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Prison Turned Him Into a Harvard Reformer (Full) · Solving America's Problems

0:00
Alex: Jerremy and Dave sit down with Quan Wynn—a man who served 22
0:04
years for murder and walked out a Harvard-trained reformer running
0:08
Defy Ventures in Southern California.
0:11
Right after coaching women inside Chino prison, one inmate asked Dave
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what he’d tell friends about his day.
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He said, “Just went to another entrepreneur pitch day—same as
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I’ve done at the best startups and top business schools.”
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She stopped him cold—“You’re not gonna say it was in prison?”
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Dave told her no.
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Because the pitches he heard inside were as sharp as any he’s coached
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in Silicon Valley or New York.
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[surprised] Quan spent over two decades locked up—yet he’s the one
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proving the system can be flipped…
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What did he figure out that the other 2.3 MILLION inside still
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haven’t been given a shot at?
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Jerremy Newsome: Dave, what are we addressing and solving today?
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My man?
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Dave: In this week's episode of Solving America's Problems, we confront a
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system that costs 80 billion a year.
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Yet 60% of released prisoners return within three years a
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cycle that demands change.
1:10
We're joined today by Qu Wynn, who turned 22 years in prison
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into a mission for second chances.
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As executive director of Defi Ventures, Southern California, a
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certified gang expert, and a Harvard Executive Education graduate.
1:23
Kwan leads programs in entrepreneurship and personal growth.
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His memoir, Sparrow and the Razor Wire inspires thousands
1:30
with power of internal change.
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And that's this week on solving America's problems from punishment
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to possibility With K Juan Win.
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Jerremy: Okay.
1:39
On our way to an amazing Vietnamese restaurant, we just left the
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Women's Correctional Facility here in Chino, California.
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Dave, we are in a van with a very special guest.
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This is our first
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Dave: remote recording.
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Jerremy: Our first remote recording, which we were trying out and we
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were very excited about quality.
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Kwan is joining
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Quan tell us what experience we all just embarked on together.
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Quan: We were there for a
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business coaching day through the five ventures program There was.
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It's the halfway point of or seven month training program where
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it's career readiness, personal development, and entrepreneurship
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Jerremy: and it was really remarkable.
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Dave, one of the favorite things that you told me, a quick little story,
2:31
fill me in when you were talking to the one individual lady, the EIT, asking
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about the resumes and the thing that stood out in particular about how many
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times you've done this in the past.
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Dave: She asked me like,
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what my
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day.
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What was, like, what would I tell people out, when I left this an amazing event.
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And I would, I said, actually, it's boring.
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Maybe even a little funny.
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I'd say I went to an entrepreneur event.
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We did pitch coaching, we did resumes, we some business models
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around ideas and that's about it.
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And she stopped for a She said, you're not gonna say it was in a prison.
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And I said, no, I've done this all over the world.
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I've done this at.
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The highest level at the best business schools in the world.
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The biggest startups the everywhere.
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I've done this hundreds and hundreds of times in New York and DC and
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LA and San Francisco and overseas.
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And this is exactly what.
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We do, and you all are entrepreneurs.
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I, this is e exactly it.
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And she stopped really?
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And I'm like, really?
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Like I, I didn't hear any that the fact that it's in a prison was
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irrelevant and Right.
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That's one of the hardest things about entrepreneurship is.
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Is just having somebody listen.
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And I think it was extra special in this environment because you're seeing
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And once you get that a across that that it's the same that you're
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not being treated any different.
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You're not being, like this isn't, this isn't dumbed down.
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This isn't, this is this is business.
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It.
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It really clicked and it elevated the
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Jerremy: Right.
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Because in this series we are working on focusing on and solving the
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problem and the challenge that faces America, which is prison reform.
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And one of the main, one of those main topics is what goes on inside of a
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prison and the different aspects of that.
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And that's why we have Quan here, because Quan happens to be a specialist in that
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he has studied it, he's been a part of it.
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He has not only been reformed, but has had reformed so many other people.
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Quan is this something that can be done in any prison or any jail in America?
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This
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educational Environment where people are pouring into their future best
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self?
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Quan: Yes.
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I think that's the great thing about our program is it's very scalable.
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It's a 2000 page curriculum.
