Speaker 1: Welcome to the show, fellow conspiracy realist. This Evening's classic episode.
Speaker 1: Just so you know, it's kind of biased. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: be honest. I can't speak for everyone, but I don't
Speaker 1: think children should be put in prison.
Speaker 2: Hot take from mister Bolin. But I think one that
Speaker 2: we all.
Speaker 3: Share, humanity, especially the United States, has attempted to grapple
Speaker 3: with that question, right, what do you do with a
Speaker 3: child when they have committed an act that is pretty heinous,
Speaker 3: that would put an adult in like behind bars for
Speaker 3: the rest of their life.
Speaker 4: What do you do?
Speaker 2: I think we all probably learned that term for the
Speaker 2: first time in movies where you hear you'll be tried
Speaker 2: as an adult, stuff like that.
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm tried as an adult constantly. Now
Speaker 1: I don't like it so and for too many millennia
Speaker 1: now right, it's getting old. But in this classic episode,
Speaker 1: which is really more of an interview than an episode,
Speaker 1: we were very fortunate to speak with to speak with
Speaker 1: noted activists Julian Wyatt and Julian talks specifically not just
Speaker 1: about incarceration of juvenile humans, but also a question that
Speaker 1: people often skip over when an adult is arrested when
Speaker 1: a parent is arrested, what happens to their kids? They're
Speaker 1: kids who have done nothing wrong.
Speaker 5: Let's find out.
Speaker 6: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies, history is
Speaker 6: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 6: learn this stuff they don't want you to know.
Speaker 4: Welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my
Speaker 4: name is Nola.
Speaker 5: They call me Ben.
Speaker 1: We are joined with our super producer, Paul the po
Speaker 1: decand but most importantly, you are you and you are here,
Speaker 1: and that makes this stuff they don't want you to know.
Speaker 1: Parole officer or you know. We're big fans of acronyms.
Speaker 1: Just mail us your favorite, mail us your off Oh boy,
Speaker 1: uh yeah, right now. Usually Paul will have a talkback
Speaker 1: Mike turned on so he can tell us how lame
Speaker 1: he thinks our jokes are.
Speaker 5: We took it away because he was hurting our feelings.
Speaker 1: So he's throwing us thumbs up and thumbs down. My friend,
Speaker 1: let's hope we do him proud. That was just shade,
Speaker 1: all right, And we have you know, you can tell
Speaker 1: we all get along famously, folks, And we have a
Speaker 1: lot of levity on this show. And part of the
Speaker 1: reason that we're opening with some jokes today is because
Speaker 1: today we are going to examine something that is incredibly important,
Speaker 1: not just in the US, but in the world overall.
Speaker 1: And it's also something that isn't fully explored in your
Speaker 1: typical mainstream news stories. You'll maybe hear five minutes about
Speaker 1: something right on CNN or on MSNBC or Fox News
Speaker 1: or whatever, whatever your news program of choice is.
Speaker 3: This is a topic today that you probably won't know
Speaker 3: a lot about unless it's touched your life in some
Speaker 3: way very close within a few degrees.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, I mean, and now we are seeing some very
Speaker 2: alarmists I would say, reasonably so headlines that is pushing
Speaker 2: some of the stuff to the forefront, which we'll get
Speaker 2: into as well, but beyond that, it's certainly not something
Speaker 2: that was across my day to day thinking.
Speaker 1: Friends and neighbors. If you are a resident of the
Speaker 1: United States, you've probably heard about the burgeoning and longstanding
Speaker 1: problems with this country's justice and incarceration system, and our
Speaker 1: episode today focuses on another aspect of that system that
Speaker 1: the authorities, the politicians, and yes, the private prison companies
Speaker 1: would probably rather you not know much about. That is
Speaker 1: its effect on children, and as you know if you
Speaker 1: are a longtime listener, one of Matt nolan I's favorite
Speaker 1: things to do when we are tackling a topic of
Speaker 1: this magnitude is to find an expert, and luckily this
Speaker 1: time we succeeded. We would like to introduce to Julian Wyatt. Julian,
Speaker 1: thank you for coming on the show.
Speaker 7: Thank you for having me.
Speaker 3: Julian, tell us tell us about the organization you're a
Speaker 3: part of and what you do within that organization.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 8: So, Forever Family is an Atlanta based nonprofit that was
Speaker 8: founded in nineteen eighty seven by Sandra Barnhill. She's still
Speaker 8: the current executive director and CEO. The work we do
Speaker 8: is pretty much aimed at maintaining and preserving the family
Speaker 8: bond for children or families who are experiencing incarceration. So
Speaker 8: one of our taglines is surrounding children with the love
Speaker 8: of family. But that's also like our approach as well.
Speaker 8: So one of the most popular and longest running programs
Speaker 8: is that the Family Visitation Program where we once a
Speaker 8: month gather up all the children and involving the organization,
Speaker 8: and we provide transportation as well as meals to the children.
Speaker 8: As well as caregivers, and we make about a three
Speaker 8: hour drive they are and back to three of the
Speaker 8: four women prison women women prisons within here in Georgia,
Speaker 8: so that's Emmanuel Lee Arundale as well as Pulowski. Other
Speaker 8: than that, you know, we just want to make sure
Speaker 8: that you know, children are still aware that you know,
Speaker 8: they're not alone with this experience, a sleeping with those.
Speaker 8: For the parents who are incarcerated, we provide different workshops
Speaker 8: throughout the year so they can you know, feel confident
Speaker 8: about their abilities to still be involved in their child's
Speaker 8: life while they're serving there are prison sentenced and for
Speaker 8: the caregivers as well, which is also left out of
Speaker 8: the popular narrative, we provide different support and services for
Speaker 8: them to ease the financial burden as they take care of,
Speaker 8: you know, some of the children involved.
