 Welcome to our behind the bar storytelling event. And what we're doing here tonight is basically giving everyone a chance to hear stories from people who have first hand experience from behind prison bars and dealing with the criminal justice system. Too often, you don't get to hear the stories about the actual people who have dealt with the criminal justice system and they just get a label and that's it. So the point of tonight is to actually give people faces, get to hear stories. And then also you get to hear from groups, local groups that are actually trying to do something so that you can actually prevent people from going behind bars and helping people who once they've dealt with the criminal justice system to actually get better. There are lots of groups here. There's the Longmont Community Justice Partnership. There's the Recovery Cafe. And there is the Reentry Initiative who has a very particular focus on wellness and reentry. And they will all get a chance to speak and I will talk more about the Reentry Initiative later on too. And but first I wanted to talk about where you're at right now and that is the Longmont Public Media. And I'm really grateful for this place personally, not just because I work here, but because it's a place where everyone has a voice, everyone gets a chance to speak and you get to hear stories like this and from every member of the community. And no matter who you are, you can come in and you can talk and tell your story and let everyone know. And whether it's an event like this and it's storytelling or whether it's making your own TV show, whether it's making your own YouTube show, whether it's recording a podcast or just reciting some poetry with your friends or having a concert and actually making an album downstairs, all of our stuff that our members do here. And you can do or you can make up something else and use that here. Plus the best part is, is that we'll help you put it out online and let other people see it. We have three public access channels. So we have a general public access so that if you make it, we'll put it up. We have an educational public access. So you show us how to make or do something. We can put it on there too. And then we also have one for the City of Longmont. So if you wanna learn more about what's going on with the City, with like City Council meetings, boards and commissions, the recent documentary that we helped the City of Longmont film, you can all watch those all on there. So those are all things that Longmont Public Media offers and yeah, it's honestly, it's limitless. I could spend all day sitting up here talking about the things you can do. The big thing that brought me in here was it was a place where I could come in for $25 a month. And 24-7 just a podcast with my buddy who lives out in Texas. And we could do a podcast about where I'm talking about the criminal justice system. And I couldn't have done that any other way. I tried to do it on my own. It was not effective. It's because I do it here, I'm able to get it way more places, get way more eyes on it. And I'm able to get way higher quality because all this equipment here you can use. And nine to five, Monday through Friday, it's open to everyone in the community, which is also just, I think is just an amazing thing and also important for everyone in the community being able to take advantage of and tell their story and get it out there. So thank you. Thank you. So speaking of telling stories, since I'm up here, I guess I will kick it off. And I will go in and I'll talk to tell my story. And also since I like telling stories anyway, and we had a big discussion before about nobody wanting to be first anyway. So I like telling stories. We had rehearsals for this event. And one of the things I'm talking about my life, it breaks down into several parts. And there is a big, there's a big chunk at the beginning. And I could spend hours on that chunk alone on the early part of my life, just because there's a part where me going to college and getting into having crazy fun and all that kind of stuff. There's a part where after college where I work at a startup and then I start traveling the country and then I end up with a top secret government clearance and working for the Department of Defense, then working for the ski industry up here and then getting married and then traveling more across the country. All that kind of stuff. I go for days on just that front part of the story. But where that story ends up is me alone in Plano, Texas and not understanding why I'm like not happy. And I'm working for a big company and like the big thing I'm thinking about is how can I do like, how do I make more money? How do I become more successful in the ways that I think are successful at that time? And what happened was as I'm trying to meet people the way that I knew how to meet people at that time, which was go out to happy hours, go out to meet people, that's how you connect. And I blacked out. And even though I didn't even have to drive to that happy hour, I didn't have to be in my car. By the end of that night, I ended up in my car and I ended up driving into someone and killing them. And to this day, I don't remember what happened. There's a lot of things that happened that night. It was awful. And I do remember being in a jail cell the next day and thinking that everything I had planned for up to that point was over. And that was the end of that. So I had to rethink what I was going to do. And a lot of my prioritizing was about trying to not be in that jail cell anymore and thinking how I was going to stay out of it. So when I was able to talk to my parents and they actually got me out on a bond, that was my number one priority. It's like, what am I going to do to stay out of jail? Like I am prone to do and like I was very prone to do at that time, I was like, well, here are a million things. I'm going to come up with some amazing idea that's going to just take up all my time. If I dedicate all my time, don't worry about sleep. Don't worry about eating. Don't worry about taking care of myself. Just focus on staying out of jail and that's it. But fortunately, my Lord's time said that you need to go to treatment first. And I gave in and I did it. So before getting locked up, I went to treatment and I got to see what that was like. And I will tell you, it's not anything like, it's not what I expected. I just expected a bunch of sad people telling sad stories about being addicted to things. And really, it was a lot of people looking out for each other. The counselors, I found like, they knew everything that we did. They were all talking to each other. They all knew what was going on. They knew they had an eyes on us at all times. And they were keeping track of us. And the big thing I could tell right away is they wanted us to get better and get out of treatment, which was huge. And it was really motivating. And they also wanted us to talk because they could see that it helped, we were helping each other by sharing what we were saying, which was crazy because what I was getting after the accident from talking to my family and from talking to the people I knew at that time was they're like, don't say anything because everyone's gonna judge you. So I was out on bond. I didn't know how long. I could have been a month or could have been two years. I didn't know how long it ended up being just a year. And then in 2015, so it's exactly nine years from this day, I was going to get sentenced. And when I was sentenced, they didn't care about treatment. They didn't care about volunteering. They didn't care that I felt horrible about everything that I did. And I did not want to be that person who caused that accident and that I admitted to what I did. They just knew what I did and I needed to pay for it. And so I was sentenced to 10 years in prison and 10 years probation when I got out, including a day in jail for every year on the day that I killed that person. So I'd have to go back out to Texas and do that. And I went to jail and I went to prison and I learned that prison was not like treatment. Everyone, like treatment, everyone had eyes on you, but they were looking for ways to get over on you. And it was something you had to be watchful of and mindful of. And sometimes you had to, if you wanted to help someone else, you had to be careful because a lot of people took that as weakness. And you had to be very careful of that. And it was, it's a difficult thing that what I learned from treatment was all I wanted to do was help to be in a place where that was some, that was a shameful thing to do. And I learned a lot of different lessons when I was in prison. I learned how to, like, I learned that eventually you have to break the rules. I learned that eventually, like I learned, like, I learned how to, when you're getting strip search, how do you sneak something past the strip search? I learned what, like, how you can MacGyver anything from just a little piece of metal. And that our radio can be turned into anything. So I learned a lot, but I also, I will say that, you know, there were some amazing people, there's some amazing guys that I met while I was locked up too. And there was amazing officers that I met while I was locked up. And, but it's hard because you have to look past the other things that were going on. And that really weighed on me a lot while I was locked up. It weighed on me that it wasn't an easy thing, that I had to look past everything to find those things. And I, to this day, it feels to me like it's an injustice, like that that's the biggest injustice that we don't try and make it so that, you know, when there's a problem, we don't try and help, we're not looking for ways to help people, we're looking for ways to punish them. We're looking for who to blame in a situation. So that's why I ultimately started with my friend who just happened to get out at the same time with, like he spent 30 years in prison. And because of people who were looking out for people in prison and doing programs like you'll see here tonight, he actually, he was able to make parole and got out. And because of groups that came inside, he was able to like keep his sanity, which is a very hard thing for someone who was locked up for 30 years. And he, him and I do a podcast called The Shakedown, if you're curious, but where we talk about what life is like in prison, what happened, and more about what can be different and how it can be different. And it's just, and the fact that it's all, it's up to each one of us to rethink it. Because like I said, I've seen it different already. I saw treatment, I saw how different treatment is versus how much, how different prison is. Both of them take people out of society and when they've messed up. The question is, is are you trying to make them better or are you trying to punish them? So thank you very much. Thank you, Ryan. Wow. So my name is Chris. I am from Recovery Cafe. We are located right across the streets and I'm here to tell you a little bit about Recovery Cafe. Recovery Cafe opened four years ago and we are a community of people in recovery and you can be in recovery from anything. Listening to Ryan's story, like where do you go? Day 91 when you get out of treatment or you get out of jail and you're like, I need to make new community. That's you go to the usual places and you can't go to those places no