Well, hello there, here we are, my friend, back for another awesome episode of love. Someone with the lailah where my aim, our aim is to inspire you, to inspire you to act upon that whisper in your heart, that little voice that's telling you to do something, do anything about a situation that has piqud your interest, that has touched your heart, your soul. Doesn't have to be a world crisis, doesn't have to be a national issue, doesn't
have to be a state or citywide problem. Could be something in your neighborhood, could be something at the end of your street. It could be cleaning up an empty lot that's in your area. It just has to be something that will bless the life of one other person and one heart, that will have a positive and profound impact on the world. Who knows what the ripple effect of that single action that you undertake. Who knows what
that might be. Years ago, more than four decades ago, two men, two brothers, Jerome Kanegi and Steve Kanegy, saw something in a young girl standing on a stage reciting the Gettysburg Address. Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men
are created equal. They heard this young girl, junior high school girl, reciting that, and they said, let's let's talk to her, folks, Let's find out if she would be interested in learning about radio. And because they took actions that changed that young girl's life and gave her a Sini haven, a place to show off, a place to develop her talent, my young girl is now talking to you. And because of that, I've been able to meet so many amazing people and interview so many wonderful people on
so many topics. Because of that simple action that Jerome Kanegi and Steve Kanegi took, that chance that they took on investing their energy into me, I truly believe that every time we touch a single heart, that gesture will be ever widening, ever encompassing, spreading love to the furthest reaches of the globe, creating moments and movements of joy and hope, because that's what love does. Today's guest is a friend of mine, a person I actually track down.
I hate to use the term stocked, but it kind of applies. I ran across a promotion for a documentary late one evening a weird little indie movie that was going to be playing in a small theater in my little town. The next day. I don't know how it came up in my social media feed, but it did, and I called some friends and I went to see this little indie movie. This documentary called The IF Project IF the IF Project, It was started birth by Seattle
Police Detective Kim Bagooki. She is the co founder of the IF Project and it's affecting youth. It is transforming lives in a very real way. The IF Project. If you check out their website www. Dot the Ifproject dot com, you will find this description. We are a collaboration of law enforcement, currently and previously incarcerated adults, and community partners
focused on intervention, prevention, and reduction in incarceration. Our work is built upon and inspired by people sharing their personal experiences surrounding the issues of incarceration. That project was based on this simple question, if there was something someone could have said or done that would have changed the path that led you here here being in prison, what would it have been? It is so awesome that I have
Kim in the studio with me today. But before we get started, I got to take a minute here to thank the Home Depot for their sponsorship of this podcast. Every month, the Home Depot holds something called a do it Herself Workshop. It's always on the third Thursday of each month at half past six pm. You can set your watch to it. But more importantly, you can learn
so much from attending these free workshops. If you are intimidated by power tools, if you walk out in the garage or the shed and you have no idea how to use that drill or how to change a drill bit, or you just get intimidated at the thought of using a hammer and nail, guess what The Home Depots do What her self workshops teach you how to do all those things. You can learn to use tools, you can learn how to put different colors together when you're painting.
You can feel so empowered after visiting several of these workshops. I love them, the do it her Self Workshop, the Home Depot, more saving more doing with me in the studio today for our podcast is I think dynamic is the best word to describe you, Kim. You are always there, always connecting people and pieces together. You're like a You're like a weaver, you know, an artist that weaves things together.
And you're always whenever I'm around here, you're weaving elements and people together to make the world a better place. Thank you. It's like in Africa when I go there, there are these people that weave the can take cloth, you know, the famous African West African can take cloth. And to watch them is to watch a dancer. It's amazing the way their hands and their feet work together in this beautiful rhythm. And the can take cloth tells a story. If you know how to read the can
take cloth, you can read a tribe's history. You can read about somebody's marriage woven in the cloth. And in the same way you weave this story. You weave this cloth of lives together. And it's fun to be a part of that. And it's fun to watch you.
Thank you.
You're amazing. So Kim you you are now a friend. But I had to work hard for this friendship.
That's a funny story.
