2 Men In Black and White: An Honest Conversation

Mark Hayes (00:01.147)
All right, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back. Two Minute Black and White and Honest Conversation. Today we have a very special guest with us, the esteemed alumni of Yale, who's gonna tell us all about the Yale-Harvard weekend. We're gonna get into that, as well as a more important topic right now: criminal justice, criminal justice reform, and the way the system can be improved right now, and what you can do to help. Andrew Kornfeld joins us now from the Zealous.

nonprofit organization and Andrew what a pleasure it is to have you here. an honor and a privilege to talk to you, my son. Of course, my partner in crime, Brock and Ellis, is here with us to assist in the conversation. Andrew, what a pleasure, my friend. thank you so much for joining us.

Andrew (00:48.376)
Thank you, Mark. It's great to be on.

Mark Hayes (00:49.841)
Yeah. So let's talk about what Zealous does first of all. Give us give us kind of the thirty thousand foot view of what you guys do in terms of advocating for criminal justice for all.

Andrew (01:03.916)
Yeah, so Zealous actually started as an offshoot of a public defender's work. my boss was a former public defender working in Brooklyn for about a decade, and he saw every day how the criminal justice system was designed to detain his clients without full due process rights and how police were pressing bogus charges against dozens and hundreds of people in New York, and they were being railroaded into jails and prisons.

and he could only do so much within the courtroom as an attorney. So he wanted to move his advocacy outside of the courtroom and start exposing some of the things he was seeing to the larger public in the media and basically just like build up a public defender's toolkit to advocate for their clients. So he hosted a training for public defenders across the country to learn some of these media advocacy skills. and outside of that training form Zealous, which again initially started to support defenders and build up.

Kind of resources for public defenders across the country, but now has become kind of a larger media advocacy, narrative change organization where we're essentially trying to topple the imbalance that power, meaning like police and prison system, has over the public safety narrative, and uplift the perspectives of people who have historically been excluded from the public safety narrative, including people who are directly impacted by incarceration, people who are inside themselves, public defenders.

and community organizers who work with these communities every day.

Mark Hayes (02:37.552)
Yeah.

Let's talk a little bit about what we see going on right now. We know that there are so many imbalances when it comes to the way justice is handed out. You talked about bogus charges. One of the first things that I want to get at is how do you afford a good defense in America? How do you afford to defend yourself if you don't have means? I mean, the rich, like we saw with O.J. Simmons.

Simpson are able to defend themselves with a team of highly experienced lawyers, and yet the everyday American can't afford a $10,000, $15,000, $20,000 attorney to go into court for them one or two times. It's insane.

Andrew (03:27.298)
Yeah, so that's one of the biggest issues with the justice system where many advocates call it a two-tier justice system where your experience is dependent on the wealth you have. so some people are able to afford a private attorney who can defend them, but the majority of people cannot, which means that our constitution entitles everyone to a legal defense so they would have a public defender be provided to them who's able to advocate for them in court.

Across the country, public defenders are vastly under resourced. There are counties where there aren't even public defender offices. There are states where there's in Mississippi, for example, less than 40 public full-time public defenders across the entire state. When there are public defenders, they're extremely overworked. and do not have the time to or in in many places it's different everywhere, but do not have the time to like devote enough attention to their clients' cases. So justice is obviously compromised. People end up waiting

Mark Hayes (04:09.788)
What?

Andrew (04:25.42)
In jail, detained pretrial simply because they can't afford to pay bail, not because they've been convicted of anything. And they language in jail for weeks, months, even years because they don't have an attorney who's able to like quickly move their case forward and get them a day in court. So again, this issue looks different across the country. There are some states that have where public defender offices have more resources, but by and large, they're extremely under-resourced. They make much less than prosecutors do.

which drives staff turnovers so public defenders end up leaving, which creates even greater case backlogs. but yeah that's you kind of identified one early solution to this problem would be providing more resources for public defense.

Brock Ganeles (05:10.074)
The answer touched on a second issue, which is the cash bail issue, which gets really contentious, almost toxic when it's brought up as a quote liberal political issue that we should abolish cash bail, which at in some respects at the surface is like, well, of course, why should how much money you have dictate whether you have to sit in jail pretrial or get to sit

Mark Hayes (05:10.182)
Brock, what do you got?

Brock Ganeles (05:38.811)
In your couch in your living room pretrial. The crime may be the same. Every other element of the situation may be the same. The only differentiating factor may be your bank account. And yet, whenever, you know, the elimination of cash bail, which certainly contributes to a two-tier justice system, comes up in terms of narratives and storytelling, it it kind of falls flat, right? I can't even think of many places where it's been

implement it. What's your what's the view of what you see relative to that topic?