more and that's where Recovery Cafe comes in. We believe in the power of community and we come in and you will be welcomed with open arms. Something that does kind of separate us too is we ask everybody, be a guest, check it out, see if you like it and if you feel at home, please become a member and there's only three requirements for membership. It's 24 hours of sobriety. Give back by helping keep the cafe clean or teaching a class or sharing your story and attend a weekly check-in circle so you can get to know your community members at a deeper level. And then the cafe is yours. I mean, we're just there to steward the space and the cafe is all about the members and the members tell us what the community needs and we make it happen together. We're open Tuesday through Saturday. Come by, we're in the basement of the church right now but we will be getting our own space really soon. It's already in the works. So look forward to meeting everybody and come say hi, we have coffee, we have lunch every day. If you work, we're open Fridays four to seven and a really cool offering we have right now is every Friday we have AccuDetox which is a acupuncture in your ear. It's really great for releasing tension, releasing toxins and yeah, it's a great time. So it's so great to be here. Thank you so much. I wasn't planning on speaking so you're getting me on the cuff here but thank you everyone. Hi everybody, my name's David, David Brown. I know Ryan, I met Ryan in prison. It's a funny thing. He used to wear this really, really bright orange yarmulke and I used to see him across the dorm and it was like day glow and I used to think, what the hell is that? So I started talking to him and I like Ryan a lot. He used to work out together. He's just a really good guy and he's invited me up here. I'm from Houston so I flew up here to come up here and make a fool of myself up here. So, and I went to prison at an early age. My mom died when I was 18 and it really kind of threw my life into a tailspin. I acted out really bad. Before that though, I mean, I had not been the greatest kid either and so I went to prison. I come from a very white background, and we knew nothing. I knew nothing about the legal system. So I went to prison for a burglar habitation the first time and knew absolutely nothing. I trusted the court appointed attorney that I had. I listened to her lie to me and believed it and I ended up with a 25 year sentence, first time. I got railroaded. The system is not designed to help anybody and it's just weird how somebody from my background that I came from that knows nothing about the system, they get railroaded and how somebody that's from a background where prison is a natural thing, they know the system and they can work it and so they work the system, they can get a little bitty sentence, you know what I mean? But the irony of that is for those same people, if you're black or brown, you're screwed, they just want to lock you up. You know, I went to prison, I did five years on it. When I first went to prison, I thought I was going to be there for the rest of my life. I thought my life was over. I lost everything I had. I lost what friends, little friends I did have still and I just kind of just dove into the prison mentality and just survived. I hustled in there, you know, I did all the wrong things in prison and I was involved in riots and I was just, I was a screw up, I didn't think I was ever going to get out. I did five years, got out and when I got out, I said, man, I don't ever want to go back there but my mindset at that point was not in the right space so I got a job but I wasn't making enough money so I started selling drugs, right? And so that just eventually led to a tailspin, parole violations going back to prison, back and forth and back and forth and so this went on for about 15 years, right? And the last time I went to prison, in the inner rooms, I had my kid's mother, I had three kids and I started, and I was like halfway doing good but not really and I got a parole violation and went back to prison and when I went back to prison for this parole violation and this is my, it's like my fourth time in the prison including the first time in all the violations and I thought, damn, it's over, right? And so I was sitting in prison and I don't have anything, I have one friend who's stuck by me and that was it so I used to write these letters to him and I would, because I didn't have anybody to really talk to and I told myself when I was in prison this time I said, man, I'm not, I'm not gonna change anything, I'm just gonna do me basically, I'm not going to try and, you know, a lot of people go to prison and they pick up religion or they pick up something and it's like, I decided that I wasn't gonna do any of that. Ironically, I picked up a pamphlet on Buddhism and I was reading it and there was this, there was a story about, I said, don't, even if you have to do a task, you don't do, that you don't like, don't focus on the bad, focus on the good part about it and the example was a street sweeper and it was like, you know, you could go out there and sweep streets and be like, oh, I hate this job, this really sucks, whatever, but really what you should be focused on is how you're making the street a better place for everybody else. So I started thinking about that and I started thinking about what could I do in prison that would make prison a better place for everybody else. So I started picking up trash. I didn't tell anybody what I was doing, I would just pick it up and throw it away and let me tell you, people in prison, they throw a lot of trash on the ground, lots of trash and I just started picking up trash and I noticed the more I did this, the more my thinking changed and the more I changed fundamentally as a person and my friend that was out in the outside, when he wrote me this letter, he said, hey, you're fixing to come up for parole if you need a place to stay, I need a roommate. And I was like, what the hell? So I asked him, I said, hey, subsequently I ended up making parole, I get out and I go stay with my friend Juan and then while I'm there, I asked him, I said, why did you let me come stay here? He goes, because I could tell you changed. And I was just like, I was floored, but it's like, it's been interesting. I've been home for two and a half years and my life is really good now. I do the right thing and I don't get in trouble and I go to work. I've been working two jobs for two years and I feel real fortunate too. I was able to come up here on the spur of the moment because I really didn't think I was going to come and Brian kind of called me out on that but I was able to afford it and here I am and it's just my life is a whole lot better now and I think it's really unfortunate that our legal system is designed to make people fail and there is no like how to balance your checkbook or how to pay your bills or anything like that in prison. The only thing they'd say is, hey, you're locked up, go work for us, you know? And it's crazy because most of those people don't know any basic life skills, you know? I really didn't know any because my parents took care of everything. I had to learn it all on my own and it's been an interesting journey but life is pretty good now. You know, I've been a guest speaker on the podcast on the shakedown. That's been kind of fun. It's been, and it feels really good to be able to give back a little bit. So, I don't know, that's all I got. Hi, y'all. My name is Deb Whitzel and I do restorative justice practices and listening to both Ryan and Dave talk about the if I may, prison industrial complex has me my heart racing and has me just feel dug in about restorative justice practices because I don't know if you all know what restorative justice practices are but they are the opportunity for people who have caused harm in whatever way that may be, whether it's blacking out and terrifyingly and accidentally killing someone or a myriad of other possibilities causing harm. Those people have the opportunity to talk with the people that they have caused the harm to. And I have the privilege of facilitating those conversations of preparing people to come together in this intense and healing process. So, that's what restorative justice practices are and I have the privilege to have my own company called Three Stories Consulting and I get to facilitate these restorative justice practices for anybody who wants them, whether it's a business in need or human beings, individuals in need. That is my greatest honor on this planet is to facilitate those kinds of processes. And thanks to Ryan and Longmont Public Media I also started a podcast last year that is stories from people who have been through restorative justice processes. It's called the Restorative Justice Chronicles or the RJ Chronicles and you can find it anywhere that you listen to your podcasts. And today I was editing my latest episode which is part two of a three-part series. The first part is the story from the harmed person, the person who was robbed at gunpoint by two people when he was at work and it's incredibly impactful. So, if you listen to podcasts, I encourage you to listen to the Jason Kasparak story. And while I was editing part two with Michael Clifton, one of the people responsible for the harm, for the third time listening to this story, I found myself in tears. At just what Ryan and Dave were talking about, that we, all of us are responsible for the harm that happens in the prison industrial complex. And we have so many opportunities like the Recovery Cafe, like the Reentry Initiative, like the Longmont Community Justice Partnership. We have so many opportunities and ways to begin to shift that. And so my highest hope as we're listening to these stories tonight is that we all start turning our wheels and thinking about how can I show up and be a part of the change? That's what I got. With me personally, like I had my mom, my dad was in the round when I was growing up and we witnessed a lot. We seen my mom using drugs at a young age and it brought us to where we didn't care and we got locked up as juveniles. As I was 13 years old, I got juvenile life. When I was in the group home, I was 18 years old. I was getting ready to be done with my juvenile life because it was five years and my brother got killed by the cops. And that brought me to a pain that I never thought I would ever come back from, you know, seeing my brother laying in the casket. And after that, I just lost focus of everything in my life. I started doing drugs heavily. Got locked up, went to prison. Went to prison at the age of 19 and I got out when I was 23 years old. But I was in prison the first time that I did because I went to prison three times. It was just like, I was just in the days. I didn't have no focus. I didn't want to do nothing with my life, but gang bang and just make a name for myself. And I didn't realize what I was doing to myself. So I get out and yeah, I've never been a good motivational speaker in front of people. I ended up catching another case and it was a 10 year sentence. And I went in there and at the beginning, you know, I was just like, I didn't care. I was, you know, getting into trouble and not taking no programs, not taking nothing seriously. And my kids were very young. They were their babies still. But I remember my son looking at me and crying. And