaker 2: that's a misleading statistic when they're like, well, look we're
Speaker 2: incarcerating more people, so violence is going down. I don't
Speaker 2: think that has anything to do with it whatsoever. Sure, Now,
Speaker 2: as far as the mass incarceration, I know a lot
Speaker 2: of people are getting rich. Yeah, you know, are getting
Speaker 2: rich off of this because it's this whole industry. I mean,
Speaker 2: you look at there's like the little podunk towns like Florence, Arizona,
Speaker 2: which is majority has a majority of prisons down there.
Speaker 2: Those tax dollars keep those that keeps that population working,
Speaker 2: and you know, those tax dollars that goes into that
Speaker 2: little city, you know, if you look at them, I
Speaker 2: think down there too, they think the tax rates a
Speaker 2: little bit higher. I think it's like twelve percent on
Speaker 2: sales tax.
Speaker 1: It's specifically for the prisons.
Speaker 2: Well, it's not spetificlar prisons. It's to keep the town going.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, so but those the majority of everyone in
Speaker 2: that town works in the prison. So in turn, you're
Speaker 2: just you know, you're reallocating money. So the state basically
Speaker 2: is paying these people to keep this town going.
Speaker 1: You know what blows my mind is that, you know,
Speaker 1: it almost behind every single curtain, not like behind two
Speaker 1: to three. Let's not levels like layers involved. It's just
Speaker 1: behind every curtain at almost every level of politics or anything,
Speaker 1: especially things that affect black folks, brown folks, poor folks,
Speaker 1: and young folks, there's a huge cash grab always and
Speaker 1: it's the wildest thing. And then and I'm not one
Speaker 1: of those people who's not not patriotic, right, I love
Speaker 1: this country same as anyone else.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: I get emotional when I see the flag at the
Speaker 1: end of the movie and all that I live here too,
Speaker 1: you know, I'll bleed to keep the stripes red.
Speaker 2: I love that.
Speaker 1: I love that. But this idea that people, some people
Speaker 1: have that this is the greatest country in the world
Speaker 1: and the history of the you know, and they're just
Speaker 1: it's it's like, you do you do we see the
Speaker 1: same thing that's happening here.
Speaker 2: I mean we're great at incarcerating people.
Speaker 1: That we're number one. Yeah, And I think I saw
Speaker 1: a listen not too long ago that said the things
Speaker 1: that the USA is actually number one, and it's all
Speaker 1: these terrible things and then all the things that you
Speaker 1: know are metrics that you would use to measure a
Speaker 1: society or actually, you know, we're pretty pretty near the bottom.
Speaker 1: We can't take care of people's health. You know, we
Speaker 1: obviously have you no issues with you know, people having
Speaker 1: safe lives on the street, and we're not addressing that
Speaker 1: in a proper way.
Speaker 2: You know, I've been I've been to you know, we've
Speaker 2: been fortunate enough to be be to a few places,
Speaker 2: and I've seen how it runs. And listen, this is
Speaker 2: a great country. Of course, it's just one of these
Speaker 2: things as far as you know, this incarceration thing, and
Speaker 2: it goes so deep, and it's like the public has
Speaker 2: been so fooled that I really think it's almost like
Speaker 2: we have to re educate the public on what's actually
Speaker 2: going on, because they'll give something and they'll sell it
Speaker 2: to the public in one way and the public will
Speaker 2: be like, hey, that sounds like like the prop two hundred, Hey,
Speaker 2: that sounds like a great idea, let's not send these
Speaker 2: young kids who have a drug problem to prison. But
Speaker 2: then when you actually look at the way the program
Speaker 2: is laid out and it's the way it's actually working out,
Speaker 2: it's it's it's it's it's horrible. Yeah, And I think
Speaker 2: the powers that be plan this, They they know what's
Speaker 2: going on.
Speaker 1: Oh listen, I'll tell you this. So I went to school.
Speaker 1: So my my bachelor's is in marketing. My master's is
Speaker 1: in management. I just say that because I.
Speaker 2: Can't wonderful thing.
Speaker 1: But so I went to school to learn marketing at
Speaker 1: Arizona State WP Kerry. So it wasn't It was a
Speaker 1: good school. And one of the things that we learned
Speaker 1: in school is that sex sells. But there's something that
Speaker 1: I learned when I got out of school, when I
Speaker 1: got became an adult, I was able to function in
Speaker 1: the real world where things really happen, and I realized
Speaker 1: there's something that sells easier, faster, and it's more readily
Speaker 1: available than even sex.
Speaker 2: Fear. Fear.