Speaker 1: And for real quick statistical backgrounds here, we know that
Speaker 1: the US represents about four point four percent of the
Speaker 1: world's total population but houses around twenty two percent of
Speaker 1: the world's prisoners. And it was shocking to us. It
Speaker 1: was shocking to us that children were not included or
Speaker 1: were missed in the narrative. As you say, we'd like
Speaker 1: to ask a couple of questions about the kids themselves.
Speaker 1: Do they have a typical age range or does it
Speaker 1: go across the spectrum.
Speaker 8: It's us either across this spetrum. So even for our organization,
Speaker 8: we work from infants all the way up through to
Speaker 8: the age of eighteen.
Speaker 3: Wow, So these are you said, you're primarily servicing women's prisons,
Speaker 3: and so these are moms that you're going to visit. Yes,
Speaker 3: and you're taking the children to go visit their.
Speaker 4: Moms in prison. Correct? You have you actually physically gone
Speaker 4: along with some of these visitations.
Speaker 8: I have my first present visitation back in twenty fourteen
Speaker 8: when I was first interning at Forever Family, and it's
Speaker 8: a powerful and moving experience. We get to the organization
Speaker 8: about five o'clock in the morning. We provide you know,
Speaker 8: meals to the children. You know, we try to just
Speaker 8: make it as upbeat and friendly as possible though, because
Speaker 8: I know for some they are excited and also for
Speaker 8: some it's kind of a difficult, you know, difficult situation.
Speaker 8: But we you know, we make sure that they have
Speaker 8: you know, food on the bus ride theirs. When we
Speaker 8: get in there, we have to check in, which is
Speaker 8: like an hour loan process. It's no joke from background
Speaker 8: checks we all have to get once we get there.
Speaker 8: If you're a child, I think under the age of
Speaker 8: thirteen you're still able to go into the children's center.
Speaker 8: And this is not at all three prisons. I think
Speaker 8: this is just maybe at Pulowski one more not forcerning
Speaker 8: I have to cross reverence that and if you're over
Speaker 8: the age of thirteen and eighteen, then you go to
Speaker 8: the general population. So I've had the opportunity to go
Speaker 8: into the children's center actually for Mother's Day weekend, which
Speaker 8: was amazing. So we provided food that mothers cook, they
Speaker 8: had routines and you just it's just so much physical
Speaker 8: connection and love and just say know that I have
Speaker 8: direct contact with their children on a regular basis. They
Speaker 8: ask me questions about, you know, how's Johnny doing in school?
Speaker 8: If he's you know, messing up here, feel free to
Speaker 8: give him a talk and plu him to the side.
Speaker 7: So it's just it's just great experience.
Speaker 8: You could tell that it benefits both the mother who's
Speaker 8: Incarsprador as well as the child. So statistically wise, if
Speaker 8: you maintain this relationship, then those who are in prison
Speaker 8: are more likely to be conscious of their behavior while
Speaker 8: the while they're serving their time, and also it decreases
Speaker 8: the likeliness of recidives and that they'll return and reoffend.
Speaker 8: And for the child at the same time, you know
Speaker 8: that still having that connection ensures that they're not missing
Speaker 8: out a much and they're you know, still yes, surrounded
Speaker 8: by that love and are able to then succeed and
Speaker 8: move forward and develop as a normal childhood.
Speaker 1: And let's go back to something that you just mentioned
Speaker 1: that may amaze and surprise a lot of us in
Speaker 1: the audience here, and that is the process that not
Speaker 1: just the children, but you and everyone who attempts a
Speaker 1: visitation has to undergo in order to actually make it
Speaker 1: in to visit the people in prison. You said it's
Speaker 1: an hour long process.
Speaker 8: It is, and we try to get there as early
Speaker 8: as possible so we get to the front of the
Speaker 8: line and make sure that the children have as much
Speaker 8: time as possible to spend their with their mothers. But
Speaker 8: it's you have to go through the metal detectors, and
Speaker 8: you know, they it's kind of dehumanizing in a sense
Speaker 8: to the fact that once you get into this institution
Speaker 8: and you kind of lose a sense of you know yourself, say,
Speaker 8: and freedom at the same time that you're giving up
Speaker 8: so myself as you know, being a chaferon or a
Speaker 8: staff in braswell as a children as well who are
Speaker 8: kind of serving incarcerated but outside of the institution.
Speaker 2: At the same time, any any kind of bureaucratic system
Speaker 2: like that, it always feels like you're in some kind
Speaker 2: of cattle call or you're stuck in some way. It's
Speaker 2: very claustrophobic, I think is a word that I I
Speaker 2: used to describe it.
Speaker 5: I can't imagine for a child having you go through that.
Speaker 1: And that's a great point about bureaucracies, Noel, As you
Speaker 1: just said, these are arduous organizations, some would say inherently.
Speaker 1: And when we are talking about bureaucracies for institutions that
Speaker 1: are seen as a quote unquote justly punishing someone for
Speaker 1: taking a taboo or a legal action, that oftentimes the
Speaker 1: reforms of those bureaucracies fall to the bottom of the
Speaker 1: list when it comes to funding, when it comes to
Speaker 1: positive action of any sort. And one of the questions
Speaker 1: that was on our mind that we wanted to ask
Speaker 1: you is whether you or your colleagues, or the caregivers,
Speaker 1: the parents or even the children have encountered this bureaucracy
Speaker 1: acting in a well, I don't want to say in
Speaker 1: an antagonistic manner, but maybe an unhelpful manner.