I went back to my cell and I thought about it. And I was like, wow, I'm living the same my life my dad did with us, you know what I'm saying? So I need to make a change. And I started taking every program I could in there. And, you know, I started making changes. I started taking responsibility for the things I was doing. I was done blaming my dad for not being there. I was done blaming the cops for killing my brother. And so I got out this last time and I made a change. I wanted, I was like, well, let me do something different. Let me be honest about the things that I've seen. You know, seeing people get killed in prison. You know, I seen, you know, my best friend get shot in the back of her head and I needed help. So I reached out and I started working across the street. I was the first I started out the reentry initiative and, you know, it was just, nah, I wasn't getting no growth there. You know what I mean? So like I went down to recovery cafe and ended up hiring my me on. And I started working there full time as a peer support. And I got another job opportunity it's called tribe recovery homes. That's where I work now. I work there and at the recovery cafe and my other job that's in Denver. It's in a neighborhood where all my troubles started. So, you know, I'm able to talk to people and relate to people and tell them like a, you know, them people, them friends that you, them so-called friends that you call people that got loyalty to you. They ain't there for you, bro. Like show love to people that have loyalty like your family and, you know, so I'm able to talk to people, relate to people, how people open up. And it's something that I love to do. I love going to work every day, you know, being able to talk to people and help them, you know, because I've seen them and me how I used to be. And, you know, so I love it. And I'm sorry guys, I'm not really good at talking, but you know what I mean? So, yeah, so I've been clean May 25th. I'll be, it'll be almost, it'll be four years. So, alright, thank you. Putting this shindig together for us. My name is Ricky Ramos. For those that don't know who I am, I'm actually one of the very few local Latino professional comedians down at the Comedy Works down in Denver. I've been able to create my journey through comedy. I've been able to create Colorado's first ever bilingual comedy room. I've been able to create Colorado's first ever bilingual comedy festival. But that's not the reason I'm here. The reason I'm here is I had to go through the journey of life to get to where I'm at now. And my story starts a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. I grew up in North Denver, okay, before it was gentrified, before the buildings and the bulldozers came back when it wasn't such a nice place to live. I believe one of the summers I grew up was one of the most violent summers in Denver. I was born to basically be a pit bull. I was born to fight. I was born to be a gang member. My dad was a gang member. I was bred into that life to be a gang member. I didn't really, I mean, I played both sides of the cards growing up. I knew that if I didn't get good grades in school and I didn't excel in school, I'd have to hear from it by my dad, you know? And if I didn't go run the streets with the homies, I had to hear from it from the streets as well. So not only did I run the streets and steal cars by the age of 12, but I also had book smarts. I also had book smarts. When I left middle school, I had straight A's, you guys. When I went into Denver North, I had straight A's. But at the same time, I still did what I did in the streets. Like I said, cars, car stereos, 12 years old, cooking crack, selling crack by 13, 14 years old. It was crazy, it was crazy life. It was a crazy, crazy lifestyle that I lived back then. It was all kind of a blur, but at the same time, at the same time, I was still getting good grades. It had gotten to the point where I was offered a scholarship to UCLA to play golf of all things. Full-ride scholarship to play golf. I chose to become property of the state of Colorado. That's what I chose. For me, I've been struggling with the system for I'd say over 18 years now. Consecutively, it was three and a half behind bars. Just as of 2017 was the very last time I used any kind of hardcore drugs. I've been clean since 2017. I've officially been out of the system, I think two years, two and a half years now. And in order to get to the path where I was, obviously I was messing up throughout my life, I was in the big boy pods in the prisons down in Denver County, CRDC, Arrowhead, the whole nine. And it wasn't until my dad retired and he moved up to this way to the Longmont area. And I followed him because he had a bunch of family out here. But I still struggled with being in and out of the system. I got into heavier drugs, methamphetamines, things like that when I got out this way. And it kind of just snowballed and I kept going and I kept going from the life that I used to live down in Denver. And I had a run in with, I believe it was Judge Sierra and she told me, you need to figure something out with your time because obviously, and idle time is the devil's playground, you need to occupy your time. You're in a smaller town, you come from a big city. I don't want to see you doing the same thing over and over and over again. And at that time, I had a buddy graduating from CU, okay? And he was graduating with creative writing degree. And I'm like, what are your plans with that? You're gonna write children's books? And he was like, no, I'm gonna do comedy. I'm gonna do stand-up comedy. And I was like, okay, yeah. And it sat in the back of my mind and for whatever reason, I guess it was the judge, it was the alcoholics call it an epiphany. It was just that moment where I was like, that's it. Something's gonna give, the bridge is gonna break here. And I called my buddy and I was like, how do I get into comedy? How do I do this? And at that time, there were no comedy open mics. It was musician open mics. And I went with him, he's like, write five minutes of what you think is hilarious. I'm gonna take you with me and we'll go from there. So I went down and my very first set was underneath the Hotel Boulderado. There's a bar called the Catacombs underneath there. And underneath there, I sat with a piece of paper in front of a crowd just like this, but it was musician so they didn't care that I was even in the building, right? And I poured my heart out into this piece of paper and I bombed, I bombed miserably, I bombed terribly. It was the worst experience of my life. Prison jail, nothing compared to bombing full of a crowd full of white people in Boulder. You know what I'm saying? Like it was bad. So I took it as a challenge. I took it as a challenge and I said, this is something I'm gonna try to do. This is something I want to do. And I went out and I wrote all kinds of jokes and I did everything I could. I tried as best I could. And it wasn't until I met a local legend in the area, hippie man, some of you might know. He pulled me to the side and he's like, you have everything to be successful in the business. Stage charisma, voice carries, X, Y, and Z. You know how to control a crowd. He said, but your jokes, they don't mean shit. You're not talking about anything. He said, I want to know what you've been through. I want to know where your heart is. I want to know what separates you from the pack. Why are people gonna buy your album? Why are people gonna listen to you as a comedian? And so that night I went home, I threw all my jokes away. I threw everything away. And I started talking about my real life, growing up a gang member, being addicted to drugs, going to prison, my life, meeting my wife, becoming a stepfather, the growing pains of becoming a regular citizen in the world. I talked about all of it. And before I knew it, I skyrocketed to somewhere I've never been before. I don't know where we're going. I don't go on the airplane wherever I go. And I just told my wife this the other day, I'm done taking the airplane wherever I go because I want to drive and I want to see what is out in this world. I've only seen 38th and federal chubbies, a prison cell, and my house. You know what I mean? Now that I'm on the road, I've been to, because of comedy, I've been to Philadelphia, Cleveland, San Diego, just all over the map, dude. All up and down Las Vegas, all over the place. All over the place. And every single time it blows me away because I got there just from telling jokes. Eight years ago, nine years ago, 10 years ago, I was sitting in a prison cell, not knowing if I was going home, what the fuck was going on? And now I'm on first class at a Delta coming home from Salt Lake City, you know what I'm saying? It was the trials and the tribulations that I had to go through to get to this point today. And it wasn't until I was in the transitions program in the Boulder County Jail. It wasn't until I was rubbing elbows with the Phoenix program in the Boulder County Jail. It wasn't until I hit the reentry programs and I got a backpack and I got a bicycle from these guys that helped me get my shit together. I remember at one point, I was waking up at 7 a.m. I would get on my bike. I would go to the bus stop, okay. I would take the bus to Boulder, work from seven to three, get on a bus from Boulder, go all the way down to Denver, Union Station, get on another bus, go south to South Broadway, do a 10 minute set, get back on the bus, get back up here, get back over here to do what I needed to do, UAs, whatever, BAs, all of it. I remember the judge signing off on me to be able to go do comedy because Boulder County believed in me. And it's crazy because I have a bit about Boulder County in my jokes and it's true. It is true. Boulder County is one of the only counties in the nation that's actually helping. It's actually helping to reduce the recidivism rate. There's no, there's nothing in the system that is set up for you to succeed when you get home. There's nothing in the system set up for you to succeed. You go from the courthouse to a prison cell and you sit on ice until you come home. There's no skills, there's no language skills, there's nothing. So when I had a platform, when I was able to do what I was able to do, I said, okay, let me focus other places. Where else does my intention need? And so I said, okay, I'm gonna go back to school and I'm gonna go to school for business. I own side splitting entertainment. I'm gonna go back to school for business. One of the comedians told me, no, don't do that. You've already been running this company for the X amount of years, whatever years, whatever you have already learned out here, you're not gonna learn in the classroom. Trust me, go to school for something else. So I said, what am I gonna go to school for? What am I gonna go to school for? And it wasn't until I did a show at the Comedy Works and I went home to the projects and I was hanging out with these guys. I was drinking with these guys. We're celebrating the fact that one of us is actually in a national club with national comedians and one of my buddies pulls me to the side and he says, hey, I need your help. I need you to look at this piece of paper with me. And I thought it's court documents. It's a job application. He didn't know how to fill it out. He didn't know what an email was. He didn't know