Ever it is. It was very, very weird. I was on social media one night after my show and something popped up about a movie called The If Project. And I don't know how that ad got there. I don't know how I saw it. I don't know why it piqued my interest, but it was this little indie movie that was showing in my little town at this funky, weird little theater that's been closed and open and closed and open and closed and flooded and closed and open. And it was showing the next day in the middle
of the day, like at noon or something crazy. And so I called my girlfriends and I said, I saw this ad for this movie. Who wants to go? And like half a dozen of them that I'm in, which is really weird because they all have lives and careers and families. So we show up at this theater and watch this profound movie called The If Project. And it broke. The movie broke, the real broke in the theater like two or three times, just like in the you know
fifties where it like melts on the screen. Yeah, it was. I don't know what it was, what was going on, but and I never did get to see the end of it then. But that little movie changed me. It changed my heart and it opened, I want to say, open my heart to realities that I think that I knew about. But it only scratched the surface of right and came home, did my radio show, looked up the movie online and found your name connected to it.
And then you Facebook messaged me like four or five times.
Like a dozen times.
And I don't get to those messages often, but it was kind of funny. You go ahead and finish telling the story, because I'll start. I'll all laugh. I controlled.
So I messaged you and I said, I saw this little movie today and your name's attached to it, and I'd like to learn more about the IF project. Nothing, no response, nothing. So I wait a few days, and first off, I want to see the end of the movie, and I couldn't find it anywhere. It wasn't at the time, it wasn't available online anywhere. So now I'm kind of getting frustrated and desperate, and so I'm writing you again. Hello, it's me, Delilah wrote you the other day, kind of
wondering if I can learn more about the ZIF project. Nothing.
Crickets.
How long was it before you finally decided to answer me?
I think I answered you on the third, third, or fourth. Yeah, I And I feel bad because I don't often get on those social media responses, especially they're just private messenger. And I said, oh, it's really nice, and I think I told you to go check the website out, like I had no idea who you were, and then you did.
You were very polite, go look at our website, learn more information. And then I wrote back and I said, well, I think I could help the f project maybe get the word out there, and you're like, how could you help?
Yeah, and then you said, well, you know I have a have a radio show, and I would just be interested in learning more. And this vision of you, I think you might have said. I had this vision of you, like hold up in a basement, which I am doing this, I do know a radio show for five people or something.
You think I was some internet I don't know fan base of seven.
No, I don't know what it was. And I was, and then you're like, no, I have like two hundred and twenty syndicated shows in the US, like after we'd had and I was like literally like Mike dropped for a second and was like the Delilah. I think that was my only response. And when you were like yes, then I started just cracking up and was intensely embarrassed that I had been like, oh no, just go to our website and have this vision of you hold up with like twelve cats doing some broadcasts.
In your basement, and now that you've been to my basement and seen my twelve cats, yes, oh no, it's like exactly. But once we connected and I got to know you personally, I was even more impressed than I was just watching the movie, because you're the real deal. You don't just talk the talk, you walk the walk. And I really want to how can people, first off, anybody listening right now find the movie, the entire movie, The IF Project.
So it's up on iTunes and it's just The IF Project documentary.
And it's wonderful. How many years did it take from the beginning to the end?
Oh well, well, IF was born in two thousand and eight, and we filmed for seven and a half years before the documentary was finished. Katheryn Horan, the producer and co founder, we were just going to film for a year and do a youth education piece, which we do have that as well in part of our programming, and she just kept rolling film for seven and a half years because the story is just kept, you know, blossoping and opening up, and we got connected to some of the principles and
players in the movie. Really a lot, and some of them were going to be getting out, and so it just was an amazing seven and a half years of filming. I think we have like one hundred and thirty hours in the can that she distilled down to eighty eight minutes.
That's incredible. I would love to see some of the other hours because I know the eighty eight minutes she picked were so powerful.
Thank you.
Hold on just a second, Kim, I am gonna uncuff you from the studio mic for a second so you can go get a drink of water, because there is so, so, so much more you need to tell me after we come back from hearing more from folks that make this podcast possible. Please welcome. I wish you could give her a round of applause. Kim Bagooki, co founder of the IF Project.
Thank you.
Start at the beginning, Kim, about the IF Project. You've been a police officer for how many years?
Thirty one years?
