Romarilyn Ralston on building a more just justice system

our abolitionists in some degree. You know, whether they're working to dismantle poverty in their lives or cycles the violence in their lives. Whatever it is that you're trying to dismantle in your life, you are an abolitionist in spirit. Right now on Righteous Convictions from moor Lynn Roston. Welcome back to Righteous Convictions with Jason Flant. Today's guest is

Romrlyn Roston. Very very lyrical name, by the way, but Marylyn is the executive director of College and Community Fellowship, a nonprofit of New York City that helps women and families most harmed by mass criminalization gained equitable access to opportunity and higher education. And Maryland, first of all, Welcome to Righteous convictions. Thank you, Jason, thanks for having me on the show right off the Red Eye and she's

rare to go so um. You know, you are uniquely qualified to do the things that you're doing because of your own life experience, and I'm excited to hear mostly about the things that you're doing. But before we get into that, I wanted to know how you became you, what happened to start this crazy journey through our car sol system for you? And then how did you transform yourself and find your I guess I'm going to call

your true calling. Well, that's a big question. I'm not sure if we have a couple of days to talk about how I became me and found my true calling. Now, trying not to get philosophical and stick to the facts. You know, like a lot of uh, low income black people, you know, we grow up in communities where we're exposed to violence and crime and different you know, social condition that oftentimes can set one up for incarceration, homelessness, substance abuse, UH,

intimate partner violence. And you know, my life was no different. My mother suffered from mental illness when I was a child, was diagnosed as a schizophrenic. I believe that from so she suffered from schizophrenia and she was hospitalized most of my childhood in and out. So my sister and I moved around a lot, uh stand with relatives, grandparents, grandmother's, different folks, my dad for a while, his second wife, and then my mom when she would get out of

the hospital. So just had that kind of tumultuous life as a kid growing up in St. Louis, And you know, probably saw too many things as a kid that traumatized me and kind of late dormant in my psyche until high school. And you know, I fell in love really early in high school, got pregnant, married by seventeen, and I went off with my husband, who was in the army, and that relationship was pretty volatile and abusive. Both of us were way too young to be married. Um, he

didn't graduate from high school. I had to return to high school to graduate, but I did. And it was just, you know a lot of ups and downs and chaos. And as a young person, you know, a teenager, you don't really know how to process those things when it's one episode after the other. And so I eventually joined the military myself, and after my husband and I had several more years of domestic violence, and after two very

violent episodes where my life was threatened. You now, I was separated from the Navy, left UM the military with my two kids, and I went to California to start life over at one years old, and you know, years old, a little naive and green and very eager to live life differently. In California, was exposed to drugs and gangs and you know other I guess street crimes and got involved in using drugs, use drugs for about six months, tried to sell drugs as as a way of making

money and supporting myself and my kids. UM didn't work, like it never works for anyone, UM, And one day I shot and killed a young woman and I was convicted of second degree murder and sentence to life in prison. And when I got to prison, I knew that my life was not supposed to be that, and so I worked really hard inside of the prison too, teach myself different skills, life skills, soft skills, enrolled in my first

college course, became a college tutor. UM, was a fire camp trainer, a clerk, helped many jobs, created five organizations when I was in the prison, and one was a G E D program. Another was the African American Women Prisons Association, a fitness program, a drug awareness counseling program, and created an an awards called the Community Service Award, where incarcerated people who demonstrated acts as service within the community could receive some privileges outside of what is normally

given to an incarcerated person. And you know, really lived my life in the prison for twenty three years, uh, in such a way that I was highly respected by my peers and many of the correctional staff and administration.

And then eventually, through the support of USC Post Conviction Justice Project, my freedom was I guess granted through the courts based on my hard work and rehabilitation because the border prison terms found it very difficult to find me suitable for release into the courts intervened for some odd reason, which I think was uh totally part of the racist system that we we have. But that's a whole another conversation.

