 Hey, folks, welcome to the podcast. So we're doing a special series of podcasts which I'm recording over Google Hangouts. So we're doing audio and video because for some unknown reason, people don't want to come see me face to face right now. But there's always opportunity and the cool thing is I'm able to now podcast with people from all over the world. So we're going to get an amazing eclectic mix of people from different industries, different perspectives to share their story and tell us, you know, their thoughts and feelings on what's going on right now and all of that cool stuff. Hope you enjoy it. Please subscribe in all the usual places and enjoy. Awesome. Amy, we are live. Thank you so much for joining me. It's nice, it's nice to be here, even though it's very early where I am. Where are you? I'm in Washington DC. Washington, cool. Thanks for joining me so early. I see you've got your coffee. I was saying, I've just had lunch. I've got mine. So we should have recorded our preamble. We talked about a bunch of cool things, mostly election stuff. It's hard to get away from it, especially here in Washington DC. We're living it every moment. Yeah. But you do have a new president, arguably. Yes, we do. By the law and the will of the people we do have a new president, even though there are some who seem to not be able to really. That's true. That's true. So, I mean, this, we spoke, I thought it must have been a few weeks ago now, just kind of preamble to the podcast, but you are, so you're the executive director for the sensing, sensing, sensing project. Can I get my words out today? It's crazy. And loads and loads of cool stuff. And I know there's a bunch of things around voting rights that I wanted to dive into with you. But maybe firstly, it would be great to hear a bit about what you guys actually do. Yeah. So we are a research and advocacy organization that works to end mass incarceration and achieve racial justice in the United States, which as some folks may know, is not a small mission in the US, because we are the world's greatest jailer. 5% of the world's population, yet somehow almost a quarter of the population. Quarter. A quarter of the US population is in prison. No, no, no. We have a quarter of the world's population. Oh, yeah, yeah. Do you? Yes, yes. It's an astonishing achievement. And one that has taken us 40 years to achieve and I hope it will take us less to undo. But yeah, land of the free is really the land of the law. So you call them prisoners, felons, just to get the terminology right? Well, you know, we generally say incarcerated people as part of the anti mass incarceration movement, because we want to remind our fellow Americans that we're talking about people's lives here. These are our sons and daughters and sisters and brothers who we've chosen to lock up in mass numbers. Wow. And was this, so what was the drive? Is this a kind of drugs related mass incarceration? There are various theories, but in a lot of facts, I would say the drive actually came in the 1980s. And it was a reaction, both to a demographic bump, so there wasn't an increase in crime in the 1970s, a lot of social unrest in the United States and across the globe. But it was also a reaction against the success of the civil rights movement. And so race became something that people didn't, couldn't actually talk about, they couldn't be outwardly racist. So they talked about crime. And it was a lot of political stoking of white fear that was incredibly successful. So our laws got harsher and harsher, criminalized lots and lots of activity, things that in other countries you would not end up in prison for, you do in the United States and that continues. So we brought more and more people into the criminal justice system. We made it harder and harder for them to get out and we actually lengthened the sentences. So our sentences are much more extreme than the rest of the world, actually, in general. Wow. Interesting. And that was kind of racially driven. Absolutely, absolutely with racially driven. And it continues to be racially driven. Black people and brown people are disproportionately represented in our prisons and jails across the country in every state. Wow. Crazy. Yeah, no, no, that's great. And even, I mean, even now, I mean, there's so much dialogue around this. And then they, because obviously we hear a lot about like the police, police brutality, you know, all of these kinds of things. I had a story the other day, a friend of mine, they live in, they live somewhere near Atlanta and her cousin got accused by a police officer of something. He didn't do it. He was with the family. They ended up, you know, he ended up, I don't know how it happened. He ended up having to plead guilty. They said, you know, it'd be worse for you if you get found guilty, plead guilty or something shorter sentence. The poor guy ended up in incarcerated for something that he just didn't do. Yeah, yeah. Well, there is because it is the system of mass incarceration. It's a system of mass warehousing. But in order to achieve that, you have to incentivize the system to make a trial. And so this is very much set up to force people not to go to trial to plead. And, you know, for frankly, a lot of folks pay a trial penalty. So if you do go to trial