Andrew (06:13.772)
Yeah, I think it is a very contentious topic. in New York, for example, there was reforms passed in recent years that were then rolled back partially because of how contentious it was. I think it's important to start off by pointing out that like cash bail

means that people are detained. Like you said, it has nothing to do with what they were accused of doing, but it simply means they can't afford the bail that was set for them. but in the places that have gotten rid of cash bail, Chicago is one of them. Texas and New York have, it's not fully gone in Texas, but there are are like restrictions. and the evidence in all these places shows that when people are

able to be living with their communities while they're awaiting trial, they still have like a high over 90% success rate of showing up to their court dates. They're able to maintain their jobs. They're able to pay rent instead of whereas like if they're detained the whole time, they lose their job, they miss rent payments, they face eviction, sometimes they lose custody of their children. So it is just like a common sense solution to achieve stability for people who have been arrested in their communities. And also if we're talking about public safety and if that's our goal and we want to keep people safe.

that means not destabilizing the lives of people who are going through the legal system.

Mark Hayes (07:30.404)
Yeah. Andrew, let's talk a little bit about you know, the the process and some of the misconceptions that there are surrounding the justice system right now. What do you think the biggest misconception is?

Andrew (07:44.173)
Yeah, that's a good question. I think the biggest misconception, which is maybe a cop-out answer, is honestly the underlying logic of the system itself. The idea that there are people who are criminals as like a a noun and that's who they are, that someone has done something, like committed an act of harm and because of that will be defined by that act they committed.

and that jails and prisons are filled with these kinds of people who are evil, who are dangerous, and that they need to be confined and separated from us in order for us on the outside to be safe and to feel safe. anyone who knows people in prison knows that's not true, knows that these are people who are caught up in circumstances oftentimes beyond their control, oftentimes they are inside for not even harming anyone, but for committing an act that was labeled as a crime by the laws that we have. and also if you look

Look closely at the system, it's not keeping us safe. We still have like the the levels of incarceration go up and crime goes up at the same time. There's no like correlation between incarcerating more people and policing more people and crime going down.

Mark Hayes (08:48.059)
Thanks.

Mark Hayes (08:52.647)
Yeah.

Brock Ganeles (08:55.216)
I mean, do you think also we don't don't even differentiate between property crime and violent crime? 'Cause right, there's gotta be there's some people that do deserve to be locked up, right? They are a threat to our safety. And there's others that stole some shit because

Andrew (09:01.08)
Definitely.

Brock Ganeles (09:11.61)
They have no money, which I always argue any of us would do if we're in a a circumstance that maybe is life or death. We have a baby at home that we need to feed. Like we're not necessarily gonna play by society's rules when we're in that moment of peril. Or just even stealing cars, shoplifting and all that, right? And we treat property crimes kinda equal.

to violent crimes. That's at least for some people and for society. I think that's more for black people in society. I think when white people commit a white collar crime or a property crime, they tend not to society tends not to define them by that and tends to say they made a mistake and deserve a second chance. I mean is there f numbers to the that's anecdotal. Is there numbers that like back that up? Is that like the reality?

Andrew (10:07.342)
I think that's the reality from like common perceptions of yeah, like the idea of who is a criminal. And I guess to what you were saying about violent crime, I think that category is also like a lot of things are qualified as violent crimes when if you take a closer look, are not even actually violent. For example, there's a law called felony murder, which means that

If anyone participates in a felony, like a robbery, and someone dies as a result of that felony, even if they did not kill the person or have anything to do with that person, or not have anything to do with that person dying, but if they weren't the one who pulled the trigger or if they weren't involved, they will still be charged with murder. And across the country, these sentences are lifelong prison sentences. So what you have in in that case is sometimes you have people who are miles away from a crime scene, but had some minor role in the like setting up of the felony.

who are charged with a life sentence for a murder again that happened miles away. That's considered a violent crime. They're viewed as a violent person by society when they didn't even engage in an act of violence.

Mark Hayes (11:11.951)
Yeah. Andrew there was a again a case here that kinda touched me that I read about a few years ago. A young man was sentenced under the mandatory minimum.

Here in Georgia, we're one of the last states, I believe, with mandatory minimums. And this young man went into a you know convenience store, stole some diapers, baby formula, and said he had a weapon, but he didn't. He was still sentenced for arm robbery, which is an automatic ten years. why why isn't there more consideration on the circumstance? Like I

I I just feel like, you know, stealing to survive is like Brock said, is an entirely different you know experience than you know white America really understands. But yet, you know, this this young man was African American, he lost ten years of his life, and there was a child that lost a father, you know, so the ripple effect.

Right, is so harmful to the black and brown communities that it's almost like they're looking for a reason, you know, to lock you up for long periods of time. and because well that brings us right into the prison industrial complex. So talk to me a little bit about why is is it that you just need a better defense? Is it that you know we these mandatory minimums we have to go by the letter of the law? I mean, why?

Why is there no seeming there's seemingly no bend, right? There's no exception, right? There's only the rule.

Andrew (13:06.124)
Yeah. I mean I think there are two I think the first thing you said about the like asking why the law doesn't consider context is a question that's at the heart of this issue and that's why so many people are locked up. That's why we have more people locked up than anywhere else in the world. It's because we're not considering why people did what they did or what the s yeah, what their surrounding circumstances were. When you talk about mandatory minimums, that's makes me think of how we're addressing this problem.

