Speaker 1: I've never been to trouble of my life. I didn't
Speaker 1: even have a parking ticket, and you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: I was brought up like cops are the good guys.
Speaker 1: I didn't know what was going to happen, but I
Speaker 1: do know that everything was stacked against me. Everything like everything,
Speaker 1: this isn't supposed to happen this way. I'm innocent. I
Speaker 1: know I'm innocent. I know I had nothing to do
Speaker 1: with this. How is this possible? I grew up trusting
Speaker 1: the systems. I grew up believing that every human thing
Speaker 1: should do the right thing. And that's why, even though
Speaker 1: I was dealing with corros people, I wasn't going to
Speaker 1: brave anyone to get me out of prison because I
Speaker 1: wouldn't live with the fact that I braved my way
Speaker 1: out of my wife's death. I'm not innocent to proven guilty.
Speaker 1: I'm guilty until I proved my innocence. And that's absolutely
Speaker 1: what happened to me. Our system. Since I've been out
Speaker 1: ten years, it's coming little ways, but it's still broken,
Speaker 1: a totally little trust in humanity after what happened to me.
Speaker 1: This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to wrongful conviction. With
Speaker 1: Jason Flam that's me And today we have an extraordinary
Speaker 1: event happening here in the studio because my friend and
Speaker 1: Dobba Mandela is here to talk about criminal justice reform
Speaker 1: and Doaba welcome to the show. Thank you very much,
Speaker 1: appreciate it. And Doba you are I've not gotten to
Speaker 1: know you recently. You are a real throw back to
Speaker 1: your grandfather. I mean everything I've I've gotten to interact
Speaker 1: with you has been um well as the closest I'm
Speaker 1: going to get to meeting the great Man, and you
Speaker 1: were actually raised by him. So before we get into
Speaker 1: talking about criminal justice reform with I know is it
Speaker 1: is a passion of yours, senior blood. Um, can you
Speaker 1: just give us a little bit of the backstory because
Speaker 1: he's one of the most fascinating stories I know. Yes,
Speaker 1: So basically, I like to describe myself as the second
Speaker 1: son of the second son of Nelson Mandela. I come
Speaker 1: from the first marriage of Nelson Mandela, which is he
Speaker 1: was married to Evelyn Marse. A lot of people don't
Speaker 1: know that because they think his original wife was Willie Mandela,
Speaker 1: but that was actually the second wife. The first one
Speaker 1: is Evelyn and then they had four children. The first
Speaker 1: one UH died at six months. The second one was
Speaker 1: my uncle timber Killer. He passed away while my grandfather
Speaker 1: was still in jail. And then the third one was
Speaker 1: my uh father. So the first was a daughter, son's son, daughter,
Speaker 1: and my father gave birth to four boys, and I
Speaker 1: am the second son. And so when my grandfather came
Speaker 1: out of jail, he basically sent my parents to university
Speaker 1: because they never had the opportunity to go to university
Speaker 1: while he was aware and um, so when he sent
Speaker 1: them to university, he didn't want them to also worry
Speaker 1: about raising it at the same time. So he took
Speaker 1: me in when he sent my parents university. I was
Speaker 1: about eleven years old at that time. And so I
Speaker 1: you know, from the time I was eleven years old,
Speaker 1: I grew up in my grandfather. He raised me basically
Speaker 1: a real witness to history. I mean, you had you
Speaker 1: had the front seat for one of the most important,
Speaker 1: um periods of time that ever took place anywhere in
Speaker 1: the world in terms of the impact it had on
Speaker 1: global change and and civil rights and human rights and
Speaker 1: um just everything. It's uh, it's just a remarkable, remarkable
Speaker 1: story in so many ways. And of course you visited
Speaker 1: him in prison, is that right? Yes? I did, um,
Speaker 1: you know the first time. Actually when I visited in jail. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, my parents told me that we're going to
Speaker 1: visit our grandfather in jail, and so I had a
Speaker 1: typical image of what jail was like. Um, concrete bars, wardens,
Speaker 1: you know, dogs, security everywhere. But when we got there,
Speaker 1: it was a house, Um, a house that looked much
Speaker 1: better than the house I lived in, because I didn't
Speaker 1: understand that they had actually removed him from you know,
Speaker 1: the Robin Island and put him in isolation. They were
Speaker 1: trying to break him down mentally, to say, Madiba, you're
Speaker 1: an old man. Now denounced the movement of the liberation movement,
Speaker 1: denounce your comrades, denounce your party, and lived the rest
Speaker 1: of your life in this luxury and enjoy your family
Speaker 1: and your grandkids. But of course we know that that
Speaker 1: didn't work out. Right. So when we got there and
Speaker 1: it was a beautiful house. There was a swimming pool.
Speaker 1: I never had a swimming pool, right. We watched a
Speaker 1: never ending story. There was a chef who met the man,
Speaker 1: of course, and he was very warm and was so
Speaker 1: happy to meet every one of us, and so looking
Speaker 1: at that, I was like, wow, this is a beautiful house.
Speaker 1: You know, I would like to have a house like
Speaker 1: this one day. And so, you know, unlike most kids
Speaker 1: growing up thinking I want to be a lawyer, I
Speaker 1: want to be a doctor, I said when I grew up,
Speaker 1: I want to go to jail. Uh. That's what an
Speaker 1: interesting to he old, were you, um? I was ten? Yes,
Speaker 1: that's so that's logical at that age and should be
Speaker 1: probably what the reaction would be for somebody coming from
Speaker 1: this circumstance and seeing this as it was. So it's
Speaker 1: interesting because I've been to his jail cell on Robin Island,
Speaker 1: UM and I've seen obviously it's empty now, but I've
Speaker 1: taken the tour and it's a very profound experience to
Speaker 1: see what you know, he and his comrades went through.