Speaker 8: Yeah, that's very true. So I think we do criminals.
Speaker 8: They're lay with as a master status of always being
Speaker 8: criminals and need to be punished accordingly. We know, you know,
Speaker 8: sometimes sentencing is not as rational or you know, it's
Speaker 8: in line in regards to the offense. But I think
Speaker 8: deministrates spectations by society also believes that these kids are
Speaker 8: the incarcerated, uh will end up with their parents, and
Speaker 8: so they treat them accordingly, and they don't believe they're
Speaker 8: going to amount too much and be successful. So it
Speaker 8: comes down to then the work that we do is
Speaker 8: I guess a turn of weas in sociology, by the
Speaker 8: labeling theory. So if you call these children, you know, criminals,
Speaker 8: you say they're going to amount to only to what
Speaker 8: their parents have done, and so for they're going to
Speaker 8: start to internalize that, and then they just repeat the
Speaker 8: cycle then of them you know, getting wrapped up in
Speaker 8: another system and and you know, some of these times
Speaker 8: they will the likelihood of them going being incarcerating cree
Speaker 8: and so forth. We do our best to try to
Speaker 8: combat some of that as much as possible.
Speaker 2: The idea of like a self fulfilling prophecy, right exactly.
Speaker 1: And will return to the untold story of incarceration and
Speaker 1: the children it effects with Julian Wyatt after a brief
Speaker 1: word from our sponsor.
Speaker 4: And we're back and uh off air.
Speaker 3: We were somewhat joking about private prisons.
Speaker 1: Which is some real gallows humor.
Speaker 4: Is it really is?
Speaker 3: But we brought up a company that was formerly a
Speaker 3: guess known as CCA, the something Corrections of America, the
Speaker 3: Corrections Corporation America.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so, Julian, you told us that they recently changed
Speaker 1: their name.
Speaker 8: Yes, I was doing some research on them recently, and
Speaker 8: they rebrand themselves as cor Civic. I'm sure for more
Speaker 8: civic cor Civic Yeah, okay, I guess a little less
Speaker 8: harsh the core.
Speaker 2: Of civic right, all right, it should have taken it
Speaker 2: all away and become like the Happy fun Time Company.
Speaker 7: Geez, that's what they're reagion for things.
Speaker 8: Yeah, but they rebranded, I'm sure for different reputations and stuf.
Speaker 7: What they've beginning over the years.
Speaker 5: That's such an anock you us non name. It's like,
Speaker 5: what does that mean? What does that tell us anything
Speaker 5: about what you do?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 4: Private housing, that's what they call it housing.
Speaker 1: So could you could you tell us and our audience
Speaker 1: a little bit more about what we mean when we
Speaker 1: say private prisons.
Speaker 8: Basically just as as a term kind of explains there.
Speaker 8: It's some of these prisons are run by private organizations
Speaker 8: and then they have such a big state at you know,
Speaker 8: maintaining or the status called mass incarceration or you know
Speaker 8: the prison dustrial complex because it benefits them. I was
Speaker 8: looking at some of the CCA information and they actually
Speaker 8: negotiate their contracts so that they are saying that you
Speaker 8: have to make sure that the incarceration rate or the
Speaker 8: capacities at ninety percent the number of people in a
Speaker 8: number of people.
Speaker 1: Yet they have a minimum guarantee bodies and.
Speaker 8: Bunks, correct correct minim quotas for sentencing than the whole
Speaker 8: mandatory and the most singing thing comes into play as well.
Speaker 8: So it gets deep, and I have a pretty large
Speaker 8: ticket percentage of the amount of printons that they run in.
Speaker 2: So it's what some might refer to as the prison
Speaker 2: industrial complex because there's money going into the system. There
Speaker 2: are people that have things to gain from this monetarily.
Speaker 2: I just was gonna briefly bring up I once did
Speaker 2: a story for public radio about a town where they
Speaker 2: had lost their entire industry.
Speaker 5: It was like a in the housing boom.
Speaker 2: I can't remember the name of the town now, but
Speaker 2: it was in Georgia, rural part of Georgia, and they
Speaker 2: had lost their whole manufacturing. It was tied to like
Speaker 2: textiles or something, and so they wanted this prison. They
Speaker 2: wanted it's so bad because it was going to give jobs.
Speaker 2: And I went to like an event that the CCA
Speaker 2: people did, and it was just like telling them how.
Speaker 5: Great it was gonna be. Everyone was gonna have jobs.
Speaker 5: And they didn't end up getting.
Speaker 2: It, but it was like it was just weird to
Speaker 2: me that we're like, please please give us this prison.
Speaker 1: It's surreal, isn't it. And this goes to a systemic issue.
Speaker 1: You may have seen in the news number of years
Speaker 1: ago about certain judges who got caught sentencing kids wildly
Speaker 1: outer proportion off to juvie to juvenile detention centers because
Speaker 1: they were guaranteed a certain payment per head. Luckily, for now,
Speaker 1: in the us that is technically illegal. However, it sounds
Speaker 1: like what we're exploring when we bring up the prison
Speaker 1: industrial complex incarceration in general, is we're bringing up the
Speaker 1: idea of tying profit to prison in a way that
Speaker 1: again is technically not illegal. I don't want to say
Speaker 1: it's legal, it's not illegal. It's kind of tricky. It's like,
Speaker 1: don't be evil. That's not the same thing as be good.
Speaker 1: And one thing you said just now that really stuck
Speaker 1: with me, and we we should examine this a little
Speaker 1: further in depth. Julian, you just said that these private
Speaker 1: entities are influencing mandatory sentencing. Is that correct?