Thirty one years, and you were going into the woman's prison to mentor to what no.
I was involved in a program called the West Side Story Project, and it got international attention because we actually use West Side Story, Broadway Theater and police to reach out to youth to have discussion around you know, using the vignettes when you're jet. You're jet to talk about gang violence, Officer Krepkey to talk about the juvenile justice system, you know, a couple things like that. And so Girl
Scouts Beyond Bars, which is a great program. That's why I like to buy the cookies they have.
We wait, stop right there. I got to say. Girl Scouts Beyond Bars is where young girls joined Scouting when their moms are incarcerated. They get to go in and spend time with mom doing projects, earning badges. Didn't I hear they had a camp, a sleepover or a camp bag.
I've spent the night in prison one night, Yes, with the Girl Scouts. Yep.
That is so cool. That is one of those small little pieces but life changing.
Yeah. And I think the thing for me is when they said this is who we are and what we'd like you to do. Would you work with our girls with the you know, similar format that we did with West Side Story, I was like absolutely, because what they were doing is they were continuing family unification, which I knew is going to be critically important for those girls when dealing with, you know, having a parent that's incarcerated,
and I said, absolutely, I'll go in. But I'm absolutely I'll work with you the girls, but I want to go in and ask the mother's permission because I knew that those mothers were going to be calling home and I didn't want their child to go, oh the police were at troop meeting today and have the mom freak out about what I would have potentially or what the police would potentially said to the child about their mother
because their mother was incarcerated. So I went down to w CCW Watchingtoncrustion Center for Women back in March of two thousand and eight.
I'm sad.
I said hey, and they said, you know, arms crossed, sitting back what he basically would It was very chilly in the room. Let's just put it that way. But I think the thing that happening even before I started talking with them is I had some really intense misperceptions of what somebody that was incarcerated acted like, looked like,
talk like. You know, for twenty years, I'd been putting people in handcuffs, not realizing the story behind or the person behind those handcuffs, And when I went into the prison, I was super nervous and I often say, you know, I feel like I was going to get shanked because I'd been watching way too much you know, reality TV, which since then I don't watch that stuff. But you know, I had to do a gut check when I walked in the door because these women just looked like people
I would hang out with. Not I often say that I had remembered arresting for twenty years, so I had to. You know, I'd been in community police sing and thought, oh, I know all this. And I walked in and I was like, wow, I am. I still have a lot of work to do with my biases and prejudices that I had no idea I had. And they really opened my eyes to that in that split second. And then the conversation absolutely was chilly because I represented.
Police officers would put them in jail.
Yeah, and last time they saw us, they're probably getting take away from their kids.
Yeah.
So then I asked the question.
You asked the question that has become life changing for thousands, probably tens of thousands of people, and it birthed the if project, which is.
If there was something somebody could have said or done to change the path that led you here, what would it have been.
So you asked that question to the women in prison, and one of them took the challenge.
She did, And I think what's important is I didn't ask that question to sit here eleven years later. I asked the question to continue dialogue.
And you asked the question because you sincerely wanted to know. But what happened, which is in the movie which I just love, who is a Hot Ticket sassy Pants, and hated you, hated the police, hated the police, not you personally, but what you represented. And she was very honest about that in the movie. Because she had been raised to not trust police officers and to hate people in authority, she took that challenge and ran with it.
Yep. She actually asked the women to write the answer down to give to me so that we could share those answers, and children would not their children or other children would not have to follow in their footsteps to prison.
And completely selfless, she wrote it down, and in the movie they show her handing you this stack of papers, and there was the answer. Yep, there was the answer to the question, which wasn't a sentence, but page after page after page, and then the IF project began. And I love that you brought in tutors to help the women who hadn't gotten an education to be able to write out their answer. I love that you brought in
counselors who help them to tap into the answer. Yeah, because nobody wakes up one day and goes I think I want to go to prison. I think I want to become, you know, a drug dealer. I think I want to kill somebody in a bad drug deal. Nobody wakes up one day and suddenly chooses that path.
No name for flame. She's now our director of re entering Programming. She helped write the writing workshop with a lot of her expertise in mind on how to get somebody to the place to be able to answer that question. We've had women go through that writing workshop because that's what was created out of it, eight or nine times and keep going just a little bit, a little bit more, a little bit back, a little bit deeper. Yeah, it's been it's been transformational.
