FACING THE U.S. PRISON PROBLEM 2.3 MILLION STRONG-Shawn Grif

so sign up now at Chumbuck Casino dot com. That's Chumbu Casino dot com.

been conditionally released from prison. He documents an elaborate and exacting detail what is wrong with the correction system in the US and provides a host of solutions about how to improve it and save the taxpayers millions of dollars while making our streets safer at the same time. Facing the US prison problem two point three million strong is written by someone from inside the belly of the beast, who knows from years of personal experience what works and

what doesn't. Ironically, most prisons today are not set up to rehabilitate prisoners, but to do the opposite, simply to warehouse ever increasing numbers of them until they're eventually released with little or no practical training to succeed on the outside. SEWN advocates that the real purpose of prison, in addition to punishment, should be to any ninety percent who will eventually be released to cope on the outside and not return to prison within the first three years. As now

just under half of all released prisoners do. SEWN shows how tough on crime politicians supported by guard unions in private prison corporations have a vested interest in keeping the recipientism rate high. Instead of fostering in prison drug rehab, job training, impulse control, and close family ties, prisons continually slash these critical programs to hire more guards and build

more prisons. In California, seventy percent of the prison budget goes to pay the thirty one thousand guards it employs, and only five percent of vocational programs to reduce recidivism until taxpayers grasp how counter productive this approach truly is in providing public safety. There will be no chance for meaningful prison reform. The book that was featuring this evening is Facing the US Prison Problem two point three million Strong,

with my guest author Sean Griffith. Good evening, Sewan, and welcome to the program.

perspective that you have. Obviously, now give us the I apologize for this, but let's get this out of the way so we can, Hara, have a real sort of the audience is going to have a real balanced look on who you are and your credentials for writing this and based on your experiences. So first tell us a little bit about yourself, how you grew up and what led you to this incredible experience that you had at

twenty one years of age. Take us a little bit back to your child and what led up to your eventual imprisonment, and if you could please be so kind to tell us what exactly that crime was and what entailed.

and I did document some things from my childhood. It wasn't an easy childhood, and I'll explain a little bit here in a second. I just would like to say first and foremost that I did make amends with my mother, and as an adult, I don't blame her or blame my childhood today for some of the decisions I made as a young adult. I think they were instrumental in leading maybe me in directions that led to them, but I still the one that made the decisions. I'd like to just that first before we go on now.

He didn't talk very much to me. He didn't spend very much time talking to me or explaining things to me. And my mother took advantage on someone. I think of the fact that she still was intimidated of him. He had he had a bad drinking problem, and sometimes he would he would take that out on the kids, and sometimes I think maybe early on, my mother was concerned that he might take it out on her or the girls,

which were my sisters. I had five in my family, an older older brother, older sister, and then one then I came, and then my middle sister and then my youngest sister. So there were five of us, and I think my mother tried to protect my sisters from my father when he was drinking, and as a result, she

felt like the boys could take it better. So my brother and I kind of wore it early on, and then it became the thing where my mother would encourage my sisters to do things they would She would encourage him with love, basically to just say things that didn't occur.

So then my dad would come home after a long day work and he would start drinking, and then my mother would be in his ear with these things as if bat him, as if she had seen them herself, when really she had just reinforced the girls to tell tales. And that resulted many times in me being taken out to the garage where that's where the punishment was meted out. And it was it was you know, it wasn't like your average getting a spanking on the butt. I mean,

it was pretty much beating and it was tough. I mean, I grew up very with a very sad childhood, and I started running away at eight years old. Before I knew it, you know, things has progressed. I was put in a hospital, actually a group home at twelve, and then when I was in a group home. I was lighting a cigarette with a some alcohol from old English leather cologne that would you know, just burn the alcohol.

It wouldn't burn the fronture because I didn't have a lighter with any fluid, and I had this one with a little sparker. Well, when the staff came in and he, I guess, was looking for some accolades from the supervisors, and he saw through his eyes that I was attempting to commit arson and burn the entire place down and kill everybody in it. That's what he wrote in his report, which was completely falsified. I was literally trying to light a cigarette as a team just knew I wasn't supposed to,

and trying to get away with it. Now, I was already suffering some delinquent problems at a young age, I mean just from what I had been through, and he wrote that report. I got bakerected into a psychiatric hospital, and when they found out that my dad had Ford Motor Credit insurance, which lasted for two and a half years, they documented all kinds of stuff that said that I had like four or five different personality disorders and everything else,

and I was mindless secured. Two and a half years later, when the insurance buying ran out. I mean literally two weeks before run out, so you know, I kind of had a sour outlook on life. After that, I hit the street. I was just turned fifteen, or about fifteen and a half. I hit the street. I went to try and live with my dad again, and that didn't work. I mean within a day or two, he was posturing the same way that he was going to be physical with me, and I just told him that wasn't gonna

happen anymore. So I went to live with my grandfather my grandmother. My grandfather was a great man and I love them very much, but my grandmother was very strict. She was from the nineteen thirties and forties mentality of you know, I had just done two and a half years in the hospital. I haven't had any time with friends or anything like that, so you know, I had a curfew like seven pm on the weekends, and it was just it was too restricted for a kid that was wanting to sew as oaks.

and the way that you raised kids. So one thing led to another, and I was sixteen, almost about seventeen, and I met with these people who offered me a place to live, and they were crack addicts and I didn't know it. I didn't even know what crack was at the time, and they offered me some and I

tried some with them, and I became addicted. And from seventeen to the age of twenty one, it was just juvenile delinquency one thing after you know, they was just petty crimes and trying to support my habit, going in and out of juvenile PSI facilities, in and out of jails and prison three times up until I was, you know, twenty one. And when that finally I just continued to escalate. I just didn't seem to have a grip on my life and I didn't understand what direction I was going,

and I was just very rebellious. I did not respect authority, did not respect adults, and I just figured that was a victim, and why not victimize others who cares? I mean, the people that loved me the most victimized me, So why not meet you victimize other people. That was kind of my attitude back then.

off and started traveling around the country. I went to Mexico, hadtiked back and forth and learned how to drive a semi. I just I went around. I mean I really wasn't committing a lot of crimes at that time, the last six months, because I've been in prison up to the four months, you know, up to that six months, and then the last two months before I committed it on robbery, I was basically living on the street aftergot out of prison, so I had moved in with myttle sister.

was on the drugs, I just went crazy. I mean I didn't have a conscience, at all. I broke into probably fifteen homes when I was seventeen eighteen. It stole a few cars, you know, stole stuff out of stores. It was just anything that I could get to support my habit and also actually just survived because once I got a phony record. In the economy back then that they had, it was a very bad economy, and I was very hard to get a job. I tried for two months straight leading up to the robbery, and just