Speaker 8: Yeah, so there's definitely a relationship between corporations and politicians.
Speaker 8: This has come up and I was in the last decade,
Speaker 8: there's been they try to keep you no hush hush,
Speaker 8: but there's individuals who are lobbying to maintain this Stitus
Speaker 8: quote with these minimm sentences and so forth.
Speaker 5: Definitely, Man, I have a question.
Speaker 2: In Atlanta, in particular, we recently had a change in
Speaker 2: the mandate of police officers to not take people to
Speaker 2: jail for marijuana for certain amounts of marijuana. It's not
Speaker 2: so far as to say, marijuana is now legal in Atlanta,
Speaker 2: but for all intents and purposes, cops aren't supposed to
Speaker 2: take you to jail if you have a joint or
Speaker 2: a certain amount of We don't.
Speaker 1: At their discretion.
Speaker 2: That's a whole thing. But my understanding of it was
Speaker 2: it was an effort to prevent some of this overcrowding
Speaker 2: and some of these low level offenders that end up
Speaker 2: in the system and get completely screwed over for the
Speaker 2: rest of their lives.
Speaker 5: What do you think about that?
Speaker 8: Yeah, that goes back to, oh my gosh, the war
Speaker 8: on drugs and cracking all that exactly from the seventies
Speaker 8: and moving forward. But I think they're on both sides
Speaker 8: of the alan I we're seeing a need to this
Speaker 8: is a problem. Mass incarceration is a problem. Is costing
Speaker 8: a lot of money in regards to the federal budget
Speaker 8: and everything else. So now I think mandatory prisons is.
Speaker 2: Let's define the term real quick, just just just to
Speaker 2: catch up with the idea of mandatory minimums.
Speaker 8: So it's basically means that no matter what, if you
Speaker 8: get caught with safe for drugs and some enjority of
Speaker 8: individuals who are incarcerated legislation has passed and policies say
Speaker 8: that you have to receive a certain amount of prison
Speaker 8: or jail time for this offense.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and it's usually not small.
Speaker 7: Not small, and it's actually increased over the decades.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And it's the minimum.
Speaker 1: And it's and it's a there's a meta level to
Speaker 1: it as well, because mandatory sendency might not just kick
Speaker 1: in for a possession of X amount of drug y.
Speaker 1: It also can kick in if this is your second
Speaker 1: or third test crime.
Speaker 7: Three strikes.
Speaker 8: That was a three shrikes and that was yeah Clinton,
Speaker 8: that was she was Well.
Speaker 1: I really appreciate you pointing out that that was under
Speaker 1: President Clinton.
Speaker 7: That was that was Yeah, and that's going to come
Speaker 7: up a little later.
Speaker 2: Actually, Yes, it just goes to show money isn't partisan.
Speaker 2: I mean, we we can we demonize certain parties and
Speaker 2: raise up others. When you look at the numbers, there's
Speaker 2: stuff happening on both sides that are feeding the beast.
Speaker 8: You know.
Speaker 1: Definitely, money votes for itself exactly, and it votes every day. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So what if it's okay, We'd like to ask you
Speaker 1: a couple of biographical questions. What what drew you to
Speaker 1: this project, this mission and where would you like to
Speaker 1: see it go?
Speaker 5: Great question.
Speaker 8: So I'm fortunate enough that neither my mother nor father
Speaker 8: were incarcerated through my childhood. But I can't say that
Speaker 8: that narrative hos true for some of my close relatives
Speaker 8: as well as my childhood friends that I've grown up
Speaker 8: with originally from Los Angeles, California, so you know, and
Speaker 8: I wouldn't say the Santa Monica's in the hollywoods whom
Speaker 8: I like, long beaches in Englewood and you know, confidence
Speaker 8: so some of these like urban areas who are now
Speaker 8: are decaying and so forth.
Speaker 7: It's just something that I've been affected by.
Speaker 8: I know, there at times when I've seen friends get
Speaker 8: arrested and it's been as simple as something that hasn't
Speaker 8: been as dramatic. And there are times I've seen doors
Speaker 8: being kicked down and everything else in between. When I
Speaker 8: was a child, I opened up the door and there
Speaker 8: goes to the FBI saying they're looking for, you know,
Speaker 8: a wanted criminals. So and as a child, that's simwhat traumatized.
Speaker 7: And you know what I mean.
Speaker 8: And even though we're speaking of like the family as
Speaker 8: a unit, there have been times, like my mother has
Speaker 8: had to you know how some of my friends or
Speaker 8: some of my cousins, because mounts and uncles have been
Speaker 8: involved in the criminal justice system, are now incarcerated and
Speaker 8: to avoid them getting right to the coming ward of
Speaker 8: the state and getting the foster carrying everything else like that,
Speaker 8: my mother, you know, stepped into the plane and wanted
Speaker 8: to do her part and ensuring that you know, children
Speaker 8: are still comfortable and moving forward. And she's like that
Speaker 8: was her role. So on top of you know, trying
Speaker 8: to use her resources to help with my relatives out
Speaker 8: with court fees and you know, trials and so forth,
Speaker 8: attorney fees, she's also not having to take care of
Speaker 8: another body, another human and.
Speaker 7: Children like to eat right.
Speaker 8: So it's it's, it's, it's it's things like that that
Speaker 8: it just hits home and then moving out here. I
Speaker 8: got involved with the organization when I was an intern
Speaker 8: undergrad and just the families and children that i've you know,
Speaker 8: came in contact with the just resonated with me. I
Speaker 8: look at them like on my own my family members
Speaker 8: at this point. So and then progressively I just became
Speaker 8: more involved in the organization. I'm a member of the
Speaker 8: Young Professionals Board. And I'll be the president of the
Speaker 8: Young Professionals Board for the organization in July.