How many different prisons now is the IF project in? Do you have any idea?
I think probably we're just in the process of getting in. In the state of California, in all of four women's prisons, there's significantly less women's prisons in the country. Visited Connecticut last week. We've done some work in Colorado, We've been in all.
That you're in men's prisons now too.
We've done writing workshops and men's prisons. Most of our programming we have really focused on females because I really do believe with the things that we've learned that they are the gatekeepers for us to understand and end mass incarceration in our country. Because eighty five percent of women that are incarcerated or mothers, So just.
Think about it, say that one more time.
Eighty five percent of women that are incarcerated or mothers.
And if you are a child of a mom who's made bad choices and is incarcerated, where do you end up?
Well, there's not you know, the data isn't give us exact numbers, but you're risk for dropping out of school, juvenile delinquency, following in a parent's footstep, experiencing poverty is much higher than a child that actually has one or two parents at home. So we know that that that potentially is our next generation of incarceration. And not to discount having a father incarcerated or anything like that, but usually especially when a woman gets out of prison, it's like,
here's your kids. When a guy gets out of prison, it's not necessarily the same thing. So there's so much going on for future generations and a legacy of incarceration with females.
So women goes to prison five, six, seven, eight years, gets out, here's your kid, and there's been no relationship established or continued.
Well, that's why it's important for family unification program and that's why girl Scouts be on bars. Stuff like that is important. And also while they're in prison. The sad part is sometimes it is that interruption where they realize, oh, I can go to school and get an education, which means when they get out there actually can make more money to support a family and not have to make bad decisions or get into bad relationships in order to
continue raising their children and not end up back in poverty. Again, poverty is the number one indicator in the world for incarceration and to end in this country as well.
So if you're raised in poverty, if your parents are impoverished, one or both, your chances of ending up incarcerated how much high.
Or you I don't know, I don't know. I don't have the statistical numbers, but your parents are as well. Because what happens is you can you end up in survival mode. You and I would do the same thing if we needed to survive. What would you do to take care of your kids? And sometimes some of the.
Who says I haven't already Honestly, I'll be real honest here there, but for the grace of God go I because when I was younger, my addiction was to abusive men. I tried to fix men who didn't want to be fixed. And I watched the movie and I related to so many women that were incarcerated because just like me, they fell in love with somebody who didn't want to be fixed. Only they didn't see the off ramp to get out
of that relationship. Yep, you know. I was so fortunate and so blessed with my first marriage that when my son was born, my son was the off ramp. I said, I cannot put him through this. Had I not had a child, who knows what choices I may have made because I was involved with somebody who was addicted.
Right.
I didn't have a chemical dependency. I had a dependency upon someone who did well.
The interesting thing too, that we don't take a look at it. I don't think nearly enough in this country is being gender responsive. Meaning when we're dealing in the incarceration world, women have very different needs in corrections and even in the criminal justice system than men do. And the four factors that lead women to incarceration and none of these these top four lead men to incarceration. They're completely different. Unhealthy relationships number one, chemical dependency issue, number
two anxious depressive symptom. And they also are saying that about eighty percent of women incarser to have a diagnosable mental health illness.
That's new soccer new.
World Health organization came out with that. And then socioeconomic marginality. Well, the women get paid, yeah, and women get paid less than men. So if you think about that factor in itself, a woman gets arrested or ends up in prison or needs to bail out, they don't have the money to get themselves out of prison, and their children suffer. So the collateral consequences for putting a woman in prison are
significantly different than putting a man in prison. Again, not discounting you know, males that are incarcerated and especially ones that are fathers, but it really does affect that women are affected differently and we need to be dealing with them and doing programming and really understanding them much differently. And you know, back to your you know, earlier thing, one in three people in our country now have a record.