what a flash drive was. He didn't know what a hyperlink was. He didn't know any of that. But yet he's put in a situation where he's forced to succeed from the position that you weren't once in. You were forced to succeed again. And now this is why they call it a revolving door because you took this opportunity. You took a chance on life to make more money for your family. That situation foiled. Now you're in a situation where you're coming home from that foiled situation and you're forced to try to make it work as best you can. Again, in the environment that caught you in that foiled situation. But now you can't live here. You can't live that you can't do this. You can't, you can't do X, Y, and Z. But we're gonna succeed, right? Not everybody that comes out of the facility is gonna have the opportunity to have two pennies in their pockets and be like, hey, I can run a comedy show here. Let me run a comedy show here. And then it'd be Longmont's longest running comedy show. Nobody other than probably myself has that opportunity. So how do we make that opportunity for somebody else? Because not everybody's gonna have the success that I've had with comedy coming out of the facilities. So what can we make them successful at? Let's give them a job. Let's give them a trade. Let's give them a skill. Let's give them an opportunity. I believe it's in Norway. There's a prison that actually has a sound recording studio, wood shop, everything that you could possibly learn in the trade. And guess what? The recidivism rate is zero. I didn't realize how corrupt this system was until I went back and I got my psychology degree to be an advocate for the prison system, which ended up turning to be a youth advocate for young invincibles. And I figured, well, I'll break the high school to prison pipeline. I didn't realize that some of these questions that parole gives you probation gives you are loaded questions. Or are you stressed on a Saturday because somebody cuts you off in traffic and what are you gonna do when you handle that situation? Are you gonna A, B, blow up? It's like, you can't give me that question because depending on if I woke up and I stubbed my toes Saturday morning and then I tripped over the dog and then I dropped the shampoo. By the time I get in the car and I get cut off by you, I'm already heated. You can't give me that loaded question and expect me. Come on, the system is in place to make money. It is a big box corporation. Big bank, big box corporation. They do not care about you, what you bring to the table. If you're a good person, bad person, if they need to make an example out of you, 10 years, 25 years, whatever, off the bat, do it because they're gonna make money off of you. I've had, I think, I've had two DUIs and I think I've probably dumped, I'd say, at least 80 grand into the system. UA's, BAs, if you don't do a UA you gotta sit there till you do a UA. I can't pee, I'm not a robot, I don't pee on demand. This is crazy, it is crazy. So how do, how do we break the cycle? How do we change it? How do we, as a community, come together and change it? I know what I'm doing is anybody that's going on the road with me, picking up bags, picking up trash, anybody that's onsite splitting entertainment's team, you better have a record because I know nobody else is gonna give you the opportunity that I'm gonna give you. It is what it is, it is what it is, but if we can change it and implement programs, that, I mean, that's where it's at. That's our bread and butter. Transitions, Phoenix, those programs saved my life because it got my wheels turning. It got me thinking. It got me to the point where I was like, I'm literally standing in a jail cell while I'm supposed to be opening for Cheech and Chong over here at the first bank center. This is dumb, this is dumb and I'm over it. Everybody's got that breaking point. Everybody's got that point where they're gonna turn that leaf, they're gonna turn that coin, they're gonna turn it over. Are we gonna be there with the tools to help them once they turn that over? Or are we just gonna kick it under the rug and keep going the way we're going? Give me some money, bud. If you can't make it locked up, I guess. It's not working. I'll tell you that. It's not working. So with that, that's kind of my story, man, is I've came from the system. I'm a product of the system. It was a hard road. I give my wife kudos, man, a hundred over because she gave me that stability that finally I needed in my life to actually be like, okay, let's pack up this pony show and let's go on the road and sit on state to state to state to state doing comedy. She was the one that gave me the stability because before her, I was still running the streets, drinking, doing drugs, X, Y, and Z. So like I said, there comes that point in changing your life. You gotta get there and you gotta figure it out where it's at, but we need to support when that person gets to that point. So with that, I guess I'll leave you. I'll leave you guys with a little tidbit, okay? Before I head out of here, before you guys actually have to buy a ticket to see me. Like I said, so we harp on Boulder a lot. We harp on Boulder a lot. Boulder gets the blunt of our jokes, majority of the time, as they should, because Boulder's the only place I know where all the homeless people have iPhones. But Boulder, like I said, Boulder's actually trying to do things. They're trying to change the way they outlook on life and the way they do things within the system. Boulder is one of the only places in the nation that is working to reduce the recidivism rate, okay? Recidivism rate for some of you, okay? We're trying to keep people out of the system. We're trying to rehabilitate, not incarcerate. So one of the few things that Boulder does, I know firsthand, okay, is on Fridays, okay? They give you popcorn and soda. I was like, oh, okay, all right. I was like, what's this all about here? What's going on here? They're like, it relieves tensions within the facilities. I was like, oh, okay, I bet it does. I bet it, I bet it does. They give you a life coach. They give you a life coach. They put you in cognitive thinking courses. They even go to the extent and make you do yoga. Yes, the sheriff stands over you while you do yoga. It's not a real jail, okay? I've been to real jails, okay? For example, Denver County, LA County, you get in a fight, you're like, ah, ah. They're like, Ramos, what was that all about? That's not how we can talk to ourselves. Go lock it down. The sergeant will be here in the morning to talk to you. Dumbass, Boulder County? Boulder County get in a fight, you're like, ah, ah, ah. They go, excuse me, Mr. Ramos, can you come to the front of the pod? The energy that you are bringing to this facility is very negative. We're gonna need you to go up to your room. We're gonna lock the door on you. You're probably gonna meditate. I'm sure there's a silver lining in here somewhere, buddy. But for right now, we're gonna table this subject and the sergeant will be here in the morning to talk to you, okay? I was like, what is going on in here, you guys? It's not a real jail, they're not doing tattoos there and they're doing henna tattoos. I was like, what is going on, you guys? By the time they were like, Ramos, pack it up, it's time to go, I was like, namaste, you guys? All right, give it up for Ryan, man. Thank you, Ryan, so much for having me. Hey, y'all. So I'm Crystal. I'm with the Longmont Community Justice Partnership, also known as LCJP. So LCJP offers restorative justice services to the Longmont community. I just wanna say thank you to Ryan for putting this on and inviting LCJP to be here. I know he invited tons of other folks who are doing amazing work in the community and definitely encourage you to go check them out. This is the type of work that it's Ricky was just talking about, that supporting this work is what keeps folk out of the system. I'm so grateful for all of the vulnerable stories that people have been sharing and that's exactly what restorative justice is about and that's what we do at LCJP. Deb gave a wonderful introduction about restorative justice. We bring people together to talk about what has happened, the harm that has been caused, and then most importantly, we give folks the opportunity to reintegrate into community, to offer repair for what has happened and to really focus on rebuilding relationships and seeing a different way forward. So LCJP has been in the community since 1994. That's a really long time and we've been doing work because of so many amazing community partners, community volunteers. We have some folks in the crowd here tonight that are volunteers with us. Really appreciative of the support but this restorative justice process, especially at LCJP, really humanizes folks. We not only humanize the people that have caused harm, we build them up and acknowledge the strengths that they bring that can then go towards offering repair but we also humanize those that have been harmed by what has happened. Very often when people cause harm, especially when it's very grave, they don't really have the opportunity to face that person and can never really face the consequences of what's happened. We partner with police and sometimes it's really difficult to get police to come and sit in these processes and be part of our circles. They think that restorative justice is an easy way out but it is really not that at all. Facing up to what you've done and facing up to the consequences can be terrifying and so we acknowledge that those that have been impacted and those that are participating and have caused the harm are brave for showing up in the spaces that we provide for them. Recently, last year, the city of Longmont and LCJP had partnered to release this new program, it's called Rewind. So this is a program that exists in Longmont now, probably the first in definitely the state, maybe the country, hopefully it exists other places but the Rewind program brings youth that have interactions with law enforcement and gives them an opportunity to access a whole host of different resources. So when youth interact with law enforcement rather than being given a charge or a ticket or having to go to court, they are given the option to be recognized as a person, recognizes having made a mistake and then are able to do restorative justice, go to counseling which is provided free of charge, no charge for them and for their parents. There's art therapy, life skill courses, different ways of expressing themselves and leadership courses. So many different things that are happening here in Longmont that is absolutely incredible. And so this is one of the ways that we're able to keep people and youth in particular out of the system. I could share so many stories about the youth that have come through the program but I just wanna keep it super short. Really wanna ask for everybody here again to check out all of the different programs. If you're interested in LCJP, I'm happy to answer questions afterwards. You can support us financially or by volunteering. Always, always great to have community voices as part of that process. Thank you all. Oh, it's a little different up here. All right, y'all. So I've heard a couple of things today that have stood out to me. One, prison sucks. Two, we're here to talk about our emotions, not prison. And three, most, the biggest thing