Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #088 Jason Flom with Vincent Atchity and Kelly Grimes

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#088 Jason Flom with Vincent Atchity and Kelly Grimes · Wrongful Conviction

0:00
Speaker 1: This call is from a correction facility, and it's subject
0:03
Speaker 1: to monitoring and recording exactly eleven.
0:16
Speaker 2: And it hasn't been easy.
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Speaker 3: One hundred years.
0:20
Speaker 2: That's man.
0:21
Speaker 3: I'm a kid.
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Speaker 4: I didn't do anything, you know, and uh, you know
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Speaker 4: that was ah, that was real painful, man, you know,
0:28
Speaker 4: because my life was discarded as if you know, like
0:32
Speaker 4: I was a piece of trash or something, you know,
0:34
Speaker 4: one hundred years and I had dreams and I wanted
0:37
Speaker 4: to do things I wouldn't committing crimes.
0:39
Speaker 2: You know.
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Speaker 4: I was a very good young man.
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Speaker 5: That is what happens in so many cases. The cops
0:45
Speaker 5: have a hunch, because they're so smart at the scene,
0:49
Speaker 5: they have a hunch, and once they act on that hunch,
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Speaker 5: they sort of developed tunnel vision and they take off
0:55
Speaker 5: marching in the wrong direction. And that happens in so
0:58
Speaker 5: many of these wrongful convictions.
1:00
Speaker 2: They open it to sell doll and our walk down stairs,
1:04
Speaker 2: And I actually walked downstairs to be outside. It felt
1:08
Speaker 2: very strange to be, like I said, to be walking
1:11
Speaker 2: without no shackles on my feet. I thought it was
1:14
Speaker 2: a dream. But then again it wasn't a dream.
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Speaker 3: This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back, to Wrongful Conviction. Today,
1:32
Speaker 3: we have a very interesting, important and timely topic that
1:36
Speaker 3: we're going to cover that we haven't talked about in
1:38
Speaker 3: death before, which is the treatment of people with mental
1:41
Speaker 3: health challenges in the criminal justice system and the shame
1:45
Speaker 3: of the way that we as a country handle this disability.
1:51
Speaker 3: And we're going to have a conversation today with two
1:55
Speaker 3: extraordinary people. Kelly Grimes is here. Kelly's been in and
1:59
Speaker 3: out of prison due to her condition, and she's going
2:03
Speaker 3: to share her experience with us. So Kelly, welcome to
2:05
Speaker 3: the show.
2:06
Speaker 1: Thank you.
2:06
Speaker 3: And also with us, it's a gentleman named Vincent Atchity,
2:10
Speaker 3: and Vincent is the executive director of the Equitass Project.
2:14
Speaker 3: He has been since twenty fifteen. The Equitass Project is
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Speaker 3: a non part is a nonprofit organization that focuses on
2:19
Speaker 3: disentangling mental health and criminal justice. They work to cultivate
2:23
Speaker 3: a shared commitment to prioritize personal liberty and human potential
2:27
Speaker 3: over punishment and confinement. And that's a cause we can
2:29
Speaker 3: all get behind. So Vincent, welcome to Wrongful Conviction.
2:32
Speaker 6: Thank you. It's good to be here.
2:34
Speaker 3: So Kelly, let's start with you. Where are you from?
2:38
Speaker 1: I'm from South Jersey, but I've been living in New
2:42
Speaker 1: York City since I'm nineteen ninety, in and out.
2:45
Speaker 3: And so yeah, you're a New Yorker, let's call it
2:49
Speaker 3: yea here since nineteen ninety. That's good enough. We count
2:52
Speaker 3: you one of ours. Now, you know what I mean.
2:54
Speaker 3: And you've been in and out of the system, and
2:56
Speaker 3: I think your story is an example of what's wrong.
3:00
Speaker 3: It's one of unfortunately millions of examples of what's wrong
3:05
Speaker 3: with the way we handle what should be treated as
3:07
Speaker 3: a medical issue. And now I want to turn to Vincent,
3:09
Speaker 3: because Vincent, this work must be maddening to you, because
3:14
Speaker 3: it's like trying to slay a dragon. Right, how did
3:17
Speaker 3: we go so wrong as a country, and how do
3:19
Speaker 3: we get to this place where we incarcerate people who
3:22
Speaker 3: need help, who are just our fellow citizens, they're Americans? Right?
3:25
Speaker 6: I think it goes way back. But we've been doing
3:30
Speaker 6: this wrong since the dawn of time. Basically, we've got
3:33
Speaker 6: medieval approach to mental health that persists in this country,
3:37
Speaker 6: and responding to people's mental health challenges with police batons
3:44
Speaker 6: and handcuffs and tasers and squad cars and jail cells
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Speaker 6: is just never the right response to a person's health needs.
3:51
Speaker 3: Right, and then it gets worse once you get into
3:53
Speaker 3: the system. And of course Kelly can speak to this firsthand.
3:55
Speaker 3: I know it's a very difficult topic for you, Kelly,
3:59
Speaker 3: but doxically, when people with these challenges get stuck in
4:03
Speaker 3: our GULAG system, they are fundamentally incapable in many cases
4:08
Speaker 3: of following the orders that are given to them by
4:10
Speaker 3: the guards, and as such they receive punishment after punishment,
4:13
Speaker 3: they end up in solitary confinement, which, of course then
4:15
Speaker 3: the spiral goes downward because you know, anyone would go
4:18
Speaker 3: crazy in solitary confinement. But if you're already facing you know,
4:22
Speaker 3: your personal demons, it's going to exacerbate that situation. When
4:26
Speaker 3: they should be getting psychological treatment, substance abuse treatment, other things.
4:29
Speaker 3: Instead they're being locked up for things that they're out
4:32
Speaker 3: of their control in many cases. And Kelly, again, I
4:34
Speaker 3: think it's courageous of you just to come in and
4:36
Speaker 3: share your story and know how difficult it is. So
4:39
Speaker 3: how did you first get into the system?
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Speaker 1: I first got into the system years ago, but my
4:44
Speaker 1: last time in a system was on Micros Island, were
4:47
Speaker 1: I spent twenty five months and I got into the
4:50
Speaker 1: system because I committed a crime, grand merceny, and one
4:54
Speaker 1: I got onto Micros Island. It was brought to my
4:56
Speaker 1: attention at I did have mental health issues and that
4:59
Speaker 1: was the reason why my life was spiraling. The CEOs
5:02
Speaker 1: are not trained to deal with people who are bipolar,
5:06
Speaker 1: who are schizophrenic, who have depression, who have psychosis, which
5:11
Speaker 1: is probably a symptom of mental illness, but they're not
5:15
Speaker 1: trained to deal with that. They are trained to restrain,
5:20
Speaker 1: you know, lock up, you know, and things of that nature.
5:23
Speaker 1: So people with mental health issues usually wound up, like
5:26
Speaker 1: you said, in solitary confinement or in like a mental
5:30
Speaker 1: health part of the prison, which do not have trained
5:34
Speaker 1: professionals to deal with them. They just lock them up.
5:36
Speaker 3: And there are so many terrible stories, and Vincent, you
5:40
Speaker 3: would know, what is the percentage of people that they
5:42
Speaker 3: estimate in our you know, we have two point two
5:44
Speaker 3: two point three million people in prison. What percentage of
5:47
Speaker 3: those people have some of these issues or all of them?