Think about that. So, you know, and when you said I came that close, like to making a bad choice, there's people doing five, ten, fifteen, twenty years from that millisecond of making a bad choice. There was a kid at Denny Detention Facility fifteen years old, never forget this, very first time he'd been incarcerated, and we were up there doing our youth program and he said, Kim, I really wish somebody would have told me ten seconds would cost me ten years. Fifteen years old, he's going to
do ten years. Not And let me be very clear, not discounting what he did and the victims out there, but trying to you know, part of IF's thing is what led you, What was the path or the reasons that led you to actually taking action to the incident that led to your incarceration. If we can understand the pathways that lead to incarceration and figure out where those need to be healed up or short up or more
resources put towards. Then our hope is that we have less violence, less victims, and we can understand what actually leads somebody to incarceration, not the immediacy around the crime, it's what actually built that road that led there. And sometimes it is literally a bad choice.
A lot of times it is a bad choice, one bad choice, or a series of small bad choices that leads to a big bad choice. You know, when I was a teenager, my girlfriends and I helped ourselves to did's mom's car and went to the beach at night and ran out of gas, thank god, and a very
nice police officer escort at his home. But take that into a big city, take that into an environment where their folks weren't waiting at the door for them and giving them a lesson, and those little choices add up to one big choice that leads to incarceration or death.
And exactly, and there's a there's an expense to incarceration. I mean, there's our tax dollars in most states is what pays for people to be incarcerated. So you know, one of the hardest things when somebody gets out of prison is to find housing or job. So lots of times people, you know, when they get caught up in that, you know, lock them up and kind of throw away the key mentality. I'm like, well, how do you want
your money spent? Do you want your dollars, your tax dollars spent on keeping somebody locked up and not prepared to come home, or do you want to offer them an opportunity when they get out to get a job, so that you're actually writing a check for them to put back into the economy and the system, as opposed to writing tax checks to keep them incarcerated.
And like you said, at eighty five or eighty seven percent of women locked up or moms, you're also paying for foster care. You're also paying for the damage that will be done when the children drop out of high school, drop you know, and don't make it. So there's a financial tag associated to all that.
And it's an emotional teg. I mean, the number one answer to the IF project, we probably have over three thousand from women men in juveniles are incurserent is no positive adult role model, not feeling like somebody.
Will go back to back back back. Okay, so say that, state the question again, what the IF project is founded on?
If there was something somebody could have said or done to change the path that led you here. What would it have been.
If somebody could have said something, done something, And the answer to over three thousand of those questions.
The number one answer is no positive adult role model. So no adult said I love you, I care, what do you need?
You're worth it?
Yep.
I'm so blessed when I think about how many times my mom told me, thousands upon thousands upon thousands, I couldn't count them, that she loved me. Yeah, the worth of that. I try to tell my kids every single day before they leave the house, I say, I love you. Look at me, look at me, look at me.
I put your gadget down, look at me.
I love you.
Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's I think it's interesting these days too, because we are seeing kids I feel like disconnected in knowing how to socially interact eye to eye, heart to heart. You know, they're on their phones, texting and emojis and all these kinds of things that are.
Misconstrued social media, and you know, we're.
A part of it. I mean, that's how we get our message out too. But like we also are like, Okay, when's the last time you sat down with your kid, phones away yours as well, get off you know, working so you can get the fifty five inches square you know, TV or whatever and sit and have a talk with
your children. Because if we lose the ability to communicate, and these kids lose the ability to communicate eyed eye and heart to heart, I think we're headed for some really interesting, bad and sad times because there's a disconnection that will occur.
It is occurring, yep. It is occurring. That people say, delightly, have been hosting your radio show so many years, what's the biggest change you have seen in your callers? And even though we have more ways, more technology to connect my listeners, my callers are lonelier and feel more isolated than ever before in all the years I've been doing this show. That's the common thread that runs out through so many calls, deep longing for connection and to feel like you belong.
Yep, exactly.
Don't you think that's why? I think that's why gangs flourish.
That's what kids will tell us, That's what people will tell us if you're not getting it at home. You know, oftentimes too, I'll look at parents and go, you know, where is your kid, because if you're not there mentoring your kid or being a parent, your kid is going to go learn from somebody else, from somebody else, and
who is that person they're learning from? And if you're not there, I mean, it is really sad and tragic sometimes when we have kids that are they're born into the life yep, you know, and it's how do you get them to see something different, an opportunity, you know, and think out of the box and dream bigger than the neighborhood they grew up in.