Speaker 1: Wow, man, congratulations.
Speaker 3: See there's a huge just tribute to the dedication and
Speaker 3: the love that your family shares to take on those
Speaker 3: I mean it, in a way, it's a burden. It's
Speaker 3: also a privilege in other ways to take care of
Speaker 3: a child in that way. But that's huge because not
Speaker 3: every family has that kind of bond and that determination.
Speaker 4: And can you just.
Speaker 3: Tell us a little bit about what happens to let's
Speaker 3: say a kid whose mom ends up wrapped up in
Speaker 3: the criminal justice system, goes to prison, and there's nobody
Speaker 3: else to take care of this.
Speaker 5: Kid, mother and father potentially, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe you start with maybe start with the day
Speaker 1: they learn that they're.
Speaker 4: Going, Yeah, like, what happens to this kid?
Speaker 8: Not enough emphasis goes onto taking the child into consideration
Speaker 8: at all when it comes to these sentencing. But from
Speaker 8: my experience of what I've seen is luckily it's usually
Speaker 8: a grandparent who takes responsibility of looking at for the child.
Speaker 8: I know the majority of children who are in program.
Speaker 8: That's the case, which had its own issues to a
Speaker 8: certain level. But yeah, once you get rabbed them into
Speaker 8: the system. It someone just get lost, and then you
Speaker 8: don't have a you can't advocate for yourself, and you know,
Speaker 8: then it's a disconnect between you know, the state wanting
Speaker 8: to keep you away from your child and you not
Speaker 8: knowing or having legal knowledge to even know what you
Speaker 8: need to what steps you need to take to you know,
Speaker 8: it's your relationship maintained is maintained with that child, So
Speaker 8: it's it's challenging.
Speaker 1: Wow, So is there any state level or federal level
Speaker 1: substantive assistance in solving this problem?
Speaker 7: There possibly could.
Speaker 8: Be, but the one that I'm aware of the top
Speaker 8: of my head, I couldn't speak going.
Speaker 2: Okay, so there's a grandparent. That's obviously a best case scenario,
Speaker 2: but a lot of times there's not. And then you
Speaker 2: have kids that get in the foster care system, for example.
Speaker 2: And I know that can end up great for children,
Speaker 2: that can ultimately be a positive situation where they find
Speaker 2: their false or parents ultimately adopt them, et cetera. But
Speaker 2: that is a form of a child being in a
Speaker 2: system that they have no control over and that at
Speaker 2: times they have no ability to escape. So can you
Speaker 2: give us kind of the less rosy version of that
Speaker 2: that scenario. I don't know, just whatever you see on.
Speaker 8: The ground from what I see on the ground, preserving
Speaker 8: that that immediate family or that the extended family tends
Speaker 8: to have better outcomes for both the child as well
Speaker 8: as the parent who's incarcerated. It's a level of trust
Speaker 8: and stability we're just having to get you know, outside,
Speaker 8: you know, entities are actors involved and making decisions, and
Speaker 8: it just gets a little bit more complex on top
Speaker 8: of already having a parent incarcerated.
Speaker 3: Well, we definitely hear horror stories about the you know
Speaker 3: situations they can occur within foster care and the foster
Speaker 3: care system. You know, it's not all horror stories, but
Speaker 3: that's definitely the ones that rise at the top because
Speaker 3: they're newsworthy.
Speaker 2: If it bleeds, it leads, Yeah, Well, and I know
Speaker 2: that a lot of foster parents do it because it's
Speaker 2: like a per kid amount of money that you get,
Speaker 2: and that's you know, maybe a negative way you can
Speaker 2: look at it. But also, my ex wife's sister as
Speaker 2: foster children for years and ended up adopting like five
Speaker 2: of them, three of which were siblings, and they just
Speaker 2: have the most lovely, loving, middle class affluent family, then
Speaker 2: they take care of those kids like they're their own,
Speaker 2: because they are. So that's sort of like the best
Speaker 2: case scenario. But then you have ones where you hear
Speaker 2: about neglect and malnourishment, you hear about kids dying in
Speaker 2: the foster care system from beatings and abuse, and you
Speaker 2: don't have to look far to find examples of this
Speaker 2: happening in the news, to the point where we're almost
Speaker 2: numb to it in a certain way.
Speaker 1: Very true, and this brings us to a natural segue
Speaker 1: something that many many of us listening along, we're already
Speaker 1: thinking of as soon as we tuned into to this episode.
Speaker 1: It hits upon something that has made the news in
Speaker 1: a very real and media and as we record an
Speaker 1: on going way, we're going to delve into the story
Speaker 1: behind the stories you've read about children being separated from
Speaker 1: their parents at the border of the US. Afterward from
Speaker 1: our sponsor and we're back from about what was it
Speaker 1: May twenty eighteen.
Speaker 3: Yeah, May, it was like early May twenty eighteen up
Speaker 3: until June twentieth, actually, the day we're recording this episode.
Speaker 1: From about that time span, you probably saw in your
Speaker 1: media of choice, whether that's a social platform or a
Speaker 1: mass market news program. You probably saw the reports of
Speaker 1: numerous children traveling with their family or in some cases solo,
Speaker 1: from a foreign country to the US and then not
Speaker 1: only being detained at the border, but being separated from
Speaker 1: their parents. And when we say kids, we're not talking teenagers.
Speaker 1: We're talking children.
Speaker 2: And when we say numerous, we're not talking about a handful,
Speaker 2: We're talking about more than two.