I couldn't get one. So that's kind of the crimes. I mean, I never had any crimes where I heard anybody. It just it wasn't in me to ever harm anybody. I'm not a child molestor or a murderer or a rapist or you know. I never even assaulted anybody. I'm not saying that to minimize what I did do, because the armed robbery was bad and I deserve to be punished for that, But I just I wanted to clarify though that I never did actually harm anyone in my life.

was greg Or Glenn. He was going to be coming back from Hawaii, possibly after trying to start a rock band. And he told me, I'll give you the job. It's seven to fifty an hour. For me as a kid, that was good money. So I said, okay, I'll take you. You know who thinks the guy is going to come back from Hawaii with a rock band, and the chances of that to me were not very high. So I

accepted the job. Then I moved in with my sister, who you know, I wasn't on the lease, and she had an argument with some of the other female managers at the bank. So when she was having the argument with them, they found out that an ex conn was living in the apartment with her, and they called the landlord, and the landlord called her and threatened to kick her and her kids out if I wasn't out of there immediately.

So even though I was on probation, which you know, you can't move without permission.

That's right. Jesse came back from Hawaii. So at the same time that I just went homeless, I also went jobless. So now I'm in the truck, and actually I was not at that moment, I was not doing drugs. I mean I couldn't even afford it. But when I went homeless and I went jobless for two months, about actually a month and a half, I put in applications in nineteen ninety two, the early ninety two, in that recession, I put applications probably in sixty or seventy different places

and didn't get a job at one of them. So for a month and a half, I was literally starving. I mean I didn't have any gas for my truck. I was sleeping in my truck. And from what my mother said, the Ford Motor Company, he was actually looking to repose the trouble which was my home. So I knew that I violated my probation. I was going back to prison already anyway. By losing my residence and losing

my job, I just felt desperate. I didn't know what to do, and I kept looking around, looking around, trying to do odd jobs, and it just it wasn't enough, because I knew that if they found out that I didn't have a residence, I was going to go back to prison. So it's the way that I reasoned it, which was, you know, it wasn't logical, but the reason under the stress, the way I reasoned it was, if I commit a real quick lick and get some money to pay for rent and get a place, they won't

know that I moved. I'll ask permission as if I hadn't moved yet, and that'll save me from going to prison. And then maybe I'll go to school or do something, you know, after I get that one lick that was that was the criminal mentality of me trying to take over and revert back to what I had known as a kid. And you know, I went and told my sister I was desperate, you know, and she didn't know.

I went into her house and I got the gun that had been my dad, and I went and took it and drove all over the state of Florida in desperation. I went to Orlando, I almost got a ticket there, got pulled over. I went to a number of different small towns and cities in Florida to the point where I was almost out of gas. I spent the last change and everything I had on this desperate move, and I saw me rolled in the Sea Ring.

I didn't pull it and pointed at him and he saw it, and I told him, you know what this means, and he said yes, and I said, we'll hand it over. And he handed over the cash and I said where your keys? He said, they're in the car, and I said, okay, say where you're at. I reached in the car and got the keys out. Because I didn't want him to chase me, and we have a manslaughter charge or something. I at least had enough reason to think that through

that I won't hurt anybody. So I took the keys, put him on the pocket, jumped in my truck, and that was it. It was about thirty seconds, and about

thirty five minutes later I got pulled over. I took it speeding trying to get away, and he didn't know which is a bill to be on the lookout hadn't come out in that county yet, So he then forwarded the information office to the next county once he figured out who I was, and we had a high speed chase and they finally pulled me over and that was it and the rest is history, as they.

I went in, I got a public descender who happened to be a prosecutor just the week before. He just switched over because the case loads, and he was basically a prosecutor serving, as you know, a fake attorney. And when I went in, I told him some things. He asked me to tell him some things, and I did, and he actually went into the court with me. And when the prosecutor offered seventeen years, he stood up and he said, this is his name's John Roman, is attorney

John Roman. He stood up and he said, oh, your honor, I think the States made a mistake. We've calculated twenty two years, your honor, not seventeen. And the state, you know, with flabbergases. She druppled up her papers real quick and looked at him and said, oh, we asked. You're right, your honor, that it is twenty two years. By the way, it's twenty two years of state's offering you as a plea bargain. So I was facing life sentence or that, but I knew. I asked the attorney, why did you.

it's just from a kid's memory. I don't even know some of those things I didn't get in trouble for because I worked through programs and stuff, you know, like early early on, like like the jail had a program where you trustee like you would work for you know, like extra game time, things like that, and then they would lower like the state would work with their little

program and lower the charges or whatever. So this guy actually got me five more years, which is what I'm doing now, I mean basically on conditional release.

was not his job to. I mean, the state offered seventeen years. So he told me that whatever the state offers maximum by guidelines, that's what you're going to get.

never have done that. It's only for extreme cases. But down here in Florida, you know, every case is extreme in some counties. So you know, they gave me a based on my record, and they he made me calculate what those points were, regardless of whether they were accurate or inaccurate. He encouraged me to put anything I could think of, even extra stuff. Let's just make sure that there's no surprises. So me trying to be you know, forthright with it. I didn't want any surprises. I wanted

to know. I gave him all the points and just gave it to him and let him figure it out. So he figured out twenty two years, whereas the stay you figured out seventeen.

This character. Tell us about the sentencing, and then maybe we can even we maybe we didn't even talk about Charlie, but at least talk about the kind of policy they had in terms of truth and sentencing. When you've got.

there's you know, there's a potential for that. They gave me the max that they could based on those guidelines, and that you know, with a mandatory three years I had to do for possession of the pistol, they gave me twenty two. All these work concurrent. They gave me twenty two years for the arm robbery, twenty two years for reaching my hand into the window. They actually punished me with a punishable by life armed Burgley with a

deadly weapon. In other words, like I vitalized an entire different structure or something that had nothing to do with the robbery. When it was integral to the robbery. It was actually to keep from hurting anybody. So they hit me another twenty two years for that. Give me fifteen years for possession of fire by a convicted fellon, and like I said, the three years for the firearm mandatory. So I ended up doing fourteen and a half years, being that I had the violence right like that violence

in it. Though they gave me everything on conditional release afterward. So in other words, the twenty two years was a complete twenty two years that I have to serve, whether it's inside or outside. There is no parole. There's no discretionary parole in Florida. It's just a game time system. Under the system. Now it's eighty five percent. Back then it was sixty five percent. So I did fourteen and a half years on the twenty two and then got

out and was violated. I was put on conditional release with a seven pm curfew and was violated because my car broke down and I was literally I was late for curfew. I called she knew she was there waiting for me. I showed her the wires, everything that had been changed. It was brand new. There was oil spray everywhere from where the oldest sent me UNI had busted,

and you know, she didn't want to hear. She told me she was a victim of crime twice, that she didn't believe in game time and unless I could prove it otherwise, you know, give more proof than that. I was in report in the morning and get valid and sent back to prison. So you know, I panicked. I mean I just did fourteen and a half years, I had rehabilitated, I got a good education, but I wasn't prepared for that. I mean, it was a simple mistake.