And eventually I was released in two through the courts and returned to higher education as my transformative practice and power. And you know, one thing led to another. I graduated from Pitzer College with honors with the bachelor's degree in Gender and feminist studies, and then earned a couple of

spots and some fellowships. I was a choral fellow, went to grad school at Washington University in St. Louis, were my master's degree in Liberal studies, and then moved back to California for position within the cal State University system and with Project Rebound. And then my life got real crazy with doing activism and UM abolitionists work. So that's

all I'm going to volunteer. It's UM. It's remarkable, you know, I mean the idea that you, after spending twenty three years in prison, and whyt while spending twenty three years in prison, were able to I mean, rehabilitation is an interesting word because you went above and beyond any realistic expectation of rehabilitation or anything else. I mean, you went to a place of um, I'm going to call it greatness.

And then once you were able to win your freedom thanks to the Post Conviction Justice Project, you hit the ground running and even running ever since. So you're an abolitionist right now. You had your twenty three years, you know more than almost anyone about what goes on behind the walls and and throughout the system. Tell us about abolition and your views on abolition, because most people hear that word and they say, well, wait a minute, what are we going to do with the most violent people

like we How are we going to stay safe? I mean, even the most progressive people that I talked to will say things like that. Tell us your vision for abolition and a more just justice system? Well, I think my vision pretty much falls in line with you know, the greatest abolitionists of our time, uh Dr Angela, Yvon Davis, and Ruthie Wilson, oh more, and you know, and and others. They they talk more about building the community the world that we want, you know, and dismantling the systems of

oppression that currently exists. And and I think that's the true spirit of abolition and why I identify as an abolitionist.

I think it's really important for those of us who understand systems of oppression, whether it's through white supremacy, racism, sexism, ages and xenophobic whatever it is, you know that the majority of folks our abolitionists in some degree, you know, whether they're working to dismantle poverty in their lives or cycles of violence in their lives through you know, whatever it is that you're trying to dismantle in your life, you are an abolitionist and spirit And if you're working

towards building the life that you want for yourself, the community that you want for yourself, the world that you want for yourself, you're reimagining what it would look like if we could remove some of these harms and build guard rails and safety around the things that we want in an equitable way, so that all can thrive and live. Well. You are an abolitionist. It's not just about p I C. Abolition And and that's where I think a lot of people get hung up with the spirit of abolition, is that,

you know, it's all about the prison system. And if we do away with the prison system, what will we do with people who harm other people. Well, most of the people who harm other people and the masses are wearing business suits, and they walk into offices and and step out of cars and carry briefcases, and they harm tens and thousands of people, oftentimes through some of the work that they do, destroying the environment or cheating people out of their retirement. And these systems need to be

abolished as well. And so you know, I think we need to think about abolition a little bit more broadly than just closing prisons. That's a part of p I C abolition, but it's not all of what abolition is about.

And so I think most people can agree that the current criminal legal punishment system that we have is flawed or as some say, working as designed, because as designed, it was created to capture certain bodies, mostly black bodies, and disenfranchise black communities, and was an extension of slavery and created to be a big part of that Jim Crow era, and it just evolved into what we see now here in the United States as mass incarceration. And

that's what needs to be dismantled. Mass incarceration. But all of those social ills that set people up to be incarcerated, poverty, lack of education, poor public education, poor housing, lack of housing, redlining, draconian laws that exist on the books that set people up to be violated, and you know, and and then again,

the law is subjective. You know, we see people who are white get away with things that people who are black and brown cannot get away with just because of class and because of race and because of social status and all of these other things. You know, everything is subjective and it's always who you are and who you know and how much money you have. And so these are the systems that we need to reimagine so that there is equity and justice in the world in whatever

ways that we can make it happen. We need to make it happen. And so that's where I come from as an abolitionist. Mm hmm. Right, just Convictions with Jason Flam is super excited and honored to have the support of a great organization like Galaxy Gives. Galaxy Gives leads the filmthropic efforts of the Novograds family. They invest in organizations, campaigns, and leaders who are directly impacted by and working to

dismantle the current punitive justice system. Galaxy Gives also builds power for the community's most harmed by mass incarceration and forges transformative solutions for responding to that harm. They envision a society where the structural barriers created by racism, poverty, and inequality are no more, where instead all people have

the dignity, freedom and rights needed to thrive. And your work really focuses on women, right, I mean, I think the connection between women in prison and America isn't talked about enough. Well, people have no idea, for instance, that with about four and a half percent of the world's population, we have about of the world's female prison population, and that should be a source of national shame and should

be a front page headline because what is it. I mean, our American women so terrible compared to the rest of the world that they all need to be put in cages. I mean, help me out with this, because I've never understood why we do it this way. Well, again, I think it's about labor, and it's also about the ideas around punishment and who's deserving a punishment and who isn't. And whenever a state or the government can profit off

of labor and human capital, they do it. I mean, this country was built on the backs of slavery, on the back to slaves, and most of the wealth in this country, you know, has been generated, you know, from the labor of poor black and brown and indigenous people. And so it's not hard to understand that. You know, when when you run out of reasons to exploit one group of people, you find another group of people to exploit.