Speaker 1: UM and anyone who's you know, even a casual student
Speaker 1: of the history UM, I recommend that they go when
Speaker 1: they get the chance, well to to South Africa for starters,
Speaker 1: but if you get a chance to visit Robin I
Speaker 1: and it's not an experience that anyone will ever forget.
Speaker 1: He was locked up for almost three decades, right seven years.
Speaker 1: And I'm interested in how that shaped your view and
Speaker 1: your priorities now because you know you well, probably of
Speaker 1: all the grandchildren, you were the closest to him, right
Speaker 1: because you were you were around him the most. He
Speaker 1: from what I understand, he took a particular interest in
Speaker 1: you and saw in you a future leader, um, which,
Speaker 1: of course, especially at his age, he would have been
Speaker 1: very driven to ensure that there's you know, a continuation
Speaker 1: of the movement that he built and of the progress
Speaker 1: that he made. Of course it's forwards and backwards and
Speaker 1: one step and two steps in the whole thing, and
Speaker 1: even in America now. But um so, how did his
Speaker 1: experience from your perspective, shape him, and how did it
Speaker 1: shape you? And what are your what are you used
Speaker 1: now on criminal justice reform in in Africa, in the world. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, I think to a large extent, because he
Speaker 1: sacrificed his own family, you know, for the freedom of
Speaker 1: his country. You know, he sacrificed what he had here
Speaker 1: for the larger good of the of the society. Um.
Speaker 1: It maybe it was a second chance for him to
Speaker 1: be a father, to play that fatherly role, you know, um,
Speaker 1: because he never had that opportunity. Um. And so you know,
Speaker 1: because he was a man that was a comrade when
Speaker 1: I was a soldier fighting against the system. You know,
Speaker 1: he made sure that he instilled certain values in me
Speaker 1: to become a leader. And you know, one thing he
Speaker 1: said to me, which I will never forget, is that, Debba,
Speaker 1: you are my grand some. Therefore people will look at
Speaker 1: you as a leader. Therefore you must get the best
Speaker 1: marks in class. And of course at that time, I
Speaker 1: was just another lesson. I was like granddad, who WHOA,
Speaker 1: that's too much pressure. I just want to get by.
Speaker 1: You know, I was a kid much like my grandfather, rebel,
Speaker 1: you know, sitting at the back of the class, very naughty,
Speaker 1: hardly did my homework, peace shooting, you know the girls,
Speaker 1: you know, that kind of thing. But of course, as
Speaker 1: you grow up, you know a lot a lot of
Speaker 1: the time, you you don't want to be treated as
Speaker 1: a special kid or a special someone. You just want
Speaker 1: to be a normal kid. And one of the things
Speaker 1: also Um you know, instilled with me was humility. It
Speaker 1: was very important to him. He said, you must never
Speaker 1: drive a Jaguar because people will know you have money.
Speaker 1: And as a as a leader, it's important that you
Speaker 1: are seen as one of the community. As part of
Speaker 1: the community, you understand, even if you have more money
Speaker 1: than them or have more access to them. But when
Speaker 1: you are socializing, there must not be any sort of
Speaker 1: sense that you are more important or you should be
Speaker 1: treated in any other different way. So for me, it's
Speaker 1: the same thing when you talk about the criminal justice
Speaker 1: system or any sort of justice system, is how do
Speaker 1: we treat people with the same equality, right, whether you're black,
Speaker 1: whether you write, whether you're male or female. Right, And
Speaker 1: the laws that we have, of course standing from a
Speaker 1: party segregation laws, similar to the gym crowd laws. Right,
Speaker 1: when you talk about people who are trying to pretty
Speaker 1: much just live on an equal footing, Right, that is
Speaker 1: really the struggle that were that were that they were
Speaker 1: fighting gainst. And that is the same struggle when you
Speaker 1: talk about the justice system, because the laws that apply
Speaker 1: to black people who are poor, who are marginalized are
Speaker 1: not the same as the laws that apply to white
Speaker 1: people who have access, who are wealthy or well off. Right. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, I was very inspired to be at the
Speaker 1: event last week in d C. The Criminal Um, the
Speaker 1: Center Southern Center for Human Rights. Then that's right, and
Speaker 1: it was the Frederick Douglas Awards ceremony, which, of course
Speaker 1: world of Frederick Douglas is one of the most powerful
Speaker 1: leaders evolutionists. Um. You know um, And for me, it's
Speaker 1: really about making sure that people have first of all
Speaker 1: education to understand what their rights are, right um, and
Speaker 1: be able once you understand rights, to be able to
Speaker 1: push right. You know, you have right for legal representation.
Speaker 1: You know you have the right to to express what
Speaker 1: it is. I'm not be afraid sort of speak right, um.
Speaker 1: And that's really for me the importance of how do
Speaker 1: we make sure that we live in a society where
Speaker 1: everybody is treated the same, regardless of your race or
Speaker 1: your sex. Yeah. That's a that's a dream, um that
Speaker 1: I think has been shared by all the great civil
Speaker 1: rights leaders. And I'm glad you brought up Frederick Douglas
Speaker 1: because I mean it was eighteen forty seven right when
Speaker 1: he started his abolitionist um newspaper, and he you know,
Speaker 1: the courage that he uh, and the two I forgot
Speaker 1: the names of the two people who started with him.