I think there are two kind of main categories here. I think one is that there are laws and mechanisms that do exist that could get people out of jail and prison that could lower the number of people arrested, but they're just not being used because of a kind of lock people away mindset. and that being like a public safety priority and politicians not being willing to risk the political capital of appear

and appear soft on crime if they are letting people out or if they are following these mechanisms. Then on the other hand, there is the need to change laws. We have the harshest prison s sentences in the developed world. and there is a need to just like lower excessive sentences, get rid of mandatory minimums, and change policy to get people out and to improve the system. So yeah, those are kind of two main categories of change. But in terms of those mechanisms that do exist, I think that is

That's where like kind of funding public defense comes in. That's a constitutional mandate that isn't being met across the country. yeah, that's maybe like an early place to start because of the fact that those laws already are in place.

Brock Ganeles (14:47.11)
So let's go to the storytelling, right? Because we have to change there let's assume in a couple of years there's gonna be a big pendulum swing away from sort of the MAGA mindset of America to one that's questioning and challenging norms in this country. Just why why don't we have universal health care? Why is that such a leap? Other co everyone else has it. Why do why have we always America always said that's too big a hill to climb, right? That's

Kind of starting to be on the table in a more real way, this political cycle and probably the next. So we're challenging some big stuff. So let's say we're gonna start challenging there's an opportunity to start challenging the way we do the American justice system. And if we have more Nolan Wells cases and Carmelo Anthony cases, high-profile situations where white America looks at it and goes, wow, our system's really unfair.

That may be an impetus to for change. However, the narrative that I've been fed my whole life is watching the news, newscasters like Mark and his brethren, starting the show with the first five minutes is all the crime that happened in my local area, inevitably by people of color, scaring me. Like the the night starts s scaring me about everything around me, which then plays into a political system.

in which no one ever wants to roll back anything but the harshest of crime prevention and prosecution because God forbid one person slips through and commits a crime, it could be the end of your political career because society is so afraid of that person. How do you possibly change the storytelling?

Andrew (16:42.872)
I think that that's a really good question. And you're right that our the media and politicians for decades have just been scaring everyday Americans into consenting to the massive growth of the system that has gotten to a point where like police forces are larger than small armies in other countries. And it's on a it's we've already like kind of

signed away, like we voted for this, we voted for the politicians that built this as an American people because they scared us and told us this is how we were meant to be safe. Now at this point, like you're identifying like there is a need to move beyond that. and I think a couple of ways we do that is one by you alluded to like exposing the harms of the current system and learning the stories of how it actually affects people, and being able to pierce through the myth that it keeps us safe by seeing that like

Seeing people who are killed by police, people who are killed in jails and detention centers and prisons. There are three people every day die in jails across the country because the conditions are so dangerous inside. And being able to like have some more of those stories come to light, is a starting point. I think also, on the other hand, we need to hear about the success of alternative public safety solutions. So for example,

A a well resourced public defender office is a public safety solution. When a public defender office has resources, it's not just attorneys in the office, but they also have social workers and client advocates who are able to support someone who's navigating a criminal charge and connect them to housing or employment and make sure that they're able to stay on their feet and not be destabilized and therefore more likely to need to commit a crime in order to survive.

You also have across the country there's a a growing use of community first response programs, which are 911 responders who are not police, who are unarmed, and who they don't r s who are basically there to respond to the calls that do not require a police response. and across the country they're having like a incredibly high success rates. More than ninety-five percent of calls are resolved without police backup. So and when people learn about those kinds of programs, they're supportive of them.

Andrew (18:56.302)
But people aren't hearing about them. They're not seeing the stats that these programs are successful. They're not hearing the stories of everyday people who are affected by those programs and whose lives are improved. So so then I think the last thing in terms of storytelling is we need to be hearing from different people. For so long it's been this monopoly on who gets to speak about public safety or police officers, prison officials, and the politicians who are funding police and filling prisons. But let's again look at other people. Let's

Center the perspectives of people who have been incarcerated and know what the system looks like firsthand. Let's center the perspective of public defenders who work with those people every day. community organizers and anti violence advocates who are pursuing these other public safety solutions. What will happen if we start looking to them as experts?

Mark Hayes (19:41.907)
Yeah.

Brock Ganeles (19:42.717)
I feel that community that community member who's going social worker who's going out instead of the police is like a potential for a really a first success in some minor change in the huge system because it intuitively makes so much sense. Like, why are we sending people out with guns to deal with someone who's having a mental breakdown? Like we've seen them get shot way too many times. It's like you're sending the wrong people. Everybody knows it. It's just

It's obvious when you see the videos, and I think video helps in that respect, because people can watch the encounter and go, Why we have these like ruffians with guns and batons who want to beat up or kill someone who's just lost and needs someone like needs a hug, not a bullet in the back of the head. Right? So I feel like that's maybe one place where the narrative can change first. I feel like some of the other ones get tougher.

Andrew (20:13.742)
Definitely.

Andrew (20:32.226)
Okay.

Brock Ganeles (20:39.772)
'Cause we're so indoctrinated to want to throw people in jail and feel they quote deserve it. And sadly I feel like America almost doesn't care if the conditions in prisons are horrendous also 'cause we feel like it's a punishment. Right? We joke about rape in prison, right? Like that's like a common American joke. I hope they get thrown away and get like a you know a a

a three hundred pound gay roommate, right? As if like we're rooting for rape in prison, right? And but that's like American vernacular. Like that's just accepted joking quote that we do in America that prison that the prison should be horrendous. And how is anyone gonna come out of that better if we make their lives horrendous for the time that they're in there? I would think that we're just gonna make them harder and more violent. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Mark Hayes (21:13.021)
Brutality.

