Latest / Success Story with Scott Clary / Lessons - Building a Life After Jail | Thomas Vozzo - CEO at Homeboy Industries

Transcript

Lessons - Building a Life After Jail | Thomas Vozzo - CEO at Homeboy Industries · Success Story with Scott Clary

• 0:00
  In this lessons episode,
• 0:01
  dive into the challenges of recidivism
• 0:03
  and why many individuals struggle to rebuild their lives
• 0:06
  after incarceration.
• 0:07
  Learn how trauma-informed rehabilitation,
• 0:09
  supportive environments,
• 0:11
  and meaningful job opportunities
• 0:12
  can help break the cycle,
• 0:14
  foster resilience,
• 0:15
  and create pathways
• 0:16
  for lasting reintegration into society.
• 0:19
  So one thing that I'm curious about is
• 0:24
  that point when they're in jail and they're incarcerated,
• 0:36
  and they're looking for something different
• 0:38
  and something better.
• 0:39
  But that's not always the case.
• 0:41
  So what do we have to do to allow them
• 0:44
  to look towards something better?
• 0:45
  Because in jail, recidivism rates increase
• 0:48
  exponentially, and I'm sure,
• 0:49
  like, my back, I'm Canadian,
• 0:51
  and I know that Canada is not even remotely as bad
• 0:54
  as the US in terms of recidivism.
• 0:55
  If you put someone in jail and certain jails
• 0:57
  and certain environments,
• 0:58
  their chance of committing another crime
• 1:02
  goes up X percent, right?
• 1:04
  Because they're surrounded by the population
• 1:06
  that's not helping them rehabilitate.
• 1:08
  So how does a jail,
• 1:10
  or how does a, how come some individuals
• 1:13
  are looking for a better life
• 1:15
  whereas some individuals
• 1:16
  you see higher recidivism rates?
• 1:18
  What is the differentiator?
• 1:21
  Yes, and I would answer it this way.
• 1:23
  So let me first say, think about those statistics
• 1:25
  and recidivism going back into the prison system
• 1:28
  under a new charge, right?
• 1:30
  So a number of years ago,
• 1:33
  there was an independent independent study
• 1:35
  of Homeboy done by UCLA in a show
• 1:37
  that people have been part of our Homeboy program
• 1:40
  only have a 30% recidivism rate
• 1:43
  after two years of being out.
• 1:46
  That compares to the statewide average
• 1:48
  to your point of 70%.
• 1:50
  And so here we are two and a half times
• 1:52
  better than the statewide average.
• 1:54
  So your question is why we sit
• 1:56
  about why do people go back into the jail system?
• 1:58
  I almost say, well,
• 1:59
  why do people go back into the jail system
• 2:01
  out of two times more rate
• 2:02
  than they do after becoming
• 2:03
  to be a part of Homeboy?
• 2:06
  And the answer is simply
• 2:07
  that we invest in them.
• 2:10
  We try to help them heal from their trauma
• 2:13
  and so they can become resilient.
• 2:15
  They're going with society throws at them.
• 2:17
  In the US, people come out of the prison
• 2:19
  with a massive amount of debt,
• 2:22
  not just restitution charges but court costs.
• 2:24
  And all of me, let me tell you this one story.
• 2:26
  So early, so we have a Homeboy,
• 2:29
  a number of social enterprise businesses.
• 2:31
  We have a Homeboy bakery.
• 2:33
  And here's where we make artists in bread.
• 2:35
  And we have 11 bread routes go around
• 2:37
  and we deliver the restaurants all throughout Los Angeles.
• 2:39
  We also have farmer's markets.
• 2:41
  And artisan-based bakery means hand-pan-made breads.
• 2:44
  And so there's nothing better about breaking down
• 2:48
  walls and enemies.
• 2:49
  So when two enemies stand at that bread table,
• 2:52
  side-by-side, shoulder-shoulder, they're rolling dough.
• 2:55
  You can't demonize them,
• 2:56
  but you're in relationship with.