Speaker 1: One of them was a woman, um. But the I
Speaker 1: mean their lives were at risk every minute of every
Speaker 1: day as Mandela's was. And you know, there's a through
Speaker 1: line with all of this. I mean, it's so odd
Speaker 1: that we still have to have this conversation today, right,
Speaker 1: but we do. And and it's probably more, um, you know,
Speaker 1: more poignant at this moment than it would have been
Speaker 1: at almost any other time in recent history. Speaking as
Speaker 1: an American, of course, but there are these parallels. And
Speaker 1: in America, everyone knows you have the right to an attorney. Um,
Speaker 1: is it the same thing in Africa? And one thing
Speaker 1: I tell um my listeners as often as I can
Speaker 1: is if you are arrested for something you didn't do,
Speaker 1: or someone that you love is arrested for something you
Speaker 1: didn't do, all you're supposed to say, all you should
Speaker 1: say is this is my name, this is my address,
Speaker 1: and I want a lawyer, because at that point they
Speaker 1: have to stop in tarrogeting. You know, I don't know
Speaker 1: how it works in South Africa, but here people innocent
Speaker 1: people wave those rights because they don't think they have
Speaker 1: anything to hide, and they think, well, if I just cooperate,
Speaker 1: then I can go home. And they want to be
Speaker 1: helpful generally, right, people want to help the least. They
Speaker 1: want to be good citizens. They want to be. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's glad, it's a paradox. But how does it work
Speaker 1: in South Africa? I mean, ironically, I think we have
Speaker 1: a much higher incarceration rate than you do now, especially
Speaker 1: for people of color. But um, in South Africa is
Speaker 1: it a similar system? Are you entitled to an attorney?
Speaker 1: And if so, when and how does it? Yes, you
Speaker 1: are entitled to an attorney. Um, if you can afford on,
Speaker 1: the state will provide one for you, right, right, same thing, um.
Speaker 1: But of course, and a lot of the time, the
Speaker 1: or the view, right, the general view is that it's
Speaker 1: better to have money to pay an attorney because once
Speaker 1: you're able to pay an attorney, he does a better job. Right,
Speaker 1: generally speaking, that is the general view what people have.
Speaker 1: But what I've seen actually is that because you know,
Speaker 1: my own brother was involved in a criminal case. He
Speaker 1: was accused wrongfully of raping a young girl who was
Speaker 1: under the age, right, and you know it was very
Speaker 1: you can imagine rape is a very sensitive case, right,
Speaker 1: And my brother was acquitted because obviously he did not
Speaker 1: commit the rape. So it was some sort of a
Speaker 1: witch hunt that we didn't really understand where it came from. Um.
Speaker 1: But that said, Um, yes, everybody's afforded lawyer. Otherwise you
Speaker 1: go with the state lawyer. I have so many questions
Speaker 1: about how the system works in South Africa. One of
Speaker 1: them is the death penalty. Um, everyone knows that I'm
Speaker 1: a strong advocate of abolishing the death penalty. I don't
Speaker 1: think it serves any it doesn't serve any useful purpose.
Speaker 1: It's been proven in every study, doesn't deter one crime
Speaker 1: from happening ever, ever, ever, And it is barbaric, and
Speaker 1: it is arbitrary and capricious, and you know, it's it's
Speaker 1: I mean, everything about it is wrong. It's expensive, even
Speaker 1: if that's where you're coming from. It's um, you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's imperfect. Even in a perfect system, it
Speaker 1: would be imperfect. Right, it's inhumane. But also you know
Speaker 1: the conversation I have with people who are pro death penalty,
Speaker 1: I say to them, And I had this conversation recently.
Speaker 1: I was giving a talk at the New School and
Speaker 1: one guy came up afterwards and he said, well, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm in favor of the death penalty. And I said, okay,
Speaker 1: how many innocent people is it okay to execute? What percentage?
Speaker 1: And he says no, no, no, you can't execute inc
Speaker 1: I say, okay, But then you're talking out of both
Speaker 1: sides of your mouth, because we know the system is imperfect.
Speaker 1: You know the system is imperfect, even if everyone isn't
Speaker 1: is an honest actor in the system and doing the
Speaker 1: best job that they can and and and everything is
Speaker 1: moving through the way it's opposed to, which it doesn't
Speaker 1: and it can't and it never will. We can make
Speaker 1: it better, but we'll never make it perfect. You're still
Speaker 1: going to execute a certain presentative innocent people. So that's
Speaker 1: where it all breaks down. It should break down for everyone.
Speaker 1: But do you still have the death penalty? And the
Speaker 1: first thing one of the first things that our our
Speaker 1: our government did, the ANC led government, was to abolish
Speaker 1: the death penalty because we come from a system that
Speaker 1: was using violence as a means to to govern, we understand,
Speaker 1: So we had to make sure that we break the
Speaker 1: cycle of violence. You know, killing someone because someone killed
Speaker 1: somebody is not gonna like you just said, it's not
Speaker 1: gonna take us anywhere. You're just gonna continue perpetuating the
Speaker 1: cycle of violence. So where does it end? You understand
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. So that was a very key thing
Speaker 1: that we did in our country was to abolish the
Speaker 1: death the death penalty completely. And what about sentencing was
Speaker 1: in South Africa? How does because here, as you know,
Speaker 1: we have some of the harshest sentencing policies in the world.