to try to vindicate your rights and you're found guilty, you will often get a tougher sentence than if you had pled. So all the power and part of mass incarceration is that we've shifted power to the prosecutors so that they can charge people and the system is very much weighted towards the state so that the individual defendant really has very little power. And there is every incentive, even if you're if you're innocent, oftentimes to plead guilty. And frankly, you don't get great representation. And the vast, vast majority of people in our criminal justice system, not only are they black and brown, but they are poor. So it's a class system in a lot of ways, even though we don't like to talk about class. And then but then you get you get someone to defend you, right? If you can't afford it. You do. But the quality of defense is very variable. And frankly, people have such high caseload. So they're representing hundreds of people. So the amount of time even the best lawyer could spend on an individual case is very, very small. So it's deeply broken in many, many ways. And at the sentencing project, we are attempting to at least fix some of it. We're obviously not alone. There are many people in the United States, both, you know, policy wants like myself, but also folks on the ground who are organizing against mass incarceration. Yeah, well, I'm too innocent until proven guilty. Yeah, that's a very good question. I mean, it doesn't sound safe. I mean, I don't know if you remember the this is not obviously in the US, but the Oscar, Oscar Pretorius case with Riva Steenkamp. And if you remember in there, he got found guilty of murder, of murdering her. And anyway, there was a there's a program on the UK just following that case. And, you know, the media circus around it and and they were live broadcasting it. It felt like, you know, for Riva, who who died and I just didn't feel like there was like, it's sort to find justice. And I don't know, you sometimes find in in these things, certainly when when the high profile and the media is involved, you know, for the for the victim and for the accused, it doesn't feel like even it's the right scenario. Yes, well, oftentimes the incentives in the system are not justice. There are a lot of things, but justice is not the primary one. That's true. That's true. I know a lot of people in the US incarcerated for marijuana and related offenses. But and then recently, you've got so many states in the US that are making marijuana legal. Are we seeing people that have been incarcerated for marijuana marijuana related offenses being released now? Yes, I mean, the law is changing around that. And the recent election is very encouraging that people will no longer be going to prison, hopefully for marijuana charges. That's that's a positive shift. Now it is true that there are still people in the United States who are serving life sentences for drug offenses. And, you know, there are efforts to undo that, but people are still rotting in jail because of it. And that is a wrong that needs to be corrected. And it goes to the fact that we just have overly harsh sentences. Many of the folks who are in jail for life are there because of what we call habitual offender laws. And that that is why you had a first offense, you had a second offense, maybe you had a third offense, and it was three strikes, and you're out. And then your your life is gone. It's death by incarceration. And that sentence, what's a life sentence? Many times in the United States, folks who are serving life without parole, that means there's absolutely no option life with parole, but parole often happens after 40 years, 40 years. Yes. And then virtual life sentences, people get sentences of hundreds and hundreds of years, because we have so many crimes that can be charged with. And because of overcharging, so you have people serving like 500 year sentences, it sounds irrational because it is. And as a result, we have more people serving life in prison in this country than we're serving in any prison in the country in 1970. So 200,000 people are serving life in prison in this country. It's outrageous. It's actually more, we have 80% of the world prisoners serving life in prison. That's astonishing. So you got to ask yourself, are Americans the worst people in the world? You know, opinion might differ on that. But, you know, it's not that we're any worse than any other homo sapien. It's just that our laws are so irrational and harsh. Yeah, because you obviously the other side of the coin is people that have been affected by crime, you know, family members who have been murdered, attacked, whatever these people are in for. I mean, I guess they're in favor of the harsh sentences. I mean, it's a real balancing act, isn't it, between? I think it is. You know, there is a recent movement amongst the victims' rights advocates to take a different approach. Frankly, disproportionately incarcerate Black people for violent crime in this country. And those communities are very impacted by crime. They're impacted by violent crime. And what we've been hearing from those enough is enough. We need a different approach. People need to be held accountable. That's definitely true. And victims need to feel safe. Feel like they get justice. But our