5:49
Speaker 6: So two point two two point three million people in prison,
5:52
Speaker 6: and then maybe another twelve million people cycling in and
5:56
Speaker 6: out of jails in any given year, and upwards of
5:59
Speaker 6: eighty percent have some kind of a mental health vulnerability.
6:04
Speaker 3: Right, And I'd read that statistic eighty percent, and I
6:07
Speaker 3: just I didn't want to believe it. So I just
6:08
Speaker 3: wanted to make you say it because it's a staggering
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Speaker 3: number and it's such a preventable, avoidable, terrible statistic. And
6:17
Speaker 3: inside of that statistic are all human stories. These are
6:20
Speaker 3: all human people like Kelly's sitting in front of us. Now.
6:23
Speaker 3: These are not demons, right, they have demons, but they're
6:26
Speaker 3: people who grew up and for one reason or another,
6:28
Speaker 3: they face challenges that other people may not have.
6:32
Speaker 2: Well.
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Speaker 6: And it's not just the individuals, it's their entire family ecosystems.
6:37
Speaker 6: It's children and parents and cousins and brothers and sisters
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Speaker 6: that are all damaged by this mismanagement of needs.
6:45
Speaker 1: And also being in a prison system or in a
6:48
Speaker 1: jail is so traumatic that even if you went in
6:52
Speaker 1: jail with no mental health issues, a lot of people
6:55
Speaker 1: leave with PTSD. They get out and they have nightmares,
6:59
Speaker 1: so very easily as well, that you can come in
7:03
Speaker 1: okay and then leave with a very serious mental.
7:07
Speaker 6: Health issue, or not leave at all, because there's a
7:09
Speaker 6: heightened risk of suicide immediately upon being confined in a jail.
7:13
Speaker 3: Right, And let us not forget that amongst those people
7:17
Speaker 3: is a tremendous percentage of people who are military veterans, right, Yeah,
7:22
Speaker 3: who come in with issues that they didn't have before
7:24
Speaker 3: they entered the military. We send them to war, they
7:27
Speaker 3: come back, we don't treat them right that. We know
7:30
Speaker 3: the problems. Everyone knows the problems at the VA which
7:32
Speaker 3: are inexcusable. And you know one example of that, which
7:35
Speaker 3: is a New York case, right, was Jerome Murdaw who
7:39
Speaker 3: was a fifty six year old veteran with schizophrenia and
7:41
Speaker 3: a substance of Broup's problem, and he was found dead
7:44
Speaker 3: after a heating malfunction drove the temperatures in his cell
7:47
Speaker 3: at Rikers Island to over one hundred degrees.
7:49
Speaker 1: I was there when it happened, Yeah, I remember that.
7:53
Speaker 1: And they hit it. They didn't want anybody to talk
7:56
Speaker 1: about it. You know, there's rumors because there order CEOs
7:58
Speaker 1: that talk with the mates, like you've formed these very
8:02
Speaker 1: weird relationships with your captors or could very easily be
8:07
Speaker 1: your friend one minute and then abusing you the next minute.
8:09
Speaker 1: But they hid that. They didn't want anyone to speak
8:14
Speaker 1: of that.
8:14
Speaker 3: Right, And in case you're out there wondering, well, what
8:18
Speaker 3: was this guy doing in Rikers And here's the worst part.
8:20
Speaker 3: And it gives me the chills every time I think
8:23
Speaker 3: of this or say it out loud. Mister murder again.
8:26
Speaker 3: A veteran had been arrested for sleeping in the stairwell
8:30
Speaker 3: of a public housing project. Homeless veteran. I mean, what
8:34
Speaker 3: the fuck are we doing?
8:36
Speaker 2: You know?
8:36
Speaker 3: And he's not alone. I mean, there was the guy
8:38
Speaker 3: I think it was this year last year in Florida, right,
8:40
Speaker 3: the guy with mental abuse who was tortured to death.
8:42
Speaker 3: He was scalded to death by a guard who locked
8:44
Speaker 3: him in a burning shower for two hours until he
8:47
Speaker 3: literally melted. Right, It's like, what the I mean, where
8:50
Speaker 3: are we?
8:51
Speaker 6: Like there is some cause for optimism?
8:54
Speaker 2: Good?
8:55
Speaker 6: I would say this is probably the only, maybe the
8:57
Speaker 6: only area in the American scene right now where there
9:01
Speaker 6: is not absolute division and chaos in terms of outlook
9:05
Speaker 6: on social issues. Wherever I go around the country, I
9:09
Speaker 6: find people across the board. You've got das, you've got
9:12
Speaker 6: public defenders, you've got sheriffs, you've got behavioral health providers, judges,
9:18
Speaker 6: conservatives and liberals who are in a state of near
9:22
Speaker 6: unanimous agreement that what we're doing is totally insane in
9:26
Speaker 6: terms of the costs and the outcomes associated with it.
9:30
Speaker 6: And so I think that there is a growing awareness
9:33
Speaker 6: among operatives in the scope of the court system and
9:38
Speaker 6: the law enforcement system that understand that they are managing
9:42
Speaker 6: a public health crisis with the tools of law enforcement
9:44
Speaker 6: and a court system, and it's a health crisis, and
9:48
Speaker 6: what we need is to turn this upstream into a
9:51
Speaker 6: health management situation. I think that there is emerging clarity
9:55
Speaker 6: about that change in direction for getting this right, and
9:59
Speaker 6: it may take time time, but I think that there
10:01
Speaker 6: is some cause for optimism.
10:03
Speaker 1: Well, when I was in jail, I was watching news
10:06
Speaker 1: one day in the dorm and I saw on the
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Speaker 1: news that Mayor Deblasio funded I think one hundred and
10:13
Speaker 1: thirty million dollars for mental health for people in the
10:18
Speaker 1: penal system. Then I met a girl who was in
10:22
Speaker 1: the mental health court system, and she told me that,
10:26
Speaker 1: you know, they help you find housing, you know, medical
10:29
Speaker 1: help for your mental health and things of that nature.
10:32
Speaker 1: And so I looked into that. I was able to
10:35
Speaker 1: get into mental health court, which is a court system
10:38
Speaker 1: that recognizes that sometimes your mental health is the catalyst
10:42
Speaker 1: for you committed a crime. And so I was with
10:46
Speaker 1: a long, tedious fight and having approved to my criminal
10:49
Speaker 1: judge that I was mentally ill, along with my lawyer
10:52
Speaker 1: Michelle Halser, that I was, you know, able to get
10:55
Speaker 1: into this court system that recognizes mental illness in any event.
11:00
Speaker 1: Guardian organization called Cases. They took my case. They was
11:05
Speaker 1: the liaison between myself and a judge, you know, to
11:07
Speaker 1: make sure I took my medication, to make sure I
11:09
Speaker 1: made my appointment, to make sure I got therapy, to
11:12
Speaker 1: make sure I found housing. So they were my guardian
11:15
Speaker 1: to make sure I was making all the proper steps
11:18
Speaker 1: to become a productive citizen. You know, back in the
11:21
Speaker 1: free world we call it. I think that Cases and
11:25
Speaker 1: their counselor Steve doctor k McKnight, judge Juan Marshan, who
11:31
Speaker 1: presides over the Mental Health Court, really weird. But the
11:36
Speaker 1: DA of that mental Health Court, she was very supportive,
11:40
Speaker 1: you know, she wasn't she wasn't quick to throw people
11:42
Speaker 1: with mental health issues into jail. Matter of fact, one
11:46
Speaker 1: time she even defended me because I got into some
11:49
Speaker 1: issues outside and judge Marshaan was going to put me
11:53
Speaker 1: back in jail, and the DA said, you know what,
11:56
Speaker 1: let's not put her in jail. Let's just give her
11:58
Speaker 1: another chance. And I was like this, the DA is
12:01
Speaker 1: supporting you know. So this is the beauty of having
12:05
Speaker 1: a court system that recognizes mental illness.