Speaker 1: And it always boggles my mind, like why, why and
Speaker 1: how we got to this place. I understand it intellectually,
Speaker 1: but I don't understand it, um on any other level. Um,
Speaker 1: on a humanitarian level. It's insane. I mean, we just
Speaker 1: had a case actually this week where a gentleman in
Speaker 1: Tennessee had been convicted of his first time offense. He
Speaker 1: was selling I think a small quantity of drugs from
Speaker 1: inside of his own home to adults. Right. There was
Speaker 1: no no violence, no threat of nothing else. Right, But
Speaker 1: it turned out he was in the school zone, right,
Speaker 1: but he was inside of his own house. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: nothing like that. And he was sentenced to seventeen years
Speaker 1: in prison. So he Yeah, so he was just free
Speaker 1: this week actually with the cooperation of the prosecutor, which
Speaker 1: is so um, you know, such a a nice thing
Speaker 1: to see. We don't see it often enough. But he
Speaker 1: still served ten years in prison. I mean, we're so
Speaker 1: out of step that's like murder, right, he was treated
Speaker 1: as a murderer. And so how do you deal with
Speaker 1: that in South Africa? Do you how what about the
Speaker 1: drug laws is it? Do you treat it the same
Speaker 1: way that we do so harshly? Um? I don't think
Speaker 1: they treated so harshly. UM in s Africa, of course,
Speaker 1: I think which was the same. Here would be the
Speaker 1: mitigating factors as to how you put the sentencing. You know,
Speaker 1: is the person remorseful, do they understand the detrimental effect
Speaker 1: that they have on society? Um? And what what are
Speaker 1: the mitigating factors? You know, you can't just say, oh,
Speaker 1: you were selling cocaine, therefore your automatically get fifteen years.
Speaker 1: What was your first time offender, second time offender, time offender? Um?
Speaker 1: So you have to really look at all the different
Speaker 1: mitigating factors to actually come up with the right sentencing.
Speaker 1: And in South Africa, I would say it's pretty fair
Speaker 1: because you know, looking at you know, when we achieved independence,
Speaker 1: they were even before ninties, before we had the Truth
Speaker 1: and Reconciation Commission right where we basically gave amnesty two
Speaker 1: perpetrators of violence against the the victims if they were
Speaker 1: coming to the table to discloss everything that had happened.
Speaker 1: So if you come up and you say exactly what happened,
Speaker 1: be very honest, who are you with, what made you
Speaker 1: do it? Etcetera, etcetera, and you would be literally sitting
Speaker 1: in front of the victims of those people that you
Speaker 1: you perpetrated against. They would give you amnesty. So for us,
Speaker 1: I think personally that the system in sol Afrika are
Speaker 1: currently is not as harsh as that of America. For example,
Speaker 1: you know, we met a gentleman last week at the
Speaker 1: event UM. I forgot his name now, but that gentleman.
Speaker 1: You know what struck me was that he received twenty
Speaker 1: three years, which is the equivalent of two life sentences
Speaker 1: for stealing goods of five and fifty dollars the first
Speaker 1: time offender, a man with the college degree and the
Speaker 1: navy veteran. As we would never happen in Africa. That
Speaker 1: would not happen in stuff that is absurd, that is insane. Yes,
Speaker 1: and so we're talking about Lenny Singleton who was convicted
Speaker 1: of a series of what we call dash and grab robberies.
Speaker 1: Right where he went in um and he pretended he
Speaker 1: stuck he had his finger in his pocket. He pretended
Speaker 1: to have a weapon, right, so technically that's considered our
Speaker 1: robbery in America. But he never heard anybody, never touched anybody.
Speaker 1: He just grabbed the money from the cash register and
Speaker 1: he didn't have a weapon, pretended he didn't have a
Speaker 1: Nobody argued at that point, and he can fessed, you know,
Speaker 1: so he he was so in your you know, in
Speaker 1: your system, which anyway, it's so crazy, and here with drugs,
Speaker 1: it's it's absolute madness because you know, years ago, I
Speaker 1: did a presentation for the Democratic Policy Committee in the
Speaker 1: United States Senate, and I brought with me. One of
Speaker 1: the people I brought with me was Federal Judge Castillo,
Speaker 1: who was the chairman vice chairman of the US Sentence
Speaker 1: and Commission, and he talked about how he he was
Speaker 1: given this most um profound responsibility, which is to sentence
Speaker 1: another human being to prison, and then the Congress took
Speaker 1: all that power away from him because they established these
Speaker 1: mandatory sentencing laws which we have here now, so that
Speaker 1: if someone gets picked up with drugs, they just look
Speaker 1: at the chart, here's how much drugs it was, here's
Speaker 1: the thing, and then you get that much time and
Speaker 1: the judge has no power to judge. The jury says
Speaker 1: guilty and off you go, according to the chart. But
Speaker 1: in almost all other types of crimes when there's no
Speaker 1: mandatory sentence involved, they look at the other factors as
Speaker 1: they do in South Africa, right, and they say, well,
Speaker 1: your childhood was this, or you were there, or you're
Speaker 1: disabled in such way, or you have an experience of this,
Speaker 1: or you're positive contributed positively to society in certain ways,
Speaker 1: and those things are mitigating factors and go into the
Speaker 1: sentence that the judge and decides on. So judges, of
Speaker 1: course hate these mandatory sentencing laws because they can't do
Speaker 1: their jobs. So there's you know, I've been on the
Speaker 1: board of Families Against Mandatory Minimums for twenty five years
Speaker 1: now f a MM dot org. I hope people will
Speaker 1: go and look because they're doing the most important work
Speaker 1: in eliminating these crazy sentencing draconian sentencing policies that sent
Speaker 1: that send people to prison for these horrendous amounts of
Speaker 1: time for non violent first offenses. It's it's just nuts,
Speaker 1: and I don't know why we do that to our
Speaker 1: own citizens. Every one of these people is a is
Speaker 1: a child of someone, a brother or sister, a mother.