• 2:58
  You're working next to.
• 2:59
  And so these two guys from rival gangs
• 3:01
  were able to work it out over the bread table.
• 3:04
  Right? So that's what that's the value of having
• 3:06
  that type of work that we do.
• 3:08
  But and we sell the bread.
• 3:09
  And we sell the bread of farmer's markets.
• 3:11
  Early on in my time at Homeboy,
• 3:13
  I was walking through the bakery
• 3:16
  and trying to be friendly and talk to people.
• 3:18
  And I overheard one of our best
• 3:21
  sellers at the farmer's markets.
• 3:22
  26 farmer's markets around Los Angeles.
• 3:24
  George, it's one of my best sellers.
• 3:26
  Every time he takes the breads out to the markets,
• 3:28
  he completely sells out and come home early.
• 3:30
  And he's had a gift for a guy.
• 3:31
  I mean, it's a certain amount of charisma.
• 3:33
  Right?
• 3:34
  And so I remember I'm talking to our manager
• 3:37
  asking for the weekend off.
• 3:38
  Well, the weekends are important days for farmer's markets.
• 3:41
  So a manager said, yes.
• 3:44
  And now I go up top to George and
• 3:46
  I've just wanted to chit-chat.
• 3:47
  What are you going to do?
• 3:48
  You're going to go to a ballgame.
• 3:50
  What are you going to have?
• 3:51
  What are you going to do?
• 3:52
  And he looks at me and says, I'm reporting in.
• 3:56
  And so what's what do you mean, reporting in?
• 3:59
  Well, he was going to report into county jail on Friday night.
• 4:03
  And spend three days there, come back on Tuesday.
• 4:06
  And he was doing that because he came out of jail on prison with debt.
• 4:11
  He had cost of his parole officer, court costs.
• 4:14
  He has all these costs.
• 4:16
  And like, for society thinks that people on the day one coming out of prison,
• 4:20
  they can start paying off their debt.
• 4:22
  And then I don't even have a job yet.
• 4:24
  Right?
• 4:24
  It's just nuts.
• 4:26
  And that sort of sort of says what society throws up against him.
• 4:30
  And so he sat that time.
• 4:33
  You can go to LA County jail and you can spend three days in jail and earn off
• 4:36
  some of the money that you owe.
• 4:40
  And so I walked away that evening.
• 4:41
  They go, that's really responsible for George.
• 4:43
  He's trying to do it the right way.
• 4:45
  He didn't go, he could have gone to his former gang as, hey,
• 4:47
  let me get some money.
• 4:48
  He could have gone to a loan shark and borrow money.
• 4:50
  He didn't want to do that high interest rates.
• 4:52
  He wanted to do it the good way, the clean way.
• 4:56
  All right, so all weekend I'm thinking about it.
• 4:58
  I see George following two studies.
• 5:00
  Hey, George, I went up to him quickly.
• 5:02
  Hey, how to go.
• 5:03
  And I see stress on his face.
• 5:06
  And I'm thinking, what happened?
• 5:08
  And he said, when he came out of prison,
• 5:11
  he was able to get custody of two children.
• 5:13
  10 year old and a eight year old.
• 5:15
  And he has sole custody of it.
• 5:17
  He has no caregiver.
• 5:19
  He has no family support.
• 5:20
  They're in the gang.
• 5:21
  He doesn't live in the neighborhood any longer.
• 5:23
  So the caregiver who is going to watch his kids that weekend
• 5:25
  why we put the jail called at the last minute and couldn't make it.
• 5:30
  And so he had this choice or almost no choice
• 5:32
  because he committed to going to jail.
• 5:34
  So he left this 10 year old and eight year old at home
• 5:39
  in their apartment on their own for three days
• 5:42
  while he wasn't counting the jail.
• 5:43
  You could just imagine the stress as a father
• 5:45
  where you go through thinking, did you make the right decision?
• 5:48
  Are they going to be okay?
• 5:49
  How's it going to work?