12:08
Speaker 3: And we need to vote for progressive das for that reason.
12:11
Speaker 3: DA's races are so important. Not that many people vote
12:14
Speaker 3: in them, your vote really matters. We also need to
12:17
Speaker 3: have drug courts, which are coming into favor in a
12:19
Speaker 3: lot of different places, that can treat people for what
12:22
Speaker 3: they are well.
12:23
Speaker 6: And you know, I'm a great admirer of the work
12:24
Speaker 6: that cases does in providing careful case management and not
12:29
Speaker 6: just it's not just healthcare, but it's also access to
12:31
Speaker 6: housing and employment opportunities. It's a really thoughtful support of
12:35
Speaker 6: human development. And it's fantastic that we've got the progressive
12:39
Speaker 6: judges and das who get this. What's tragic is that
12:44
Speaker 6: why aren't we providing that kind of support for people
12:47
Speaker 6: before they get themselves in trouble with the justice system.
12:50
Speaker 6: We just ignore and neglect people's needs systematically and then
12:55
Speaker 6: intervene once some kind of an offense has been committed,
13:00
Speaker 6: so it's just disastrously backwards.
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Speaker 1: My mental health issues stemmed from childhood trauma that was
13:06
Speaker 1: left untreated and that caused my life to spar out
13:11
Speaker 1: of control, and it really manifested itself in my adult
13:15
Speaker 1: life because I didn't know why I wasn't living a
13:18
Speaker 1: more normal lifestyle at this point.
13:22
Speaker 3: There are more families that have some experience with this
13:25
Speaker 3: issue than don't. I know, so many people from all
13:28
Speaker 3: walks of life. You know, one friend who I'm thinking
13:30
Speaker 3: of now, whose son was having paranoid delusions and you know,
13:35
Speaker 3: called the cops, and when the cops came, there was
13:37
Speaker 3: nothing there as there was nobody chasing him. There was
13:40
Speaker 3: nothing nobody in his house. So then he had these
13:41
Speaker 3: in same delusions against her, called the fire department, and
13:44
Speaker 3: when the fire department came, he felt bad. So we
13:46
Speaker 3: started a fire, you know, just because he was scared
13:49
Speaker 3: of the consequences if nothing was there for the fire
13:51
Speaker 3: department to find it. And then he got charged with arson.
13:53
Speaker 3: Nobody got hurt. It wasn't a real fire. It was
13:55
Speaker 3: like a little fire on his stove, and then he
13:57
Speaker 3: ended up with five years in prison. It's like you know,
14:00
Speaker 3: these stories, there's just too many of them to count,
14:03
Speaker 3: and the costs of society are staggering, right, I mean
14:07
Speaker 3: for and I think this is one of the reasons
14:09
Speaker 3: why the conservatives have come around in large part to
14:14
Speaker 3: this issue and to activism on this issue, right, because
14:18
Speaker 3: inside the numbers, right, it costs. And this is this
14:22
Speaker 3: is not me, this is the city controller has said
14:25
Speaker 3: that it costs a round seven hundred and fifty dollars
14:28
Speaker 3: a day to keep someone in rikers Island locked up,
14:31
Speaker 3: not including court costs, not including police costs, over time,
14:35
Speaker 3: whatever else it might be. And we have cases where
14:38
Speaker 3: people like Victor Alvarez, right, who's been by his own count,
14:41
Speaker 3: locked up in Rikers one hundred and two times, right
14:44
Speaker 3: because of his substance abuse and other issues that he
14:46
Speaker 3: has challenges. They just cycle in and out, you know,
14:49
Speaker 3: again for people who are you know, fiscal conservatives, or
14:52
Speaker 3: who even care at all about where your tax dollars
14:55
Speaker 3: are going. You know, I'm going to quote from an
14:57
Speaker 3: article in the New York Times for twenty fourteen where
15:00
Speaker 3: they talked about how many of the inmates are called
15:02
Speaker 3: frequent flyers, which is sort of an ironic whatever the
15:06
Speaker 3: hell name to use, but they constantly cycle in out
15:08
Speaker 3: of records island. And this task force identified more than
15:13
Speaker 3: four hundred people who had been jailed at least eighteen
15:15
Speaker 3: times in the last five years, accounting for over ten
15:18
Speaker 3: thousand jail admissions during that period. It said that sixty
15:21
Speaker 3: seven percent of these inmates had a mental health need,
15:24
Speaker 3: twenty one percent were severely mentally yell severely meaning they
15:28
Speaker 3: had diseases like schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, and ninety nine
15:32
Speaker 3: percent of them had a substance abuse problem. Ninety nine percent.
15:35
Speaker 3: It's unbelievable. And you know myself, you know, because I,
15:40
Speaker 3: you know, grew up in a world of privilege, right
15:43
Speaker 3: just by luck of birth right. I was born into
15:46
Speaker 3: an environment in which I was not subjected to this
15:49
Speaker 3: type of treatment, and I ended up in a rehab facility,
15:52
Speaker 3: you know, which is the appropriate way to deal with
15:54
Speaker 3: these issues. And you know what, as soon as I
15:56
Speaker 3: came out, I stopped doing whatever it was I was
15:59
Speaker 3: doing before. I stayed sober and I built businesses and
16:03
Speaker 3: I paid lots of taxes, and I helped other people.
16:06
Speaker 3: I employed people, And so that's what's another thing about
16:10
Speaker 3: this that really makes me, nuts is the untapped potential
16:14
Speaker 3: right of people who are in similar situations to what
16:18
Speaker 3: I was in, and who could be contributing to society
16:21
Speaker 3: instead of being a drag on society and living lives
16:24
Speaker 3: of abject misery because they can't figure out, I mean
16:28
Speaker 3: on their own. I couldn't figure out on my own either.
16:30
Speaker 3: I tried. I couldn't kick it until I went to
16:32
Speaker 3: a rehab and boom, boom, twenty eight days and I
16:35
Speaker 3: come out smelling like a rose.
16:36
Speaker 2: Yeah.
16:37
Speaker 6: In terms of lost opportunity, I think it's been calculated
16:40
Speaker 6: that we spend something like three trillion dollars in terms
16:44
Speaker 6: of lost economic productivity and collateral damage to people's earning
16:48
Speaker 6: power and impact on children's earning power when their parents
16:53
Speaker 6: are incarcerated, and some cities and communities are discovering the
16:58
Speaker 6: math just doesn't make sense, and they are in early
17:02
Speaker 6: stages of implementing alternatives to incarceration where they will create
17:07
Speaker 6: supportive housing environments for people with mental health concerns and
17:11
Speaker 6: finding that they can spend something like two fifths on
17:14
Speaker 6: that kind of intervention compared to what they're spending on
17:17
Speaker 6: the whole court process and incarceration.
17:21
Speaker 1: Jason was saying that he was privileged in things in
17:23
Speaker 1: that nature. So this problem, like, is it like a
17:27
Speaker 1: financial or.