Speaker 1: You know. They it's like you're ripping these communities apart.
Speaker 1: And of course it affects people of color disproportionately. That
Speaker 1: goes without saying, and I'm assuming that's probably still true
Speaker 1: in South Africa even to this day. You know, well,
Speaker 1: of course, I mean the dynamics a little bit different
Speaker 1: because in South Africa eighties seven percent of the population
Speaker 1: as black are the natives as they used to call us,
Speaker 1: and of the other way people. Um. One thing, um
Speaker 1: that I always wonder about, um, is that you know,
Speaker 1: in in South Africa, being a cop is not such
Speaker 1: a beneficial job as I see in America, right. I
Speaker 1: see in America that the cops are very well looked
Speaker 1: after by the by the by the system. But in
Speaker 1: South Africa, it's very easy to bribe a coup. Um,
Speaker 1: it's very easy to brab a cop. You don't have
Speaker 1: to have a lot of money. You can literally brab
Speaker 1: a coup with equivalent of ten dollars, you know, to
Speaker 1: get away with drinking under the influence, for example. You know,
Speaker 1: that's how easy it is. And that's that's generally the
Speaker 1: the the thing across the continent of Africa. But I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't see that happening here in America. I see
Speaker 1: the cops really, you know, being hardcore. I think my
Speaker 1: perception in a way to bribe a coup for do
Speaker 1: you are, you'd have to pay him like a thousand
Speaker 1: or five thousand dollars something like that, right, And of
Speaker 1: course it's another crime. If you try to bribe a
Speaker 1: law enforcement official, they can add to the charges, you know,
Speaker 1: if they you know, and so and here, I think
Speaker 1: you're right. It doesn't happen often. And I'm one of
Speaker 1: these people who I say, um, you know that I
Speaker 1: believe been a system of laws. Um. I want to
Speaker 1: make it better, I want to make it fairer um.
Speaker 1: But I recognized that most of the people in the
Speaker 1: system are people who mean to do well. Um. There.
Speaker 1: They took these jobs because they wanted to protect society. Um.
Speaker 1: And uh, you know that holds true for the judges
Speaker 1: and many of the prosecutors as well. There are some
Speaker 1: bad ones, though, and the bad ones, if you have
Speaker 1: a misfortune to run across one of those, your life
Speaker 1: can be turned upside down in an instant. And we
Speaker 1: know too many of those stories. Um. And it's it's
Speaker 1: really well Lenny Singleton was one, and of course you
Speaker 1: met John Huffington when you were there as well, who's
Speaker 1: been on this show. So it's sort of thirty two
Speaker 1: years on death row for murders to murders that they
Speaker 1: knew he didn't commit. And uh, you know, he's an amazing,
Speaker 1: amazing guy. He had that great saying right when he
Speaker 1: when somebody we were talking to him and somebody said,
Speaker 1: aren't you better and he says, no, man, he goes,
Speaker 1: that's why the rearview mirrors small and the windshield is big.
Speaker 1: And I was like, oh, man, I love that. He
Speaker 1: must have read some of your grandpa's books something, because
Speaker 1: you know that's that's channeling that spirit, right. So if
Speaker 1: you could wave a magic wand and you know, obviously
Speaker 1: there's so much going on in South Africa beyond the
Speaker 1: criminal justice system. You know, we're here with the guys
Speaker 1: from bet Paw, who is an organization that's devoted to
Speaker 1: trying to save the rhinos and the elephants, because you know,
Speaker 1: you're facing an existential crisis there with the possible extinction
Speaker 1: within a decade of the most iconic animals in the
Speaker 1: world and what that will mean. Um in so many
Speaker 1: it's there's so many terrible consequences of that, right, I
Speaker 1: mean it hurts, it hurts my heart. But also with
Speaker 1: tourism and everything else. So there's a lot of issues
Speaker 1: that you're dealing with. And I know you're very active
Speaker 1: in you know, in the affairs of the country, and
Speaker 1: you love your country. I'm looking forward to visiting you
Speaker 1: over there. Uh huh. And um. But if you could
Speaker 1: wave a magic wand at the at the criminal justice
Speaker 1: system and make it, you know, remake it in in
Speaker 1: a way that was more consistent with your own values vision,
Speaker 1: if it was you know, again drawing from the lessons
Speaker 1: of you know, your grandfather, the great hero. Um, what
Speaker 1: would it look like and what would you do? Because
Speaker 1: maybe you'll have the opportunity, I hope so m hm,
Speaker 1: you know they are for me. What I've learned is
Speaker 1: that you know, people will commit crime. There are true
Speaker 1: reasons why people commit crime. One as poverty, true is
Speaker 1: purely criminal element, right, trying to cook the system. So
Speaker 1: as much as you want to do with the criminal
Speaker 1: justice system, you have to look at the fact that's
Speaker 1: why people commit crimes, right, It's poverty. And then you
Speaker 1: have gangsterism, which is just pure criminal element. So for me,
Speaker 1: at large, part of that is the poverty. You know,
Speaker 1: if you're able, My one would be to make sure
Speaker 1: that people have education, would get rid of poverty, because
Speaker 1: once you get rid of poverty and people have education,
Speaker 1: half the people who are in jail will not be
Speaker 1: in jail, if not more. If not more. So let
Speaker 1: us deal with the fundamental issue at hand, that is
Speaker 1: the fundamental issueth That's why I would weave my one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, that's that's addressing it at the cause right, um,
Speaker 1: as opposed to the effect UM. And I think we
Speaker 1: have to deal with I call it prevention and cure.