And so, you know, the war on drugs and the War on crime and the Crime Bill that establishes mandatory minimums and long sentences, and all of these drug policies of the eighties. You know what it did was it it's set up pathways for women to be part of the car sero system. You know, the crack epidemic, you know, just open the the floodgates, and women got swept up in that too, because these drug policies didn't discriminate against gender.

And and then you know the crime Bial with its long sentences and and and felony murder rule and um, I mean, it's just a long history of bad, bad, bad policies that set a lot of women up to serve long sentences, to be incarcerated, to lose their children, to lose their homes, to lose to lose themselves in this system, and the revolving door was just waiting for

them to return. Because parole and probation is another one of those tyrannical systems that needs to be abolished and dismantled because many times, especially in the nineties and early two thousand's, there was so many discriminatory practices and unfair practices by probation and parole where folks were getting violated and returned to a cage because they couldn't find a job, or they didn't have an address, or they tested dirty

for some substance. And so, you know, thank god, a lot of people have changed those practices, and a lot of agencies across the country has changed some of those practices, but they're still, as you said, way too many women who are incarcerated and way too many people period, and pathways to incarceration for women are usually you know, relational

or involved substance abuse and long histories of trauma. In addition to that, six all incarcerated women have minor children, children under the age of eighteen, and so that just it just exacerbates the school to prison pipeline and continues to use human capital as as a means of of labor and profit for states. You here's another statistic that just blows my mind. According to the Innocence Project of the female exonorees in this country, and there are many,

around seventy of them. Get this, We're convicted of crimes that never even happened. There are actually things like accidents, suicides, and fabricated crimes. Just think about that for a second. It's not and not only that. When we spoke recently with Oddnan Khan, he told us that se the women who are incarcerated for homicide in California were not actually the killer in those cases. They were just with somebody

who did the actual killing. That's the felony murder ru Many, many incarcerated women were not the perpetrators of the crime that they are convicted of. They may have been knowledgeable or something after the fact that they may not have known at all. They may have been in the car while a husband or a boyfriend, or a son or a brother or somebody else was committing a crime. I mean, there are so many circumstances where you are not knowledgeable

of a crime. But in California, prior to I believe you know, if you had knowledge of a crime and you didn't report it or turned the person in or said anything, then you were just as guilty as the person who committed the crime, especially if someone was killed during the commission of a crime, regardless of whether there was intent to kill or not. Under the felony murder rule, you were found guilty of murder and those who were

with you as well. And so there are a lot of incarcerated women in the state of California serving life without the possibility of parole, who did not commit a crime, who were not even knowledgeable of the crime, but because it was their partner and they were with them after the fact, or sometimes even before the fact. You know,

oftentimes you are not knowledgeable of a crime. But in California, prior to I believe if you had knowledge of a crime and you didn't report it, or the result was they were convicted of the same crime or sometimes conspiracy to commit a crime without any real evidence. And there are many women that we fight for every day to get released because of the Felony murder rule that finally legislated so that there could be some relief for folks.

But people spent forty five years in prison. And I have a number of friends who have come home recently the last couple of years, and some that are still inside. That's what I was gonna ask you, is there one person that you you know, maybe somebody who's still in or recently got out, who is sort of embodies this problem and you can put a human face on, like, is there one person that comes with your mind. First thing, well, just recently Um, we used to call her mother Mary,

Mary Jones. After thirty two years, Um, you know, she's she's finally being set free. You know, she didn't commit the crime. Um. And you know, we called her mother Mary for a reason because she was this elder you know, black woman who nurtured so many of us that came in young. She was the church mother, she saying in the choir, she led the Bible studies, she prayed for us, she raised many of us in the prison. And finally, you know, the courts have recognized that she's innocent, that

she did not commit a crime. And she had been saying this for thirty two years. You know, this just

happened a few days ago. And so it's you know, thanks again to the Post Conviction Justice Project, you know, it's it's the Innocence Project, it's Human Rights Watches, Post Conviction Justice Project and all of these other you know, law schools that that worked to get people free, to liberate folks from you know, this punishment system where we as black and brown people, poor people, indigenous people, queer people's you know, just different people, people other than white people.