that stood out to me was if prison, well, basically, I think it was this gentleman back here who did time in Texas, something along the lines of prison being designed to not help people and to not support people. It's designed to punish, right? Senator Lee asked me a question when I was on a panel of ex-incarcerated people. He said, what if the prison system is doing exactly what it's designed to do? Put people in prison for committing a crime, nothing less, and the more is the way that it was structured, right? So my response, nobody else wanted to answer it, my response to that is, if nothing changes, nothing changes. Not your mind, not your body, not your soul. So with that being said, my prison experience was a little bit different. I was, I'm a female. Women's politics are way different than men's. So I guess maybe let me start over just a little bit. I'm super ADHD, didn't take my outer all today, so bear with me. So my name's Kalina Rodriguez. I did five years, I was property of the state of Colorado. I got out, I did a lot of different things, and my biggest thing, my biggest accomplishment was when I was able to walk a stage as the first felon, I-U-M, Miss Colorado. They said I couldn't do it. They said I was a felon. They said all these things. The F-4 had was dropped many times. I tell my children not to say it all the time, I do it all the time, so I can't, I don't know. I guess I'm a hypocrite, but whatever. Nothing changes if nothing changes. It's not gonna change if I don't push it. It's not gonna change if I don't try to do it. It's not gonna change. You're not gonna tell a joke if you don't tell a joke, where nobody's gonna laugh if you don't say anything. Nobody's gonna laugh if you're just sitting there on a stump crying. Maybe some people will, but they're just jerks and we don't care about them anyways. So my point is, is that if we don't make a stand, there's nothing gonna be able to go, you're not gonna be able to go forward. So, long story short, I hope, I suffered for trauma, sexual abuse, all the things, right? I grew up, I developed a very vicious alcohol addiction very quickly, at a young age. By the time I was 12, full-blown alcoholic. They called me vodka-lina. Man, that was my go-to all the time. I had to take care of my niece at a very young age. My sister had developmental health issues or they were coming out, she tried to commit suicide. And my niece became my responsibility. I had no idea how to take care of a child being a drunk at 14 years old. Couldn't take care of myself, had no money, didn't know what to do. But my neighbors knew how to sow weed. My neighbors knew how to show me how to progressively make more money at a fast rate so that I could buy my niece diapers. So, I was like, oh, this isn't a go-to. This is what I'm gonna do. So I started selling weed. Started selling little things. Started realizing that the bigger the product, right, the more money you would make. So, I'm a quick learner. I learned quickly that I could get more money the more that I sold. So, here we go, alcoholic, now I'm a drug dealer. Very, very young, I went, I was committed to the DUIC, Division of Youth Corrections by the grace of God, I believe in Jesus, thank you Jesus. I did not get the juvenile life, I got zero to two. I sat down for a little bit, had to have some reflections and I had to reflect on where my niece was and it wasn't with me. It wasn't with my sister. It was sometimes with my mom. So, I fought very hard to get out, to work towards getting back to her, and I did. God back started taking care of her again but I realized when I was there that I would rather make people smile than make them cry. I'd help this girl out, I'm very dominant. I don't know if you could tell her or not. So, I tried not to be but it is what it is. So, this girl was crying and they were calling her names and all these things and I was having one of those days I probably dropped the soap, not even sure what happened but I was mad. They were making fun of her, I didn't like her, didn't know her but I didn't like her. They were calling her all these things, prostitute, a whore, she was in there for prostitution. And I was like, who the fuck do y'all think you are? Y'all are in here for something too. Sit down. And she was low key still crying but she was like, yeah, she stood up for me. I'm like, I don't like you but I don't like them either. So, anyways, moving forward, moving forward before I go down around the hall, I realized I wanted to help people, had no direction, didn't know what that looked like at all. I knew I wanted to help people. Went on a little journey trying to figure out what that looked like, was it the army? No. Was it, what was it? I didn't know. Decided to go to Texas, love Texas, love everything about it. Didn't work out, a little hot there. So I came back, I knew it wasn't gonna be great because at a very young age I learned how to cook math. Knew the recipe real good. Was had a great name in that community. I wasn't Miss Colorado back then, that's for sure. So, learned how to cook it, went up a little bit higher. When I came back, fell back into it really fast. I gave somebody a large amount thinking that I would get my money back. I did not. So my name was big enough, my pride was even bigger, that when I didn't get it, I was a female in a man's world and I made sure that they knew who I was. And that if you crossed me, it'd be the last thing you ever do. And I gave no Fs about it. I had no remorse, I did not care. Still didn't have my money though, and I was still mad. I ended up catching 10 state charges that night, second degree kidnapping, two second degree assaults, one with special circumstances, torture, fast imprisonment, robbery, and five conspiracies. I had three co-defendants, two males, one female. So an even longer story short, I went to jail. In denials, I didn't even do all the things. Co-defendants testified, still mad at the world, or so I didn't have my money, and I got bonded out. On a $100,000 bond, I walked the streets for four years, not one time committing a crime. Not because I chose not to, not because I didn't want to. I got into a relationship right when I got on bond with a gang member who was an enforcer. When he did a crime that I knew about, he had to enforce that I didn't become like my co-defendants. When he held a 45 caliber to my head, I could feel the heat from the barrel because they had been shooting it all day. They were asking to find somebody, and I refused to hurt another female, refused. I had gotten offered a 96 year sentence on my crime. I was dead anyways. Build a trigger. He did. Anybody know anything about weapons? Texas. 45's dog backfire. This one did. But he beat me so bad that I went to the hospital and I developed retrograde amnesia. Couldn't remember anything but people. Nothing but people. Couldn't remember how to cook meth. Couldn't remember that I committed a crime. Couldn't remember who I hung out with. Nothing. Nothing at all. So I always say that that day that my body should have died was the night my evil mind died and I was reborn. I have no explanation how I survived other than being covered by the blood of Jesus Christ. When that gun backfired, my ear drums were blown out and all I could hear was keep fighting. It's not over yet. I don't know how I heard anything. My ear drums were blown out. It was kind of deaf. But I heard it over and over and over again. Throughout the four years I was on bond, I heard it several other times. So moving forward to get into my prison sentence, doing as they came finally, I finally had to go to trial. I finally had to face the fact that I did commit a crime. And I went to trial looking at 240 years. My DA made a mistake and they offered me 10 to 12 because I was gonna walk. My attorney was like, you're taking that Colleen. I was like, no, I'm not, I'm winning. I'm a winner going home today. He goes, listen to me. You're gonna lose. If you don't take this deal, you're gonna spend the rest of your life fighting for it from inside prison. I said, baby Jesus, I'm taking it. All right. I took it. I got remanded the next day. I went to the county mad as hell, mad. Mind you, I had three babies by this time. Three boys. Nothing chokes me up. More than the sound of my son crying when I had to say goodbye. But it was only temporary. I went and got sentenced by the judge. And he said, Colleen, I saw, I watched you come in here, one of the coldest people I've ever seen in my life. I watched you go to an amazing mother and a wonderful woman. That's why I'm sentencing you to the Department of Corrections for 11 years. It's not over yet. I keep fighting. I was like, oh, y'all see it in February. Not knowing how time worked. I went to prison and I made a choice. I wasn't going to prison for petty theft. So I was walking the yard like, I was like, I'm not gonna be anybody's be up in here. I promised you that. Again, I'm pretty dominant. But I got there and again, women's politics are way different. I walked in and they called me the prison princess because I walked around with my head held high, my shoulders back, and I didn't bow my head for anybody. They thought I was too good for everybody. But it's not that I was too good for anybody, it was that I was a boss. I chose that I was going to walk in there and I was gonna make a difference in my life. That I was gonna go home, choosing to go home when I was changed and I was gonna go home to my babies. I was choosing to let any cop in there talk to me anywhere that they wanted to and I was gonna say, yes, ma'am, no, sir. Absolutely. Because I had a goal and I knew what I was gonna do. I was gonna make a difference in my life, figure out where it was wrong with the system and how I could make a difference in everybody else's life. Nothing changes if nothing changes. Being in prison, I learned how to be a woman. I learned how to walk a little bit different, went to cosmetology, a program they offer. Take seven habits, learn how to kind of not be manipulative except for in a positive way. I still struggle, it's not easy, struggle is real. I met some of the best women that I've ever come across. I couldn't stand women who love them now, love them. It changed me because I allowed it to. I allowed it to change me for the good. I allowed everything in there to come into my heart and anything negative I chose to keep away from me. We all have choices, I try to be like E-40, but today I will not say it, we all have choices. Yep. My plan is, we've all had something to do with the criminal justice system. Whether it be helping, whether it be inside, it sucks. We agree, we all made a choice to be there. We all make a choice to go back in there. I came with key to the facility that locked me away in it. I go back every Sunday to D.W. So that I can work out with the women that I grew to love as my family who watched me at my darkest grow up and become the women that I am today. Who helped me become the women that I am today. So everything across the board sucks. I don't wish it on anybody, but if you have to be there, I do wish that you can open your heart and make that change. So I leave you all with this. I don't know what's gonna come out right now because I have so many things running through my mind right now, but I do know that the community that we create is the community that is going to spread. So