17:28
Speaker 3: Well, I think we have two separate systems of justice
17:31
Speaker 3: in America. I mean then that runs throughout. It's one
17:35
Speaker 3: system if you can afford bail, for instance, and one
17:37
Speaker 3: if you can't. You know, one if you can afford
17:40
Speaker 3: a private attorney, one if you can't. Look, if I
17:43
Speaker 3: could wave a magic wand and fix all of it,
17:45
Speaker 3: I would. I mean, these problems are complex and they're
17:49
Speaker 3: not all going to be addressed overnight. But there are
17:52
Speaker 3: things that we just do fundamentally wrong that other countries don't.
17:57
Speaker 2: Right.
17:57
Speaker 3: So while no one has a perfect system, for instance,
18:00
Speaker 3: and this goes back to what you were saying before, Kelly,
18:03
Speaker 3: in Scandinavia for instance, in most parts of Scandinavia, to
18:06
Speaker 3: become a corrections officer, you have to train for two years.
18:10
Speaker 3: You have to get I think it's like some sort
18:12
Speaker 3: of degree in psychology conflict resolution. They study right, Only
18:16
Speaker 3: ten percent of the people that apply for those jobs
18:18
Speaker 3: actually get them right. And you know, as a result,
18:22
Speaker 3: they have an entirely different environment inside and when they
18:27
Speaker 3: come out they have almost no overcidivism so they treat
18:31
Speaker 3: the incarcerated people there as human beings, you know, with
18:34
Speaker 3: a focus on rehabilitation. Of course, you know, it still
18:38
Speaker 3: sucks because you're removed from your family and your job
18:40
Speaker 3: and your life, but you're not in an environment where
18:44
Speaker 3: you're subject to let's face, let's call it what it is, torture.
18:47
Speaker 3: Right As a result, you have a chance to come
18:49
Speaker 3: out and lead a healthy, productive life. And that's the
18:52
Speaker 3: right way to do it. And it's interesting right now
18:55
Speaker 3: we have groups that are bringing people from the corrections
18:59
Speaker 3: department different states and cities over to Germany, Scandinavia, other
19:05
Speaker 3: places to see how they do it, and they're coming
19:07
Speaker 3: back with it, I think, a very different outlook. And
19:10
Speaker 3: that's one way the change is going to take place,
19:13
Speaker 3: you know, Kelly, this goes back to you. For me,
19:16
Speaker 3: one of the most awful things about our criminal i'll
19:20
Speaker 3: call it criminal injustice system is that we lock women
19:23
Speaker 3: up at a rate that is so out of step
19:25
Speaker 3: of the rest of the world. We have four four
19:27
Speaker 3: percent of the world's population, we have thirty three percent
19:30
Speaker 3: of the world's female prison population, so we have one
19:34
Speaker 3: out of every three women in prison. And the world
19:37
Speaker 3: is big by the way right, very big. It's almost
19:40
Speaker 3: eight billion people in the world. We have just three
19:42
Speaker 3: hundred and seventy million or whatever in America. It's crazy.
19:45
Speaker 3: This is crazy, you know. I don't really think that
19:48
Speaker 3: we have more evil people here than they do in
19:50
Speaker 3: the rest of the world, because there's only two possible conclusions.
19:53
Speaker 3: Either we have most evil people or else we're doing
19:55
Speaker 3: it totally wrong. And so inside those numbers are the
19:59
Speaker 3: human stories. And you know firsthand anecdotally, but you know
20:03
Speaker 3: the number of these women who have children.
20:06
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I've seen women with children, and I've seen
20:09
Speaker 1: women who were pregnant inside the prisons. Also. I think
20:13
Speaker 1: that stems from two like you were saying, as far
20:16
Speaker 1: as the privilege, I did twenty five months on MICROSI
20:19
Speaker 1: didn't fight in my case because I couldn't afford the bill.
20:22
Speaker 1: I was not there for violent crime. I did my crime.
20:26
Speaker 1: I'm not here to deny that, but I couldn't afford
20:30
Speaker 1: the fifty thousand dollars cash bail to get out. That's
20:34
Speaker 1: why a lot of women and men as well are
20:39
Speaker 1: in the jail system and prison because they couldn't afford
20:43
Speaker 1: to bail and do their case on the outside, which
20:45
Speaker 1: makes a big difference for some reason, Like if you
20:48
Speaker 1: fight it on the outside, they call it, you know,
20:51
Speaker 1: jail house talk. Fight your case on the outside rather
20:54
Speaker 1: than fight it on it inside. For some reason, you
20:56
Speaker 1: have a better chance of not going to prison.
20:58
Speaker 3: Right, And let's reflect on this for a second, right,
21:00
Speaker 3: and again inside the numbers, So you were accused of
21:02
Speaker 3: stealing about five thousand dollars worth of equipment, av equipment, TV, whatever,
21:08
Speaker 3: toaster rub and using a credit card that didn't belong
21:10
Speaker 3: to you, not like going in and sticking up a store, right,
21:13
Speaker 3: and so it was a nonviolent property crime essentially, right.
21:16
Speaker 3: And so you were accused of stealing five thousand dollars
21:20
Speaker 3: worth of goods and we spent about five hundred thousand
21:24
Speaker 3: dollars keeping you locked up in Riker's Island. So how's
21:28
Speaker 3: that return on investment, Vincent? You want you want to
21:30
Speaker 3: weigh in on that one.
21:31
Speaker 6: Well, it's just the most insane thing to do. And
21:34
Speaker 6: we systematically waste money and lives across the board. And
21:39
Speaker 6: you know, starting with childhood trauma, as soon as a
21:41
Speaker 6: kid starts showing some signs of having some difficulty in
21:47
Speaker 6: integrating with a school community or something like that, we
21:50
Speaker 6: start flushing that person right away and creating this pipeline
21:54
Speaker 6: towards jail in prison that is insanely costly and fails
21:59
Speaker 6: to sort of optimize all the potential of this great
22:01
Speaker 6: human talent. You know, I had an opportunity. I was
22:04
Speaker 6: at Georgetown University a couple of years ago and got
22:07
Speaker 6: to hear they had been conducting an in prison writing
22:11
Speaker 6: course and there were a bunch of folks who'd been released,
22:14
Speaker 6: and they were reading the stuff that they'd written. Somebody asked, so,
22:17
Speaker 6: how many people that you ran into while during your
22:20
Speaker 6: prison sentence had some kind of talent? And they said, oh,
22:23
Speaker 6: you know, eighty percent. There's a whole lot of human
22:26
Speaker 6: potential that is just locked away at great cost. And
22:30
Speaker 6: so it's not just today's cost, it's the long term
22:34
Speaker 6: cost of what we're doing with whole populations of people
22:36
Speaker 6: and their children who could be contributing to the economy
22:39
Speaker 6: and enriching us all with their talent.
22:42
Speaker 2: Yeah.
22:42
Speaker 3: I asked Miek Mill I had him on the podcast recently,
22:45
Speaker 3: and I asked him how many people does he think
22:47
Speaker 3: or locked up in this country that are just as
22:49
Speaker 3: talented as he is? And he said, too many think
22:59
Speaker 3: about some of the greatest hip hop stars of our generation.
23:03
Speaker 3: Many of them had you know, checkered pasts, right, they
23:07
Speaker 3: did what they could do to turn a living where they
23:09
Speaker 3: and I'm not saying it's right wrong, I'm not judging
23:11
Speaker 3: it whatsoever, but it's impossible to believe that there aren't
23:15
Speaker 3: others who weren't lucky enough to avoid getting caught and
23:18
Speaker 3: locked up for the similar type of activities who were
23:22
Speaker 3: just as talented as a Jay Z or whoever the
23:25
Speaker 3: legends that we have, right, So you know, you look
23:27
Speaker 3: inside of that and go, what would what would life
23:29
Speaker 3: be like without jay Z?