It really was not my fault, and I just couldn't I couldn't fathom the idea of going back to prison for like eight years to senish my sons. So the next morning I went instead and reported to the manager's office. Found out that he was in a hospital and a manager that had access to the electronic database so I could get a receipt forward to show that my affidavits to show that my vehicle had actually been repaired. So

when I went there, he was he had cancer. He couldn't get to it, and then I was stuck because now I violet did twice because by not reporting to go get the he's any evidence and not being able to get it looked really bad because now it looked like I just I had no concern for the rules at all. So it took me like eleven twelve days. I finally got the stuff that all of the affidavits, the witness reports, the receipts showing my behavior up to

that point, and I turned myself in. And when I turned myself in, I was found not guilty for the violation of the curfew which started everything to begin with, but found guilty for not reporting in the next morning and instead going getting to paperwork and turning myself in later. So I was sent back to prison for five and a half years for that curfew violation, which I was found not guilty for actually for not reporting because.

for that. So I ended up with a twenty four year sentence total, and I was done twenty and I'm finishing the remainder of it now.

your experience, your experiences. What we want to do focus here, because because really it would take about four hours to talk about your entire book, it really would, but we want to talk about your prison experience and let's have it apply to the more serious criminal, even though that's

not really your focus. Because I understand and probably the audience understands very sophisticated audience as well, is that the vast majority of people in prison are not so dangerous, even though the people are realize that there's, you know, a multitude of crime, and they think crime is intensifying and as certainly it's well reported on, but really the

program is true murder. So we really want to talk about because I know that doing twenty years in prison, you were at least rubbing elbows with some of the most violent people in US prisons. And what I'm interested in talking about is some of the policies and how they would apply to safety, because I think that's what people and what you've mentioned in the book and talk about in the book too, is that there's a real misconception about public safety being actually performed in these prisons

and in prison system itself. So let's get into some of the issues that you have examined in your book, but let's have a little bit of that talk about the actual experience that you've seen with actual violent criminals and the failure by the state and policies and government to actually face that really the thing that really perpetuates this whole industry. It keeps it going, and politics is

because people's fear. So tell us a little bit from your viewpoint, what you seen in over twenty years in prison.

Florida and Rick Scott Veto did by the governor. So, I mean their sentencing is so the eighty five percent situation means that everybody that goes that gets sentenced to

prison does eighty five percent. When I was in prison, I saw numerous cases where guys were in there for driving while license suspendeds are revoked, I mean in doing five years not changing the address on their license, which is you know, I guess a thirty refelony in Florida and doing five more years, I mean literally five years in prison for something that probably should have been a fine or something certainly would have been in Canada and

most of the Northeast States in Florida and the United States also. But anyway, so sentencing kind of begins where I focus the book to begin with in chapter one, because I think that that's the core of a lot of where it begins. And judges down in Florida are not given nearly as much discretion as they used to be. It's the prosecutors primarily the control who get sentenced and how much they get sentenced. And the judge is just kind of a person that just kind of sits there

and he doesn't have very much power here. She doesn't have very much power at all anymore. And the prosecutors then offer the for instance, they might a public defender certainly can't offer a deal of cash or anything like that, or say witnesses to stand up and testify on behalf of the defendant. But the state can offer something that's worth much more, and that's somebody's freedom for them to

testify against other people. So in many ways, the sentencing and the prosecution in the United States, and especially in states like Florida, the prosecutor is the one who controls everything through the legislature. We have a very conservative legislature here in Florida, and they have passed through the help of Charlie Chris. As a matter of fact, he was

one of instrumental players in that sentencing. All the different sentencing schemes like ten twenty life, which means, you know, you brandish a gun, shoot a gun, or you shoot somebody with a gun. You know, it's ten twenty life. But there's many instances with that. For instance that there was a guy named Eric Wyant who he had a girlfriend. This guy and somebodies that he has kept threatening her

and you know, just constantly harassing her. One day, a whole throng of people came his way at his girlfriend. He had a legal permit, folded pistol out shot it in the air, shot it to scare the people away, and he was given a life sentence. I mean for shooting a gun. You know, I guess in the direction

of people or whatever, so it's sentence. The schemes like that we're driving a license suspended mandatory minimums that really do not take into consideration whether a crime is truly violent or just the threat of violence, or just the term that has a violent term attached to crime to express or to make it where the prosecutor can be more harsh. The legislature in Florida is the main reason

why these sentences. Now we may wonder, well, why would the legislature unless it's just you know, I mean, those are just extreme conservatives, why would they continue to make all these minimum mandatory sentences in this And this is where I think that it is a special interest. From my experiences and all the research I did, a lot of special interests behind the scenes are actually giving the campaign finance to these politicians and our legislatures across the

United States. And a lot of these special interests are you know, police Correctional Officers unions or like. For instance, you have very large unions across the country that have chapters, and those chapters are controlled by the CRESH officers unions, which in each state in general have won at least one. Ours used to be the Police Benevolence Association CRESH Officers chapter, and then now I believe in Florida, the Teamsters Union has actually taken it over with a chapter for the

crush officers. Now what happens is a lot of times these people will go, they'll talk to these legislators in these small rural towns. Well, they know they can get the votes based on building more price.

campaign coffers, they then have to fill them with bodies. Well, the only way they're going to fill them with bodies is if they have so many laws that are ridiculous that people are being arrested and put away either forever or you know, definitely not commensurate with what the crime is, if it's a crime at all. In some cases, like I said, with driving and stuff, it's it's not even really a crime. I mean, it's more of a you know,

an ordinance violation. So between the prosecutors, the legislature giving the prosecutors carte blanche when it comes to sentencing, taking

the discretion away from the judges. Which that's one of the reasons why Judge hell Stanceil the Fifth Circuit here in Florida gave my book a review on the back cover because he actually wrote some articles in the American Bar Journal about these same thing as the sentencing schemes, and you know some of the ways that this happens where the judges cannot use downward departures and there sentencing to give drug offenders any type of treatment or anything else,

simply because the legislature has taken the judicial branch and made it a sub branch in these states, So the judicial branch does not have the authority when it comes to sentencing in Florida and many of the states in the United States, as it should each Like one of the other judges down here, made a statement and mister Stancil's or Judge Dancil's article and said, the judicial, the congressional and the executive branches are supposed to in this

country remain neutral, or at least remain you know, where they have their own independent power in these demagogues, much through the help of the media, which tends to regurgitate a lot of the press handouts that are given by these these public interests you know, or actually the public relations firms of these corrections agencies. They continually regurgitate the press to handouts show violent crime way out of portion

to what it is. And then whenever these tough on crime politicians get up there and pound you know, the pulpit with their their diet tribe against crime. Of course, I mean, the public is in a frenzia in fear of terrorism and crime, and you know, rampid drug use and prostitute I mean, everything they see on TV is a distorted view. And so I put some of the onus of of our correctional problem and two point three people two point three million people in prison in the