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We're in the process actually of piloting a digital
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format of.
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The, our program onto the,
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porting it onto the tablets that are inside California's prisons.
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'cause every person incarcerated has the access to the tablets.
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So that's what we are in the process of piloting right now.
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But even if they don't have access to tablets, it's a
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curriculum that we put on books.
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And then we have a model where it's a facilitator goes into the prison and
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teaches the curriculum, and it has the coaching day at the halfway point.
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And it culminates in a business pitch competition that's judged
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Shark Tank style by volunteers
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Jerremy: Shark Tank style.
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That's cool.
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Yes.
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That's really cool.
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What does the winner receive?
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Quan: The top five winners receive IOU.
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First place gets 500, second place gets 400, 300, 200, 100.
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So they receive those when they come home.
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Yep.
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One of our EITs
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I remember in San Diego, he had pitched
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a honeybee business.
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He had this huge fascination with honeybees, and I remember he came
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down home during the pandemic, his.
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$500 that he won for first place, helped him buy his first colony and he sent
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us some honey during the pandemic.
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That was the best honey I've ever tasted.
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I had the honeycombs in it and everything with the colonies, he was
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able to make several other colonies.
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And the last I heard from him, he was, he said he was coming up with some new
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stuff, with some certain wax and all this.
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Wow.
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So he everything.
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Yeah, he did everything honeybees.
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Jerremy: That's really cool.
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So why isn't.
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This program or programs like it in every prison across the
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country?
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Quan: I think the main thing is the, there's the narrative of lock
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someone up and throw away the key.
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Or also another narrative of what does it really mean for rehabilitation?
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Or perhaps the narrative or
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the belief.
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Do we believe in second chances?
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Do we believe that once a criminal, always a criminal?
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So I think there's.
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There's different narratives that prevent us from even thinking of the possibilities
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of why if given opportunities, given options during incarceration, there
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could be ways for people to step into better versions of themselves.
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Dave: And Quan, can you,
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You're such a model of this.
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Can you give us just a bit of your background
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and your story and.
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Like what
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this journey has been
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like for you?
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Quan: Yeah.
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High level I'm formerly incarcerated myself.
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I've served 22 years of my life in correctional facilities,
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and I ultimately went.
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To prison with a 15 year to life sentence.
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For secondary murder.
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I shot and killed a man by the name of Minu in Los Angeles.
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At the time I told myself it was a gang related crime, that things
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happened because I was in the gang, that it was during my prison journey
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when I started to think about like, how did I end up this way?
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Am I meant to die in here?
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Because to give you context.
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Although it was a 15 year to life sentence, the state of California
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had not paroled one single lifetime prisoner since 1977.
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And it wasn't until a woman
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that was incarcerated that fought it all the way to Supreme Court, her name was
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Sandra Lawrence, and that was when the first ruling came out in, I think 2007.
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So 30 years later, they had 30 years of data where she was able to argue
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what's the difference between a life without possibility sentence.
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And a life sentence because California was not paring anybody.
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And that kind of opened the MOG door where then the courts came
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back and said, okay, there has to be some type of nexus to the crime.
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And they gave this list what they called the factors of suitability
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as never been arrested, had higher education never been arrested, had
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higher education didn't get in trouble.
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No.
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No violent offenses.
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And then they had on the other side of the list factors of un suitability
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where it says multiple arrests write-ups during incarceration,
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violence during incarceration.
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And I fell on that other list.
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So I go, this does, these factors don't apply to me.
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Or 98% of us in here anyway.
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But then men started to litigate it and the door started opening
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and I think governor Brown in
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2012 released one of the first.
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Or 2013 released one of the first prisoners after they were found suitable.
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But then the governor continued to take the dates.
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I'm sorry he didn't release 'em.
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The governor continued to take people's dates.
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'cause it's almost a political thing.
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'cause it became where if the governor signs off, then that
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makes him look soft on crime.
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So that under politics the governor doesn't wanna look soft in crime, so
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he has to continue to pull the date.
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Yeah.
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Send it back.
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And the guy goes back to the parole board or the woman
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goes back to the parole board.
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And this continues to happen until Sandra Lawrence was ordered.
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Leased from the courts and then that started to happen to other men and women.