Speaker 3: Thousand, Yeah, twye and forty three according to the NPR
Speaker 3: as of early May.
Speaker 1: Julian, you've you've been following this story, would you say
Speaker 1: that there is a connection or a confluence between the
Speaker 1: immigration detainment industry and the prison industry.
Speaker 8: So, yeah, I think there's definitely some parallels between our
Speaker 8: primo justice system as well as our detention system. I
Speaker 8: think we're speaking on still the di mandatories, indusing and
Speaker 8: still the same that goes in with these immigration tension centers.
Speaker 8: There's quotas as well, the private prison industries all so
Speaker 8: heavily involved in the tension system.
Speaker 7: But I think even still.
Speaker 8: Just having the spotlight on the children, it's these are
Speaker 8: still traumatic and dramatic events that they're just probably going
Speaker 8: to stick with them for each in their life. If
Speaker 8: they don't, they're not receiving the proper you know, services
Speaker 8: to trying to combat some of these experiences.
Speaker 3: Definitely, you know, it's crazy. I've seen Jeff's sessions, the
Speaker 3: current Attorney General of the United States.
Speaker 1: Jeff Beauregad.
Speaker 3: Yes, I just like saying, well, he's described this practice
Speaker 3: of separating the children from the other family members as
Speaker 3: a deterrence, as a strategic deterrence to prevent other people
Speaker 3: and other families with children from trying to cross the
Speaker 3: border into the United States. And it's based on a
Speaker 3: law that was passed during the Clinton administration, and the
Speaker 3: way it's written is it's not vague, it's just current
Speaker 3: that administration is well as other administrations, had not really
Speaker 3: pushed it that far, essentially, like taking it to this
Speaker 3: level of separating these families forcibly, but it's something that's
Speaker 3: been on the books for a while. So a lot
Speaker 3: of us have probably seen the videos of the situation
Speaker 3: that these kids find themselves in physically, which is in
Speaker 3: essentially these large cages where there are multiple children. They're
Speaker 3: not stacked up, but they're just squished into these cages.
Speaker 3: And what they've got is some like water it looked like,
Speaker 3: and maybe a little bit of food like chips or something.
Speaker 3: And these thermal blankets that they're putting on each other.
Speaker 3: And how does that that that sounds insane to me?
Speaker 3: Has is that experience experience mirrored anywhere within the juvenile
Speaker 3: system at all, or is that a completely new thing.
Speaker 8: I would say the betrayal of this situation to certain
Speaker 8: city was intentional. Okay, Like you said, going back to
Speaker 8: serving as a mechanism for deterrents for those who are
Speaker 8: most of them are migrating from what Elsavador, Guatemala and Honduras,
Speaker 8: so they're seeing this on the media that they're gonna,
Speaker 8: you know, probably hold off from think twice about coming
Speaker 8: our way. Even in the past with in African American
Speaker 8: males being you know, portrayed as you know, these deviant
Speaker 8: criminals and so forth, back in you know, the seventies
Speaker 8: or civil rights area. Moving forward, it's it's kind of
Speaker 8: the same thing, the service deterrence or to you know,
Speaker 8: shift behavior to get a certain outcome that you want,
Speaker 8: which still goes back to the whole element of politics
Speaker 8: that's brought into this.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's the thing that bugged me the most.
Speaker 2: It seems very clear there's a lot of passing the
Speaker 2: buck going on where it's like, we're doing this, but
Speaker 2: it's actually the folks on the other side's fault.
Speaker 5: But we're just enforcing the law. Blah blah blah.
Speaker 2: But then you could look at it and say, well,
Speaker 2: it's really just kind of a deterrent. It's like you're
Speaker 2: you're you're punishing people for do doing something that technically
Speaker 2: is legal because a lot of these folks are seeking
Speaker 2: asylum and then all of a sudden their kids are
Speaker 2: snatched away because of this zero tolerance policy. So that
Speaker 2: to me seems like dirty pool.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I'm glad you brought that up. It is
Speaker 1: legal to seek asylum. It's actually under UN conventions, it's
Speaker 1: legal to seek asylum and entry with any country. It's
Speaker 1: unfortunately up to that country's discretion, and they're very loose
Speaker 1: with the idea of discretion.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, apparently we're leaving the UN Human Rights Counsel anyway,
Speaker 2: So that's true.
Speaker 1: That happens yesterday.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we just did.
Speaker 1: We just did.
Speaker 5: Wow.
Speaker 1: Yeah, great, So let's let's let's keep this. Let's keep
Speaker 1: this thread. Though with the immigration policy, you notice Matt
Speaker 1: pointed out from May to June twentieth peak behind the
Speaker 1: scenes here, folks, Julian, Matt Nolan and I are recording
Speaker 1: this on June twentieth, and as we were going into
Speaker 1: the studio here, we learned that the current president, President Trump,
Speaker 1: had actually signed a document, right that is going to
Speaker 1: end not the detainment practice, but in the separation practice.
Speaker 1: Isn't that correct?
Speaker 5: That is what I read.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's a breaking news story as we sit here
Speaker 2: and record this now. But pressure has apparently gotten to
Speaker 2: the administration in that respect, because it's what they call
Speaker 2: bad optics, right, like, even if you're not technically breaking
Speaker 2: the law or you're enforcing the law, it's not a
Speaker 2: good look.
Speaker 1: I believe what the president signed is an executive order, correct,
Speaker 1: that would be, which is which just means that he
Speaker 1: doesn't have to run it past Congress.
Speaker 5: He's a he's a fan of.
Speaker 4: Those got something up on time.
Speaker 3: We're literally looking at this on our computers right now.