United States. I put a lot of the onness on the media, I mean, liberal or conservative, it doesn't seem

to matter. It just they pound the tough on crime perspective until we economy now with a deficit that is probably going to be insurpassed, unsurpassable if we're not careful, And a lot of a lot of the moneies that are being wasted on these corrections programs around the country and these prisons and these building them of the nineties and even in some states continuing is much related to people making their pockets fat so that they continue to

increase the membership dues, prosecutors advancing their careers for political office, and you know, the politicians doing the same thing by getting their poems buttered by any of the groups they're advancing themselves financially and career wise through expanding prison systems. So, I mean, in a nutshell, that's kind of how it works, at least here in Florida and many of the other states. Of research, many of their states can give many examples

of the way that that works. And then of course the prole Commission in Florida is controlled by the legislature, and although they do have some they do have some power on their own where they can't be influenced by judges of the legislature. But I mean once they're put into power there, all of them have law enforcement backgrounds. Each and every one of them have either law enforcement

backgrounds or victim advocacy backgrounds. In Florida and many of the other states Georgia, Texas, a number of them that I researched. I provided this in the book in the poll chapter. Well, most of them come from being victim

advocates and law enforcements. So I mean, if you look at the entire picture like that, if you look at the from prosecution, sentencing, prison building for the unions and the private prison industry, especially the unions here in Florida, because the private industry doesn't have much of a foothold here. But you know, I mean combined, if you look at all of these different things, these all of the reasons

it's not an increased crime rate. Crime rates have been dropping in Florida and in the United States overall for many, many years, and it was way before the sentencing schemes were hatched in these states to build the prison problem. So you know, it's not what the public thinks it is. It's not because of increasing crime rates. It's not because of violent crime.

in prison that absolutely should never ever get out. I mean I met some of them. I had them as roommates because I had an escaped charge in ninety three. I ended up sleeping with some of the worst of the worst, and I lived in the dorms with the worst of the worst, rightly or wrongly. So I could say that there's many people that just don't deserve you know, some of the violent pedophiles, rapists, and some of the just serial minded killers. I mean, they just shouldn't be released.

But that's not majority, that's probably ten to fifteen percent, And the rest of them are being treated by prosecutors and everyone else the same, and they're getting they're not getting much of a consideration for the rehabilitation, how to change their lives, which then results to further victimization of citizens when they get out, and the cycle just continues

to repeat itself. Very little. Also, i'd like to shortly, I'd like to be able to talk about the children and the families as well, because they are devastated by the prison system in the way that they're treated.

we have for prisoners? You say ninety percent of prisoners are going to be released anyway, what is your idea for the vast majority? Not this ten fifteen percent violent criminals, and we're going to go back, We're going to talk about that again. But for the vast majority of people, what should be the goal of corrections in your mind?

bad childhood, you know. But the problem is is that each and every person in this world has a history, and every history is built is full of references that we build our life and our actions and our behaviors on. If a person has a belief structure that is based on some very very abusive circumstances where they felt trapped, they were taught to believe that they're a failure, or

the environment itself constantly reinforced these things. Whether a very conservative minded person believes so or not whether they agree with it or not. The fact is that if you don't change that person's outlook on life, that criminal outlook on life, that person's going to come and victimize your grandmother, or your mother, or your sister or someone down the line, because he still has that same criminal mentality, the same

criminal belief system. So the one the first goal of the correction system should be to delve deeply into the person's history, what helped them to develop the ideas and belief systems, and especially their convictions that they have, and then helped them replace those with positive ones. And that's basically psychologist. So psychology at first a very strong rehabilitative program of belief revamping and just restructuring their entire personality

and belief system. And that can be done. I did it to myself with help from a mentor and with help with many books. But that should be the first step. The second step should be then to educate them, provide them a means of education. And when I say educational, I mean including the work ethics. Chapter two is called what Happened to Teaching and Promoting the work ethic Because when many of the prisoners go in and they're given two options, either they're given the slave labor option or

the lazy labor option. Many they're going to go out for no pay. Ninety eight percent in Florida are going to go out for no pay and working ditches or busting rocks or cleaning kitchens or cooking food or whatever it is, and in their mind they're being exploited. So this just adds further to the anti social mentality that

many of these have. So if the second will be to teach them education skills that they can truly use a drug treatment to help them get over the drugs while they're in prison, long before they ever get out, and also an education that can help them advance beyond the means that they had whenever they went in. Many

of them don't even have GDS. I talked for sixteen years in there inside the prison system after I got my education, and I taught the GD to many of the guys, But those programs have recently been cut as well and many of the states because of the economy. So I would say a combination of treatments focused in psychology first, and education and the work ethic. Those three things are integral to a person having a healthy perspective of life and not being hateful and feeling entitled and

feeling that, you know, that life owes them something. And until they change that mentality, the crime situation is not going to get better.

twenty years. I mean I literally had probably two to three or maybe four thousand roommates and had many inimate conversations late at night when doors, you know, the cell doors locked and were sealed in and you know these guys.

Jump jump acasino dot com. Noe' just necessarily wely. We're promitted by Law eighteen plus Terms and condition to play.

to be a convict. And so the young guys going there, there's nothing really else. There's no other mentors, there's no other people that are really there to say, hey, look there's another way, there's a better way. Instead, they look up the guys that came from where they came. They came from the hoods, they came from from the trailer part, they came from the streets, and they listen to these guys and they're telling them, hey, listen, man, you know,

there's nothing out there for you. The society couldn't get two hoots about you. You know, the public defenter's overloaded. They're going to sit into as much as they can because they want to keep your body in here. They want to keep you in and out as quickly as they can, you know, put put you right back in. And a lot of these young guys then who normally would could have been saved early on. You know that they become

wolves themselves, and they learned those those things. They learned that mentality in that perspective, and it's very hard to change once they adopt it deeply as a belief. So yeah, there is I mean, there're sentencing stains and what they do in sending people away without considering how they are as human beings. In other words, could they be changed?