system often deprives them of both. In addition to robbing communities of people for decades, if not life, who could return to a society and reproductive lives? But we don't allow for that to happen in this country. If we're a redemption for these people. And frankly, those overly harsh laws are oftentimes written by people who are not victims of crime. They are written by prosecutors who want an edge or politicians who want to say they're tough on crime without actually looking at the consequences of their harshness. So there's not much rehabilitation going on. I mean, no. Because it's been nice to see, you know, I mean, if there is, you know, I mean, for me, the idea, you know, you go save your time. But if there's work done around rehabilitation, education, you know, things like that, then it feels like people have a much better chance of being a productive member of society and less chance of them reoffending. Yes, yes, absolutely. I mean, we know that's true in the United States because we warehouse so many people. We don't. You mean by warehousing? Yeah, basically just housing people without any programming or education. And frankly, a very brutal environment. Look at what COVID-19 is doing. It's absolutely shameful. But when we look at where the hotspots are, we are in our prisons. The vast majority of the hotspots are in our prisons because they are overcrowded. They are filthy. And you have people living in such close confinement that they can't socially distance. And frankly, a lot of folks in our prisons are very elderly, because we have such extreme circumstances. And they have pre-existing conditions. The health profile of people in prison is very, very poor because we have no public health care system. And the vast majority of folks there never had health insurance. They never really had health care when they were in the pre-community. So they come in with some serious problems like diabetes and high blood pressure. Frankly, things that could be controlled, but because we don't invest in real medical care, we have people who are really sick and therefore they're vulnerable. People are dying in our prisons and jails of COVID and very alarming rights. So Joe Biden's got a lot to do. But it feels like this conversation has been going on long before him. It feels like, although the president, for all the power that they have, it's pretty tough for them to get stuff done. To make a real change with things like this, it's super hard. And our criminal justice system, we've seen the defund the police movement in our communities. This is a local issue. And it goes to because we're a federal system because we've got 50 states, we've got 50 different governments, we have 50 different corrections and criminal justice systems. So it's actually, it's a state by state fight to get things changed. So as in everything in the United States, it's a little more complicated. And it's always interesting. So you're having to lobby almost on a state by state basis? That's right. Yeah, it's not an unambitious goal. So on election stuff, it's worth discussing voting, voting rights. What's the story with that? Well, we have used our criminal justice system to block voting rights forever. It actually came over from you guys. What we call felony disenfranchisement. It's actually from the English common law so we can blame you as we often try to do from this problem. So it's a vestige of colonization. But what happened is that felony disenfranchisement has been used in this country not only to deny the rights of people who are in prison, but also to deny the rights of people who have left prison either permanently because they have a criminal record or until they're off probation or parole, which in this country can be years and even decades. So how does it work just to roll back a little? So if you're in prison for anything, you can't vote. If you're convicted of a crime, unless you live in the states of Maine or Vermont or now Washington DC, we changed our law this year, or Puerto Rico, you can't vote in prison. You have the right to vote if you're in jail because you're not convicted of a crime, but very, very futuristic. So if you happen to be in jail on voting day, you have the chance to vote. Fine. And if you're convicted for any type of crime, however severe, no voting, no voting in prison, except for those those days. Yeah. So that means you can't vote. And that's that is remember in the United States, we've got over two million people who are are in prison any given day and over 700,000 who are in jail. So these are substantial populations and they tend to be poor people and they tend to be people of color from the cities, but not always in the cities. So these are with our razor thin margins. You know, we'll talk about Georgia that is still contested right now with the razor thin margins that we're seeing in the States, 14,000 votes, a number of people that are disenfranchised, which is five million people this year over five million people. And that includes so the two million or so in prison. And then people on parole can't vote either. Yeah, yep, they can't that in many states. And sometimes in some states, people who simply have a criminal record, or it's a lifetime ban on voting. So there is by state, but it did amount