if nothing changes, nothing changes. Let's make that change, y'all. All right, we're going to get started with our panel. Chris is going, has your questions at the ready. And all right, we're ready. We're ready to hear what everyone is curious about. Yeah, we're gonna go ahead and launch this Q&A session here with our first question. This is a question for anybody who'd like to answer in the panel here. This is what was the most helpful thing in your recovery and the least helpful? And I'll answer it once. So for me, what I found to be one of the big key factors for me was the support system I had when I came home. I know a lot of my peers that came home that didn't have the support system like I had. And it was a bigger struggle for them as far as stability, foundation, the ability to, I like to say, to level up. How are you gonna level up? How are you gonna get to the next step in life? And for me, I would have never leveled up if it wasn't for the whole support system that I had coming home from brothers, neighbors, other comedians, whoever, just anybody that was supporting my dream of turning it around was, that was key for me, I guess, heartfelt for me. So it was the most helpful and the least helpful? Yeah, the most and the least helpful. And if you'd like to share a little bit of advice about somebody who would like to engage in the process of kind of being helpful through your journey, then it's gonna be a good time too. So I'm second what Ricky was saying. It was about the community. That was the biggest thing that was the most helpful for me too. And I'd mention it a little bit when I was talking, which was like, so one of the biggest things was, I was terrified of telling people what I had done. And my family was big about, don't just hide it, don't tell anyone, don't let anyone know. And then when I went to treatment, they're like, they kept on asking about it. And then I'm like, all right, fine, I'm gonna let you know, but it's on you for what the consequences are. But they were super supportive. And they kept on asking, and they kept on getting me involved in groups. And when I realized I could talk about what happened, talk about what I've been through, and the reaction wasn't, oh my gosh, she's a monster. It was, all right, that's, where can we go from here? And it was support, that saved me right there. And the least helpful was the opposite, is like, don't talk about it, hide everything, go, you can do this on your own attitude. That, yeah, that was the least helpful. I think for me, the most helpful was going back to prison. Being able to go back inside the walls that held me, and being able to walk back out was very humbling. Again, I met a lot of individuals who became my family, and I missed them, and I couldn't be around them. And I struggled with that too. I heard my son cry when I left, but I also heard other people cry when I left on the other side. So being able to go back and know that I have a purpose and a meaning and can be impactful to people who I know what that pain feels like, that's the biggest help that was in my recovery and my transition, knowing that I was fighting for something, not just myself, not just my kids, there was something that was bigger than me. And the least helpful, social media. Social media, it's a love-hate relationship, but at some times I had to put it down, and I had to really stay focused about what I was doing, what my cause was, and developing my nonprofit to be able to go back in and give people a reason to keep going. For me, I guess the most helpful thing for me was having somebody believe in me, and not that they just every day were like, hey, I believe in you, but just they were there, and they were like a rock, that, and that more to me than anything, just made me want to do well. As well, working, I work two jobs, and I've been doing it for a very long time, and it just kept me busy to where I don't, I don't have time to do all those other stupid things where idle hands, all that, but that's what really helped me. The worst thing, I guess, were some of the haters, that just like, that are judge or and everything else, and it can be for me, it can be like, hey, look, I changed, and what the hell, why are your people still dogging me out? But then again, I have to remember, I messed up for many, many, many years, I can't expect people to believe in me overnight, so, and in some respects, that kind of helped me too, helped me to just want to strive to be better, to show everybody, hey, look, but it's really not for them, it's for me, so. Guys, if you had an opportunity to say something to your younger self, about your experience, what would you say? Listen, and think about it, and have patience. Walk when you wanna run. I guess for me, I probably have to say, all that macho, mochismo, all that gangbanger shit, that it don't, it's not gonna mean anything at the end of the race. Yeah, it would be be patient, and try not to do what your family's doing. Now, this one's specifically a question for Dave about your experience with picking up trash. Did that kind of create some controversy for you? Is that something that you got you a lot of notoriety, something that you hesitated to do as you did it, or? So, I started picking up trash, and that little pamphlet, too, was talking about don't do it for recognition, just do it to try and be of service to people. So, I would be walking on the right yard, or I would be walking around the dorm, and I'd see some asshole throw something on the ground, and I'd just pick it up and throw it away, and sometimes I'd be so mad, and inside I would just be so hot I'd just wanna bang their head in, and I'd just keep repeating to myself, be of service, be of service, be of service, over and over and over in my head, and I'd just continue to do it, and I would just try and stay humble, and I would meditate about it, and man, there were many, many, many days where I was so frustrated with doing it, but it really changed my way of thinking, and that was pretty awesome. And Ryan, I don't know if you, I never told Ryan I did this while I was there, but, and I never told anybody, I just did it, you know? Because I wasn't doing it for recognition, or for anybody else, really. I mean, yes, I was making a little bit of a cleaner place in the prison, but really I was doing it for me. I did see him do it, but I just thought it was because he was stubborn. Okay, moving on to my next question here. This is for the boss to my left. What are some of your goals for your life now? What is your vision for your future? To save the world. Good piece. So some of my goals are, you know, I think that he mentioned a lot of the biggest struggle that transitions happen. Being released back into society is housing. So my goal is to have a transition facility or apartment type thing for people being released, male and female. My personal goals, I will be running for Ms. Colorado again this year. I was 2021-2022 reigning Ms. Colorado. I will run again this year. Apparently you can't run twice in a row. I don't know. It's a rule. So I'm gonna run. That's a goal. Because one of my, I've never done a pageant in my life. I decided to do it because they told me I couldn't do it. And it really was an amazing experience. Prison was my platform. It really opened a lot of light to different things. People were noticing it. The new director of prisons is my right-hand man trying to figure out what his goals are. So just it opened doors that I don't believe would have been open on their own without having a title, right? So I think that that's my goal is to open some more doors and bring some new light to different situations that are in the dark right now. I'm gonna go ahead and open that question up to the rest of the panel. If anybody else, I would like to share some of their vision of their future. A little, little tidbit that I'm trying not to expose, but we are, I'm gonna let you guys in, working on a TV pilot. And it is a parody of Boulder County Jail. So Deb and I are working on a graphic novel. It's a restorative justice graphic novel. So that is a project that I'm working on. That, and I'm gonna say it right now. So Deb has told me to it and I have to hold myself to it now because I'm gonna say it. It's going to be done this year. Speaking of this year, my goal this year has been to pare down to just one job. And because literally before I came up here, I was getting so frustrated with both my jobs. I bartend at one and I work in a restaurant in the other and it's just been, I mean, I've been working five doubles a week for a while and it's just been driving me bad shit. So then my goal this year is to get down to one job and to be a better dog dad. Okay, our next question here goes to the comedy guy. Everybody's dying to know how to book you and how much to pay you an hour. We can talk about that. But yeah, I definitely have a source for you guys. We can send proposals and all that kind of good stuff. I'll give you guys the homie hookup. So this is getting a little bit more into the actual process of being in prison. This talks about there being some kind of a job or some kind of employment through prison. Can you talk a little bit about the work that some of you might have done or might not have done? Was it BS or did it help you in your process? Okay, so it's always just blowing my mind how these people like as in their criminal careers, right? They don't wanna work. I mean, work is the last thing they wanna do and they go to prison and all of a sudden that's all they wanna do. They wanna work and they like, it's like it just has always boggled me and I think it's kind of crazy. I worked in the kitchen at the trustee camp and didn't help me, no. I mean, monetarily, yes. And you know, in other ways, we made hooch and did all kinds of stuff. And so I mean, as far as for me for working, it was what can I get out of this? How much can I steal from the state and sell to make money? And I know that's kind of wrong and but it's just like I never understood the whole, you know, it's like you're basically a slave when you're in prison. And some people, I guess they do it because it gets them out of their cell or whatever, but I was always, once I got fired from the kitchen, I was like, I'm not working for you people ever again. And I never had a job. I've had many jobs for the state of Texas. I was a clerk for maintenance, for truck drivers, for, I don't know, for plenty of, oh, for the furniture factory. And why do they have a furniture factory? Where do you think those courtrooms are made in Texas? Those elegant wood courtrooms, it's not like that's an everyday thing that people just design. Like I designed that in 2018 AutoCAD, like sorry, it was 2018 when I did it. It was 2014 AutoCAD that I was using at the time. So it's like, I, so, and I didn't know how to use AutoCAD. I had to teach myself how to do it. And, but it, but it, which was cool. That was cool that I got the opportunity to do it. Not many inmates get to like get a cool job where they get to sit in the AC and teach themselves AutoCAD. Though, like that's a big ask for a lot of people. So, but employed is another, like that's an interesting choice of words too, because I was not paid for any of those things. And, you know, you're not, you're not getting any money for it. And I like, and like the second, the second you get on