Did they bless somebody? Did they really harm somebody in a way that they should be punished for twenty thirty forty years or is it someone that maybe instead of getting five or ten years, could do two years and maybe some label where they're paid for it, so that you could incentivize their labor and give them the option of getting education or working or going to confinement. I mean, I don't think prisoners should be coddled either if they

reject the programs that are provided to them. If they were, which they're not here in Florida, I mean, there's a there's a the parents of those programs, but they're not they're not truly effective the way they're run. But if they were given those options, I think that it would change many of those guys perspective when to get out, especially if they had a support system after they were released as well. It's got to be before and after dam because it can't be one of the others. One

of the other doesn't suffice. Because if if you give a guy programs and stuff like that inside and you release them with nothing and no support system, fifty bucks in a bus ticket, it's only a matter of time in an economy like we're suffering right now until most of them. And I'm not excusing their behavior, but it's just it's just logical that most of them are going to revert back to what they know.

really quite damaged people. How they got there is regardless, And you talk about altering someone's personality, I mean, just a little bit of idealism, isn't it.

I mean, most guys that hit rock bottom by the time they hit prison, and a lot of times they're depressed and they're dejected, and they're actually in the right frame of mind, especially at first when they're first sentence to make changes, especially if they're given an option and they think that there's an incentive. In other words, Okay, you're gonna go through this program, and this is the program, the way it's set and it has to be set up very specifically down Most of the programs that I

have found our piecemeal. One aspect might one program might hit this aspect of the problem. Another program might hit this aspect. But none of them that I've seen so far have been comprehensive. There have been some that have become close, but none of them that have come comprehensive to hit all of the problems at once. Yeah, once a guy's fifty years old and he's been in prison six or seven times. I mean, yeah, the likelihood of

changing it is not very, very, very high. But you know, I mean a lot of those guys, if you just gave them some type of way to sustain themselves, they probably wouldn't come back either. It's not saying that you would change a personality, but there's a good chance many of them wouldn't come back if they felt like they had a different option.

right now, that's not possible, man. So I mean, the only really real option is to try to change these people, at least a large percentage of them.

the easiest one to deal with right now. I think if I had done seven years, where the first two years were maybe hard labor, with a small income from it, you know, a real small one, but with the ability to earn more, if I had good behavior and continue to learn the work ethic, and then you know, was given the opportunity after maybe three or four years to

start at you know, higher education. If I didn't have which I had earned my g or but let's say I'd been given the opportunity for higher education and those things. I really think that seven years I would have been rehabilitated. I really do. Definitely, not twenty. I mean, it was definitely overkill after eight or nine years. I mean, as a matter of fact, after seven years, it was overkilled because at that point it's just the institutional mentality starts

to set in, and that's not what society wants. I mean, they don't people that are getting out. Ninety over ninety percent of these people are going to get out in most states in the United States. Why why make them worse? I mean, why put them through something that's going to make them hate you. Society as a whole in general. Look at society and say, you know, these these these victories,

what do they call the innocent biastanders. They may be innocent biastanders from society's perspective, but from the from the criminal and from the convicts perspective, because they're not innocent boastanders because they're either too lazy or so hateful that they're not concerned with what we're discussing right now. So the criminal then gets out and thinks, you know, they've victimized me when I was in there, So what's the heard if I victimize them? There's nobody innocent out here.

Everybody knows they all make they vote or they ignore the vote, and either way they're they're becoming part of the problem. So, I mean, I'm not agreeing with that perspective because I believe strongly in personal responsibility in my life now, but I'm just telling you what it is. That's how it is. That's the skinny of it from the inside, whether it's right or wrong. I don't think

that's even the question right now. I think the question is what can we do to reduce recidivism, what can we do to reduce victimization and citizens in the future, and what's happening right now that's not working.

so being that there's very little incentive. What's the only thing is left for them to do is to put the most violent criminals in with elite violent criminals, because what ends up happening is they never get unity. What they do is they create a snitch system, an informant system, using the short timers to inform on the long timers. Now, this causes much violence in the prisons because then the long timers, of course, you know, the short timers wants

they're trained to become informants. There's very little they can do to protect themselves. Once a guy finds out he's an informant, it just stab them to death. I mean, what's the matter, I mean, he's got life anyway. So the prison system creates more problems by putting a short time and the young guys and the people who may have otherwise been rehabilitated and putting them in with the

violent criminals. That is a big problem because it's training some of the people who could have been probably fixed and helped. It's training them to turn the violence and teaching them that the only way that they can survive in prison is through violence. So that's what they do to help try to control the population. And you know, they don't.

some pizza, but those were not those were separate. Where three strikes in your out but non violent crimes wasn't the three strikes in you're out, but there were Again, I don't know if it was Charlie Crisp, but one of the people that you profiled in the book you talked about in the book, who who led for legislation that even if it was nonviolent crime, three strikes end you were gone for twenty years, explain that.

They steal something and they're really trying to survive. They're not they're not so much the criminal and to anymore, but they're, you know, they're starving. So they go and they still love of bread. They still and they get sentences that are doubled and sometimes tripled because of the

fact that they have a violent crime in their past. See, those are the kind of laws that I'm saying that that should be changed in order to reflect the exact behavior of the person instead of just these easy, cookie cutter kind of sensing schemes that really don't take society's best interests in mind. Also to expand a little bit more on the guys inside that have violent crimes. I don't think, Dan, that violent pedophiles, violent murderers, I mean

premeditated murders. I do think there's a difference between manslaughter when it comes to vehicle you know, manslaughter and things like that. But I mean there's the violent guys, Dan, there are many of them that should never get out, and what I think that they the first thing they should do is separate those guys from the non violent guys.

First off, it's not nice to destroy people's lives simply because it's convenient for the correction systems because they have no incentives remaining because they've gotten so tough and so strict and so you know, draconian on these things that they have no other incentive. So you know, it's okay for our convenience to control the population, We'll put the

non violent with the violent. And you know a lot of guys are getting murdered as a result, but it's okay, you know, we'll just put the true murderers in with them and let them kill them, let them rape them, you know, let me stort them for money. And you know, if it ruins them and their damage when they get out of oh, well, you know, it serves our purpose. I mean, that's kind of the attitude. So what I would do is separate them first. Then I would create

lifer programs, which we did have. Actually one lifer program here in Florida is just a kind of a pilot project where they were getting federal funds, like most of these realitative programs in Florida, where they're kind of abuse for the money that they get from the federal government. But in that case, separate them, make it a little more humane. Now I know this may not sit well with some of your listeners because you know, a guy

who rapes and names children or anything. I mean, what does he deserve better than maybe a cold cell and some bread and water. And I agree, But at the same time, if you're going to have a country that's humane, if you're going to have countries that are on the forefront of civil rights and acting as humane people, I think that once somebody has put away, yes, they should be put away forever. Do I think that they should be mentally tortured every day or put in circumstances that

amounts to that, No, I don't. I think the guys that need to remain in forever should be put in special units that are meant to house people forever and give them some type of hobbycraft, something to keep them from going insane, something that would then, you know, jobs that they get paid, they can go buy a little canteen. Maybe they could do something to help support their children when they're out there, if they have some by sentience, some child support. So in other words, more of a

lifer type program for those guys. And there's ten thousand of them in Florida, but a lifer program that takes in consideration that these guys are never ever getting out, and separate them and treat them as humanly as you can, but make sure that they never get out, and separate them in sentencings, separate them in prole schemes, sure that you have the guys you can get a chance to that they then get a chance. So that's that's what I would do, I mean internally, that's what I would do.