Speaker 1: That's it. If you can, if you can get these
Speaker 1: people afraid of something, man, you nailed it. I didn't
Speaker 1: know if you would have seen that coming. I should
Speaker 1: have known. I should have known better.
Speaker 2: Listen, people will make horrible decisions, I mean out of
Speaker 2: and and just even people who have been close to
Speaker 2: even with this COVID situation and some of the other things,
Speaker 2: they're just like, well, hey, you know what, I'll give
Speaker 2: up for civil liberties if it means I'm safe. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And that's just really I'm just like, Wow, it's it's
Speaker 2: you know, it's it's frightening, you know.
Speaker 1: There. I think it might have been uh uh, maybe
Speaker 1: Edward Snowden or one of those guys that you know,
Speaker 1: love him or hate him. He said something like you know,
Speaker 1: you know you're you're on he was He was talking
Speaker 1: about like your online privacy, you know, like the privacy
Speaker 1: of you know, your the contents of your telephone, the
Speaker 1: privacy of you know, everything. Why it's so important to
Speaker 1: keep that separate from the government and to people. A
Speaker 1: lot of folks says, well, you know, I got nothing
Speaker 1: to hide, so you know it's fine, let's grant the
Speaker 1: government access to to catch the bad guys or whatever.
Speaker 1: And this guy made a statement that I thought was
Speaker 1: so profound. He says something to the effect of well saying,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't need rights to my privacy because
Speaker 1: I have nothing to hide. Is akin to saying I
Speaker 1: don't need freedom of speech because I have nothing to say.
Speaker 1: And I thought that was such a profound statement that
Speaker 1: it really it stuck with me. But I do want
Speaker 1: to get back to what we were talking about, that
Speaker 1: argument that mass incarceration has led to, you know, a
Speaker 1: drop in violent crime. If I were to challenge that,
Speaker 1: you know, I've talked with some people, one person in particular,
Speaker 1: her name is Zara She. She works with Black Lives
Speaker 1: Matter Phoenix Metro in Arizona, where I live, where we live,
Speaker 1: and you know, she she made a great point, and
Speaker 1: you know, there's something that if you really think about it,
Speaker 1: it makes sense. You know a lot of the mass
Speaker 1: in car incarceration didn't come from violent criminals at all.
Speaker 1: There was no there wasn't that wasn't what it was.
Speaker 1: It came from this misguided war on drugs. And and uh,
Speaker 1: I don't know if many people know the name Brian Stevenson,
Speaker 1: but that's someone very much worth looking into. He runs
Speaker 1: an initiative called the Equal Justice Initiative. They actually did
Speaker 1: a movie about him and Michael B. Jordon is the
Speaker 1: stars in the movie. But I've known this guy and
Speaker 1: watched him for a very long time because he's kind
Speaker 1: of one of the heroes that I look up to. Anyway,
Speaker 1: you know, there's this misguided war on drugs that again
Speaker 1: affects communities where drugs were deliberately put into those communities
Speaker 1: by the very government that imposed the laws onto those communities.
Speaker 2: They're coming after issue, you know.
Speaker 1: And the thing is sometimes people will you know, hit
Speaker 1: me up online and they'll say things like, you know,
Speaker 1: you know, black people are just playing the victims or
Speaker 1: you know, those troll sorts of folks. You know, people
Speaker 1: are not taking responsibilities whatever, or they they have this
Speaker 1: sort of delusional view of the facts, you know. And
Speaker 1: you know, and I say that as often as it can,
Speaker 1: but the government is admitted to these things. The government
Speaker 1: has it will stand by, Yeah, we did that. These
Speaker 1: are things that we did, and this is what we're
Speaker 1: currently doing now, you know what I mean. These statistics
Speaker 1: are like it's on Google, like you can google it yourself,
Speaker 1: you know, And there's a to steal a phrase, this
Speaker 1: stunning silence, like everybody sees it happening, and there's there's
Speaker 1: nothing you know, and so in our own way. You know,
Speaker 1: I like to to talk about it, but yes, this
Speaker 1: misguided war on drugs that takes folks with an entrepreneurial
Speaker 1: spirit that might be met putting it kindly, I'll admit that.
Speaker 2: But I've heard this argument.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, but that might be me putting it kindly,
Speaker 1: but it's I think it rings true, you know, taking
Speaker 1: advantage of the resources that they have at their disposal.
Speaker 1: You know, I see where the money is, how the
Speaker 1: money's moving in the environment that I'm in. I recognize
Speaker 1: the pit falls, and I get out there and I
Speaker 1: play the game. Either I'm going to steal food or
Speaker 1: I'm going to hustle to make make enough money to
Speaker 1: have food. You know, people do a lot when they're
Speaker 1: hungry or when you know there's you know, I come
Speaker 1: from California, so the the gap between poor and rich
Speaker 1: is way bigger than in a lot of places because
Speaker 1: you know, on the same street where you have to
Speaker 1: drive to the grocery store, you have to drive to
Speaker 1: go get food, set whatever it is that you're doing.