Speaker 1: I mean, we have to deal with these problems on
Speaker 1: every level. Um. Ironically, it is a cycle, right because
Speaker 1: we know that in America, the sociologists that have studied
Speaker 1: this issue have come to the conclusion, which is probably
Speaker 1: not a shock, that the number one determining factor of
Speaker 1: whether a child will end up in prison eventually is
Speaker 1: whether they've had a parent in prison. And so we
Speaker 1: have to break that cycle, and we have to attack
Speaker 1: it on both fronts. We have to reverse mass incarceration
Speaker 1: and let these people out who are not any threat
Speaker 1: to society. We have to hear reform the bail system.
Speaker 1: I'm curious to know how that works in South Africa
Speaker 1: as well. That's the next thing I want to talk
Speaker 1: to you about. And we have to get rid of
Speaker 1: these mandatory sensing laws. I locked these people up with
Speaker 1: these insane periods of time. You know the great Brian Stevenson.
Speaker 1: Have you met Brian. You'll you'll you You'll have the
Speaker 1: privilege at some point and he'll have the privilege of
Speaker 1: meeting you. I hope. So. Brian Stevenson is a great
Speaker 1: hero of mine, and he has a wonderful expression where
Speaker 1: he says, I believe everyone is better than the worst
Speaker 1: thing they've ever done. And I think, yeah, we have
Speaker 1: to start looking at these people as people and not
Speaker 1: numbers and not statistics, and not inmates and not you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is it's the it's the new Gym Crowe, right,
Speaker 1: It's the modern version of slavery. And you know, I
Speaker 1: don't know if you know this, but in America, when
Speaker 1: slavery was abolished, it was only abolished for free people,
Speaker 1: so they never changed that. So it's still legal if
Speaker 1: you're in custody of the state. So it's an economic
Speaker 1: engine right right, which feeds the rich people at the
Speaker 1: expense of the poor. And and and then we end
Speaker 1: up in this vicious cycle, like I said, which takes
Speaker 1: us right back to you know, the impact that it
Speaker 1: has on the families and in the communities of these
Speaker 1: people who are again mostly people of color, who are
Speaker 1: being taken away from that because of transgressions that there.
Speaker 1: Um And I consider myself one of the lucky ones
Speaker 1: because I grew up in a you know, in an
Speaker 1: upper middle class environment where I was not subjected to
Speaker 1: the same type of treatment. So, um so what about
Speaker 1: That's one topic I do want to cover is bail.
Speaker 1: How does it work in South Africa? Because here we
Speaker 1: have a crazy system where if you're arrested and you're
Speaker 1: charged with shoplifting or jumping a turnstyle or drinking a
Speaker 1: beer in public, whatever it might be, they all might
Speaker 1: be set at two d and fifty dollars or a
Speaker 1: thousand dollars or whatever. It is small amount, but if
Speaker 1: you don't have that money, you're just staying in jail
Speaker 1: until your trial that could be weeks or months or
Speaker 1: even years. And what we should be doing, of course,
Speaker 1: they is sending people home to their family, to their job,
Speaker 1: to their church, whatever they're doing, and then come back
Speaker 1: and here's your date to come back, and we'll see
Speaker 1: you in court and then we figure this out and
Speaker 1: that's it. But that's not the way it works here.
Speaker 1: We have almost a half a million people in jail
Speaker 1: in America while we're sitting here, just because they're too
Speaker 1: poor to post their own bail. So we have two
Speaker 1: separate systems of justice here, one if you're rich and
Speaker 1: one if you're poor. That's a violation of the sixth
Speaker 1: Amendment in the fourteenth Amendment, but we're not going to
Speaker 1: get into that now. Is not a constitutional law class. However,
Speaker 1: how does it work in South Africa? Do you have
Speaker 1: a similar arrangement. It's pretty much the same. It's pretty
Speaker 1: much the same. But in my experience and my knowledge,
Speaker 1: bail is never really set that high. Um. Generally people
Speaker 1: can afford bail um, but of course you are. You
Speaker 1: do have poor people who cannot afford, who cannot afford
Speaker 1: it um. And it's it's terrible because now you're in jail,
Speaker 1: you know, you get fired from your job, so you
Speaker 1: don't even have a means to pay for that bail.
Speaker 1: You know, if you're able to continue your job, you know,
Speaker 1: because it should be innocent until proven guilty. But the
Speaker 1: minute you are accused, for example, of rape, most people
Speaker 1: automatically assume that you are guilty. You know. And I
Speaker 1: have a personal experience to this, because my younger brother
Speaker 1: was actually accused of rape. Now, the minute you're accused
Speaker 1: of rape, and we know this, it's one of the
Speaker 1: most sensitive crimes is the minute you're accused of rape,
Speaker 1: most people ultimately assume that you're guilty or will side
Speaker 1: with the female without knowing any you know, information about
Speaker 1: how it took place, where it took place, any information whatsoever.
Speaker 1: Just because you're accused of rape, he must be built
Speaker 1: in why would the woman accuse him, you know, out
Speaker 1: of nowhere for rape? You know. But they don't even
Speaker 1: know what the situation. They don't even know the relationship
Speaker 1: of these people, right, And that's one of the worst
Speaker 1: sort of crimes out there, right, to be honest, it's
Speaker 1: one of the worst. So, yeah, bail is pretty much
Speaker 1: worth the same, right And and here it's supposed to
Speaker 1: be said according to your ability to pay, but it's
Speaker 1: not done in that manner typically Here it's just sort
Speaker 1: of done almost by it's almost like it's done by
Speaker 1: a machine. It's just sort of here's the thing. They
Speaker 1: just draw a line and accused of shoplifting. It's going
Speaker 1: to be because there's too many people going through the system.