Speaker 3: It's just talking about, Yeah, he signed an executive order
Speaker 3: that would end the separations. But instead of putting the
Speaker 3: parents and children together in these detention centers like the
Speaker 3: Steward Have you ever been to Stuart Detention Center.
Speaker 7: It's the one here in Georgia, right.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 8: I have some friends who've gone and visited there, did
Speaker 8: some work, but I personally have him.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's massive. My sister has done work with
Speaker 3: some organizations there too, and it's just these huge centers
Speaker 3: where they're in that in that location, there are families together,
Speaker 3: some of them, sometimes they're separated, and it's just, man,
Speaker 3: it is a tough situation for anyone to find themselves in,
Speaker 3: and especially for a child. And I can't get over this.
Speaker 3: You guys like Nolan, I have kids. Why do you
Speaker 3: have kids yet?
Speaker 7: No kids yet?
Speaker 3: And you and Ben one day, don't worry, you guys
Speaker 3: are gonna have powerful, amazing kids.
Speaker 4: Over here.
Speaker 3: But just the thought, Nol, of someone taking your child
Speaker 3: away and putting them in a cold, dark, just like
Speaker 3: place like that, without without any chance to either go
Speaker 3: to your you know, your parents or your grandparents who
Speaker 3: are some other family men, or just being sent back
Speaker 3: even you know, just like just leave and go somewhere else.
Speaker 4: It makes your blood boil.
Speaker 3: And I think that's what happened to a lot of
Speaker 3: people in this country and around the world.
Speaker 4: As we're reading this stuff.
Speaker 2: Well, and given like how difficult it is to even
Speaker 2: get a phone call if you go to jail. Right,
Speaker 2: I'm only conjecturing here, but I imagine that there's not
Speaker 2: ready lines of communication between mom and dad and funding
Speaker 2: son and daughter, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And there's one other important point here that we
Speaker 1: have to emphasize of the many important points, which is
Speaker 1: that for people who feel that a detainment policy is
Speaker 1: just for people who feel like, well, you know, it's
Speaker 1: against the law, don't try to across the border. And
Speaker 1: even if you plead asylum, it is up to that
Speaker 1: country's discretion for how long they detain you and whether
Speaker 1: or not they grant you entry or they kick you
Speaker 1: back with a go with God. The Regardless of how
Speaker 1: you feel about that, the children involved do not have agency,
Speaker 1: and in institutions and communities across the country, these kids
Speaker 1: are not making the choices. They are only suffering the consequences. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and this brings us to this brings us to a
Speaker 1: question about the future, which I know sometimes people hate
Speaker 1: because no one can predict it. But Julian, having lived
Speaker 1: in this world and spent so much time working toward
Speaker 1: a better future for these parents, these children, and Ultimately,
Speaker 1: I would argue our country as a whole, what recommendations
Speaker 1: could you make? What would you like to see change?
Speaker 7: Great question, definitely.
Speaker 8: I think some of the most common and we're getting
Speaker 8: some traction here is some of the reversing of some
Speaker 8: of the policies that were enacted over the last few decades,
Speaker 8: with things such as three strikes or mendatory minimum. But
Speaker 8: also I think we need to put a bigger emphasis
Speaker 8: on more of a community supervision. So I think a
Speaker 8: lot of people think that if we you know, in
Speaker 8: mass incarceration and there's less inmates, then it may necessarily
Speaker 8: be cheaper on taxpayers down the road. I think that
Speaker 8: may be the case, But immediately, I think the resources
Speaker 8: just need to be shifting and allocated towards you know,
Speaker 8: social services and community based organizations to provide you know,
Speaker 8: psycho social support, education, vocational training, support for housing, which
Speaker 8: you give these individuals some type of support system that
Speaker 8: they can you know, build build on. And then on
Speaker 8: another end, I think that I recommend that you know,
Speaker 8: different policies or mechanism be put in place that those
Speaker 8: who are doing the sentencing or are prosecuting do a
Speaker 8: holistic or a deeper in depth assessment on the children
Speaker 8: who are going to be impacted as well, look at
Speaker 8: things such as what are there going to be their need?
Speaker 8: Do they have caregivers who can you know, soup in
Speaker 8: and take care of them during sentencing and so forth,
Speaker 8: which I don't think is done as adequately or sufficiently
Speaker 8: as needs to be. And I think also on the
Speaker 8: back end of this, which doesn't get talked about, it's
Speaker 8: also that of the caregivers. So it's a leanland we
Speaker 8: talked about, like a financial burden. Many of these caregivers
Speaker 8: are you know, senior citizens fifty six years old, low income,
Speaker 8: so they're more than likely retired and receiving some type
Speaker 8: of government assistants and now they're having to take care
Speaker 8: of someone else. I would like to see you know,
Speaker 8: more support given to them, maybe subsidizing you know, some
Speaker 8: type of you know, monetary payment for the time being.
Speaker 8: But there's just I mean, there's a lot of different
Speaker 8: alternatives that can be you know, put in place, are
Speaker 8: implemented to kind of you know, shift some of this
Speaker 8: climate that we have right now.
Speaker 3: It does become a form of foster care and away
Speaker 3: when you're like your grandmother taking care of your granddaughter on. Yeah,
Speaker 3: that's that's an interesting point. I like to see that.
Speaker 3: So let's say you're you're someone's listening to this and
Speaker 3: they want to help out. Is there a place online
Speaker 3: they can go to learn more or number they can
Speaker 3: call or what can what can they.
Speaker 4: Do to help with this struggle?
Speaker 8: Definitely for our resource go to is our website foreverfamuh
Speaker 8: dot org.