Andrew (21:31.875)
I think you're and I think you're touching now on something that like something within the American psyche where because of this like media indoctrination that we've been fed for decades, Americans are like trained to have almost like a bloodlust for like a desire to punish people who have been labeled as criminals. and like if you for example in California, which is a very progressive state.

in I think it was yeah, been t in the twenty twenty four election

There was a a vote to ban prison slavery that was by popular it was a popular vote, a proposition, and it failed. The majority of people in California decided that they would rather keep prison slavery than end it. and that's to that was kind of a moment where I think I was forced to confront in this work, people want this. People are choosing this system in the face of like everything I have seen about how harmful and cruel it is. and yeah, that cream.

It's more of the need to challenge that logic and the desire to punish. And yeah, it's it's it's I think it's a daunting task because of because of that bloodlust.

Brock Ganeles (22:44.06)
Yeah, it gets me to we're th we're the problem. Like me, right? Middle aged white guy. Like we're the problem. Like we're the ones that support this system and won't let go of the way it operates.

And I didn't even know that vote had gone on. And I find it as you're saying it, I'm like, fucking California of all places? Like and we're talking about sl like slavery? Like that seems like a no brainer. That should have been in eighty twenty. Maybe a seventy thirty, like the thirty magas like they'll vote for anything like that. But like how like I'm just I'm a little stunned by the statistic I shouldn't be because of the narrative that's been pounded in our heads. Like people may be liberal on everything.

Andrew (23:06.584)
Yeah.

Mark Hayes (23:07.751)
Right, right, exactly.

Brock Ganeles (23:30.246)
But not when it comes to criminality. It's like everyone is MAGA when it comes to like this the criminal justice system.

Andrew (23:38.531)
Yeah. I also think that criminal justice issues are they're almost not as neat they don't neatly fall on like pr a progressive and conservative political line in the way that I think they maybe did four four or five years ago. we've seen recently in some southern conservative states there has been policy efforts that have been successful to lower prison populations or at least not necessarily get that far yet, but at least

Mark Hayes (23:39.101)
Right.

Andrew (24:07.756)
commit to understanding that as an issue for reasons that are like rooted in a conservative logic that it's a

Locking up too many people is like denying people their individual liberty. It's a government overreach. It's a waste of taxpayer dollars. and we're seeing in some, I think a lot of progressive politicians that have been successful recently have in some ways like abandoned criminal justice reform as one of their key features because of the backlash to the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020. and I think that's also another like really tragic

shift in messaging that has happened in politics over the past five years that yeah, we need to kind of restore a commitment to criminal justice reform as both a progressive mandate and also I think a common sense bipartisan mandate in other areas.

Mark Hayes (25:00.389)
Yeah. when we look back at the s some of the comments that cost Hillary Clinton the twenty sixteen election.

you know, we talk about the film 13th, which exposed the prison industrial complex and the amount of money that was being generated through the systems of the prison industrial complex. For example, my son is currently serving a 30 to 20 prison year sentence in the state of Georgia, and we have to pay to send him an email, and he has to pay to send us one. I mean, email is free for the general public.

Public, right? But the prison system wants those who can least afford it.

To have to spend money on. Phone systems say Securis, one of the best bets on Wall Street that you can get. Core Civic, right? Private prisons, one of the best bets on Wall Street you can get. Right? We've got states suing these, we've got private prisons suing states because they're not keeping them full enough. There's something wrong there, Andrew, right? Because the the the the motivation.

Is the money, not the humanity, and definitely not rehabilitation.

Andrew (26:23.97)
Definitely. And I think, yeah, I I appreciate how you expanded the conversation beyond just private prisons, which are obviously extremely perverse, but they're less than 10% of prisons across the country. And there's like the telecommunication companies, there's food distributors, like any the people who make the mattresses in prisons, like anything that goes to the prison system is like part of this huge industry. but I think when we're talking about that

Sometimes that can be used as like a talking point in favor of keeping mass incarceration for people who care for for the people who are profiting from it. And I think it's also important to really name that the people who are profiting from it are a select few people who are leading these corporations that are profiting from it, but everyday Americans are the opposite is happening to them, or we're we are losing money to the system.

Either everyday Americans who are ensnared in it, like the people who are paying five cents for an email, or more than that, people who are paying to talk to their loved ones on the phone, people who are people inside who are not being paid a fair wage for their labor, but also those of us who might not have a family member inside who we're communicating with, but who our taxpayer dollars are going to fund the system instead of funding our hospitals, our healthcare system, our education, affordable housing, and that like insisting

That every dollar that's spent on incarcerating someone is a dollar that could go somewhere else. I think we all like have to keep that in mind too.

Mark Hayes (27:57.46)
So yeah. 2.3 million people right now currently incarcerated in the US. Brock, it's it's it's not going anywhere. That's the problem because I feel like it's so intertwined in our economy, our psyche, and in the media narrative. Right? I mean, how do we undo it?