23:31
Speaker 2: Right?
23:31
Speaker 3: What would I mean how much does he pay in taxes?
23:33
Speaker 3: Can you imagine? Right? You know, it's just madness. It
23:36
Speaker 3: doesn't make any logical sense, and it's sort of this
23:39
Speaker 3: vicious cycle, right, you know. Ironically, in that same task
23:43
Speaker 3: Force Reporth, they talked about the difficulty of immediately restarting
23:46
Speaker 3: Medicaid services for inmates, right, because paradoxically, Medicaid coverage is
23:50
Speaker 3: canceled by the state while you're incarcerated, So we come
23:54
Speaker 3: out without coverage and you can't fill prescriptions for medicines
23:57
Speaker 3: that you need. And we know that the most dangerous
24:00
Speaker 3: time for people who come out is the first fourteen
24:02
Speaker 3: days out right, that's when they're most likely to die,
24:06
Speaker 3: They're most likely to reoffend and be locked up again,
24:09
Speaker 3: which is where you get that revolving door. And there
24:11
Speaker 3: are great organizations and that I want to talk about
24:13
Speaker 3: the Legal Action Center, on whose board I serve right
24:15
Speaker 3: who are doing incredible work on restarting those things and
24:19
Speaker 3: on forcing states and cities to reinstate your coverage before
24:24
Speaker 3: you come out. And they're also they've been working diligently
24:28
Speaker 3: on trying to create a protocol where you must be
24:32
Speaker 3: analyzed for mental health challenges before you're hearing, so that
24:37
Speaker 3: you can be diverted to the appropriate programs. And imagine
24:40
Speaker 3: what a difference that would make. And that's LAC dot
24:42
Speaker 3: org for people who want I think it's no Legal
24:44
Speaker 3: Action Center dot org. Sorry, Legal Action Center dot org.
24:46
Speaker 6: Well, and the other crazy thing about the medicaid issue
24:49
Speaker 6: is that jails and prisons may be the only place
24:51
Speaker 6: where you are constitutionally guaranteed some access to healthcare, but
24:55
Speaker 6: as soon as you're incarcerated, you come off of Medicaid
24:59
Speaker 6: and you go on to the local dime. In terms
25:01
Speaker 6: of the county budget in the county jail or the
25:04
Speaker 6: state budget for the prison system. So there's this weird
25:08
Speaker 6: financial shuffling that goes on away from providing health care
25:12
Speaker 6: on Medicaid to providing health care through private health care
25:16
Speaker 6: provider systems that are paid for with more local taxpayer money.
25:19
Speaker 3: Right, because the federal government would actually cover it if
25:22
Speaker 3: and when we get these changes instituted, which will benefit everybody.
25:27
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, it's interesting. I heard about one
25:29
Speaker 3: prison in Norway where the warden when you're first admitted,
25:33
Speaker 3: he gives a speech and says, you know, when you
25:36
Speaker 3: come out, you may be my neighbor. So I'm going
25:39
Speaker 3: to treat you as I would want to be treated, right,
25:41
Speaker 3: and these people are going to be our neighbors.
25:44
Speaker 2: Right.
25:45
Speaker 3: What is the number like five million people come out
25:47
Speaker 3: of jail in America every year, some crazy number like that, right,
25:50
Speaker 3: And all of them have to go somewhere, and they
25:53
Speaker 3: have to exist. And if we want to have a
25:55
Speaker 3: safer society, it's really simple. We have to give these
25:59
Speaker 3: people a chance so that they don't have you know,
26:02
Speaker 3: I mean, if they have no options and they have
26:04
Speaker 3: to eat, something's got to give.
26:06
Speaker 1: And They're also a mental stigma that goes with being incarcerated.
26:10
Speaker 1: The thing is this always knew that I could do better.
26:13
Speaker 1: I just didn't know how I would do a crime
26:16
Speaker 1: get caught. No, I wanted to change my life somehow,
26:18
Speaker 1: I just didn't know how to do it. But then
26:21
Speaker 1: I would get out and I would go to myself,
26:23
Speaker 1: Who's going to hire me? What a felony? Nobody's gonna
26:26
Speaker 1: want me around, So I become my own abuser. Now
26:29
Speaker 1: I'm not letting myself move forward because I think everybody's
26:33
Speaker 1: looking at me funny. Who's going to hire me, Who's
26:35
Speaker 1: going to like me? Nobody wants a criminal in or neighborhood,
26:38
Speaker 1: and that's part of the recent of vism as well.
26:41
Speaker 1: Then I'll go do something else because I know my
26:43
Speaker 1: life is never going to change.
26:44
Speaker 6: Yeah, talk about wrongful convictions. Sometimes it's hard for me
26:48
Speaker 6: to feel like there are convictions that aren't wrongful convictions
26:51
Speaker 6: when every sentence is kind of a life sentence in
26:54
Speaker 6: this country because you know it could be a five
26:56
Speaker 6: thousand dollars crime or something like that, and you carry
26:59
Speaker 6: that with you for the whole rest of your life.
27:02
Speaker 6: In terms of the stigma you bear for and having
27:05
Speaker 6: to report for housing and employment. So like jury has
27:08
Speaker 6: ought to be instructed. Anybody who's convicted, you're giving them
27:10
Speaker 6: a life sentence to some degree in this country.
27:13
Speaker 3: Right, And I often refer to that as the second punishment,
27:16
Speaker 3: And it takes all different forms, right, everything from depriving
27:19
Speaker 3: people of the right to vote to depriving them of
27:22
Speaker 3: housing in some cases of there as we talked about,
27:25
Speaker 3: of their medications or their coverage. You know, there's been
27:28
Speaker 3: this whole movement to ban the box, right, which the
27:30
Speaker 3: Legal Action Center again has been involved with that, because
27:33
Speaker 3: you know, if you have to check that box, you
27:36
Speaker 3: might as well just not even apply for the damn
27:38
Speaker 3: job in many cases. But I think there's more awareness
27:40
Speaker 3: now and I'm sure that Equitas has played a role
27:43
Speaker 3: in this, where many companies are eliminating that protocol and
27:47
Speaker 3: there are companies who are out there who are actively
27:50
Speaker 3: trying to hire system affected people. And what I have
27:53
Speaker 3: found through this work, which again I've been doing it
27:56
Speaker 3: in two and a half decades, is that people who
27:59
Speaker 3: are come out of the system by and large want
28:03
Speaker 3: nothing more than a chance, and given that chance, will
28:06
Speaker 3: work harder than people who may feel entitled to prove themselves,
28:10
Speaker 3: because you know, it's just like you're throwing them a lifeline,
28:14
Speaker 3: and they're going to grab that lifeline. They're going to
28:16
Speaker 3: hold on, they're going to make it work. And we've
28:18
Speaker 3: seen such incredible success stories of people coming out. Was
28:21
Speaker 3: the guy who was a carjacker, right, who just graduated
28:24
Speaker 3: Yale Law School and was recently admitted to the par
28:26
Speaker 3: i'm or forgetting his name. I mean, I can't fathom
28:30
Speaker 3: or countenance judging Kelly or anyone else who has done
28:34
Speaker 3: something that's you know, against the law without looking as
28:38
Speaker 3: we're as we're supposed to, at where they came from
28:42
Speaker 3: and what they may have endured coming up growing up,
28:45
Speaker 3: what opportunities and challenges they had or didn't have. You know,
28:49
Speaker 3: I'm not a religious person, but it's pretty easy for
28:52
Speaker 3: me to look at it, like walk a mile in
28:54
Speaker 3: somebody else's shoes before you jump to a conclusion and
28:57
Speaker 3: say this person needs to be thrown out with the trash.