And then I would set a number of things up for the guys that are eventually going to get out so that they would actually have a really good chance. One of my things that I put in the in the re entry chapter, my chapter thirteen, the idea that rehabilitation starts way for release and it should continue after release. So a lot of these guys should have mentors already on the street lined up, whether they're psychologists or just

a mentor in the community. And that's been proven in studies to have a great effect, especially on juvenile offenders and younger offenders. So start the rehabilitation like we spoke about, have a follow up, have a connection that builds at least a few months for the transition to the streets. You've got somebody out there. You're not scared. You got somebody can go talk to. You know, after a guy that's ten, fifteen, twenty years, life is so much different

on the street. I mean it was for me when I got out, and you know, they need somebody there that they that they can talk to. Is gets too bad and go look, man, I'm thinking about reverting back to Crome. I don't want to. What should I do?

Because right now there is nothing like that. These gots get out, there's there's nobody there for them except for a fearful you know, the fear of a probation officer that's whose job is that we can or lessen their case a little by putting them back as quickly as they can.

money from labor initiatives in prisons as well. But really is this worth and this is significant the kinds of plans that in things that you outline in your book, Is it significant savings to do this thing that seems almost foreign to people now, to actually deal with the prisoner with the inevitability is they're going to get out and retrain them rather than let them just sit in prison? Is it that significant? And is it is it really that counterproductive what they're doing in prisons? Now?

it significantly reduces it in the long term. Now, we can't look at in the visual Okay, what does this program cost? Okay, this costs this many dollars. If people try to put it in a little box like that, then no, you're right, it wouldn't be significant savings. Instead, they would be looking at expenditures rather than savings. However, if they're combined with agriculture and industry inside the prisons that incentivize the prisoner's work ethic teaches them to work.

You know, you're talking just in Florida's there one hundred thousand bodies. Only two thousand of those are working a real job. The rest of them are, you know, working an hour a day or two hours a day, or something that's menial or nothing at all. And so if you actually take that labor force of ninety eight thousand men and women in Florida and you actually put them to work, that's the biggest workforce in Florida. I mean, that would literally be the largest individual work government you know,

sponsored workforce in the state. The money that could be produced by those guys, by those prisoners, could pay for their incarceration, It could pay for many of their court costs and restitution to victims. There could be a victim fund set up. The money to children who suffer terribly

as a result of prisoner's behaviors and their crimes. They could get child support, the mothers who were out there, single mothers who were out there trying to care for those children, and the grandparents who've been the child's basically been dumped in their laps. You know, they would obviously have some money to take care of these children. And so many of the benefits of these programs, they can't

be calculated in one simple calculation. You have to look at all of the other benefits and welfare benefits that are provided by the state and by taxpayers as a corollary either direct or corollary result of prisons being prisoners being in prison and getting out and recidivating. So yes, I mean, when it comes down to we did the math on a number of these things, and it's well

and above what the taxpayers are paying right now. It's fifty thousand dollars fifty dollars a day, I believe here and flow, but around between twenty five to fifty and actually older inmates are up because of the medical costs

were up to seventy to eighty thousand per year. So if you could save let's say you could save just forty thousand by by you know, a prisoner chipping in and making a decent wage and paying for the majority of his correctional cost, or well even if it was just thirty thousand, and then keep that guy from coming back, Provide the welfare through child support rather than taxpayer welfare

to the to the children. And provide himself with some type of a maybe college courses or you know, money to actually have when he's released so he doesn't feel desperate a month or two after he's released, and motiv or provide the impetus for him the committed of the crime. If all of those things are taking the consideration, there is without a doubt and there should be a push for these, for these overall are changing, you know, programs in the correction system in the United States, And I

know that's not the circumstances in Canada. Dan, I understand that's completely different. Situations in Canada.

I guess either we're America's rife with criminals or maybe there's something to what you're saying outline, just briefly, the collusion and the members in how this whole thing really works. I mean, people would say, well, it's maybe inefficient, and maybe there was good intentions you know, gone bad, and maybe there's circumstance is and maybe there's cost cutbacks that have to be taken in consideration. So some of these

things happen. Outline, the collusion, the people that are responsible in the prison industry for contributing to this, you know, basically reversal of what the system is supposed to do, and tell us why these players are doing what they're doing.

think it's Management and Training Corporation out of Utah. There's a number of the huge prison industrial that makes up the prison industrial complex where it's private industry that is constantly like, for instance, we had Corrections Corporation of America I think it was in Colorado that funded a number of the campaigns there, and you know, later it was found that the same people who they had funded to be elected turn around and gave them contracts for a

huge contracts for new prisons to be built, paid for the prisons, and then paid them you know, annual contracts to run those prisons. So I mean, I think that the connection between the correction officer unions the Police Benevolent

Association used to be the one here in Florida. I'm gonna step lightly when I talk about the Teamsters union that just took over because when I was in and up to this point, I haven't seen and don't know of any you know, surreptitious activities, and I want to be very careful not to make false accusations, but I can just say that the union's up to this point

in most states it's the Correctional correction Officers. I can't remember the second, the first ward it is the CCPOA in California spent hundreds of hundreds of thousands of dollars to get tougher crimes, tougher sentencing laws on crimes that really should not have been That's where that three strikes in California came from that you were talking about earlier. You know, that came from the Correctional Peace Officers Association

out there. I mean, they're very, very powerful, and so those groups, the correctional officer unions, the private industry when it comes to the company, some of the companies I just named have many examples that I provided in the book showing that they pay for campaign finance and then later down the road they push they lobby for those same legislators or governors or whomever to push for certain bills to be brought forth before the House and then

the Senate, and those bills many times are pasted because so many of the of our politicians are in the pockets of these groups. So you know, I mean, who is it that's actually going to be able to speak out against this? The prisoner, he's voiceless. He's in there, he has no vote, he has no voice. Nobody listens, nobody cares. Society's too busy with the economy right now