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And that kind I, that was the backdrop for when right around I
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I at the time was on a different set, was always been a bookworm, so I was
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just read a whole bunch of books.
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I love entrepreneurship while I was incarcerated and I have this
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tendency of going down rabbit trails when I'm reading a book.
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Like I go now, acknowledgements, see who wrote it.
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And then who influenced them?
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And then I read up on that.
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So right around that time, I remember I became very fascinated on books
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around stories around the saints and in particular stories about saints that had
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failed in their lives, but had gone on to create these legacies and these orders.
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And it just became this other rabbit trail.
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And I started reading books on spirituality, personal development,
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mindfulness, and then all of this, I would have to say, became like a perfect storm
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in my head where I. One day he was just on a prison yard and just said like, why do
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I have to view like prison as punishment?
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Why can't this be a place where I can begin to remake myself even
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if I'm supposed to die in here?
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And of course, the answer from the universe come back and said, yeah you can.
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And I wanna say that's where I, my awakening began.
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Like I remember I was on the yard that day and the sun was
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barely coming over the hills.
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I could feel the warmth on my skin, on the blades of.
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Grass, I could see the individual drops a dew.
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And up above me in the razor wire I heard a sparrow chirping.
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And I say the sparrows have probably been chirping my whole prison term.
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I did not hear it, but that day I heard it, and from that
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day is where my journey began.
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And I saw men that perhaps not, some not even awakened some of them much further
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along, but then suddenly I was like, oh, these are human beings that I'm here
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to connect with and here to learn from.
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And.
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Began to
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change the fabric of my existence in prison.
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One of the first things I did was I checked into therapy 'cause
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my father passed away when I was 13 years old from leukemia.
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I never was able to grieve properly, grieve him,
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and that's the first thing I did.
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I checked into therapy,
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began the grief and loss process, but then also became fascinated with
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Elizabeth k Ross's model on grief and loss and, then being the rat the bookworm.
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I read a bunch of hers writings and read other things, and I realized there's
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a lot of men that were incarcerated that could not process their grief.
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There's a lot of mourning, whether that's losing their loved ones or
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being separated or even something seemingly normal in prison as being
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transferred from one prison to another.
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But these are, that means these are friendships and relationships
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that you're getting removed from, and you have to form new.
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Ones and they're unable to process it.
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So I saw this need of, hey, how do we give a space for men
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to begin the grieving process?
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And I submitted a syllabus to the prison psychologist, and we started
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the prisons first ever grief and loss group, which I remember being in that
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first group and seeing men be able to shed tears or be able to just speak
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about like a some loss in their life.
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And, that's where I think I would've say, like that's where I felt fulfilled
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and I felt there was meaning in my life.
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And that's where it just began this hunger for, and thirst for wait, what
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else can I do to make impact in the world?
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And then being the bookworm once again, I get books on group psychodynamics,
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childhood development, and we start building other curriculum.
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And the next thing I know I'm able to inform and help build curriculum
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inside the prisons for per.
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Like for self-help and get involved with a bunch of them.
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And then, yeah, it just began this whole process where I realized here I am
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in some forgotten corner of the world, but I am able to do God's work and
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I'm doing impactful work and nobody knows about it, but that's okay.
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'cause I know the impact I'm able to make while
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I'm in here.
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And that's just how I lived for the last three, four years of my
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existence inside Solano State Prison.
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and then I went in front of the parole.
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It and I just share with them like
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my own understanding, self understanding of why I, I
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joined a gang, of why I thought
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it was okay to shoot and
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kill somebody.
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Why I thought it was okay to still inflict acts of violence
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on others while incarcerated.
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And they said that they felt I was no longer a danger and they
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paroled me and I got out in 2015.
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Jerremy: Amazing.
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That's incredible, man.
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Thank you for sharing that story.
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And I heard you say the word impact.
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A few times.
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So in this short interview, and thank you for
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doing this on the road, we'll definitely do another one as well.
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What impact do you feel this
14:51
country could make in prison reform?
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If you had to
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choose one thing that would create that MO the most impact, what would it be?
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Quan: These are our community members.
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These are our fellow human beings coming home.
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So if we invest in them while they have been removed from society, I
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think the question we have to ask ourselves, what are we doing with people
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that have made poor choices in life?