Speaker 1: On that same street, you could drive and there's ferraris
Speaker 1: and rolls races using that same street, you know, and
Speaker 1: that will motivate you to do something eventually. And that's
Speaker 1: not to say that you know, people can't have nice
Speaker 1: things and that the poor won't always be with us,
Speaker 1: but I think that there's certainly something to be said about,
Speaker 1: you know, when the poor have really nothing and they're
Speaker 1: starving and they're scraping to get by, and the rich
Speaker 1: have way more than any human being could ever do
Speaker 1: anything within a lifetime I mean two or ten.
Speaker 2: I mean, we'd have to almost a whole another shit
Speaker 2: different just on like poverty, and you know, even the
Speaker 2: effects of the school system, of how schools are funded
Speaker 2: to where it's like a prison to a school a
Speaker 2: prison pipeline, and to what they're causing a lot of time.
Speaker 2: But you know, so so back to as far as
Speaker 2: you know, with the drop in violent crime, I just
Speaker 2: feel that's naturally where we're headed as a society, to
Speaker 2: where if there's something as you say, you know, like
Speaker 2: let's say this COVID and it was there's no jobs
Speaker 2: and there's nothing, I'll definitely will definitely see an uptick
Speaker 2: in violence. So I think just where we are society wise,
Speaker 2: the way crime is done. A lot of times, you know,
Speaker 2: crime is done like you said to to you know,
Speaker 2: obtain financial goods and violence just it's not the easiest
Speaker 2: way to do it now. And also taking into effect,
Speaker 2: it's funny because we would always say, like when we're
Speaker 2: in jail, you'll see someone who always and there's always
Speaker 2: that person who's never been had any encounter with the
Speaker 2: cops and now is coming to jail. And you know,
Speaker 2: I know my rights and this isn't right. I'm not
Speaker 2: supposed this is nots to have it, and like, welcome
Speaker 2: to the real world. That is, it doesn't work that
Speaker 2: way in the in the in the prison walls, does
Speaker 2: not work at all. And and and you'll see that,
Speaker 2: and it's you'll you'll see the difference in sentencing along
Speaker 2: racial racial lines. Yeah yeah, So I mean you'll look
Speaker 2: at so like you said, take violence. So if I
Speaker 2: go into a bank and I wave a gun around
Speaker 2: and say, hey, there's a robbery, and now that was
Speaker 2: becoming so prominent at one time that usually that was
Speaker 2: always a federal crime. Now sometimes if it's not enough,
Speaker 2: the person didn't get away with enough money or there's
Speaker 2: not enough you know, instances of them doing the bank robbery,
Speaker 2: they'll kick that to the state. So it's nothing to Okay, hey,
Speaker 2: I robbed a bank with a gun. Usually that would
Speaker 2: go federal. No, they'll let the state have it. So
Speaker 2: I've seen that to where you know, or someone who
Speaker 2: goes in and passes a note. Very very different sentencing
Speaker 2: guidelines when it comes to that now, because if you
Speaker 2: use a weapon during a crime, I mean you're looking
Speaker 2: at you can look anywhere from five to twelve to
Speaker 2: where if you just passed a note and rob the
Speaker 2: bank and you just you tell her, hey, I'm gonna
Speaker 2: blow this place up if he'll give me money. You know,
Speaker 2: I've seen people get away with you know, two and
Speaker 2: a half three, you know, I saw this one guy.
Speaker 2: It was funny, you know, all American, you know, blonde hair,
Speaker 2: blue eye guy. He had done a few banks where
Speaker 2: he robbed it with a note. So we're like, man,
Speaker 2: you're done, kid, you know what I mean, they got you. Well,
Speaker 2: his lawyer came in and they were offering three years.
Speaker 2: Lawyer's like, don't take that, sweetye. We're gonna go ahead
Speaker 2: and work that down for you. Like wait a minute,
Speaker 2: this guy robbed multiple banks, you know, and then you know,
Speaker 2: and then on the flip side, you know, who could
Speaker 2: say I've seen guys who go home invasion they're getting
Speaker 2: twelve years right off the gate, and.
Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, So I think you hit the nail
Speaker 1: on the head when you said that. You know, sentencing,
Speaker 1: the way sentencing is passed down is it's it's very
Speaker 1: I guess confusing is not the right word, but inconsistent.