You know, walk into a courtroom. It's never a jury of your peers, and you are immediately suspect and oftentimes railroade it into a jail sale or a prison sale for crimes that you did not commit. Okay, so let's talk about some of your many accomplishments and awards, because

this is amazing. Pitzer College Distinguished Alumni Award, Woman of Distinction, Social Justice Champion Award, the eighteen Civil Rights and Advocacy Award from the National Council of One Black Women, and most importantly, in my opinion, you were the policy advisor for tremendously important legislative bills in California, bills that include the Incarcerated Students Bill of Rights, the Racial Justice Act of and a B and tell us more about three,

which just really establishes some of the most basic human rights and dignities for incarcerated people that the rest of us take for granted. I'm talking about things like believe it or not, toothpaste and soap, to name just a couple. And we shouldn't even have needed a bill like this,

but you made it happen. Yeah, there's you know, I testified in the Senate UH for three, the Dignity and Care Act, the indigen Bill because you know, I was incarcerated for twenty three years where the indigens thrust whole was one dollar, and so anyone who had one dollar, one dollar or more on their trust account was ineligible for state hygiene supplies, stamps, envelopes, you know, notary services,

things like that. I mean one dollar. And so if you wanted to go to the doctor the dentist, and you had a dollar and fifty nine cents or a dollar and a penny, then you had to pay a five dollar co pay. You didn't have five dollars to pay the five dollar co pay. It didn't bar you from seeing a doctor, but what it did do was put a hold on your account for five dollars for thirty days. And most of us who are incarcerated, as you know, made very low wages, I mean pennies, pennies

an hour. I myself made eight cents an hour. And if you work for eight cents an hour, which is the average pay, that's twenty dollars a month. It takes you know, sixty hours or so to earn five dollars. And so that bill was really important to me because if I made twenty dollars a month, I had to make some strategic decisions on how to spend that twenty dollars because us I didn't have anything coming from the state of California other than two hots and a lunch box.

And so how how do I get washing powder, toothpaste, shampoo conditioner, feminine hygiene products? Tyler, Now, I mean you have to buy everything when you have more than a dollar on your account. And so raising that threshold from one dollar to dollars impacted eighty thousand people within c d c R eighty thousand. When those numbers came back, it blew my mind because at that time, there was a little over a hundred thousand people incarcerated in the

state of California. The average person makes twenty dollars a month. So if we said it at twenty five dollars, we know that that man or that woman who's earned that twenty dollars can now send their kids something a birthday card, a graduation gift, you know, make sure that they have something to contribute to their family, or buy themselves a new pair of shoes, you know, save for that. And so it just it just blew my mind that thinking about what I wish I would have had when I

was in prison, impacted eighty thousand people. That's the power we have, and and that's the kind of legislation we can create when we are thinking outside of ourselves. You know. It was it just it blows my mind every time I I think about that particular bill. And when I testified in the Senate about it, I shared with them having to choose between you know, going to canteen the commissary to buy Chris Smuth cards to send my kids or toothpaste. This is what it gets down to, you know.

And then you know, folks want to chastise you and condemn you and shame you when you can't communicate with your kids. When you don't you know, send Christmas cards, a Birthday cards. Your kids grow up thinking that you don't love them when you can't afford a Christmas card or birthday car. And so this was one of the game changers for me. So you end up, after doing all this incredible of a work, you end up getting a full pardon well this year, right from Governor Newsom.

I did in January. January, Tell me about that. How did that take place and what did it mean to you? Wow? I'm still processing it because it. You know, when I decided to apply for executive clemency, you always think you'll get it, but you just don't know when, and you just think, you know, I'll give it a shot, because

you know, I want to be free. And although, yeah, I think freedom is one of those things, like rehabilitation, that you have to do for yourself, you know, but there there's something about receiving a piece of paper from the state where you committed a felony, a crime, to

say that you've been forgiven. I think there's a there's a freedom and a liberation, and that that's a little different from something that you can give to yourself, especially when you are so remorseful and and for for what what you've done, and there's there's no way you can change what you've done. You can't change it. It's done.