to over five million people not being able to vote. So for example, in Florida, which disenfranchised everybody, lost the right to vote if you were involved in if you had a felony record of any kind, they the people of Florida actually changed that their constitution to allow people to vote once they left prison. But there are the Republican dominated legislature led by the Republican governor passed a law that said, no, no, no, no, you can't vote unless you pay your fines and fees that you owe the courts. But but no one knew who owed what including the courts. And so in this last election, over 900,000 people would potentially deny the right to vote in a state that could determine who would be the next president of the United States. So this denial of voting rights, allowing the criminal justice system to essentially mediate the fundamental right that we hold as American citizens in a democracy is a disaster, but it's a very deliberate disaster. It actually goes back to the post civil war period, when felony disenfranchisement laws were passed in the South to deny primarily black men to vote. Because in the immediate post civil war period, black people voted in huge numbers, at least black men did because women didn't have to go back then. And they got into office. And the white people in the South didn't like that. They didn't like the fact that they were losing their lock on political power. So they passed all of the Jim Crow we call it the Jim Crow laws that taxes to vote poll taxes, felony disenfranchisement. So it became very popular. And it essentially meant that black people were cut out of political power for over a century longer, actually, in the South. But that spread to the North, especially in the age of mass incarceration. So we see states like Massachusetts, they're in liberal North Eastern state in this country, passing felony disenfranchisement laws in the 80s. And that all know who that was targeted against. It was targeting most minority communities. And it was extremely stressful to deny them about the access to the ballot box. Well, you have in England, I might be corrected here from wrong. I did look it up. I mean, if you're in prison here, you can't vote. It's interesting, because I was trying to gauge from like my friends and colleagues and where people stands on it, because it's such an interesting conversation. Should someone have the right to vote if they've committed a crime? Should it depend on the type of crime or how severe the crime is? Obviously, the history that you've just described is disgusting, right? I mean, the reasons that you gave are racist and... But then if you take a step back and you say, okay, so if someone's committed a murder, do they give up their right to vote? I think... Where's the weight of public opinion in the US on that kind of conversation? It's shifting. The majority believe that people who are probation and parole should have the right to vote. And the fact is that they don't. So that is an area where we're right to change. So you can... Yeah, and there's three million people. Yeah. Like I said, that's enough to determine local elections. It's enough to determine the national elections. Now, universal suffrage, which is what the sentencing project supports, is not yet a mainstream idea. What is that exactly? Universal suffrage? Universal suffrage. We support everyone having the right to vote. We do not think the government should be able to take away our right to vote, and we certainly don't think the criminal justice system should mediate the rights to vote. Now, you get sentenced to prison or probation or parole by a judge, and that is punishment. The community can punish you, but our position is that the community should never be able to take the right to vote away. And partially that's a historical... It's a retrospective look at how the right to vote has been used to disenfranchise certain communities. We don't want to give the government that option. It's too dangerous. We've seen how it can be used to disenfranchise the Black community for centuries, and certainly the criminal justice system, which is the course of power of the state, should not be able to ever mediate the voting rights. Because quite frankly, denying the right to vote for people in prison is perhaps politically popular, or at least it's not politically unpopular at this point in time. But if you allow that, who's next? What other unpopular group until finally it's you? So that is a risk that we don't want to take, and I think Americans have sat on our democracy too long. This recent election, the last four years have certainly proven that, that we didn't protect our voting rights. We largely ignored what was happening. Many of us didn't even ever vote. We didn't bother to vote. Yeah, very light time. Yeah, we had record turned out now. Because people finally woke up and thought, oh my gosh, my fate is actually in my hands. The only power I have is the vote. And frankly, numbers are the power that we have. We've got giant multinational corporations. We've got giant government. All of that can be aligned against the people. Alls we have are our numbers. And so every every vote is precious. Yeah. So what can what can be done? Because it sounds like it's going to be pretty tough to