That's why, uh, that's why Point Hope was born. You know. We want to be a voice for forgotten children. We want to be the voice that says, I love you, there's a better way, before they age out, before they hit the street, before they end up incarcerated, before they end up in poverty. We want to be that voice to say you have great worth.
Oh and thank god you're there doing that, Delilah. I mean that's important, you know. Back to what you talked about people feeling lonely. I mean, I don't know how long you've been on the.
Air, longer than you've been a cop.
Okay, so we'll just and you look fabulous by the way. Thank you, But it's true, like I'm certain because I remember and I have listened to you for years. There is a connection that you give people which is rare as well from the airwaves, not even the eyeed aa,
you don't need it. It's your voice. It's something that's if you think about how long you've been on it's permeated in most of our systems to know that we're loved even by somebody, or we can connect to somebody over the air with this show that you have that we're not used to having. That doesn't exist anymore. It's the next person, the next thing. I mean, we're on
to like there's no consistency. So I just want to thank you for always being consistent in being there for people professionally and personally.
Thank you. My husband said the other day we took how many kids eight kids, nine kids on a road trip? Last year? There was like seventeen. So this year was much more mellow. And he looked at me, he says, is there ever going to come a day that we just go away the two of us without children in tow? And I said, well, we need to do that for us to refinish our battery. You know, recharge our batteries.
We do need to set aside time for that. But I said, as far as the epic road trips go now, because there is all there are always going to be children who need to be mentored and loved, and like you said, if they're not getting it from home, where are they getting it?
And they will remember those experiences when they get older, and hopefully they will do that with their children as well. And get off in front of the TV in the screen time and actually go see our country or another hutry, get.
In the wall, play in the water, get it out in the ladde of the city. Yeah, go look at a tree that's you know, six hundred seven hundred, a thousand years old.
I was out at this place that I just got and it was super quiet. It's out, it's about forty five minutes in the city, and some dirt had just been killed under and I forgot what dirt smelled like. And I remember just sitting there and it just had rained a little bit and it was like, oh my gosh. Like there are some kids that don't even have that experience. They have concrete jungles that they grow up in. How do we get them to think out of those neighborhoods.
Well, we get them involved with scouting, or we get them involved with Point Hope, or we get them involved with something. If somebody is listening to this podcast, Kim, and they want to get involved with the IF project. If somebody says, you know what, my my older brother went to prison, or I have an aunt that spent time in prison, or my daughter is doing Heroin right now and she's on that rejectory to go to prison. If somebody is listening and says, I don't know what
I can do, what can I do? How can they get involved with the IF project? And what can they do?
Well, don't Facebook messenger me because I probably won't answer. But I mean, I think I can.
See this, Oprah. Kim, Hi, I just saw your movie. Like to help you out, Oprah.
Yeah, I do think go to the website and see what we're doing. I think there is a significant importance when you're working with people because we're not in every state we're doing. You know, it's interesting, we're doing some work in Tennessee right now. There's officer Officer Lamb and
Officer and Ryd are doing amazing work. And in Murphysboro, and I you know, I've been communicating with one of the people they're working with, and thank god there's officers out there that want to do this kind of work.
I maybe maybe that's that's something we could appeal to right now. Say, if you are in law enforcement, you don't even have to be an officer, If you're a judge, if you're a corrections officer, and you want to start the IF Project in your community, first off, watch the movie. Yeah, It'll blow your mind. And then go to the website and contact us.
And I think the thing that but.
Not private message, Kim, don't don't do that.
You can do I'm at theF project dot com. But I yeah, the social media stuff. I'm still having a hard time keeping up.
With any teenager. I know, I have my teenagers helping me out all the time.
I have my team.
How do I get this picture to go there? Like, oh geez, mom, Yeah.