Speaker 7: That's Forever Fam.
Speaker 8: It's forever f O R E V E R FAM
Speaker 8: f A M dot org and you get you know,
Speaker 8: there's informations you could reach out to if you know
Speaker 8: someone who may be need assistants with you know, navigating
Speaker 8: through our professional or coman justice system, children who might
Speaker 8: be impacted, educators, if it's just anything for any other
Speaker 8: speaking engagement or any recommendations, please feel free your reach
Speaker 8: out to us. But there's plenty of resources here. You
Speaker 8: go to we got the dome here, go to our
Speaker 8: some of our state departments and so forth, and you know, is.
Speaker 4: It possible to volunteer and just like show up and
Speaker 4: help out.
Speaker 7: Definitely.
Speaker 8: We have events going on pretty much year round. Thing
Speaker 8: as simple as like back to school programs or events
Speaker 8: where we're giving out backpacks and you know, just stuff
Speaker 8: like that, little dinners we host. We have a five
Speaker 8: k walk that's coming up in August that's actually going
Speaker 8: to be right across the street. So there's always always ways.
Speaker 8: No we have to go knocking the windows now, please.
Speaker 5: And I just wanted to mention real quick. I couldn't
Speaker 5: help it.
Speaker 2: Notice a Facebook fundraising effort that popped up on my
Speaker 2: feed yesterday called Reunite an Immigrant Parent with their Child,
Speaker 2: And I couldn't help it. Notice that headed raised almost
Speaker 2: thirteen million dollars. It's from an organization called RACES, which
Speaker 2: stands for the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and
Speaker 2: Legal Services, which is a nonprofit based out of San Antonio, Texas.
Speaker 5: So that is.
Speaker 2: A very interesting ongoing cause that would be worth checking
Speaker 2: into as well.
Speaker 3: And just to show you how quickly all this is moving,
Speaker 3: when Paul showed me that Facebook post this morning, they
Speaker 3: had raised nine million dollars.
Speaker 5: That it's insane.
Speaker 2: I think when I donated to it, they had raised
Speaker 2: like eight or something and their goal is fifteen million.
Speaker 5: Wow, which is insane.
Speaker 2: It just goes to show and then you know, with
Speaker 2: the reversal of the administration, obviously.
Speaker 5: The optics of these things really does matter.
Speaker 2: So this notion of well, nothing I can do about it,
Speaker 2: that's not that's not always true.
Speaker 1: That's true, that's false.
Speaker 3: So how do you raise money for all of these
Speaker 3: kids whose parents are in prison domestically?
Speaker 1: Well, the thing is that you can make an argument
Speaker 1: that one of us alone may not swing the needle
Speaker 1: too much one way or the other. But it's like
Speaker 1: that old proverb. If you want to travel fast, travel alone.
Speaker 1: If you want to travel far, travel with people, right,
Speaker 1: And so the fact of the matter is sometimes this
Speaker 1: gets cast off as being cliche or whatever, but together
Speaker 1: we can make some sort of positive difference that is
Speaker 1: not politically aligned. You know, I think it's safe to
Speaker 1: say eighteen, it's not controversial to help children.
Speaker 4: I believe you're right.
Speaker 1: Call it a hot take if we must.
Speaker 2: But and obviously this immigration thing is a politically divisive issue,
Speaker 2: and we're not here to preach politics to anybody. It's
Speaker 2: more just about human rights, general goodness, and the idea
Speaker 2: that kids deserve a fair shake, no matter where they
Speaker 2: come from or what their background is.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, the press is a powerful tool and one thing
Speaker 1: that's important that I think a lot of mass media
Speaker 1: producers don't want us to know is that you are
Speaker 1: part of the press. It is a two way street.
Speaker 1: The people who speak to you can also hear you,
Speaker 1: So don't be afraid. Don't be afraid to I know
Speaker 1: it's a hassle. Nobody writes letters anymore, but that's why
Speaker 1: they matter more.
Speaker 5: Now. It's a really good point, bet, Yeah, it really
Speaker 5: is a good point.
Speaker 3: I'm going back to the thing that we've discussed a
Speaker 3: couple of times on this show, and it is my
Speaker 3: personal belief that the current administration is in some way
Speaker 3: like a sleeper agent where they're going in and doing
Speaker 3: the worst possible things, taking things to an nth degree
Speaker 3: so that we can all see it first like for
Speaker 3: the like, truly see it, and then all go.
Speaker 1: No weirdest as a society.
Speaker 5: That is a really odd if optimistic I mean, and
Speaker 5: I hope that that's the case.
Speaker 1: We hope. So, Julian, thank you so much for taking
Speaker 1: the time to come on the show today. We want
Speaker 1: to leave the last word to you is if you
Speaker 1: could say anything about the consequences for children who are
Speaker 1: innocent bystanders in the justice system, if you could say
Speaker 1: anything about it to whomever is listening to this now
Speaker 1: or in the future, what would.
Speaker 8: That be They have to be even now to be
Speaker 8: part of this the I guess the dominant air to
Speaker 8: when it comes to our criminal justice system or not
Speaker 8: right now? If right they're left out of so much
Speaker 8: it are affected tremendously buy some of these decisions houss
Speaker 8: moving forward. Just want to bring a sense of awareness
Speaker 8: and just kind of raise the consciousness of individuals and
Speaker 8: know that this is actually, you know, going on and
Speaker 8: moving forward.
Speaker 7: Just to just be aware of that.
Speaker 3: Okay, And that's the end of this classic episode. If
Speaker 3: you have any thoughts or questions about this episode, you
Speaker 3: can get into contact with us in a number of
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