change the the ability of current inmates to vote. It sounds like you're you're having some success on the on the people on parole. Is that what you've been focusing on? Well, we focused on the long game. We started there, but like in my own hometown here in Washington, D.C., we passed a law this year that allows everyone to vote regardless of whether or not. Great work on you guys. A lot of work went into that. And, you know, that was very much led by the black community here, which did you say? Just to be clear, if you're an inmate, you can vote. Yes. Yes. Amazing. Any any with any any conviction, any length of time? Absolutely. Yes. It's universal suffrage. And frankly, in the states of Maine and Vermont, it has always been the case. Right. They have never denied any prisoner the right to vote and Puerto Rico changed its laws in the 1980s. So it's it is there is precedent. Yeah. And it's a postal vote. They passed a vote post it. Yes. Although in some places they actually bring in polling, a polling place. And just out of interest, you might not have these stats, but what percentage of the prison population in D.C. actually ended up voting? Don't yet know. Love to know. And that's that is a complicated reason because we don't have our actual because D.C. is not a state. We don't have a prison system. Our our folks go into the federal prison system, the Bureau of Prisons, which is headed, of course, by by President Trump. And they were not too excited to allow our prisoners to work very, very hard. Right. Not only get people registered, but also to get them ballots. Yeah. So it's unclear how many they wouldn't even give us the names. Would you be able to find out in Maine? You know, I bet they do track that. I don't know what it is. Because they've got two electoral colleges there, right? Yes. Yes. And I mean, these are these are relatively small states. The northeastern states. And it's just been heard of their culture. They never adopted that colonial law for felonies and franchisement from you guys. But yeah, so it's it is one of our positions is that because the black community has been so broadly disenfranchised and franchised by criminal justice involvement in this country, it's very clear that they've been denied the vote. And we also have been denied the ability to change these policies because they have all they're politically motivated. If you don't have any political power, you can't mandate the police engage in rational anti racist behavior. You can't impact what the sentences look like or who gets prosecuted or who gets elected as a prosecutor. So the fact that the criminal justice system has mediated voting rights, especially for the black community, has meant that they have had no say in what the criminal justice system looks like for generations. And as a result, we now, as I've said, we've got the biggest prison population in the world. It is out of control. So there's been no real democratic stop against these horrible policies that have impacted especially poor people of color. Yeah, that's crazy. It's great work you're doing, I think. I mean, it's nice that there's a precedent, you know, a few states that have that have done it. I think it's, yeah, it's really it's just such an interesting conversation. And for many of the reasons you discussed, good luck with it. I think it's really good. You know, it's a great thing to do. And, you know, and you're doing it for the right reasons, which I think is great. And I think you're also you're also you're also campaigning for to end life imprisonment as well. That's right. Our system is way too extreme. As I mentioned, we've got over 200,000 people in this country who are serving life in prison. They're going to die in prison, not because they have a capital sentence, although some of our states, as you know, still have the death penalty. But that is a relatively few number of people compared to those we sent death by incarceration. What percentage isn't isn't a men versus women? I know you've been doing quite a bit of work on on female women in car. Yes. So because women are there about 10% of our prison population. And they are slightly less of the life incarcerated. But women is the fastest growing population in not only across the board in prison, but they are also the growing faster in the life imprisoned numbers. That is a very good question. We're talking actually, because the vast majority of women are not in prison for violent offenses. They're there for property crimes or drug crimes. Even much more than male prisoners. So why women are especially getting life without parole? You can't get a life for that, can you? Can you get life for drug sentences? Oh, yes, you still can. You still can in term jurisdictions because of habitual offender laws. So we're seeing more women getting sentenced to life than ever before. And frankly, our sentences are, you know, our crime rates have gone down, despite what you might see in the media because of political posturing, especially in the lead up to the election. In general, violent crime in the United States is down, down, down at historical lows. And that has been the case for over a decade, been declining. And so our question is, if violent crime is going down in the United States, why is life sentencing