Josh talks with Reuben Jones and Jondhi Harrell about recent criminal justice reform victories in Philadelphia My newest article is about taking a new approach to sentencing reform that ties reform directly to redressing racial disparity . I have written recaps of all 65 episodes of Orange Is the New Black . Reuben Jones is the Executive Director of Frontline Dads in Philadelphia. Both Reuben and Jondhi are Just Leadership USA Fellows. Reuben worked at the Pennsylvania Prison Society . Reuben di...
Jul 23, 2018•1 hr 17 min•Ep. 26
Josh talks with Rochard Bronson, CEO of 70 Million Jobs about his mission to help one million formerly incarcerated people find meaningful work. I wrote recaps of all 65 episodes of Orange Is the New Black from the perspective of a formerly incarcerated person. I will continue my series Orange, Black, or Bleak the day after Season 6 starts (July 27th). Jeffrey Korzenik, of Fifth-Third bank, has been arguing that the hiring of formerly incarcerated folks is critical to maintaining our current eco...
Jul 16, 2018•44 min•Ep. 25
Josh interview Donna Hylton, the author of the book "A Little Piece of Light" Donna's book "A Little Piece of Light" is available for purchase now . Donna helped create the ACE program at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility . The ACE program helps incarcerated people in coping with HIV/AIDS. Donna was also instrumental in the creation of the Domestic Violence Program at Bedford Hills. Donna participated in the Bedford Writing Group created by Tony Award Winning Playwright Eve Ensler. The gro...
Jul 09, 2018•47 min•Ep. 24
Josh interviews Thomas F. Lennon and Brandon Chrostowski , Director and principle from the Oscar-Nominated Documentary "Knife Skills" I wrote an article about Justice Kennedy's retirement . I also wrote an article about my own experiences in Solitary Confinement . You can watch the entire documentary "Knife Skills" on YouTube . Brandon also did a Ted Talk . If you want to visit Edwin's, check out their website and make a reservation the next time you are visiting Cleveland ....
Jul 02, 2018•43 min•Ep. 23
Josh discusses the ongoing problem of Juvenile Life Without Parole sentences. You can easily join Nation Outside or Nation Outside Detroit , we would love to have you on our team. The NFL Players Coalition wrote a letter in response to President Trump's request for them to send him a list of commutations which they would like for him to carry out. I agreed with the vast majority of their letter, my only request, in my response, was that they stop using the term "non-violent" to qualify who was w...
Jun 25, 2018•29 min•Ep. 22
Josh interviews Bruce Western about his book Homeward: Life in the year After Prison. Bruce Western is a professor of Sociology at Harvard, Visiting Professor at Columbia, and Distinguished Visiting Research Professor at the University of Queensland in Australia. We both mention Bryan Stevenson several times in the interview. Mr. Stevenson is the creator of the Equal Justice Initiative, the force of nature behind the National Memorial for Peace and Justice , and the author of the book Just Mercy...
Jun 18, 2018•48 min•Ep. 21
Josh talks to Katrina Burlet who was the coach of the Stateville Correctional Center Debate Team (until the Illinois DOC canceled the program with no explanation). Katrina Burlet heads the Justice Debate League in Illinois . The first story I read was this overview of what happened with Katrina's class . WGN-TV did a feature on the Stateville Debate team just before the class was canceled . Here is the referenced feature discussing juvenile lifers and the quote about numbness and parole. This is...
Jun 11, 2018•38 min•Ep. 20
Josh discusses clemency for Matthew Charles with Kevin Ring of FAMM. Thanks to The Crime Report for publishing my Op-Ed supporting passage of the First Step Act . Our new dedicated website is DecarcerationNation.com Kevin Ring is the President of Families Against Mandatory Minimums . As near as I can tell, this is the original Julietta Martinelli story from last December, she also wrote this article last week as Mr. Charles was returning to prison. The Career Offender sentencing guidelines (like...
Jun 04, 2018•30 min•Ep. 19
Josh discusses the First Step Act with Ames Grawert, Jessica-Jackson Sloan, and Jason Pye The First Step Act will be voted on in the U.S. House of Representatives on 5/22/2018. Ames Grawert is a Senior Counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice. Jessica Jackson-Sloan is the co-founder of the Cut 50 initiative. Jason Pye is the Vice-President for Legislative Affairs at Freedom Works. Jess Sessions is well-known for his antipathy towards criminal justice reform and for his undying commitment to man...
May 21, 2018•1 hr 22 min•Ep. 18
Josh talks about the importance of voting as a formerly incarcerated person and the problems caused when we don't vote The 14th Amendment to the Constitution allows states to deny the vote to formerly incarcerated folks. I quoted two articles about poor folks not voting, first an article from The Guardian and second an article from The Root . I have written two pieces about Medicare work requirements and both include links to all of the important research that has been done demonstrating that Me...
May 01, 2018•33 min•Ep. 17
Josh talks with guests Steve Bailey of the Post & Courier and Victoria McKenzie of the Crime Report about the Lee Correctional Facility Riot. The Lee riot was the deadliest prison riot in 25 years, resulting in 7 dead and many more injured . Steve Bailey has written many articles about the problems with the prison system in South Carolina including this article which preceded the riot but predicted something terrible was building. Victoria, writing on assignment for CBS News, wrote one of th...
Apr 24, 2018•39 min•Ep. 16
Josh and Joel talk about the effect Suboxone smuggling has on prison mail across the United States. I felt the 14th episode, where I interview Michigan's gubernatorial candidate Bill Cobbs was symbolically important. I can't imagine that many Gubernatorial candidates have sat down for an hour-long podcast interview with a formerly incarcerated registered citizen. Thanks to Mr. Cobbs for a great discussion and for his political courage. There are lots of conflicting stories about how the Suboxone...