and everything that's going on to worry. And then just day to day, you know, when they turn on the TV and they say another killing, another shooting, another drug operator, you know, I mean, who really cares? Nobody does, Nobody

has a time to care. So what I've also proposed in chapter ten, which is called Prisoner's Families Are Not the Criminals, is a union of prisoners, family members and loved ones, and media and activists and reformers who are interested in actually creating a counter to these huge unions and other groups that actually have they accept membership dues. They're very organized. They usually have a national organization with state chapters. I mean, who's going to counter that? Who

really is going to counter that? Unless someone like me gets out and tells the public what's going on, like I have in facing the US prison problem and lets them know this is the option. You can either continue ignoring it, continue believing what the media is telling you about the crime rates when they're significantly lower than they were in the seventies and you know, keep being misled

and watch the deficit grow and the debt grow. So if that's what society today wants, then we should just continue on the same patterns that we're going Otherwise, if they want something different, if they want something that it works and reduces the victimization of their family members in the future, you know, on average, then let's come up with a counter And that's what I try to do in chapter ten to show we need to create the

prisoner family union. That's what I've proposed, a prisoner family union of family members who are non criminals, who have just as much right to vote as any correction officer does in the prison systems, and create a union to counter the lobbying and the campaign finance the same way they do. Since it's almost impossible in America to change the campaign finance laws in a way that they will

truly work to represent the people. So if that's the then it looks like the only way to counter that is to, you know, create the other three hundred pound gorilla, so that way that the laws and things are balanced by a reason perspective of what society itself wants, rather than you know, what one small but very powerful group wants.

They're really dealing with lesser criminals because they're easier, easier to prosecute, easier to arrest, easier to intimidate, easier to catch, easier to be ratted on well at the same time and versally as a result, avoiding real criminals, serious criminals and the serious criminals are what the fearful public via the media and the politicians. This is what the people respond to accordingly, So do you really think there is

this you know, ying and yang here. If you're concentrating on all these lesser people, you're satisfied with that you're closing cases, is it really you know it is the public really concerned about putting people away that really don't need to be put away. And like, as you describe in a book, working a couple hours a day where you have this huge workforce or at least could sustain or dephrase some of the cost the incredible cost of incarceration.

Do you really think this is, you know, the dog chasing a stale here?

that it can become you know, cannon fall. The bodies that are in there could become cannon fodder for more money and larger memberships to unions and things like that. I mean, just since nineteen ninety four, By nineteen ninety four, the incarceration rates were per one hundred thousand residents had already jumped two hundred percent. I mean, how does that happen? You know, did everybody all of a sudden just go to the street and start committing crime. Now, what happened

was the people that are making their pockets fat. You know, they got in behind the scenes and realized that they could manipulate the system in a way that would take advantage of lesser violent criminals as well. And you know, that's how the prison boom, I mean filled up from I think it was one point seven million, you know, like in ninety five or ninety six, to two point three million by ten years later. I mean, that's you know, the increases in crime were based largely on the non violence.

I'd like to mention something else too real quick then about that whenever you whenever a society put people in prison, they We've actually done the researches in the book about showing the imprisonment for people does serve some over crime rates optimally at rates between one hundred and eleven to two hundred and seven people per one hundred thousand. So Florida has a rate of about five hundred and fifty.

So they went from one hundred and eleven, which scientists have proven is the rate that is the optimal rate for a society to incarcerate one hundred and eleven to two hundred and seven max. Per one hundred thousand people. Florida incarce rates five hundred and fifty per one hundred thousand. If you include the juvenile in the county in Mats it jumps to eight hundred and five. I mean, how is it that science has been thrown out the window

when it comes to these kinds of things. And yet I mean, you know who, once again, who's going to speak out. Is the non violent offender in prison going to be able to speak out and anybody listened to him. No, first off, if he speaks out too much and he's in prison, he may end up with more time or has some false charges brought up against him because he's challenging a very lucrative situation for many people who have vested interest in keeping it the way that it is.

So you know, I mean, lock them up, throw away the key. It doesn't matter if in many cases, if they're violent, or if a crime, for instance, a violent crime arm robbery. I always say that there's a huge difference in a guy who shoots somebody in the head, even though they live and it's still an arm marble, or shoots somebody or brandished the gun, sticks it in their mouth and threatens them and scares the living to

Jesus out of them. I think there's a big difference between that and some kid who's literally scared out of his own shoes. He's doing it out of desperation, he's not wanting to hurt anybody, but he's going to receive the same time that someone who was an act like an animal, you know what I mean. So it's there is no it doesn't seem that the way that the laws are developed now in the United States, they don't discern the differences between those two types of mentalities. And

you know, it goes much worse than that. When I say that, I've met hundreds of guys who were in on violations of traffic infractions and things. I mean, that's how bad it got. Now some of those things, luckily, because the economies are so bad, some of those have been reversed in some of the states, including Florida. I believe, I believe they got rid of their driving while license suspended five year sentences. But I mean there's still a

lot of them that are like that. In many states, they have laws still about hitching posts and sayings that have never even The laws just keep getting made more and more laws, and very very rarely are those laws overturned. In other words, they should have a committee in these commerces to look at laws and say, okay, now we passed twenty, so let's look at what twenty we can turn over. Do you know what I mean, like that might actually stop some of this this kind of police

state mentality. And I feel that the United States is moving toward and just every every year it seems, you know, I mean, the president of the United States in this country today, I mean, the constitutions pretty much a joke. The president of the United States in this country can deem a domestic group as terrorists if he doesn't agree with what they're what they're doing, deem them terrorists and arrest them, put them away without any constitutional rights, without

reading them Randa rights. I mean, there's many laws that that Canadians and Americans probably don't even know. I mean, they are on the books that should definitely not be on the books to a free society at all.

sort of thing hysteria. But you can see too that we you you point out very effectively as well, that this fixation suddenly on terrorism and how we can deal with these people very harshly, and we can't get into that as well, but you say there should be some concern for prisoners living in under draconian conditions in US

federal prisons too. On again, lots of times inappropriate sentences, the judges being taken away any kind of discretionary powers because of mandatory minimum sentences put in by some of the characters like Charlie Christ here where just basically a politician spent nine ten years doing everything he can for special interest groups to the detriment of the state itself, going through tough times economically, and yet there's empty beds.

What I found was very very dramatic example is the five thousand unoccupied beds, the decrease in violent crime and crime rate overall, and yet this huge increase in prisons and prison expansion and expenditure. So very very interesting and good example.