going up? And in particular, life without the possibility of parole, which is the harshest possible sentence is growing more. Also for the drug offense? No. And the drug offense is also, I mean, it's not worked, you know, this war on drugs and stuff. You look at Portugal. So Portugal had the worst drugs or history record in Europe, but like loads of addicts, people really, really, really tough. And they decriminalized all drugs. And so rather than putting someone in prison for possessing heroin or something, they'd give them a clean needle. They'd give them the ability to go to a clinic and clean themselves up. And they've gone from the worst record in Europe to the best. So rather than putting them in prison, give them help, you know, like it's an addiction. Right, right. Treat it like a public health problem, which is what Yes. Yes. I would like to see that all over the United States, you know, the state of Oregon actually just passed laws in this last election that are very, they're based on the Portuguese model. Right. Because they too, you know, they have a serious drug problem, especially with opioids and heroin. And we know we've been, we've been locking up people who are addicted to drugs for the last 40 years in record numbers. And we still have a horrible drug problem in this country. It's clear it doesn't work to put people in prison. And, you know, frankly, as a lawyer for years, going into prisons and talking to my clients, I know they got the best drugs of their life in prison. Oh, yeah. And there was no drug treatment available in prison. And now we have problems with a lot of people ODing and dying in prison because of drugs. You know, we're treating it exactly the wrong way. And of course, when folks return home from prison, we've got a criminal record in this country and many countries getting a job, getting housing, getting back into the community and just earning a livelihood is virtually impossible. So we put all these barriers in place and then we expect people to change. It's just not going to happen. It's irrational. No, I mean, if you're coming out of, if you're coming out to prison and you've been, and you're on drugs, I mean, you're going to have to try and get drugs, which is again, probably illegal. So you could reoffend. And then, you know, and in this country, you get, you get put in a flat, you don't get given a job. You end up, you know, you find people in a flat, all on their own, no job, nothing to do, not contributing to society, not really sure what to do. And then they end up reusing, reoffending, re-entering prison. So it's... And can we be surprised? I mean, of course, that's what's going to happen. Yeah, there's some great, there's some great organizations here. And I'm sure also in the US that do really great work to help people as they come out, you know, help them find the job. That is, that is true. It's just, it's never, it's not enough, because it's not, there aren't enough resources for everybody. And it should be, it shouldn't be luck that you happened to get hooked up with the right organizations that can actually help you. In this country, in the United States, we spend billions and billions of dollars blocking people in prison. And we spend very, very little money actually helping them recharge. It's also, do you know, I'd love to see it's so easy to donate money to charity, right? You know, here's my direct debit details. I'll tap in, I'll tap your thing, you know, it's also easy to take, to pluck up the courage to say, Hey, do you know what? I'm going to give you a job. Come and work in my company. You know, that's harder. That's, you know, you'll say, okay, you've got criminal records, you've done whatever, but I'm going to give you another chance. And I'm going to give you a job. And I'm going to train you, except that's, that's more impactful. But that's, that's when you really find out about yourself. So I was thinking the other, you know, okay, I'm happy to give money, but can I give someone a job? You know, and that's when you find out what you really, your feelings really are. Yeah, yeah, no, I mean, that's when you, when you directly put yourself into the role of helping change. And it's, it is certainly necessary because barriers to employment are very, very low. And it's incredibly easy to find out if somebody has a criminal record. But also that's the way, that's the way, right? You want to feel as a human that you are contributing to society and you're being useful and you're directing your energies in a positive way. You know, if you, if you don't have that in your life, it's so easy to stray. You know, it's a very fine line that you can cross over. Oh, yeah. I mean, it's, it's, it's asking the impossible of people actually do a lot to set folks up to fail and then act surprised. Yeah. Well, great place to end Amy. Let's work towards that. Let's work towards that. So good thing. Absolutely. Good talking with you. Thank you. Yeah. Thanks for joining me and keep up all the great work. And I look forward to hearing how it all goes. Yes, yes, I will, I will give you a call when we have our election party in the universal suffrage in the United States. True democracy is what we're looking for. Definitely. Thank you so much. Have a good one. See you. Bye.