Brock Ganeles (28:20.09)
How many television shows, hit shows through our entire lifetimes have been about nabbing the bad guys and throwing them away, right? Like look, Law and Order is on year thirty two or something like that, and now there's four spin-offs, right? Right? The copaganda, like we really sensationalized a and elevated the whole capturing of bad guys.

Right, it's just it's part of our entertainment system, right? And now true crime is, you know, taken over the online world, right? Everyone loves their true crime, you know, we gotta to get those criminals. So like unwinding that mentality, like there's no shows on public defenders, right? There've been a couple over the years, they don't last very long. It's like it's not entertaining

to America to talk about even like second chances for people or like I don't know, we don't embrace those stories. We embrace the tough cop who's put people away. That's like a storytelling I like gets back to where we started and what your organization's trying to do. It's like, how do you elevate the voices of the public defenders and those that have come out from incarceration and rebuilt their lives and

sort of redemption stories. America loves a comeback story. But we don't love people coming out of jail stories, even though those are comeback stories. Like, why not? Why? Where where is it falling down?

Andrew (29:47.16)
Yeah.

I think that I think part of that is building up I think there are ways to get America to love a coming out of jail story. I've it's not common, but I think that's what we kind of have to build up. And for example, I've worked on for many years on a campaign to free a woman from prison who was inside for defending herself against her abusive husband. She was locked up for twenty five years, she was finally released on parole two almost two years ago. And there's a video

of her it was she was in Georgia, she was locked up, and there's a video of her walking out of the prison gates, stepping out into like fresh, warm air, hugging one of her friends, like like crying out in excitement. and that was part of like a news story about her release because it was a big case considering her history of abuse. And that vi like when people saw that video and they saw firsthand like that feeling of freedom, seeing her experience that for the first time in twenty five years, like it

had a a lot of views on YouTube, it had a lot of positive comments. People were moved by seeing that. I think we need to like we need to show people those stories more, show people what freedom looks like and means. and not just be talking about like the stats and how horrible the system is and how like effective these alternatives are, but also like moving hearts, not just minds. Like what is it what does freedom look like? yeah, and what is it on the on the other side of that?

Like I feel like we often talk about how people are harmed by the current system and we respond to sensational sensationalism by sensit sensationalizing the system with like our own stories of like massive injustice inside. Like this person was locked up in solitary solitary confinement for decades. We talk about people on death row and it's important to tell those stories and highlight those harms, but also show these like kind of everyday simple victories of choosing a path outside of mass incarceration.

Brock Ganeles (31:44.689)
Alright, shoot me down if this is just overly wishful thinking. But do you think there's any way that because America has turned so d so aggressively against ICE, because ICE is just snatching people, trying to meet quotas and throw and incarcerating pe incarcerating brown people for being here illegally.

And America's turned against that and s has gone like these conditions are terrible, this isn't right, this isn't what our country's all about, right? It's like ICE is polling at like seventy percent disapproval now. Do you think that

That there can be a carryover effect of America, white America, looking at that and going, Wait a second, this is an unfair system and unfair carcera incarceration, to shifting their gaze then to, well, even after maybe we fix ice and 'cause abolishing ice is a progressive topic. We're gonna abolish ice. But then if you say you wanna scale back the police, not even like a defund or DS can do you think America's gaze and negative view of

The ICE concentration camps can swing to the prison system to where white America looks at that and also says, wait a second, that's also a system that's trying to hit quotas and is unfair and that we need to adjust. Any possibility of the connection being made, do you think? Or is criminality a whole different bucket and it's too entrenched?

Andrew (33:14.348)
I think it should is my f is the the first response to that. I think this is like a I think there are opportunities every few years in kind of like where the potential for politicizing the masses is higher because of like an outrageous act of violence that is broadcasted. and we saw that this winter with ICE violence and I think that was and is now like a pivotal moment to make these connections for people and that like

If you are seeing like the the logic is there, like you just laid it out for us. These systems are intertwined. Police collaborate with ICE across the country. ICE is again like built on detaining and confining and deporting people. The prison system is built on that same logic, mind us that last step of deportation. but at the same time, I think we also saw this winter police officers the opposite happening where police officers were just using the violence of ICE almost as a way to like

Get positive PR for themselves by distinguishing themselves from ICE. And I think there was a lot of praise for like the Minneapolis police chief for how he responded to ICE. And I actually was at a conference a couple months ago where he gave a presentation on how like the Minneapolis Minneapolis police responded. and it was a very it was very frustrating to sit through because his whole

his whole thing was like we like maintained order, we like held people back from protests. We like set up these barricades. We were responding to this, to that. And there was no like there was his

the mindset he was operating in wasn't we kept our city residents safe. We prevented them from being snatched up by ICE and deported. We protected people during protests. Instead it was just about like maintaining order in kind of opposition to ICE's like renegade approach to law enforcement. So yeah, I think it all this to say that it should, that connection should be made. And I think we also have to be like extra careful right now to not be like exceptionalizing police.

Andrew (35:14.294)
And or exceptionalizing ICE and viewing that like an aberration from like what good law enforcement looks like and understanding that they are yeah, that they operate under the similar logics that you described.