Speaker 2: And that's the problem with the inconsistency of it all.
Speaker 2: And then that's the problem when you get mandatory minimums.
Speaker 2: You know, it's like, well does this qualify for this?
Speaker 2: And very to me, very very very racist. So they
Speaker 2: have this program. Now it's funny to where if you're
Speaker 2: a repeat offender, it's called you know, the repeat Offender program,
Speaker 2: but they label it rope so and it brings up
Speaker 2: you know, you're being lynched, like right, so when you
Speaker 2: go in there, So you go in and no, it
Speaker 2: is it's funny, it's so on the nose. You have
Speaker 2: to do it. So, you know, so go in, you
Speaker 2: go in with a procession of people and you sit
Speaker 2: in a jury box when you're incarcerated to address the judge.
Speaker 2: So your lawyers will come by and they'll talk to you.
Speaker 2: And then if you see the prosecution's desk and you
Speaker 2: see that pink fi and with your name on it.
Speaker 2: That means you've been roped. And you know, people make
Speaker 2: joke about it like, oh they rope like even that
Speaker 2: is really how it is, and they take pride in it.
Speaker 2: They think that's that's hilarious and not seeing that that's
Speaker 2: the most racist thing. And listen to sentencing guidelines if
Speaker 2: you're roped are almost double what it would normally be.
Speaker 2: So back, So I was telling you that it's only
Speaker 2: four Well now you're looking at seven point five nine. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, you know I've known guys stole video games,
Speaker 2: got sixteen years what a.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well I think that. So I want to say this.
Speaker 1: You know, I read a report about a prison that
Speaker 1: had a contract with the state. They're going to build
Speaker 1: this new prison and they need to have eighty five
Speaker 1: percent capacity, can't go below that or else, you know whatever,
Speaker 1: And so the state has promised that we're going to
Speaker 1: have eighty five percent of your prison filled up to
Speaker 1: this company that built the prison, right, And I think
Speaker 1: that to make a promise like that.
Speaker 2: It's so nasty, isn't it.
Speaker 1: Well, I think it's beyond nasty. It's I think it's
Speaker 1: what's the word I want to use. It flies in
Speaker 1: the face of what the state should be pursuing, which
Speaker 1: is the exact opposite. Right, we want this prison to
Speaker 1: be at most ten percent full, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: We don't want to have to use the prison. We
Speaker 1: want people to be free. We want there to be
Speaker 1: no crime. We want a society where there's no harm,
Speaker 1: everyone is harmonious, and things are equitable, and we really
Speaker 1: don't have to worry about this sort of thing. Obviously,
Speaker 1: crime is going to be with us in large complicated societies.
Speaker 1: But to promise anyone eighty five percent incarceration and I
Speaker 1: think that that sets into motion a chain of events actions,
Speaker 1: you know, and the right right with the sentencing and
Speaker 1: the police sing and you know, and neighborhoods that are
Speaker 1: overly policed, et cetera. And you know, at the end
Speaker 1: of the day, when we look at you know, I
Speaker 1: think just the the the repeat offender rate, you know, well,
Speaker 1: like I said, within two years, fifty percent of the
Speaker 1: folks will be back in the very prisons that they left.
Speaker 1: And I think that that speaks to the fact that
Speaker 1: there's not only corruption, there's not only backwards promises, you know,
Speaker 1: the states should have have a promise and an obligation
Speaker 1: to society, not to prisons, you know. And that goes
Speaker 1: from the governor in Arizona's name is Doug Deucy, all
Speaker 1: the way down to the people who are policing on
Speaker 1: the streets, you know. And all these people are civil servants.
Speaker 1: They have a commitment to society, to better society. And
Speaker 1: understanding that you're a part of a system that's corrupt
Speaker 1: doesn't exempt you participating in that corruption. You know, you
Speaker 1: have a moral obligation. The universe will get you eventually,
Speaker 1: you know. And so I think that when you take
Speaker 1: all of this stuff and you mix it together in
Speaker 1: the same pot, and you see that prisons are not working,
Speaker 1: it really, at least at the very least, should cause
Speaker 1: you to take a step back, pause and reflect on
Speaker 1: what exactly are we doing here. But we're out of
Speaker 1: time for this episode. So I want to thank you
Speaker 1: Gonzo for coming to hang out with me here on
Speaker 1: Civic Cipher today, and I want to invite all of
Speaker 1: the listeners of the show if you have any questions,
Speaker 1: any topics you want us to discuss, If you want
Speaker 1: to donate, we appreciate all the donations. The show is
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Speaker 1: and follow all of our social media at civic cipher
Speaker 1: and we'll see you next week, all right, Peace,