• 5:50
  Quick, the end of the story is they turned out okay.
• 5:53
  Everything was fine.
• 5:54
  But as I'm listening to this story, seeing his stress,
• 5:57
  I'm thinking to myself, oh my gosh.
• 6:01
  I don't know if I would have done it that way.
• 6:02
  I mean, so you have to pause and think
• 6:06
  not to judge because they're face bar folks coming out of prison
• 6:09
  to be faced with impossible choices
• 6:11
  to live the normal life that we want in the live.
• 6:15
  Right?
• 6:15
  And yet we just have to be there for them and get
• 6:19
  and help them some way get them more money.
• 6:21
  So they don't have these choices
• 6:23
  but don't judge them by their actions.
• 6:24
  So that was a long way answering your questions.
• 6:26
  Why a hybrid citizen in the United States?
• 6:28
  Because people come out of prison
• 6:30
  and they still have all these stressors
• 6:31
  to get done.
• 6:32
  What's the side of throws at them?
• 6:33
  And they just kind of give up, button with this, give up.
• 6:35
  So now let's go back to the gang
• 6:37
  because it's easier money to be made.
• 6:39
  And I'll sort of live life that way while I may die at 30.
• 6:44
  I don't have as much stress.
• 6:45
  There are folks who almost everybody knows deep down
• 6:48
  what they're doing is not right.
• 6:50
  And they want to do it in a more honest and better way.
• 6:54
  And let's, okay.
• 6:55
  So let's talk about the progression
• 6:58
  of somebody that comes out of a gang.
• 6:59
  So then when you come out of a gang,
• 7:03
  I'm assuming you're not,
• 7:06
  these are general assumptions.
• 7:07
  But I'm assuming you're not coming out
• 7:08
  with a college degree.
• 7:10
  So if you are looking to make a living wage
• 7:13
  and you're looking to displace money
• 7:15
  from illicit activities,
• 7:16
  it could be like highly lucrative.
• 7:18
  How do you, how do you fully move away from gang life?
• 7:22
  Because it's not going to be raising a family
• 7:24
  on making artisanal bread.
• 7:26
  There has to be progression.
• 7:27
  There has to be some, some way to make it.
• 7:29
  I don't know what the, the amount is,
• 7:30
  but there has to be an amount that has to be made
• 7:33
  where you're making 60, 70, 80.
• 7:35
  I don't know what that is.
• 7:36
  And then you can actually support a family.
• 7:38
  You can put into retirement.
• 7:39
  So what is the, what is the way
• 7:41
  to actually support people
• 7:42
  so that they can become full members?
• 7:44
  Not just rehabilitated,
• 7:46
  but on par with someone else
• 7:49
  who was getting a job
• 7:50
  to support a whole family and retire.
• 7:53
  Yeah, and that's the,
• 7:54
  not with the challenge, right?
• 7:56
  And I put it in this frame, you know,
• 7:58
  the work and poor in our society
• 8:01
  have a lot of challenges.
• 8:03
  And just as you talk,
• 8:04
  but you can't provide for your family
• 8:05
  by being among the working poor.
• 8:08
  And what I'm here to say is,
• 8:09
  you know, that in the,
• 8:10
  in the United States,
• 8:11
  the poverty rate has been the same
• 8:15
  for 45 years, same narrow ban, you know,
• 8:17
  12 to 13 percent.
• 8:19
  And so as a society,
• 8:20
  we haven't figured out how to help people,
• 8:22
  let people out of poverty along the way.
• 8:25
  But what I've learned at homeboy is,
• 8:27
  oh, actually,
• 8:28
  it's a way to help people who are poor
• 8:31
  and working poor,
• 8:32
  the folks who are demonized.
• 8:34
  And so it's a question about gang members
• 8:36
  as they, as they come into homeboy
• 8:39
  in only 40 percent of them have a high school diploma.
• 8:43
  So 60 percent do not.
• 8:46
  So while we think people get educated in the prison system,
• 8:49
  most people still don't get educated
• 8:51
  in the prison system.