One of them got this prison, got the funding from Florida taxpayers to build this prison, and a little research when I was doing the book, come to find out that there were five thousand open beds in Florida prisons already before that prison was even built, by the by the private prison industry. I mean, how to you know, has our country and our government gotten so far away from the people that the people don't even realize that

kind of stuff's going on. And where was the media, I mean, where's the media on things like that to really just blast them for doing those kinds of wasting tax pay of money. I mean, I just I really don't understand why. I mean, I do, you know, for these reasons, but it's just it's disheartening, you know, to see how blind society has been by the fear of terrorism and the fear of crime and the fear of drugs, and to the point where nobody even really cares anymore.

They all believe everything's fine, it's working like it should. And you know what, they don't realize that that that's it's not true. It's not even that doesn't even get close to being true.

You know, that's all hopefully in the future. As it stands right now, I've gotten really good reviews from people who are reformers. Prisoner's family members have just there they felt so helpless that there was nobody out there that truly understood or was able to articulate the types of things that I'm raising in the book. So for them, it's great. For reformers like Pat O'Connor. I mean, he's a great guy, you know, the you know, great guy

for Crime magazine. I mean, yeah, those guys who have been involved in this and who have seen the problems firsthand, who've been dealing with these for many years. Oh, you know, I'm getting blowing reviews. And then but when it comes to the groups and the correctional systems around the United States, you know, I don't think that a whole lot of that has gotten too much of a wind of it.

Yet when they do, I'm hoping then instead of a retaliatory attitude, then instead they will read the book, if that's what they're interested in doing, and seeing what I'm talking about, and keep an open mind, and they'll understand if they do review the book, that I'm not such just a total bleeding heart liberal and trying to just you know, mask over the responsibility of people and their behaviors.

I really care about these things. I hate to see guys inside I suffer in ways where they could be they could be rehability human beings. They could get out and actually provide society productive labor and maybe their creativity or art, whatever it is that they have to offer society. I wish that they were provided an opportunity that they could. And I also don't like to see people out here who are victimized when they don't need to be, you know, by a system that is fostering this. So I haven't

gotten a whole lot of feedback from them. I'm concerned, to be honest with you, about the Correctional Officers Association here in Florida. I'm not sure how they're going to respond when they do get wind of this book, and which I'm sure they'll be getting wint of it pretty soon now. But and when they do, I hope that

they don't retaliate. I really do. I hope that their attitude is hey, you know we'd like to we'd like to actually look into some of your ideas and see maybe if we could, because you know, Dan, it doesn't mean that these have to be exclusive. These ideas could be inclusive to where the correctional officer unions and the the other groups that have been influencing these things behind

the scenes. I'm sure there's a way that they could be appeased and opportunities could be open for them in different ways that would not have to add to the US prison problem. But until we get a dialogue going, a real dialogue, one that does address the issues honestly, without you know, there being so much influence behind the scenes, I'm afraid to say that I don't think much is

going to change, but I do. I would like to offer, this is an open offer in the United States that those solutions that I provide, especially in chapters ten, eleven, twelve, and thirteen, those chapters of the book, I believe if somebody sat down and kept an open mind, they would see the taxpayer savings, the burden on them, the victimization, recidivism,

all of those things decrease. Matter of fact, I even offer guarantees that if they implement the process and the solutions that I propose in that book, if they implement them exactly how I'm saying, to implement them, that they will reduce their recided them by thirty percent, that they're reduced the cost of corrections by fifty percent, and a number of other you know, increasing child support, reducing welfare

is a single mothers with prisoners children. I mean, so you know, I mean I'm not just I'm not one of these people is just saying a bunch of things and you know, not being willing to back them up or support them. I mean fiscally, I'm willing to back those up and support them and show real statistics so that that way the rest of the country might be

able to move forward. If I could get one pilot state to bring it and as a consultant to do a pilot prison, just one prison and their system, and let me have those solutions that I propose and let me apply them to that population for three years. I guarantee them that the recidiism and the actual cost of those prisoners will go down significantly.

come from a bitter place. You've really taken yourself surprisingly very much out of the story in terms of you know, woe is me, and here's my here's what happened to me in there. It's not a prison memoir by any means. And you've definitely grown up to be a very very objective journalist by virtue of your experience and from doing

this book. So you've outlined in detailed and examined and and and you have prescribed some things too and just for example too, and in your book you talk about restitution and you talk about the ways that you really can benefit society with some of the initiatives that you have, and really that should be the goal as well. So I commend you for a very viable plan and where you're very you can see this as your life's work, and you put an incredible amount of effort and focus

in being able to write this book. So I applaud you on it's very interesting, very interesting book.

I'm confident in the rebilitation. Like I need people to look at this and say, do we want to stop the the just empty hole of money pulling in for these ridiculous corrections for policies and sentencing policies and political policies that aren't have little, very little spotlight from media.

Are we interested in changing these things to truly reduce victimization rescidiism as a debt or are we going to continue on the same course and so we end up like the Titanic, because that's literally the way that's the direction of this country's going.

important document and this important perspective. And you will reach the right people with this if you, you know, just continue to do it, because I mean, there are people that need to see this perspective because you're you're also taking other people's information and as well incorporating and you didn't just come up with this grand plan yourself. So this is something this is something that should spark a serious debate because really, obviously corrections is not working, the

judicial system is not working. People do not have the

trust that they did do before. And this book gives people ammunition to to be able to get into that debate and to be able to weigh in and be able to make some statements because there's a lot of stuff that I think you go, yeah, that's right, yeah, and you make the essential connections, especially with the media and politics and with all you know, the machinations behind the scenes, just by virtue of that's the way people are looking for jobs and looking for security and things happen,

but there also is this the public is the big loser, and the public is the big payer of the tabs, voting victims and including everybody that's on the peripheral of this so.

a reformer or an activist. You can go to Prisoner Family Union dot org or speak Out Publishing dot com and contact me. Let me know what kind of you know, even if you would just like to help out with typing or maybe helping us further develop the websites that we can set up some stuff or make donations so that we can set up the corporation and actually create a lobbying agency that could counter We have in the

book itself, Facing us Prison Problem. We have the ten top objectives of the Prisoner Family Union in chapter ten. So the whole thing is spelled out in chapter ten about creating something that's different, that can pre code to the politicians, provide a different perspective, one that's based on common sense solutions, and start changing these things. I mean, we're not going to change them unless we have a force that is as powerful as the forces that control

that now. So I would invite anybody who's interested in these topics, anybody who thinks that some of the things I've suggested makes sense if they have questions about how to involve industry and agriculture within the prison system and a fair way to private business, and also in a way that doesn't exploit prisoners and provides child support, restitution and things we just discussed, you know, get in contact with me. I need help. I can't do this by myself.

I've written a book, I've basically shot the first shot.