29:00
Speaker 6: Well, and you talk about people really just wanting to
29:02
Speaker 6: succeed when they return to the community, but you know,
29:06
Speaker 6: people really want to succeed before they ever get involved
29:09
Speaker 6: in the criminal justice system. We don't create those kinds
29:13
Speaker 6: of opportunities, and those kinds of supports are just not available.
29:16
Speaker 6: And mental health is like the most prevalent illness that
29:19
Speaker 6: we've got in this country. There's not a single family
29:22
Speaker 6: that doesn't have some kind of a mental health vulnerability
29:25
Speaker 6: somewhere in that family. And families of privilege can protect
29:29
Speaker 6: and surround and provide access to care for people in
29:32
Speaker 6: all kinds of insulation that shield them from the consequences
29:36
Speaker 6: of their health driven behaviors, and families that don't have
29:39
Speaker 6: that kind of level of privilege, they're just exposed. And
29:42
Speaker 6: you know, it's a nation of outlaws. If you've ever
29:44
Speaker 6: driven a car, how many cars on the road are
29:46
Speaker 6: going the speed limit? We fludge the law constantly in
29:50
Speaker 6: this country. And it's the folks who are not of
29:53
Speaker 6: privilege and the folks with more unmanaged mental health driven
29:57
Speaker 6: behaviors that end up getting caught up in this so
30:00
Speaker 6: called justice system and where they're just driven from bad
30:03
Speaker 6: to worse.
30:05
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I can very much relate to what Kelly
30:07
Speaker 3: was saying before, because when I had substance abuse issues,
30:10
Speaker 3: when as a kid, I didn't want those issues. I
30:13
Speaker 3: wanted to stop. I just had no ability to figure
30:15
Speaker 3: out how to do it, and I even tried. I
30:17
Speaker 3: went to AA on my own. One time I lasted
30:20
Speaker 3: five days, and the time I lasted seventeen days. But
30:24
Speaker 3: you know, when you're in your environment and you're around
30:26
Speaker 3: the people that you're usually around, you know, it's an
30:28
Speaker 3: insidious disease. As they say, it's cunning, baffling and powerful.
30:31
Speaker 3: And we're just talking about the substance abuse problem. I
30:33
Speaker 3: was lucky I didn't have the other problems. But yeah,
30:35
Speaker 3: so you know, for me being able to go away
30:38
Speaker 3: for twenty eight days, you know, I'd never experienced sobriety
30:41
Speaker 3: in probably ten years, and all of a sudden, I
30:44
Speaker 3: was like, wow, this is great, you know what I mean. Like,
30:46
Speaker 3: and plus they've let you drink as much coffee as
30:48
Speaker 3: you want, and I am addicted to coffee and I
30:49
Speaker 3: don't care for me.
30:50
Speaker 1: It was I didn't know I had mental health issues.
30:53
Speaker 1: So it was hard because by the time I found
30:56
Speaker 1: out I had mental health issues, I had world other problems.
31:01
Speaker 1: Not knowing is part of a problem as well. I
31:05
Speaker 1: thought I was normal. I thought that, you know, there's
31:07
Speaker 1: just different walks of life. I thought that I was
31:10
Speaker 1: just a criminal. This is just who I am. And
31:13
Speaker 1: really it wasn't who I was, it was what I
31:16
Speaker 1: was made, you know, because of what happened to me
31:20
Speaker 1: when I as a child.
31:20
Speaker 6: So well, and I would just say that it's normal
31:23
Speaker 6: not to know. And part of what normal is is
31:27
Speaker 6: how slow we've been as a creature to be comfortable
31:30
Speaker 6: talking about our mental health. And the truth is, nobody's
31:32
Speaker 6: mental health is like a flat line or always up.
31:35
Speaker 6: Everybody's got a mental health that's some kind of a
31:37
Speaker 6: curvy wave of ups and downs, and it can be
31:39
Speaker 6: that way over the course of the day or a week.
31:42
Speaker 6: And when you're on a down, that's when you've got
31:44
Speaker 6: behaviors that are the kind of behaviors that cause trouble
31:48
Speaker 6: that may not be just trouble with the law, but
31:49
Speaker 6: it's trouble with your loved ones and trouble with your family.
31:52
Speaker 6: And we got to learn how to talk about our
31:54
Speaker 6: mental health and be comfortable with each others, supporting each
31:58
Speaker 6: other's ups and downs in some kind of a way
32:00
Speaker 6: that is productive of better outcomes, and not be in
32:04
Speaker 6: this state of sort of medieval ignorance.
32:07
Speaker 3: And you know, I don't know about you guys, but
32:09
Speaker 3: when I go to the doctor, I don't usually read
32:11
Speaker 3: my own X rays, you know what I mean. Like,
32:13
Speaker 3: so we're supposed to diagnose ourselves with a pendicitis or
32:16
Speaker 3: something like that. So I mean it's equally unrealistic to
32:19
Speaker 3: ask someone to say, you know what, I think I
32:21
Speaker 3: might be schizophrenic, right, I mean, you know, And there's
32:24
Speaker 3: that old saying if you're up to your ass and allegators,
32:26
Speaker 3: it's hard to remember to drain the swamp and while
32:28
Speaker 3: you're dealing with these issues, because let's face it, most
32:31
Speaker 3: people are, you know, living day to day and trying
32:34
Speaker 3: to make ends meet and support their family, and they're busy, right,
32:37
Speaker 3: and so they don't have a lot of time for
32:39
Speaker 3: reflection or to try to find out what services are
32:41
Speaker 3: available or even if there are any services available, right
32:45
Speaker 3: which they're less and less.
32:46
Speaker 6: The other hard fact of the matter is that while
32:51
Speaker 6: our medical science has advanced by leaps and bounds over
32:55
Speaker 6: the course of the last thirty years in terms of
32:58
Speaker 6: research and even finding cures for things like cancer, our
33:02
Speaker 6: management of mental health is stuck in like the fifties,
33:06
Speaker 6: when the invented thorazine in the pharmaceutical industry took over
33:09
Speaker 6: and started masking symptoms with drugs, and mental health research
33:14
Speaker 6: is underfunded and has not benefited from the same kind
33:18
Speaker 6: of aggressive funding and awareness driving that you know cancer
33:23
Speaker 6: and multiple ssehrosis and muscular district cystic fibrosis. You can
33:26
Speaker 6: breast cancer, you can rattle off a whole bunch of
33:29
Speaker 6: physical ailments that there's hard driving research that puts us
33:33
Speaker 6: at the forefront of the world in terms of that
33:35
Speaker 6: kind of science. But if you're a family or a
33:38
Speaker 6: person who's got some kind of a mental health discomfort,
33:41
Speaker 6: you don't have the same level of confidence going in
33:44
Speaker 6: to see get help that you do if you've got
33:47
Speaker 6: something wrong with your pancreas or your elbow, where you
33:50
Speaker 6: can go in and see maybe two providers, get a
33:52
Speaker 6: second opinion, come out with a reasonable diagnosis and a
33:55
Speaker 6: treatment plan. For a mental health issue, you could see
33:57
Speaker 6: twelve people and get twelve different medications and twelve different
34:02
Speaker 6: sort of sketchy diagnoses, and at best they're masking your symptoms,
34:06
Speaker 6: not addressing any kind of curative approach to what it
34:10
Speaker 6: is that's driving your behavior. So there's some confusion around
34:14
Speaker 6: mental health that is not you can't just say go
34:17
Speaker 6: get help. It's not that easy to get that kind
34:19
Speaker 6: of help.