• 8:53
  And so,
• 8:54
  what we do is, again,
• 8:56
  primarily we're a human service agency.
• 8:57
  We help people heal from their trauma.
• 9:00
  You know, we have,
• 9:01
  we have therapists on staff.
• 9:04
  We have, you know,
• 9:05
  homies going to therapy.
• 9:06
  We have NAA classes.
• 9:08
  We do, as domestic violence,
• 9:10
  counseling classes.
• 9:12
  We have high school classes.
• 9:14
  We allow people pathways to college,
• 9:16
  junior college.
• 9:17
  We, we get them in.
• 9:18
  We take off their tattoos,
• 9:19
  all in the context,
• 9:21
  all of us in the context of what they're working with.
• 9:23
  We give them a lot of space to do,
• 9:25
  to do that work.
• 9:26
  And so what we see is that,
• 9:28
  now, primarily,
• 9:30
  they need to heal,
• 9:31
  but then to your point,
• 9:31
  the supplement,
• 9:32
  then we have to upscale them,
• 9:33
  upscale them so that they can
• 9:36
  succeed in our economy.
• 9:38
  Again, another statistic,
• 9:39
  90 percent of the folks that come out of the prison system
• 9:42
  have never worked in a business
• 9:43
  for more than four weeks in their whole life.
• 9:45
  And so they don't have the muscle memory of,
• 9:47
  of how to work.
• 9:49
  So with all those challenges,
• 9:51
  I'm here to say,
• 9:52
  this is a good workforce.
• 9:54
  Once they go through an organization like Homeboy,
• 9:57
  and become resilient and learn the skills.
• 9:59
  You know, we have in Los Angeles,
• 10:01
  a Zagged Rated Cafe, Homegirl Cafe,
• 10:04
  only seven other restaurants
• 10:06
  have as higher rating in downtown Los Angeles.
• 10:09
  And it's fully run by gang members of felons.
• 10:12
  And so I often think about,
• 10:15
  now, the workforce,
• 10:16
  we have a Homeboy is really good.
• 10:18
  So it's as good of a workforce
• 10:19
  as you're going to get anywhere else.
• 10:21
  And so in any workforce,
• 10:24
  you're going to have this sort of people
• 10:25
  who sort of move up the ladder
• 10:27
  and have upward mobility.
• 10:28
  And those are the ones who will bet 70, 80, 90,000 a year.
• 10:33
  And as well as you're going to have people
• 10:34
  at the frontline level who struggle
• 10:37
  because of enough skills to move higher,
• 10:39
  our role is to help people
• 10:42
  heal, get that first transitional job,
• 10:45
  and then help them get the next level jobs above that.
• 10:49
  We're proud of the fact that over half of our management team
• 10:52
  are former clients.
• 10:54
  And so again, I know our workforce is just as any workforce
• 10:58
  that is won't get the market-based wages
• 11:00
  because of their backgrounds.
• 11:01
  And so part of my thing is as I thought
• 11:04
  about writing this book,
• 11:05
  what lessons I learned.
• 11:07
  It's also kind of trying to challenge
• 11:09
  people in the business world.
• 11:12
  That's higher this population
• 11:14
  because there is good of a workforce
• 11:16
  as any other workforce
• 11:18
  in their very loyal
• 11:19
  and our folks deserve the right
• 11:22
  to have upward mobility in the job
• 11:24
  just like any other person
• 11:25
  who doesn't have a felony
• 11:27
  and doesn't not coming out of a gang
• 11:29
  in that they can shine based upon their own ability
• 11:33
  and we just got to give them that chance.
• 11:34
  Thanks for tuning in.
• 11:35
  If you found this valuable,
• 11:36
  don't forget to hit that subscribe button
• 11:38
  so you never miss an episode.
• 11:40
  And if you want to dive deeper into this conversation,
• 11:42
  check out the links in the description
• 11:44
  to watch the full episode.
• 11:45
  See you in the next one.