a unit, the first thing they do is they give you a housing assignment and then they give you a job right away, unless you're like so informed that you can't work. And even then they might give you like, there's special squads that pick up trash and that work out in the fields that are, are medical squads for, for people who like are, that are injured and they, they can still do, give them work. Everyone is, you, you get a, you get an inmate number. And then when you get to unit, you get your housing number and a job, which I think is crazy. But you can manipulate the system in Texas to where you have a bunch of medical restrictions and don't work myself. I was, I was in the kitchen for the first 90 days. And then I was reassigned quickly to cosmetology. So cosmetology became my job. I went to school there. I actually got my license and I have a cosmetology license now to this day. But that was my job. And then I also received good time for that. So 45 days off my sentence. And then I went to culinary school. I got a degree in culinary school. I have an intermediate degree in baking, ad flower. And so I did a lot of schooling. That was my job. And then I got close enough to where I was going to be released. They gave me a gate pass, which I went to maintenance. And I hated it. It was terrible. I had to hang TVs and use tools and all those things. But it taught me one thing that if I quit, I was going to go to the hole. And then I didn't want to go there. So today I use that. Everybody's like, why are you here sick? You're going to get everybody sick. I'm like, in my head, institutionalized, I'm like, I don't want to go to the hole. I'm not going to the hole. But I'm like, hey, I'm showing up. Until you tell me to leave, I'll be here. So it's beneficial also because we were forced to work. And it taught me a little bit different work ethic than I knew. I never worked in the system, but I think it was because I was a true, true asshole in nature, anytime they approached me, anytime that I was asked anything by the officers, it was met with hostility, anger, things of that nature. It wasn't until I actually was like my second DUI back home, they, Boulder County put me, well, they asked me if I wanted to do mo crew. And I was like, I mean, at this point in my life, yeah, I guess, like I've already been defeated. So might as well, you know? And that was the first time that I was kind of presented with any kind of work and it was just go out, rake leaves, come back in the facility, things like that. It wasn't crazy or, you know, I mean, it was hot, but other than that, it wasn't anything, it wasn't fun, you know? So nothing to write home about, but yeah, for the most part, I never wanted to. I never, you know, I was like, nah, you give me that mop or that broom, I'm gonna, you give it to me, I'm gonna break it over your face. That's what I would tell the guards, you know? So they never gave me the opportunity to work, so. Okay, I know that prison, it's got a lot of problems. It's a very multifaceted issue, especially when it comes to getting people back into society. Is there any specific thorn in the lion's paw that you think would really fix a lot of issues in the current prison system? Education is key. We need to teach them something. They need to learn something. They need to do something. They need to trade. If we're not gonna give them a degree of some sort, then let's give them a trade. Let's be an electrician, be a plumber, be something that obviously society does not want to partake in. So you made a mistake. Here's your second chance. We're gonna give you an education. We're gonna give you a trade. We're gonna give you an opportunity to get back on your feet instead of coming home and not knowing how to log in to Indeed and upload your resume and now you're screwed, you know? Education is key, I believe. I'll agree with him there. Education is key, but it's two-part too, because you've got a lot of people who they don't want the education. They don't care, you know? So I think coupled with that is good psychological help for people to where they have a counselor that actually listens to them and actually cares and wants to work with them. Because I think a lot of those people just, they need somebody to listen to what they have to say and that could change a lot of things. So maybe that would turn around and make them a little bit more receptive to education. I agree. So I think mental health is a huge game changer, not just in the inside, because a lot of times they just push pills towards you and they just wanna suppress that issue. But when somebody does 18 years in prison and has no idea that Indeed exists or when an iPhone is or even that there's not pagers anymore, but how do you transition from that? Mentally over time, you being put together, it's fine. You could be so put together, well put together. All these things were given to you. Education, fitness, whatever it is that was given to you, if you are standing in the middle of the street and have no idea which way to go because your anxiety is so high, because you don't know what to do and you've never had to do it because you went to prison when you were 18 years old and now you're 36, how do you cope with that? When you saw somebody be killed, how do you cope with that? When you're having night terrors and your wife is coddling you and your old man in a facility that touching was not okay. Mental health is super important. I think that that was the best thing that you could have said. And for all of that, I think the big part about that is thinking about that, thinking about mental health, thinking about education. You have to, a lot of people don't think about that because they're like, well, you do the crime, you do the time. And it's that mentality that then anyone who, then it's justification for anything. It's justification for not caring about people. It's justification for killing people, ultimately. And so for me, the biggest thing that needs to be done is change the mentality from the start. It's not about the crime. It's not about whatever. Someone got hurt. And it's just like what you were saying, Kalina, someone, there's lots of people who got hurt, even the person who did the hurting to start with. Everyone's hurt. Who got hurt? How can we help everyone? And what does this mean? And not, where do we need to focus blame on? One of the big, to kind of just segue real quick is something that I tell a lot of people when they say that. 96% of people get out of prison. 96%, whether they killed somebody, whether they did heinous crimes, whatever, 96% get out. So if people or us or whoever are not helping make that difference, they could be your neighbor. So if, yeah, they had a victim, but if we don't help change their mentality and change their life, if they move next to you, you could be the next victim. So let's try to eliminate that. So that's deep. What are some ways that you feel the community can do a better job for people who have just been released from prison, people who are institutionalized? Feel a little bit more receptive and not judgmental and just judge them for having a felony or having an ax on their back, because there's so many people like, you know, or jobs or whatever, that you have a felony, you're out of there. You know, and they just, that's all they see. They don't see the person, they see the crime. Yeah, I agree with that. I, one of the reasons why I got into youth advocacy is because they had told me, you know, the kids are gonna be receptive to you. You come from that neighborhood, you live that life. That's one of my things, especially when I was going through the system, it was like everybody behind the desk was, in my opinion, you know, in my head, was a Gwendolyn or, you know, a Patricia who's never been to my side of the world, who's never been to my block, who's never seen what I've seen. So how are you gonna help me when you can't even relate to me? This isn't Michelle Pfeiffer and this isn't Dangerous Minds. Like, you're not gonna come in and flip the script. Like, you know, so being able to sit down and comfortably have a conversation with somebody that's been in that boat, that's been in that situation. Yeah, that's golden right there. Being able to be relatable. That's one of my biggest challenges in comedy is being relatable to the audience. So if I can be relatable to my peer coming out of the system and show my peer the opportunities or the which ways to go, you know, that's key for me, because that means a lot. That means somebody that is gonna have your best interest in mind because they've already been through it. What have they got to lose, you know? So. I think just coming together as a community, I think they touched perfectly on everything. You know, I go into the prisons and use fitness as a foundation to build reports and develop these relationships with individuals because being at your lowest and having somebody help you squat 400 pounds and trusting them to not let it drop on you, you all have a different bond and a different trust because a lot of, you know, correct me if I'm wrong, a lot of us, all of us have trust issues or we've been broken at some point in our life and we had nobody there to pick us back up and developing some sort of platform and foundation to be able to build up so that when that individual gets out, just being able to walk with them so that they don't just go from county or from the streets to county to prison to back to the streets, they have somebody, a mentor, somebody who's already established their indeed resume uploading it and showing them, hey, boom, this is it and walking with them hand in hand as they walk out that door and let them know you're not alone. So just being together, staying together and holding on to each other. And honestly, I think that's the common thread with everyone, like all the groups you've heard here tonight whether it's the Recovery Cafe, LCJP, Longmont Public Media, K Foundation, the RJ Chronicles, Shakedown Podcasts, Free Entry Image Initiative. Am I missing anybody? No. So, yeah, everyone that's been here tonight, they like, that's, it's all about community in one way, form or another. They, there's a community aspect of it of bringing people together and having that and that's, it's key, it's fundamental to all of it and I think that's, if you have that coming out and you can get involved in that in some way, whether it is with fitness or whether it is with recovery or if it is getting work and wellness in some other way, then that is a huge leg up, leg up. Okay, excellent. So one of the biggest themes tonight that we noticed was the decision to make a change, the decision that enough's enough and it's time to move forward, whatever that means in life. I know you guys spoke a little bit about that but is there anything else that you would like to add, anything else that you would like to embellish your story with? Cause we're, I guess we're just curious to hear more about your experience. I know for me that when I got the last violation, I did four years in change on it for a technical violation, so four set offs. I didn't have any contact with my children at all and I know when my thinking started changing, it really started hitting me. It's like, you know, if I don't change, I'm just gonna spend the rest of my life here. And so for me, I was just kind of