Speaker 1: It's overloaded, and so they just some of them. You
Speaker 1: don't you don't ever see a lawyer, you don't get
Speaker 1: any You may even be doing it on a video screen.
Speaker 1: They may do it in a group. Um. People aren't
Speaker 1: aware of this until they get caught in it. But man,
Speaker 1: once you get caught in it just gets worse and
Speaker 1: worse than It's exactly as you describe, because then your
Speaker 1: your life gets significantly worse because most of these people,
Speaker 1: if they can't afford bail, it's because they're living paycheck
Speaker 1: to paycheck. And now your job is going going away,
Speaker 1: your apartment, you're gonna lose that if you have one,
Speaker 1: you could lose custody of your kids. It's just a terrible,
Speaker 1: terrible downward spirals that you get into and only because
Speaker 1: you're poor, and that doesn't make any logical sense whatsoever.
Speaker 1: And it's another one of these things. If I had
Speaker 1: a magic one, that would be one of the first
Speaker 1: things that I would fix that in our system of
Speaker 1: pearl and probation and all this other stuff. Um, how
Speaker 1: about the jail conditions, because in it's such an odd thing.
Speaker 1: You know. Now we have groups of people going from
Speaker 1: the United States to visit prisons in Western Europe. In
Speaker 1: some of the countries in Western Europe, like Germany, the
Speaker 1: prisons are designed for the purpose of rehabilitation and their
Speaker 1: prisoners are treated humanly, it's with respect. The same is
Speaker 1: true in Scandinavia, where they're treated um, you know, in
Speaker 1: a way where it's basically a philosophy of hey, you
Speaker 1: guys are gonna come out one day, You're going to
Speaker 1: be my next door neighbors. That's how the guards approach it.
Speaker 1: The guards have to study for two years, they have
Speaker 1: to get degrees in psychology. It's amazing, right, um. And
Speaker 1: as a result, those countries have much lower recidivism rates
Speaker 1: than we do. They're allowed out for um, furloughs and
Speaker 1: things like that to go work, and even before their
Speaker 1: release they go out to look for jobs and things
Speaker 1: like that. I mean. So the good news is we
Speaker 1: now have delegations from our corrections uh system institutions. Uh.
Speaker 1: Some political leaders going and visiting and seeing how it
Speaker 1: can be done. There's there's some movement. We have a
Speaker 1: long way to go, but basically our system here is
Speaker 1: designed for punishment, not rehabilitation. And some of the conditions
Speaker 1: and the jails and prisons are absolutely brutal. Um. Same
Speaker 1: in South Africa. I mean, you used to be able
Speaker 1: to get a degree in jail. You can't. You can't anymore.
Speaker 1: Um that that that has been taken away completely. Um.
Speaker 1: There's so much overcrowding and sales. You know, you get
Speaker 1: a room like we're in right now with easily twenty
Speaker 1: people living in a cell like this. UM. I mean
Speaker 1: I don't know about here, but the the amount of
Speaker 1: rape that occurs inside the inside the prisoners heavy. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, there's gangs obviously in prison and there's one
Speaker 1: of the gangs in South Africa that actually specialize in
Speaker 1: violence and systematically you know, raping and still in fear
Speaker 1: in other prisoners. Um. There's also the amount of corruption
Speaker 1: because of poverty. You know, prisoners are able to bribe
Speaker 1: the wardens to the point where if a adolescent, right juvenile,
Speaker 1: you can pay the warden to say, hey, I want
Speaker 1: that young boy to come to myself tonight and they
Speaker 1: can have his way have his way. Um, I'll tell
Speaker 1: you about one of them. I studied criminology and there
Speaker 1: was a gentleman I forgot his name now, but he
Speaker 1: had such a crazy story. He was actually a general
Speaker 1: right in the in the in the prison, so he
Speaker 1: was one of the most ruthless shared persons. He even
Speaker 1: had a way of how to attack and kill somebody
Speaker 1: that he had to kill, you know, he used he
Speaker 1: used the penny chopping the pen. He'd go for the neck,
Speaker 1: go for the eye, you know. But one day, he said,
Speaker 1: when everything switched for him, is that when he witnessed
Speaker 1: a young boy hardly sixteen years old, got getting raped
Speaker 1: by about ten guys. And I was on the floor, bleeding, crying,
Speaker 1: just completely en shambles. And he sawed his kid and
Speaker 1: he said to the kid, do something for yourself. And
Speaker 1: the kids said, I can't see, I can't feel. What
Speaker 1: can I do? And that touched them so deeply that
Speaker 1: he actually decided that he's gonna change from becoming a
Speaker 1: general and actually exposed the corruption that was happening in jail.
Speaker 1: And so he spoke to people outside the jail. He
Speaker 1: smuggled in cameras into the jail right and exposed the rape,
Speaker 1: exposed the criminal activities that the wardens were actually getting
Speaker 1: involved in, to the point where he even got a
Speaker 1: pardon from the from the president of our country. And
Speaker 1: he ended up marrying his lawyer, which was a white
Speaker 1: woman and he was a black guy, because of what
Speaker 1: he had witnessed of this sort of gang rape of
Speaker 1: this young boy that had come into into the into
Speaker 1: the cells, you know. Um, So the conditions are horrific.