And so for the last thirty five years, since since you know, I took a life, I've been trying to get to the place where I could for really forgive myself, not just say it, but really do it and and know that it's you know, it's not I don't know, it's it's just so deep I can't even articulate it. Um And so it's it was just it was just different. It was just different. When when I applied, I you know, it was like I deserved this, I've worked hard, blah

blah blah. But when I answered the phone and it was the governor saying like, it's Gavin Newsom, you know, I'm like, this is crazy. I didn't even believe it was Gavin Newsom. I kept saying, you know, you sound like Gavin Newsom, but how do I know you're Gavin Newsom? And he kept saying it's Gavin Newsom. And you know, then I knew what it was. And there was a shift and my spirit because I knew not only had I have been pardoned, but that the governor took time

out of his schedule to call me. And his words to me were, I wanted to call you to let you know that I am granting your executive clemency and I hope that you rest easier tonight. So for him to know how painful this has been in my life and to try to give me a little bit of peace and and rest by granting my executive clemency and forgive me forgetting emotional, It's it was just really powerful. Yeah, I mean it's hard to imagine you're not getting emotional.

I'm getting emotional, And you know, I hope this does allow you to sleep more easily and fly even higher um, which I think it probably will. So I wanted to ask you what can people do if they want to follow, or better yet, join your work your activism. Is there a website that they can go to or what would you recommend they do? Yeah, there's there's two organizations that I would like to promote, and you know, of course that's Project Rebound and they can find that online if

they want to give. And then College and Community Fellowship. Both of these organizations work to provide access to higher education for justice involved individuals and you know, it's transforming people's lives and changing communities. And if you're on the West Coast, you know you've got a Project Rebound own. Across the state of California, there's fourteen campus programs from Humbo to San Diego. Find the one nearest you in

the closest c SU. And if you're here on the East coast, no College and Community Fellowship has been doing this work for twenty two years, supporting justice involved women in their families. Find the transformative power of higher education. And so you can give if you go to College and Community dot org and click donate and we'll put

those links in our bio for our listeners. And now before we close out the show, I want to mention that next week my guest will be criminal justice professor Dr Niki Jackson, who has been doing some incredible work in the wrongful conviction space. Okay, so Ramarlon Raston, here comes the closing of our show. It's in two parts, and first off, the magic one question. It works like this, if I had a magic wand and I wish I did, and I could grant you one wish, what would that be?

I think the one you know, on a philosophical level, you know, we're talking magic wand and all of that. You know, just love, you know, love thy neighbor, love thy neighbor, um. You know, it's the golden rule. If we could practice that, really practice that, believe in that, and translate that to one another and receive it. You know, that's what I will use my magic wand for to create a loving world that's beautiful. And that's a great wish. And I'm gonna go ahead and grant you that wish.

As soon as I find my magic one, I'm gonna I'm gonna waive it and we'll make it hank together. And then the final segment of our show is called words of Wisdom. You've already shared so many, but I'm hoping there's some still left. I'm going to turn my microphone off, picked back in my chair, close my eyes, and just listen to anything else you want to share with me, and are wonderful, um and very woke audience. Well to all the woke people out there, We're never

as woke as we think we are. We can always do more, love more, give more, develop different languages so that we can speak to people better. And you know, we just need to be kinder to one another and more forgiving. So those are my kind of words of wisdom, as those are things that I need to do for myself. No, none of us are ever as woke, are as cool, or as you know, savvy as we think we are. We're all just doing the best that we can, and I think we can do a little bit better on

most days. Yeah, thank you for listening to Righteous Convictions with Jason Flom. I'd like to thank our production team, Connor Hall, Annie Chelsea, Jeff Kleber, and Lila Robinson and Kevin Warnas. The music in this production was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter at Lava for Good. You can also follow me on both TikTok and Instagram at it's Jason Flom.

Righteous Convictions with Jason Flomer is a production of Lava for Good podcast and association with Signal Company Number one