like, you know what? I mean, the hell with this, I'm done with it. I can't do it anymore. And with that came ownership, you know? I've had some people ask me about things I've done in the past and I'm like, yep, I did that and it's amazing how the ownership like was a big relief for me. It's like took weight off my shoulders and instead of being ashamed for things, you know, because I mean, you know, I've done drugs and did this and that and the other because I was ashamed of what I was doing or ashamed of what I did in the past. But you know, when with the ownership came just this huge sense of relief and that was for me, that was a big part of my change and the fact that I wanted to see my kids again. So which I have a great relationship with all three still, so. My big aha moment was when I had to, I was forced to take seven habits. I was didn't get in trouble directly when I was in prison, not even a negative cron. I'm very happy. I got hairspray violation in the halfway house one time. But anyways, so I in prison I was approached often with officers making propositions and I never took them up on physically on anything but when it was ever brought to me about helping my children out, I was like, absolutely. Yes, I will talk to you on the sidelines if you're going to give my kids more Christmas presents, absolutely I will. And then I got bored and made it a game and so decided I wanted to figure out how many times I can pull each officer and when I say pull, I can compromise them. I started to get involved so much that people were noticing and I got told on or they were looking at me. The warden came to me and he's like, I can't prove this. I can't prove it at all. He goes, but you're gonna take seven habits and you're gonna have this privilege taken away. And I was like, you can't take my privilege away because you can think something. It's not what you know, it's what you can prove. We all know the law. And he just sat down and he's like, Kalina, I want you to hear me. He said, Benjamin Franklin said it best, you can fool some for a little bit, but you can't fool all forever. And I was like, what does that even mean at that time? When I started to take seven habits, I realized I didn't want to be portrayed as a good person. I wanted to be a good person. So that when people were sitting over here talking about me, they could say, or at my funeral or whatever, they could say she was a good person. The wholeheartedly, she was a good person. And then when I was alive, people could say she was a good person because she truly was. That's when I made my change. When I decided in my heart, I wanted to be that. Like I said, I had one of my moments when I was literally in a jail cell and I was supposed to be on stage. I was like, nah, I don't want to do this. I can't do this anymore. And then that quickly grew into a monster once I was able to finally leave the state because I never really traveled. Like I said, I've only seen North Denver and a prison cell and my house. And yeah, Chubbies and Latrugas and all the amenities in the area. So that monster grew for me when I was able to leave the state and found myself on the beach, in my hotel room, eating seafood on the beach and cheese steaks in Philadelphia and Chicago dogs in Chicago. And I'm like, what am I doing? Like this is, I've never experienced anything like this. This is what life is supposed to be like. So like I said, once that fed into my monster of this life is not the life for me. Yeah, I never kind of really looked back at the other side of the road. It was like, hey, I'm living the good life now. I'm not, I'm done, I'm done. I went from shitting in the cell to shitting on a jet now. So I'm good. Yeah. For me, it was really the big moment was just in that, like in Plano City Jails, it's like you're in a plastic box. And like I was the only one in the box. And this is like not even 24 hours after the accident. And I was really realizing like it was like the whole sitting there like thinking about everything that had led up to that moment. And then just realizing like they were like all these, these ideas I had running around in my head were just not going to happen anymore. And then I had the thing that happened was is that I was like, my purpose at that time was, is that I'm going to be a software developer. I'm going to make a lot of money doing it. That was the purpose I had set for myself in life. And that was not going to happen because like I'm going to get locked up and that's you're in camp, be a software developer and lose any amount of time out here. So I was like, so that's gonna be gone. And I had to like, I'm just sitting there just looking at the wall just trying to think this through. And I'm like, well, I can either, I can either sit here and I can either just kill myself and be done with it and give up or I can actually figure out something different to do and actually find something to do with my life and accomplish something with it. And so I'm like, all right, I'm going to do something else but it's for what? And the what took a long time that took that was going through treatment and going through all of that. But and it formed into the, I didn't want anyone to go through what I went through. And there's no one moment on that one. But that I can definitely go back to that cell and see me sitting in there playing that film back again and just realizing, I'm not going to get things that I had in my head. And but eventually that was okay. And it turned into, I like this person a whole lot better. Okay, so that is the end of my written questions but I have a question for you guys. What motivated you to come and speak tonight? And now that we're toward the end of the session, how did it make you feel coming in speaking about your experiences? Ryan told me this is a paid gig. I've got bad news for you. And there was going to be donuts too. I've got even more bad news for you. Let's see what we can do about the donuts. No, all jokes aside, I love the community. I love the area that I'm in. I always say, if it wasn't for the community of Longmont and if it wasn't for North Denver and me going back down there and starting the shows that I have down there, I wouldn't be in the position that I'm in. I run Longmont's longest running standup comedy show at the Speakeasy last Fridays of the month. So I've been in the community. I've done coat drives. I've done backpack drives. I've done everything I can possibly do for the community in my area. Because my kids play. They go to school in the area. They play in the area. I just took a volunteer job at Longmont Baseball League because they were short staffed to help them with Coach Pitch. So I love the community. Anytime I can give back to the community because without the community for me, I obviously don't get paid as a comedian, but I can't express my art form. I'm not a painter. I'm not a rapper. I can't put my stuff in and eternalize it onto something for you that goes onto the wall. I need you here present with me so I can express my art form. And if I don't have the community to do that, obviously I don't have the ability to express my art form, so community is everything to me. Ryan was talking about this event to me. We were talking about it on the phone and I jokingly opened my mouth and inserted my foot. I said, yeah, I'll speak. And so that was the end of that. Right? So then Ryan was in town, I guess what, over a month ago, and he's like, hey. And I'm like, oh, shit. Right? And so I tried to play it off like, oh, I can't, you know, I can't afford it. He's like, you can stay at my place. And I was like, son of a, I was like. So here I am. But it's been, it's really a lot of emotions and it's really nice to be able to give back a little bit. And it's just, it's kind of good and bad for me because it's good for me because it feels good to give back. But, you know, I'm like, I got this flood of emotions, you know, tonight. And like, I literally just want to go to sleep. I don't even know where Ryan came from, honestly. I mean, that's just honest. I mean, I kind of do the kind of down like, I met him on social media and I get a lot of people who message me on a daily basis. And half the time I'm not the one responding now, but I'm like, who is this persistent gentleman? I was like, let me see. And you know, we just kind of had a good conversation and explained a little bit about what he was doing. Honestly, was checked out probably. Don't really remember too much. But I know that it had struck with me when he had said community, when he had said justice reform, when he had talked about talking about lived experience. And I was like, I'm in, I don't even know, I'm in. That was a long time ago. And how long ago? Six months. Yes, a long time ago. So then I get a call or a message and I'm like, that's still going on? Like, that's still a thing? Let me put it in my thing. So no, so I mean, over time it kind of forgot about it a little bit. There's so much that goes on within six months. I live in Castle Rock. So I have five boys and two jobs. And I was like, how the hell am I gonna make this happen? I'm like, well, all right. It's a pizza night. I'm going. Almost didn't come, but I'm a firm believer in when you say something, you do it. So I'm here and last year I was bit by a dog and fell backwards and it hurt my back very, very bad. I almost couldn't walk for a long time. Well, for six months. And during my recovery, I was super depressed. I didn't know what that looked like. I couldn't work out. So my nonprofit, my coping mechanism to stay sober for almost now 12 years dwindled down. And so he doesn't know this, but I'm gonna say it now. But his persistence and having hope of some sort of criminal justice, some sort of justice reform kept me going. And I was like, I don't know who this bold MFR is, but I kind of like him. I kind of like him. So being here, this is my first event that I've done since Myrtle Beach, competing internationally last year. And so it's amazing. It brings joy. It's what I'm passionate about. It's what my purpose is. So I guess the best way to describe how I feel is full. Well, the reason that I'm doing this is actually because of someone else. Because I actually came across the story that it, initially she was supposed to be here and talk, but the problem is that her husband is still locked up. And I came across that story and talked to her about it. And she is very concerned about her husband's safety and speaking out about it. And that is what started this whole idea in my head. And why I wanted to talk so much about it is because I, yeah, I want, I definitely want changes. I want to help her and to help her husband and help everyone. And to me, the only way to get that known is to put faces to the names and for people to hear the stories. And fortunately, I'm here. I can help put this together thanks to public media. So why not? And fortunately, everyone here came and told these amazing stories. And I'm incredibly grateful for all of it. So thank you. Folks, we are out of time for questions, but I just want to thank you all for joining us tonight. It's been quite a special, very emotional experience. And it is just so wonderful to have you all in these seats and see the activist groups and see how committed and engaged and passionate people are about this topic. It's a very important one. So thank you again.