Brock Ganeles (35:24.92)
Andrew, I'm always the like the optimistic white guy who thinks that maybe something could possibly improve or happen over time. But so I'll throw it to Mark who maybe sometimes has to tether me back to reality on the ground.

Mark Hayes (35:24.967)
Yeah.

Andrew (35:29.58)
Something could, but not for everyone.

Mark Hayes (35:39.312)
Every now and then. Every now and then. I I want to talk about change, Andrew, and and I want to talk about it in regard to injecting humanity into the system. There seems to be none. for those of us who have read Shaka Sangore's just in incredibly compelling writing

about his time in solitary confinement for twenty years in the state of Michigan. you know, like how do we inject that kind of change where we start looking at incarcerated individuals as people's children instead of you know discarded trash?

Andrew (36:33.58)
I think it starts it starts at the level of word choice, how we're talking about people. there's been a movement within this space over the past like five or so years, probably even longer. that's just how long I've been involved, but to

stop referring to people in prisons as and jails as like inmates or offenders or criminals and to name them as people, people who are incarcerated and not like not defining them by the state's label for them. And I think that that's like kind of the granular level of how you start talking about people with humanity. And then how do we do that on the macro level? How do we tell people stories with the context that the court is leaving out? if a journalist is writing about someone who's arrested and going through trial, are they gonna like just quote police?

Are they just gonna say what's on the record? Are they gonna tell the full story? I think reading testimony from people inside firsthand is how we move people and inject humanity into the system. I will also say that some people are not gonna be moved by the human cost. Some people, they're so the logic of punishment is so ingrained that if we wanna win them over to this, we have to pursue different messaging strategies.

Mark Hayes (37:42.386)
Yeah.

Andrew (37:47.843)
And I like kind of I really don't like this, but we have to like meet them where they're at. And maybe some people aren't moved by the human cost, but they're moved by like a constitutional violation that's being that's happening, or moved by the fiscal cost when they realize how inefficient and wasteful this system is. so yeah, kind of having like a a flexible messaging toolkit and being able to talk about the system in different ways from the same common understanding that like the system is not doing what it says it's doing, and how do we show people that?

Mark Hayes (38:14.649)
Right. Right. Brock

Brock Ganeles (38:17.67)
So it's a big problem with multifaceted injustices every step of the way. What so we can't eat the whole burrito in one bite, right? So what can be done like first? Like what are what are a few steps that actually can be changed near term, perhaps?

Andrew (38:35.032)
Yeah.

Andrew (38:41.784)
I think there's some. I'll start with conditions and then I want to talk about like shrinking the system. But in terms of conditions, there are like some basic like kind of policies that can be implemented to just like improve lives and prevent harm inside the system. One is like solitary confinement, which is classified by the UN as torture, to be abolished across the country.

Phone calls and emails should be free. And pr like there's like kind of a set of policy demands to improve what's going on inside that should become like a common sense rallying cry for people who are concerned about this issue. Obviously that will take that involves the law changing, which takes a bit longer. so if we're talking about like getting people out of prison and having fewer people be arrested, let's look at like what solutions are already in place. So on the front end, when that's people being arrested,

that's granting bails. If if a place has cash bail, like judges and prosecutors have the discretion to like work together to not like prosecutors cannot push for pretrial detention. Judges can allow the person to live at home while they're awaiting trial.

prosecutors can divert people out of jail and like into a diversion program. Like there are actors who have discretion at every stage of the system. And then on the back end, which is the side that I think I'm most interested in because of being moved most by the stories of people who have been locked up for such long periods of time, is like how do we get people out when they still have time left on these excessive sentences. Parole is one of them, which I think we should talk about in a minute, but

like demanding that parole boards are actually releasing people and defining people by what they've done over the course of their incarceration, like how they've rehabilitated themselves, what they've been up to, how they've like how they're planning to contribute to their community, instead of just narrowly like judging them based off of what their crime of conviction was sometimes decades earlier. And then another one which is huge, which is another I think tragic messaging battle over the past few decades, is clemency.

Andrew (40:53.378)
That's like one of the first ways I got involved in this work was learning the story of a man who was elderly. His name is Benjamin Smalls. He was locked up in New York for decades. He was a jailhouse lawyer, by all accounts, just like an incredible leader. And early in the pandemic, he died of COVID while he was incarcerated. And he had an application for clemency sitting on New York Governor Cuomo at the Times desk, where all Cuomo had to do was sign a piece of paper and he would be released. He would have been safe from the virus. He would have been

Able to isolate and be home with his family. Cuomo refused to do so. Governors across the country refused to release people during COVID because they were scared of appearing soft on crime. And directly because of that, people died in prisons. right now the virus isn't isn't rampant in prison, so people aren't dying but from the virus. But conditions inside are still deadly. There are elderly people who have been locked up for decades who have applied for clemency.

And across the country, governors should just be signing pieces of paper to get them out, like not just a few people once a year or once a term, but dozens or even hundreds of people every year, because that's like they have the authority and the discretion to get people out. so yeah, I I would love to see an understanding that clemency is like a tool of the justice system that was designed to be a tool of mercy and to correct excessive punishment, rather than I think it's been viewed recently in the public.