34:33
Speaker 3: So if someone's listening now and they have a friend
34:35
Speaker 3: or loved one who's suffering from any one of a
34:38
Speaker 3: number of these syndromes, who do you call? What do
34:41
Speaker 3: you do?
34:42
Speaker 6: Whether you need help or you know someone who needs help,
34:45
Speaker 6: or whether you want to help, you can go to
34:48
Speaker 6: www Dot equitosproject dot org. Our mission is to disentangle
34:53
Speaker 6: mental health from the criminal justice system.
34:55
Speaker 3: You know, everyone knows if you're, you know, in trouble,
34:58
Speaker 3: you can call nine one what right? So you can't
35:00
Speaker 3: call nine one one for this?
35:01
Speaker 6: Yeah, and people do call nine one one and what
35:03
Speaker 6: happens if the police show up because they are the
35:05
Speaker 6: first responders and one thing leads to the next. So
35:10
Speaker 6: you know, if you need help or you know somebody
35:11
Speaker 6: who needs help, take a deep breath before you call
35:15
Speaker 6: nine one one because it may lead in the wrong direction.
35:18
Speaker 6: Make sure you're getting health help, health assistance. Never forget
35:23
Speaker 6: that the police are not mental health workers, they're law
35:26
Speaker 6: enforcement officials. Most police are not trained to handle mental
35:31
Speaker 6: health crises. So if you want to help, please visit
35:34
Speaker 6: us at www. Dot equitossproject dot org and find other
35:39
Speaker 6: access to crisis services and mental health services in your state.
35:43
Speaker 3: All right, and that's Equitas e q U I t
35:46
Speaker 3: A S Project Project dot org. That's Equitassproject dot org. Yeah,
35:51
Speaker 3: go there and I'll give you some some guidance and
35:54
Speaker 3: some places to turn. Okay, what else?
35:56
Speaker 6: There are crisis lines. Different states have put different a
36:00
Speaker 6: crisis intervention lines in place. There's something called the Crisis
36:03
Speaker 6: text Line where you could actually text for help, and
36:06
Speaker 6: it's available twenty four to seven. And at least you're
36:08
Speaker 6: getting some kind of trained intervention that is better than nothing.
36:12
Speaker 6: Crisis text Line dot.
36:14
Speaker 3: Org, Crisis text Line dot org.
36:17
Speaker 6: The earlier you intervene, the better you start noticing somebody's
36:20
Speaker 6: got a behavior that's making life difficult and more challenging
36:23
Speaker 6: than it should be for them. It's sort of like
36:25
Speaker 6: see something, you say something, and you can be polite
36:28
Speaker 6: about it, but you should intervene and try and get
36:31
Speaker 6: somebody some kind of help and guidance.
36:33
Speaker 1: I was just working for organization which I'm not going
36:35
Speaker 1: to say their name, that I just stopped working for.
36:37
Speaker 1: It was a support of housing program for people with
36:40
Speaker 1: mental health challenges. And it was a building six stories
36:44
Speaker 1: that had studios for people with mental health challenges comes
36:47
Speaker 1: out of the shelter system, and it comes out at
36:50
Speaker 1: a penal system. Like I was one of a peer
36:52
Speaker 1: specialists in the property managers. Their answer to when one
36:58
Speaker 1: of the clients got at a and or wasn't you know,
37:01
Speaker 1: doing like something proper was to doll nine one one.
37:06
Speaker 1: That's not the answer. This is not how you do
37:09
Speaker 1: people with you know, mental health. And sometime it wasn't
37:12
Speaker 1: even serious enough to call the police. It was just
37:14
Speaker 1: they felt agitated or you know, they were having a
37:17
Speaker 1: bad day, or and they wanted me to call the
37:19
Speaker 1: police for everybody, and I was like, I can't do this,
37:21
Speaker 1: I can't.
37:22
Speaker 6: Yeah, it happens all the time. You can have a
37:24
Speaker 6: distraught mother who's got a grown son who's acting in
37:29
Speaker 6: some way that's disturbing and out of control and frightening,
37:31
Speaker 6: and so a mother will call nine one one and
37:33
Speaker 6: the police show up. And then in a moment of
37:36
Speaker 6: great emotional distress, you can shrug somebody off or make
37:40
Speaker 6: an elbow of somebody away who's reaching in or something
37:43
Speaker 6: like that. And then when you've got as a felony
37:44
Speaker 6: assault on a police officer and a whole series of
37:49
Speaker 6: unfortunate events that that mother never wanted to wish on
37:52
Speaker 6: their kids. So you go from a health crisis and
37:55
Speaker 6: you turn into this total human catastrophe and it happens
37:58
Speaker 6: all the time, right.
37:59
Speaker 3: Which is all the more reason why you have to
38:01
Speaker 3: get in front of these things. Right, And for people
38:03
Speaker 3: who may be seeing early symptoms of something like this,
38:06
Speaker 3: don't wait until it's a crisis. Don't wait until you're
38:10
Speaker 3: faced with an actual threat to your well being and
38:13
Speaker 3: you may feel like you have no option but to
38:15
Speaker 3: call nine one one. And to be fair, that's not
38:17
Speaker 3: really what the police are here for, right, That's not
38:20
Speaker 3: what they went to the academy for. I mean, obviously
38:22
Speaker 3: they're here to serve and protect and they, you know,
38:25
Speaker 3: I think the vast majority of them are well meaning,
38:28
Speaker 3: and they went into this line of work because they
38:31
Speaker 3: had some you know, noble goal of helping people. But
38:34
Speaker 3: in that situation, there's really no good answer, right you're
38:37
Speaker 3: trying to It's a very very volatile and dangerous situation
38:40
Speaker 3: and domestic crisis like that. So I do encourage people
38:43
Speaker 3: to get in front of it. Go to equitasproject dot org,
38:46
Speaker 3: or go.
38:46
Speaker 6: To what was the Tech Crisis text line dot org crisis.
38:49
Speaker 3: Text Lines dot org. So let me ask both to
38:51
Speaker 3: do the same question. What would be if you had
38:54
Speaker 3: a magic wand and could wave it, What would you
38:57
Speaker 3: wave it at? What would you tackle first? What can
39:00
Speaker 3: we do here? Let me put it this way people
39:02
Speaker 3: that are listening now and go, you know what I
39:04
Speaker 3: want to help?
39:05
Speaker 2: Right?
39:05
Speaker 3: What would you recommend they do? And what can we
39:09
Speaker 3: all do to make the situation? But I'll start with you, Vince.
39:12
Speaker 6: Well, for you know an individual, I would say what
39:15
Speaker 6: I said before, and that is, if you see something,
39:16
Speaker 6: you say something. You don't ignore a behavior or a problem.
39:20
Speaker 6: It doesn't get better. Even if you don't know where
39:22
Speaker 6: to begin, you begin by getting involved somehow and trying
39:25
Speaker 6: to develop comfort around talking about mental health. I would say,
39:29
Speaker 6: talk about mental health. How's your mental health today? Well,
39:31
Speaker 6: it's this way or it's that way. Start sharing a
39:33
Speaker 6: language for understanding how we are with each other. And
39:37
Speaker 6: again visit our website Equitized project dot org. There's opportunities
39:41
Speaker 6: to sort of let your elected officials and local leaders
39:45
Speaker 6: know that you're concerned about the misuse of the court
39:49
Speaker 6: system to manage a healthcare problem, and try and contribute
39:54
Speaker 6: to any evolution in thought and practice around these issues.