I think my price secure old niece could do that. But I would also say, you know, the importance of the IF project is realizing people have stories, and when you have, when your story has worth and you feel like you have a voice, you feel like you matter, and we all have stories, and it's really important to
understand and listen to people's stories. And I think what's made IF successful is that these women and men and juveniles have decided to be brave and tell their story and in doing so the connection that it's made hard to heart with not just them, but people that maybe haven't been incarcerated but can relate to my gosh, my upbringing was like that, or my brother's incarcerated and that's his story, you know, and the importance of like, people
can change your lives, they can turn around the reentry work we do. Like we were able to show that, you know, and go from like when it started to the incarceration to the tipping point of when they decided to change their lives and how they're successful in community. So it's disbanding the type the label of felon. Like for me with the IF project, I want to disband the label of in perception of police officer. We've done some damage in this country, unfortunately in my profession, has
and how do we repair these fractured communities? And part of it is really understanding what's created communities and what's created problems in communities, and we don't do that without understanding the stories that have led to these issues. And so story is it's powerful to great stories.
I've got stories, and that's what I do at night, is I let people. I give people a place to tell their stories. That's why I'm so happy about our podcast because we can get in depth and hear more of the story. So another part of the IF project I want to touch on, and I don't know if I'm even allowed to say this. One of the things that I saw as a way to help is to provide opportunities for women as they transition out of incarceration
back into the community. They need jobs, yes, they need homes, they need cars, they need transportation, they need to rebuild from ground zero. So if you're getting out of prison, you can't go apply for a loan on a car, or you can't a lot of times even get into an apartment. So after I met you, you said, you know what, there's this woman that's getting out who has a passion for music. Yes, she's talented, she's smart, she's creative, she sings in the documentary. She does sing in the
document and she's now one of my producers. Yes she is, and she is wonderful. And there were some people that were a little nervous. I think about my decision to give this person a chance. Thank god, my producer Jane did not hesitate. She did not even hesitate. She's like, I'm all in. I am all in, And I think that that person. I don't know if she's going to stay with us a long time or transition and get into what she really wants to do, which is producing
and writing and singing. But I already feel like she's a part of my family, you know, a part of my heart. And there are so many men and women who need that opportunity.
Yep, they need somebody to just give them a chance, because truthfully, they end up at times becoming the best employee you will have because you gave them a chance to and nobody else will. And how are we supposed to reduce recidivism which means you go back to prison. In most places within three years, it's at seventy percent. So think about that. We have ninety five percent of people that are in prison coming home. We have seventy percent going back in the next three years. It's a
million dollar business to keep this cycle going. If you get out of prison and you don't have opportunity. Back to what we talked about, you will go into what's familiar in order to survive and probably end up back inside, thus creating potentially more victims' As a it's an ugly cycle. And housing is enormous and a job as well as enormous, and you know, that helps build self esteem, It helps
you put money back into the economy. If you're a woman that helps you take care of your kids, and your kids get to see you turn it around, it's huge. And what you've done for her is enormous. I knew that if she could get in the door, she was gonna blow you away. So I am taking great joy and watching this happen.
You were so you were so cute. You're like, I can't professionally say this can encourage this, but I know somebody who really has a lot of talent.
Well, and I would have done both of those because I knew that we knew her for she grew up with IF inside the prison and she's been there with us from the beginning, so it was an easy handoff for me, you know, And I think it's important if people are going to hire somebody, do your due diligence. But this, you know, banned the box is important, but you know, at some point you're gonna have to explain what happened. And when you think of also banned the
box doesn't mean oh, they're a felon. There's a lot of different felonies. I don't know the numbers, but it's like hundreds of different felonies. If you can't hire for this these group of felonies, would you consider hiring for these?
I mean, we've got to expand the way that we're getting people back into the workplace and how we're welcoming them back home because they serve their time, you know, and there's I still have my issues with some of the offenses that exist out there, you know, sex crimes and anything related to children. That's the thing that I still have to wrap my head around. But they are coming home and they need we need to figure out where they can actually go be.
Where they can use their gifts and talent.
And community is protected if necessary. You know, I'm a police officer. You know, we're supposed to serve and protect.
And a very good one at that.
Thanks you because a handcuffed you earlier.