Partially because of how Trump has been using his part in power as like a tool of corruption that shouldn't be used at all if it is going to be. So yeah.

Mark Hayes (42:28.615)
Yeah, Trump has really bastardized the system, and and is really putting a sour taste in people's mouths when it comes to, you know, even the January sixth you know, defendants, because they were willing to commit crimes on his behalf, they were able to go home.

Andrew (42:40.526)
Yeah.

Mark Hayes (42:47.035)
many of us are not that fortunate and most of those defendants happen to be Caucasian men. but let's get into parole. I'm you just mentioned that we are currently waiting

for parole for my son in the Georgia State system. and you know it's it's it's really frustrating that we can't find out any information on the process. we don't know really how the process works. You don't get to advocate for yourself as an inmate. So again, what are they really judging all you know I we sent in a bunch of character references. Like how

I just don't understand how that works and how they feel like they can make an adequate assessment of an individual's remorse level, of his level of rehabilitation, and of his motivation. Does he have a plan? I mean, what better way to find out if an individual has a plan than to ask him himself?

Andrew (43:53.421)
Yeah, I mean I think this that is I'm sure there are some other states that have that set up, but that is definitely unique to Georgia where people are not even able to speak in front of a parole board. which yeah, just shows how it's like what how is the board basing their decision? And that's the fact that that's so like not transparent is a problem in and of itself. But yeah, it's like the system isn't designed for

Mark Hayes (44:11.539)
Right.

Andrew (44:20.504)
For the person who's inside whose freedom is on the line to have like agency or a voice. I think parole is really frustrating because when someone reaches a point in their sentence where they're parole eligible,

That should mean that the parole decision should just be based off of like what their plan is and who they are at that moment. And when they were convicted of their of their crime, however many years earlier, the judge and prosecutor and the people who agreed and the jury that decided on that conviction and the judge that set the sentence decided that the person, the crime, it was okay for the person to be released as early as their first parole eligibility. And that should be based off of who they are, not based off of like what that that crime was, but instead, parole.

Boards will ignore everything and just be like, you haven't served enough time because of what you did back then. So that you you see like parole boards contradicting sentencing guidelines just based off of their like personal belief about what someone was convicted of. The the survivor who I d described being freed in Georgia earlier was denied parole I think eight times before she was finally granted. And there was no she never really had transparency as to why and

Yeah, there's just no trust that the parole board can be a mechanism for people. I don't I think also the parole board's protected from public pressure in a way that like a governor or another official might not be. So I don't know what it looks like to put pressure publicly on a parole board more and to like build a movement there, but I think that's something that could be an interesting more long-term solution to this issue.

Brock Ganeles (46:01.167)
Do people even know who the parole board is? Like I would have no idea. Like, so I think that's where they're insulated. They're insulated, right, from I feel like they're insulated from pressure because they're sort of like hidden figures behind the scenes, right? They're in a dark they're in a dark closed room. So who hires them? There's really comes down to the politician, right? Whether it's the governor or lieutenant, or maybe the attorney general of the state, maybe.

Andrew (46:06.285)
Yeah.

Mark Hayes (46:13.595)
Very much so. Yep.

Mark Hayes (46:23.859)
Right.

Brock Ganeles (46:29.316)
Unfortunately those attorney generals are always running on how tough they are, right? It's like it comes with the badge that they might as well do their ads from like a weight room or a shooting range, right? 'Cause they just gotta be the hardest ass in the state. And that's what we vote for, getting back to us being the problem.

Mark Hayes (46:33.605)
Right. Right.

Mark Hayes (46:50.947)
Andrew, what can the everyday citizen do to help if you will, alleviate the mass incarceration crisis?

Andrew (47:01.558)
Yeah. So I think the very first thing, just on to also kind of tie it back into the what we've been talking about with storytelling and messaging, is I think people just should move through the world, through like the media ecosystem with this kind of scrutiny and like foundational knowledge that we've been talking about today, and not just and what does that look like? That means like if you see

These sensationalized news stories of crime, and you see mugshots of people like blasted on the front page and like dehumanizing ways of describing them, don't just accept that as truth. When you see a news article that's only quoting police statements, maybe that's not the full story. And I think just like being skeptical of this like kind of police and prison monopoly over

large sectors of the media is like an important first step. and obviously not just to keep that to yourself, but to be talking about that with the people around you, to be challenging kind of these basic assumptions that underlie the prison system. I there are also obviously you can find in whatever state or city you're in, not

You can hopefully find like organizations that are doing this kind of work and plug in directly with them. Organizing against the prison system is how we can get people out, it's how we can change laws. and that's obviously a daunting place to start if you're on your own, but tapping into existing groups that are doing that work is really important. And a lot of these groups need volunteer manpower. But I think the last thing, which is how like what's been most impactful for me is

Mark Hayes (48:27.976)
Yeah.

Andrew (48:39.414)
As someone who no one in my family had been criminalized or incarcerated. I didn't have any friends who had gone through the system. I started writing to people in prisons during the COVID-19 pandemic. And from that formed like a handful of really close relationships with people inside. And some of those relationships have been built on like a commitment to trying to get them out of prison, to be like to working on their case with an attorney, to like s sending them money when they need it, to just like being a support system for them. And I think

People in many people in prison are lucky to have families on the outside who are able to support them and be in community with them. Many people are not and are alone. and I think building power with and for people who are inside right now or who have formerly been inside is just a huge way to like alleviate the harms and build kind of that grassroots ground level resistance. That could also mean like donating to re-entry funds, helping someone who's coming home like find a job.