Apr 17, 2018•35 min•Ep. 15
A recent interview between Michigan Gubernatorial Candidate Bill Cobbs and Josh about criminal justice reform in Michigan. If you are not familiar with what is going on with water in Michigan. The State approved Nestle's new contract to remove even more water from the Great Lakes, Flint had State supplied water suspended while the Flint school's were and are still testing high for lead and we discussed Detroit's ongoing water crisis . The crisis in public schools in Michigan accelerated after th...
Apr 13, 2018•34 min•Ep. 14
It is interesting to me that we are releasing this episode on equal pay day. Not because I want to distract from women's equal pay but because it is a common cause (and there are plenty of women in prison earning pennies on the hour). The Shawshank Redemption is not just a great movie, it gets a lot of the details of prison life right. Scenes from the movie were quoted every day in every prison and jail I was in. The article I referred to as "Talk Poverty" was published on many platforms , the p...
Apr 10, 2018•37 min•Ep. 13
Josh and Joel discuss the problems with prison food. The story about the Alabama Sheriff who spent money allocated for food for his jail prisoners to buy a beach house is pretty unbelievable but 100% true. Yup, I was part of the lucky group of inmates who got to "brown bag it" for a few months at the Macomb County Jail . Hey Kool-Aid! I think it is awesome that inmates all over Michigan donate the vegetables grown in their gardens to food banks , I just think the program should be expanded to in...
Apr 03, 2018•38 min•Ep. 12
Josh and Joel discuss mental health care in America's Jails and Prisons. The Bureau of Justice Statistics article details the high prevalence of mental health problems in prisons and jails. The results of the Michigan House C.A.R.E.S. task force were compiled into this report . My Daily Kos article , that Joel refers to, was one of my most popular. Tom Dart is an important figure, he was on 60 minutes , he put out a really influential guide on mental health care in prisons and jails , and he als...
Mar 27, 2018•38 min•Ep. 11
Josh and Joel discuss prison (and jail) service provider Jpay Technically, a regressive tax is a tax that decreases as the amount of money taxed increases. But, functionally, this means the poor are taxed more of their income (and certainly more of a percentage of their income). Nothing has ever looked as friendly and unthreatening as Jpay's website . For many of the families with a loved-one in prison or jail, the costs can be massive and often beyond their ability to pay. We quoted two reports...
Mar 20, 2018•37 min•Ep. 10
Josh and Joel discuss Josh's criminal history There won't be too many notes since this episode is mostly personal reflections but I will add some context. I said a lot of terrible things in chat but the description of where and how that happened was exactly correct. I also pled guilty to sharing adult content which was links to free and freely available web pornography during chats. All of this occurred in the same chat rooms I discussed. All of these things were 100% wrong. The claim that 1 in ...
Mar 13, 2018•33 min•Ep. 9
Josh and Joel discuss both the Dignity For Incarcerated Women Act and the National Day of Empathy (March 6th). The National Day of Empathy was created by the Cut 50 organization (created by Van Jones). The main campaigns for the 2018 Day of Empathy are to push: The Dignity For Incarcerated Women Act of 2018 and Clean Slate Legislation Cut 50 has several pages on their site about the Dignity Act . I created this easy to use guide to all 65 of the recaps that I wrote of the episodes of Orange Is t...
Mar 06, 2018•41 min•Ep. 8
Josh and Joel talk about pre-sentencing investigations and indigent defense in depth. The book " To Kill a Mockingbird " by Harper Lee is available at bookstores and the movie starring Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch is considered a modern classic. When I discuss Pre-Sentencing Investigations with other formerly incarcerated folks, they had similar experiences to the ones we discuss. PSI's are incredibly under-covered in the criminal justice literature. This CJCJ overview does a good job of coveri...
Feb 27, 2018•37 min•Ep. 7
The problem with plea bargains. My book Writing Your Own Best Story: Addiction + Living Hope, is available on Amazon . My friend Aaron's organization is called " A Brighter Way " and we are also both involved with Michigan's Nation Outside . The Judge Rakoff quote was found in this New York Review of Books article . A Few Good Men was an American drama about a lawyer fighting the court-martial of two Guantanamo Bay Marines starring Tom Cruise and Demi Moore. The Judge John Kane quote was from th...
Feb 20, 2018•37 min•Ep. 6
Josh discusses Private Prisons with Lauren-Brooke Eisen of the Brennan Center, the author of "Inside Private Prisons" The Trump Administration's is investing in the privatization of the Bureau of Prisons (and the Private Prison Industry invested in his campaign). You can find Lauren-Brook Eisen's book "INside Private Prisons" here ....
Feb 13, 2018•39 min•Ep. 5
Explaining the problems with cash bail. Midnight Run was a movie about a bail bondsman (Robert DiNero) hunting down a bail jumper (Charles Grodin) who was on the run from the mob. Here is the full report from the Criminal Justice Policy Program at Harvard that we refer to throughout Episode 4. Just Leadership USA is a New York-based Criminal Justice Reform organization. One of their major campaigns is the Close Rikers campaign. They are also now pushing bail reform (synchronicity). Here is a goo...
Feb 06, 2018•35 min•Ep. 4
Josh and Joel discuss the power of prosecutors and how prosecutors often complicate criminal justice reform.
Jan 23, 2018•36 min•Ep. 3
Josh and Joel discuss the many reasons why over-criminalizing violence does not enhance societal safety.
Jan 23, 2018•41 min•Ep. 2
A criminal justice reform podcast that argues for a radical reimagining of criminal justice, prison, and reentry systems hosted by Josh and Joel.
Jan 16, 2018•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 1