Speaker 1: The conditions are disturbing, to be honest with you. Um,
Speaker 1: when I visited my you know, in jail cigarette our currency,
Speaker 1: cigarettes are currency, um, people smuggling anything and everything, as
Speaker 1: you can imagine, right, Um. But more so it's the
Speaker 1: corruption of the actual system because the wardens themselves part
Speaker 1: of that corruption system that has been entrenched over decades,
Speaker 1: do you understand over decades. So basically, with money, you
Speaker 1: can do anything you want to do. If you have money,
Speaker 1: you can live like you're living in the normal apartment
Speaker 1: in mid Tom Manhanan pretty much. And if you don't,
Speaker 1: you're living in hell, literal hell. I mean, the way
Speaker 1: you described it can't be much worse than that. That's it.
Speaker 1: And in fact, we had an amazing guy hero of mine,
Speaker 1: people who go from Kenya, was on the show and
Speaker 1: he had been wrongfully convicted intends to death, and he
Speaker 1: was describing a similar situation to what you said, where
Speaker 1: he was in a small cell with thirteen other guy
Speaker 1: eyes and he said that in order for them to sleep,
Speaker 1: they would all have to lay on one side facing
Speaker 1: the same way, and like Sardine's in a cann they
Speaker 1: would have to roll over at the same time. And
Speaker 1: you know that. It's just yeah, I mean, it's so
Speaker 1: crazy and his story is amazing. You'll I'll show you
Speaker 1: the podcast that Peluko is on and now he's about
Speaker 1: Vergion becoming a lawyer and he's just i think just
Speaker 1: joined some one of the boards of Amnesty. I mean
Speaker 1: he's doing amazing, amazing things and helping the youth over there.
Speaker 1: What a great guy. So anyway, we have a tradition
Speaker 1: here onun wrongful conviction which I'm going to share with
Speaker 1: you now, and it's actually my favorite part of the show.
Speaker 1: Probably a lot of people in the audience would agree.
Speaker 1: But anyway, this is the part of the show where
Speaker 1: our featured are honored. Guest gets the free reign of
Speaker 1: the microphone. I UM, what I do is I give
Speaker 1: you my thanks, and thank the audience and our producers
Speaker 1: as well for being here and sharing your thoughts and
Speaker 1: your wisdom, and thank everyone for listening. And now for
Speaker 1: the last part of the show, I just like to
Speaker 1: turn it over to you for any closing thoughts you
Speaker 1: have on anything at all. You know what I can say,
Speaker 1: In the words of Nelson Mandela, education is the most
Speaker 1: powerful weapon you can use to change your world. And
Speaker 1: that's why it's important for us to make sure that
Speaker 1: young people have access to information, of access to education,
Speaker 1: so that they can understand that they are the masters
Speaker 1: of their destiny. We need to make sure that we're
Speaker 1: empower as many young people as we can. We need
Speaker 1: to become mentors in our society. Go on other days
Speaker 1: where your judges, your lawyers of doctors are the most
Speaker 1: influential people on society. These days, it's your musicians, it
Speaker 1: is your actors, you entertain us who are the most
Speaker 1: influential people on the young people right, And those people
Speaker 1: are not always cognizant of the influence and the sort
Speaker 1: of role model position that they hold in society, and
Speaker 1: so they don't actually take it to consideration right, and
Speaker 1: they may be careless with it. So I would like
Speaker 1: to say that each and every single one of us
Speaker 1: has the opportunity to mentor a young person, to make
Speaker 1: sure that young person can deal with whatever challenges that
Speaker 1: they face, even if it is just helping that young
Speaker 1: person with doing their homework, finding out how they dare
Speaker 1: was finding out how they weak was what you can
Speaker 1: help them with. You know, there are so many young
Speaker 1: people out there who his parents are in jail, who
Speaker 1: would grow up without a father, without a mother, you know,
Speaker 1: who don't value themselves in society and they become easy
Speaker 1: prey to gangsterism and being recruited by the thugs and society.
Speaker 1: So I want to say to the people out there
Speaker 1: that you know, if you take just one hour a
Speaker 1: week to sit with the young person to mentor young person,
Speaker 1: and you do that one hour a week that is
Speaker 1: nothing on a Saturday or a Sunday, to sit with
Speaker 1: the young person to mentor that person, think about the
Speaker 1: positive effect and the value that that young person will
Speaker 1: have to know that there's somebody out there who cares
Speaker 1: for them, who will spend the time. Because time, it's
Speaker 1: just as important as money to be with that person,
Speaker 1: to listen to them, to give them guidance. For me,
Speaker 1: we all need to go out there and try to
Speaker 1: be good mentors in society. One young person, that is all.
Speaker 1: It takes one hour week, you can make a much
Speaker 1: better society. Thank you again for being here and wrong
Speaker 1: for Conviction. I look forward to working together to make
Speaker 1: a difference and that's exactly what we're going to do.
Speaker 1: So um, this has been an extraordinary experience for me.
Speaker 1: And thank you again to our audience for listening. Thank
Speaker 1: you very much, Jackson. That was beautiful. Don't forget to
Speaker 1: give us a fantastic review wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: It really helps. And I'm a proud donor to the
Speaker 1: Innocence Project and I really hope you'll join me in
Speaker 1: supporting this very important cause and helping to prevent future
Speaker 1: wrongful convictions. Go to Innocence Project dot org to learn
Speaker 1: how to donate and get involved. I'd like to thank
Speaker 1: our production team, Connor Hall and Kevin Wardis. The music
Speaker 1: in the show is by three time OSCAR nominated composer
Speaker 1: Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on Instagram at
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction podcast. Wrongful
Speaker 1: Conviction with Jason Flam is a production of Lava for
Speaker 1: Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number one All