You know, it's funny because my husband's former police my son loves his career as a police officer. And Paul's my husband's second oldest daughter, so my stepdaughter, she and her fiance are both law enforcement. So we bleed blue. I mean we bleed blue. And yet all those people that I just mentioned care about the story, the backstory,
maybe too much. My husband got out of law enforcement because he had to answer a call for a little boy that had been abused by his stepdad and he couldn't do it, and he knew he was going to cross the line, so before he crossed the line, he changed his career. But all of them respect the story and the people. I've gone with my son on ride alongs and he connects with the people sitting in the back of his car all the time, sings with them, and you know, laughs with them and jokes with them.
I think that is the rule, not the exception. But unfortunately, the bad the people that don't care about the story and don't care about the person, the damage that it's done has has hurt everybody.
One bad situation, media getting a hold of it can destroy you know, decades or years or even a new officer's you know, first couple of months of the work that they're doing, it can be devastating. You know, my friend Brandy Carlisle often says, you know, the people that are incarcerated there, they were kids, They were somebody's children at one point. Like what happened in the system and where did we as a system fail those children that
they ended up becoming these adults. And I think that that is really you know, part of what we need to take a hard look at, too, is what is going on in these children's lives in elementary school. You know, we're starting to look at the age ten now where things are really starting to change, and you know, you raised children. Those first five to six years are incredibly important. But where are we as adults really making sure that the children are taken care of.
I talked to a woman named Hattie Mitchell who started a project in California called the Crete Institute because ever since she was a kid, she's had a heart for the homeless. But she did her due diligence, and she went to college and she did internships and she got jobs in the system because she saw that in order to change the environment or the whole culture, she had to know it from the inside out and she had
to change the whole system. So she started this Crete Institute for kids who are homeless whose parents are homeless, and she doesn't just educate the children, she involves the entire family. And she's gotten grants since she's gotten supports, and they help with drug addiction, alcoholism, with finding a
safe place to live. She builds community and now kids who are not homeless are applying, parents are applying for their kids to go to the school well, because the level of education and the level of compassion and community building is just amazing. And if we could replicate that model throughout the country in every major city, if we could have the Crete School and the if Project, we really could change things. We could turn the tide, we
could turn the Titanic around. But it's going to take everybody caring and working together.
And I think, you know, and I think that back to our earlier conversation too. With technology, I think we're forgetting the wei and we're really stuck in the eye. And in order to do the work and get it done, it's a lot about collaborating, and it's about sometimes it's working with people you do not want to work with.
But they are experts in an area that you are not, you know, and if their heart is in the right place, and I think that's really critically important that somebody's heart needs to be in the right place to do this kind of work. It's not about fame. It's not about newspaper articles, it's not about podcasts, you know, it's not about movies. It's about, like, what can we collectively do to change a world that we are losing a lot of love and compassion and we see it on a
daily basis. And you know, officers on a daily basis see the worst of the worst twenty four to seven. And while we're seeing the worst of the worst twenty four seven, we're also getting told that we're doing a bad job, like there's not a lot of uplifting. Yeah, police officers could be a big part of the change because they're a community. You could have them come in and tell their stories. Just standing side by side with somebody that's been homeless, they might have a similar story
and next to somebody that's been incursorated's similar story. Common denominator. We're all human beings.
We did a project called Paint the Town that we've done for years and in one of the communities that we went to, a AA group made up of former prisoners. There is a AA fellowship for inmates and when they got out, they continued the fellowship, and so ninety percent of the people who go to this particular AA fellowship are former incarcerated felons. They chose as part of paint
the town. We go into a community and paint a downtown section, ten fifty buildings, and we have partners like Home Depot that donate the paint, or the Green frog Tape donates, you know, thousands of miles of frog tape and it's really cool. But in this one community that we were at, the prison fellowship AA group, the former incarcerated AA members now sober chose to paint the police department.
Oh wow, and.
The officer showed up to help too. I cried when I stood there watching this community come together, laughing, painting, cracking up, eating barbecue together. I'm like, this is a miracle.
Yes, and that is where you create community.
We need more of that and less of this deviceive nonsense that you see everywhere you look. That us and then mentality, we got to get rid of that. And remember we're all on this planet together, and you know, as simple as if we lose the bees, we lose our food. If we lose each other, we lose everything. So I want to encourage people to download, to go find the movie, the f Project, and to get involved in your community, whatever that looks like.
Yes, Kim, thank you, thank you for having me Doila,