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We're removing them from our communities, but now what?
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What are we gonna do?
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Are we just gonna lock 'em up or we're not going to, we're going.
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To deprive them of any type of way to come, become better versions
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of themselves, or should we let 'em know Hey, we're removing you
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from this community, but these are the things that we want to do.
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Let's address what made you go down this path in the first place?
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What, let's address, what made you think it's okay to
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break our social norms?
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Or and what are the issues around it?
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And get some type of, help them develop some type of self
15:50
understanding and some type of.
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Of personal responsibility for their choices and everything that's happened.
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And
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yeah then suddenly there's people inside that yes, they did, made terrible choices.
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They may have done terrible
16:04
things, but inherently if we invest in them and we tell 'em that
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yes, we Can believe in them, that I'd say the potential for them
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coming home and doing work, impactful work in the world is pretty exponential.
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I see it in our man.
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And women that are graduates.
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Like for them it's all about how do I give back, how now I know the harm that I've
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caused, how do I give back to society?
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So you would be able to have people that
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I think would really come out and continue to help change the
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fabric of the world out here.
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Jerremy: Why do you feel recidivism is so high?
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I.
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Dave: Can I tag onto that?
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Is anything working
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about the prison system?
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Is there.
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Like why is this recidivism so high?
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Is anything working?
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Quan: I would have to say
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no.
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There's, our nonprofit is in existence because there is
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no budget for rehabilitative programs in California's prisons.
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So that's why we're in existence.
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There's no,
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the prison system was the California system.
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It's built to.
17:09
Punished and it's built to put people, lock people away.
17:13
And while they're away, if there's no resources to help
17:16
them become better people, if there's no resources to help them
17:21
develop some type of understanding in themselves.
17:25
There's no resources for them to not only come to some type of
17:31
self-acceptance and self-forgiveness, but then come to a place where they can
17:36
believe in a brighter future for themselves because of believe,
17:39
like there's a way for them even after they're incarcerated.
17:42
Because think of all the systemic barriers.
17:44
Yes.
17:45
Now, once they come home, they have they're considered a convicted
17:48
felon once they come home.
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Then when they apply for certain jobs.
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They'll be barred from getting certain licenses.
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They're when they're trying to rent out a home, the background check comes
17:59
back and then they get turned down.
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So
18:01
there's all these systemic barriers that continue to hold them
18:06
accountable for something they've already served their time for.
18:08
And then there's, so there's not too many options for them.
18:12
And then if they're unable to be employed and if they're unable to make
18:16
a living and they're unable to raise a family, then unfortunately some of them
18:19
will have to turn back to what they only know unless of we had given them
18:24
opportunities while they're incarcerated.
18:26
Hey, let's dream of a different world in which you could have existed or a
18:30
different you that could have lived in the world that you don't see right now.
18:35
Jerremy: Do you mind sharing with our listeners one of those moments
18:37
for you when you filled out a
18:39
form and
18:39
you had to check that box and what kind of happened?
18:43
Quan: Yeah.
18:43
I remember during the Pandemic, 'cause after I came home I launched
18:47
my first company six months after a commercial cleaning company.
18:51
And during the pandemic I had about seven employees, no eight
18:56
employees at the time, and.
18:58
Alright, then the country got shut down overnight.
19:00
70% of our contracts were canceled because all the country was on
19:06
lockdown, so they didn't need
19:07
Janitorial services at commercial buildings.
19:10
And so then I filed for relief under the paycheck protection program.
19:15
But when I got to question f. Five
19:18
came up that question again.
19:19
Have you ever been convicted of a felony?
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And Right when I clicked, yes.
19:23
The platform grayed out and it wouldn't let me continue
19:26
because I had answered yes.
19:28
And I remember, I was like I felt sorry for myself about 45 minutes.
19:32
And I was like, this is unfair.
19:34
Like why this is great that we have this program this is to give relief
19:38
to small business owners and I'm a tax paying citizen and why am right?
19:42
Me and like my team being punished for something I did like over 25 years ago.
19:51
But so
19:52
I don't know how
19:53
CBS Money Watch found out and.
19:55
CNN and they started calling me.
19:57
And the next thing I know, the A CLU had contacted me.