And I I think that that again, that's a hard place to start, but there are like pen pal websites to people inside that you can find. I'm happy to share some resources like after after this too, if you wanna link them anywhere. Okay.

Brock Ganeles (49:51.056)
Yeah, yeah, send them over.

Mark Hayes (49:52.652)
Absolutely. Yeah. Andrew, and and then we can let you go here, but one last thing I wanted to I'm glad you brought that PenPal service up because

There are many people who are incarcerated that don't have anyone writing to them, don't have anyone putting money on their books, don't have anyone supporting them. And it appears that the system is designed to cut you off from your support system. So to have, you know, a letter from someone

you know, that helps you look forward to coming home, that gives you motivation. I'm sure that you can point to examples where people have been so thankful that those pen pal letters have been coming.

Andrew (50:42.85)
Definitely. And even when you were talking about like character letters for parole, like if someone doesn't have a community, who's gonna write those character letters? And if you're their pen pal and build a relationship with them, you can speak to speak about that and help

And help them. when people inside like don't have medical care or like dealing with an issue with staff, staff aren't gonna care when they're making demands for themselves and they have limited like room to speak up for themselves because of the fear of retaliation. But if they have someone on the outside calling the prison every day, being like, You need to make sure that this person gets the treatment they need, they're gonna be more likely to listen. So there's just like so many basic ways you can support someone inside if you do have that relationship with them.

Mark Hayes (51:23.801)
Absolutely.

Brock Ganeles (51:25.282)
Andrew, I'm like you. I've never had and I'm more than twice your age, never had any connection to the criminal justice system personally or really in any inner circle or family of mine. Right. Ironically, sadly, right, it takes my high s black high school friend Mark to get me introduced, you know, in a classic racial dynamic to the criminal justice system and increasingly enraged by it.

as I learn more, but I've been that complacent white America who supported this system my entire life and has helped us get to this point. And I rec I recognize that what I've learned today and my action item will be as I've listened.

Mark Hayes (51:58.811)
Okay, yeah.

Brock Ganeles (52:08.428)
Is it's got me to thinking about there is a progressive movement going on in America. It's winning all kinds of primaries. It looks like it's gonna be a major driver. Like not only Democrats likely to win in November, just because MAG is so terrible that they're losing votes, right? Dems aren't winning them, right? Like they're falling in their lap because of incompetence. But if if you think about all the progressive

Topics that are resonating with America. Affordability, housing, food stamps, universal health care, public education, climate, right? That's your typical progressive candidate and it's winning votes. All winning issues. Two issues that they won't talk about. And I'm gonna make them you know I'm gonna

keep screaming about it. To ask why not? And I know the answer is because they're hard and they go against the grain. Number one is immigration. We have it we have this ICE problem, right? We've avoided immigration policy my entire life.

Until it got to fucking Trump and MAGA and then decided just to round them all up. But we never have created a reasonable immigration policy because it was always too difficult in the third round. Politicians want to stay away from it. I view criminal justice reform in the same way. We just avoid it and avoid it and avoid it. And no politician in their big progressive laundry list of things they want changed, nobody's talking about criminal justice reform. It's too sticky. They're afraid. I get it. They think it may lose them votes or they make it

Positioned as soft by that hard ass MAGA candidate on the other side. So they're afraid to talk about it. And the fear of talking about it keeps the problem forever. And I think if there's something I can do and people like me can do, middle-aged white people that have no connection to the system, is to get outside ourselves and force the political machine to address.

Brock Ganeles (54:07.608)
and talk about this issue and not to let them ignore it. Because in ignoring it, you're just supporting the status quo, right? You're not

not doing anything. You're actively supporting the way things are if you aren't actively confronting the way things are. So that was my takeaway and my lesson of today is that you constantly have to make noise about it. And that's a white person's job because our voices get amplified and

You know, and we're the ones that aren't being impacted by it. When black people complain about the system, white America just like shrugs her shoulders and blames them and right, we discount it. White America has to talk about this issue. We have to be appalled by it. We have to be bothered by it. All right, Mark, that's it and that's my that's I'm off my soapbox now. But I'm all angry again, right? Like I told you that James Baldwin quotes in my head every day, right?

Mark Hayes (54:57.555)
Absolutely. Good stuff.

You're up, you're so fast. Hey, it's been out of conversation, bro.

Yep. Absolutely. Andrew, thank you so much for having an honest conversation with us today. we appreciate your insight. We appreciate your passion, my friend. So let's stay in touch. Please keep us abreast of any new legislation, anything you think that moves the needle, we're happy to have you back on.

Andrew (55:27.426)
Definitely. Thank you both so much. Really appreciate it the time.

Brock Ganeles (55:29.091)
Andrew, thank you.

Mark Hayes (55:30.567)
Thank you, my friend.

Andrew (55:33.815)
All right. I'll talk to you.