39:58
Speaker 6: Community leaders, just get your heads together. That solutions aren't
40:02
Speaker 6: always clear, but if you can get the people together
40:04
Speaker 6: who bear some contact with that population that's affected by
40:09
Speaker 6: our various healthcare and court systems, they can start pointing
40:12
Speaker 6: in the right direction together. And we know what makes
40:16
Speaker 6: a difference. You know, you get in there with early
40:18
Speaker 6: childhood intervention. The earlier the better.
40:20
Speaker 3: With kids.
40:21
Speaker 6: You make sure that in an educational setting you're not
40:24
Speaker 6: having all kinds of harsh discipline meeted out to nine
40:27
Speaker 6: year olds that are acting up in a classroom. You
40:29
Speaker 6: have to realize that a nine year old who's acting
40:31
Speaker 6: up in a classroom as a nine year old who needs help,
40:34
Speaker 6: not suspension or expulsion, which leads them on this whole
40:37
Speaker 6: pathway to justice involvement. We need to develop access to
40:41
Speaker 6: housing in communities where we can spend a fraction of
40:44
Speaker 6: what we're spending on jails and prisons in order to
40:46
Speaker 6: get people into shelter that is accompanied with some kind
40:50
Speaker 6: of support and healthcare that doesn't just cycle them back
40:53
Speaker 6: out into the streets and into the systems. And you know,
40:56
Speaker 6: I think that we have to have some urgency about it,
40:58
Speaker 6: and we can think that you know, right now, we've
41:00
Speaker 6: got a huge incarcerated population, people who have had their
41:05
Speaker 6: mental health needs ignored and neglected their entire lives, and
41:09
Speaker 6: those people may need all kinds of extraordinary support over
41:13
Speaker 6: the course of the whole rest of their lives. But
41:16
Speaker 6: if we look at today's five year olds and start
41:19
Speaker 6: thinking about what does it take to make a human
41:21
Speaker 6: being develop into a successful, well balanced individual who can
41:26
Speaker 6: participate in the economy, we can change that over the
41:29
Speaker 6: course of the next ten years so that ten years
41:31
Speaker 6: from now, fifteen year olds aren't entering the system at
41:34
Speaker 6: the same rate that they're entering now. If we start
41:36
Speaker 6: getting this right with the kids. If you want to
41:39
Speaker 6: help make a difference and have money that you can donate,
41:42
Speaker 6: please visit us at www dot equitossproject dot org. We
41:47
Speaker 6: are working to build a movement to make this change happen.
41:52
Speaker 1: As a victim of childhood trauma, I would like families
41:57
Speaker 1: to not think that it's going to go away. Like
42:01
Speaker 1: we have a very old school mentality about children. They
42:06
Speaker 1: bounce back and they're resilient and things like that. If
42:10
Speaker 1: something bad happens to your child, don't think that time
42:15
Speaker 1: is going to make it go away because it doesn't,
42:18
Speaker 1: you know, and eventually that issue was going to manifest
42:21
Speaker 1: itself into their life, you know. And I think that
42:25
Speaker 1: we should erase that stigma of what happens in a
42:28
Speaker 1: house stays in a house. Just please talk to people.
42:31
Speaker 1: Please take your children to get proper help.
42:33
Speaker 3: Right, And one possible thing to do would be to
42:35
Speaker 3: talk to a counselor. Every school has a counselor. Right,
42:38
Speaker 3: go and see the counselor. They may be able to
42:39
Speaker 3: direct you to the right social services or other professionals.
42:43
Speaker 3: But if you don't say something, nothing's going to happen,
42:46
Speaker 3: and nothing's going to change in the situation will likely
42:48
Speaker 3: get worse.
42:48
Speaker 1: I will also like to say that mental health is
42:51
Speaker 1: treatable with therapy and the proper medication. I change my life,
42:56
Speaker 1: you know, I have my mental illness under control with
42:59
Speaker 1: metal cation in therapy. Find it a proper support, like
43:02
Speaker 1: Jason just said, is very important.
43:04
Speaker 3: So this has been a great discussion. We do have
43:07
Speaker 3: to wrap up just because of time, but I want
43:10
Speaker 3: to leave. This is the part of the show where
43:14
Speaker 3: I get to be lazy. I like that, so, you know,
43:18
Speaker 3: want smiling because it's his favorite part of the show.
43:21
Speaker 2: Too.
43:21
Speaker 3: So this is the part of the show where I
43:24
Speaker 3: get to thank both of you for coming in. Vincent Atchity,
43:29
Speaker 3: executive director of the Equitas Project, and Kelly Grimes, system
43:34
Speaker 3: affected advocating here for people in the system who suffer
43:39
Speaker 3: from mental health challenges. Thank you for both for being
43:42
Speaker 3: here and sharing your stories and your wisdom. And this
43:47
Speaker 3: is where I get to turn it over to you
43:49
Speaker 3: for closing thoughts. Since Kelly's the start of the show, Vincent,
43:52
Speaker 3: you get to go first, she gets to go last.
43:55
Speaker 6: Well, thank you. And you know, I guess I would
43:57
Speaker 6: just say that I think of mental health is the
43:59
Speaker 6: primary public health crisis, the most costliest public health crisis
44:03
Speaker 6: that we've got going in this country right now. And
44:06
Speaker 6: you know, it's affecting people, It's affecting their families. Violence
44:11
Speaker 6: is a consequence all kinds of lack of productivity, depression,
44:14
Speaker 6: I think is one of the most costly health conditions
44:17
Speaker 6: there is in this country. And where it hurts the most,
44:20
Speaker 6: our poor understanding and poor management and mental health hurts
44:23
Speaker 6: the most is when the law gets involved and this
44:27
Speaker 6: holy wrong system takes over for managing the outcomes of
44:33
Speaker 6: human beings that are really got enormous potential for making
44:37
Speaker 6: us all a healthier, more prosperous nation if we were
44:41
Speaker 6: to get this right. So I would just say that
44:43
Speaker 6: getting this right and disentangling mental health and criminal justice,
44:48
Speaker 6: I think of it as dumb most urgent issue for
44:51
Speaker 6: our future as a country.
44:54
Speaker 1: Even though it is a backwards system right now, it's
44:57
Speaker 1: just how it is. And in this backward system that
45:02
Speaker 1: you can change your life around. There is help. There
45:06
Speaker 1: are alternative to incarceration programs that you should seek out,
45:11
Speaker 1: and just know that there's a different way of life.
45:14
Speaker 1: There's help. Know that mental health challenges are manageable, some
45:19
Speaker 1: of them are curable, and you just have to keep trying.
45:33
Speaker 7: Don't forget to give us a fantastic review wherever you
45:36
Speaker 7: get your podcasts.
45:37
Speaker 3: It really helps.
45:38
Speaker 7: And I'm a proud donor to the Niesis Project, and
45:41
Speaker 7: I really hope you'll join me in supporting this very
45:44
Speaker 7: important cause and helping to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go
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Speaker 7: to aniessproject dot org to learn how to donate and
45:51
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45:54
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45:57
Speaker 7: by three time OSCAR nominated composer j Ralph. Be sure
46:01
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46:07
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Speaker 7: for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number one