20:00
And then the Five Ventures did a class action lawsuit with
20:04
the A CLU and we sued the SBA.
20:06
So we successfully changed that language in it where I think they had to show.
20:11
Before there was no nexus to oh, anybody that's convicted
20:14
of a crime did not qualify.
20:15
But then they changed it to only if someone in that was convicted of financial
20:19
crimes couldn't apply for the paycheck
20:23
protection program.
20:24
Jerremy: Wow.
20:25
Thanks for doing that.
20:26
Thanks for not only.
20:29
Facing an opposition, but finding a way to push through it because that's
20:32
really, that's what makes America
20:34
great.
20:35
Same energy, the same drive, the same focus of, just because
20:38
I have an opposition doesn't mean that has to be the only
20:41
answer.
20:42
And to your point, if the question is there,
20:47
maybe we can either phrase it or realize that
20:51
if someone has faced some.
20:54
A
20:55
massive challenge and opposition in their life, but they didn't let that
20:58
stop them and they did rehabilitate, and they did come back into this
21:01
country and they're, they are a citizen.
21:03
They are a tax paying citizen.
21:04
They're someone who's really putting in their time and energy, having
21:07
employees and creating employment and helping other individuals.
21:11
Why couldn't they also get assistance as well?
21:14
So really remarkable story, man.
21:16
Thank you for sharing.
21:18
Dave.
21:18
Any final questions for our man Kwan here while we have him?
21:21
Dave: Would people who haven't been incarcerated be surprised about
21:27
inside the system?
21:29
Quan: God.
21:29
That's where can I go with that?
21:31
They would be surprised inside the system, but we're talking about
21:34
the human element, that there is
21:37
a lot, of.
21:38
Are good souls in there
21:42
that they would be surprised that there are not many
21:45
opportunities for people that are incarcerated.
21:49
They would be surprised that there's not much investment like there.
21:54
It's, it feels almost
21:57
shortsighted because these are people that are coming home to
21:59
our communities and there's.
22:01
No, there's no way to make, continue to make our community safer if we're not
22:06
investing in them while they're inside.
22:09
Jerremy: Yeah.
22:10
Again, back to your point and a word you've used a few times as well invest.
22:15
And it doesn't have to be just financial.
22:17
A lot of people probably do think that the word investing is only tied to financial
22:21
aspects, but in real, in reality, we can invest into relationships, we can invest
22:25
into humans, we can invest into education, we can invest into education reform.
22:29
We can invest and spend money or time or
22:33
energy into the rehabilitation and the betterment of just humans.
22:39
'cause that's really what I'm hearing you say as I'm hearing you say that.
22:42
Yeah.
22:42
Just because someone is incarcerated, they do not lose their humanity.
22:45
They simply did something that probably potentially other people have also done
22:52
that they simply had not got caught for.
22:53
And that's something that I experienced today in in our
22:59
exercise or empathy exercise where that there were definitely a few
23:03
instances and a few questions that were posed that simply show that.
23:09
A lot of times it very well could be for maybe less serious offenses.
23:14
The luck of the draw of who and who does and does not get caught,
23:18
who does and does not seek and find themselves in a punishable event.
23:22
And for someone to face dehumanizing
23:27
and unfortunate judgment from other people related to how they have once interacted
23:35
in the past with something I think is a. extremely un fortuitous and something
23:39
that we can at least create and bring light to that awareness and light to
23:43
that just the recognition that it exists and that we can do something about it.
23:49
And I'm very happy to know that you are doing
23:51
something about it and we are doing something about
23:53
it.
23:53
Just even having this discussion and bringing it to people's awareness
23:57
Dave: I, also heard.
23:59
That the $80 billion that the United
24:01
States spends on locking people up every year, that's a
24:07
hundred percent wasted money.
24:09
It does not work.
24:11
Jerremy: Yeah.
24:11
I would probably agree with you on that.
24:12
I think that's there's something that's really dramatically, drastically
24:16
wrong here, and I think the more that we go into this, Dave, and the
24:20
more that we have incredible guests.
24:22
Yeah, remarkable questions and really peer and get more insight and also
24:26
collaborate and collect more evidence.
24:28
We'll also come up with more solutions to this problem that's facing this
24:33
country\ that we are gonna solve together on solving America's problems.