here in new york in the last several years there's been a noticeable expansion of what is called the prison reentry industry these are the bureaucracies designed to oversee the release of citizens in our prison system one hundred fifty five united states adults nearly two percent of the population was on probation or parole in two thousand and sixteen that's four and a half million people twice incarcerated population that are in state and federal prisons and local jails and that a population increase of two hundred thirty nine percent since  community supervision is by far the largest part of the reentry industry african americans make up thirty percent of those on community supervision while making up thirteen percent of the u s adult population three and a half times as many men as women are on to the vision although the number of women on supervision has now almost doubled since the one nine hundred ninety to more than one million more than creek three quarters of the four and a half million fifty one percent since one thousand nine hundred one and property crime is down by forty three percent in recent years the violent crime rate is at the lowest rate since the one nine hundred seventy yet as crime rates fall to record levels more and more people have found themselves becoming part of the we entry industry as society creates another way to maintain social control over them the treatment industrial complex as it has come to be called has grown and excel aerated dramatically developing a for profit prison industry movement that encourages the privatization of correctional medical care mental health treatment and community corrections community corrections are programs outside of jail or prison walls and include probation and parole services halfway houses day reporting centers drug and alcohol treatment programs home confinement electronic monitoring and then a ray of supportive services such as educational classes and job training developing and facilitating these programs and services for the formerly incarcerated have become a huge cash cow for such far right billionaire donors as the koch brothers and other members of the corporate donor and business class profits for a prison reentry industry are at the expense of the kikes payer and increasingly marginalized percent of the american population yet the programs provide a little to link the formerly incarcerated person to the social capital resources and human skills necessary for them to ever become fully independent none of the organizations businesses politicians and individuals in the industry including academics including criminal justice academies like john jay college are working themselves out of a job in fact their policies have led to the creation of permanent jobs for themselves developing a never ending the pendent population and perpetuating an ever expanding industry what we have is a political reality where the very policies set up to do good and control the problem of crime has led to an exaggeration of it it's become an industry built on a never ending cycle of pain distrust racism more on them this social control and dysfunctional dependency with those who have developed and who are administering the programs the last ones to realize the harm they've helped create we're honored to have on the show today someone who's seen both sides of the system serving fourteen years behind bars as it made over twenty eight years as a returning citizen working passionately as an advocate of positive views development criminal justice reform and  restorative justice legislation his most recent recent work has been as program coordinator with the new york city based fortune society supporting returning says and with successful reentry from jail and prison  promoting alternatives to incarceration he's the founder and director of used empowerment systems of new york city a not for profit reentry organization created with the ho empowering previously in car for youth and young adults ages sixteen to twenty one so they're able to maintain independent productive and happy lives outside the system welcome michael jenkins to the radical imagination thank you very much thank you for being here it's really a pleasure it's an honor respect your work i respect you so much and  tell us what you've been doing tell us your take on the system as you've seen it from both sides you've been fortune been behind bars you're now creating a program of your own your own background your own well first and foremost my prison experience and jail experience was basically part of a lifestyle that i had chosen some time ago with a certain kind of what i had thought its time rebelliousness to the quote unquote system as a new york your new york city born and raised in new york born and raised in new york city i grew up during the time of the sixt not same so it is why i might want to come out of my age ok that find out on your own but i was raised in the sixty's and seventy's and basically on that mentality of what we had called the black power you know freedom rights civil rights movement civil rights movement you know black is beautiful black panthers black panther is nation of  is basically from where we come from and basically what i had assumed that by not allowing the system or what i had thought getting caught up in the system i would be able to do my own things so to speak that's what led me up not only what i saw around me what i learned even though i went to school i dropped out of school in the tenth grade so i went all the way up to junior high school most to has i went to high school most to college but i got to a point where because i educated myself outside of the school says because i didn't trust the school system why not well like i was a learning grew up during that time where anything they had to do with the quote unquote system was against you they were trying to set you up  and that at that time i felt that the knowledge that i was given in classes was just basically trying to dull me down to what we call dumb me down so that i could be more susceptible to the to the vehicle who you know that  to system become part of the system that you knew also was really oppressive and yes i got in a lot of joe yeah in school because i was always the one acting out yeah no not so much acting out but i would challenge the education that we i got thrown out and continued reading on his own and then testing very high you know like you wise he was put back in school and he was one of the lucky ones of course malcolm x to  is one of my model role model right and i think that unfortunately because of my you know my training my education my mom entirely at the time i felt as if you know i just want to be different was an alcoholic a very abusive alcoholic at that time now he's he's ninety six years old actually just learned any six december twenty third row you know but back then he was very abusive and  had three or four siblings who i felt that you know i was the one that was being abused because of fact i was close my mother loved me more so i felt that everything that out the abuse that i was getting is based because in fact my father was fighting against me because of what he could do to my mom so i was very violent had a lot of violence and rage and anger and growing up and even now so able to understand that part of what we are again like i say part of what we ought to day's basically a  combination of all these different things that you know are not always addressed we talk about the violence in our communities in the black community we talk about the crime rates in the black community but one of things w seems that we don't talk much about is the mental illness in our communities and i think that we need to more address that because of the fact that growing up in nice communities traumatizing these communities the way that they are with in but there's a certain type of culture that exists without type of people with you know people who are what we call underprivileged are you know brought up in a certain condom environment does not conducive to positive growth and development that we hold a certain type of mentality that makes us feel a sense of m theory r d all a sense of not being that you know has to be able to express  i don't believe any man was created not to want to strive and survive and you know be able to be a you know be somebody and when you take that from them then it comes to a point where you know he seeks to try to express himself in whatever way he can because that design that need to express themselves is in in any you know it's not something that you can say oh well you know they don't want to be nothing they don't want to be nobody we all want to be something we all want to be somebody and because our virus and that basically conducive to that we create our own what we talk about a class a subculture and in that subculture you have certain things that you know you fire your senses so you fire your sense of identity  you fire your sense of empowerment maybe what society deems as a negative sense but are threatening to them but you are beginning to find that within the social movement so we're developing in the sixty's when i was when i was first locked up  i was in rikers island and wanted things that we had during that time this is based around eighty's late seventy's we had what we call the five percent nation and the five percent nation was basically an offshoot of the nation of islam those individuals they want that rigorous training that the nation of islam presented to them they were into what we call the nation but basically the whole you don't grab well when you're in in jail in jail environment you do what you need to do to survive so to speak and you learn how to adapt to the environment and in adapted to their value look for where the power with where the safety is with the security is and basically the muslims the black muslims at work what they would call that that was where the power was in prisons in terms of for black people so you kind of venture towards that group yeah and was part of that group it was an offshoot but it was a part of that group and so the religious stuff wasn't the major concern it was about safety and protection and safety protection who's got your back and identity and then want to sense of identity again same things you want on the outside right inside right right you know you want that sense of identity you want that sense of belonging and then the authorities and the inside let you and the nation be to certain extent as long as you want creating trouble within the prison right same thing on inside as on the outside on the outside there's an environment that's created to make sure that you're not just blasting out remember how the black panthers were  you know they they could have the black panther movies simply because of the fact that they challenge the system on the same way in communities that you know you come from anything that challenges the system has to be put down but if we appease you by helping you you know allow you to do certain things and you know just stay in your little corner like the ghettos the hood so to speak we let you stay in your little corner then we don't have to worry about you venturing outside and it affecting us and i believe that the only reason when it becomes part of their problem is when it trickles outside of that environment and approaches them starts touching them in their communities then they feel that they have to do something about it so it's the same thing in prison circle within nation gave you that in a sense a little security against the system it gave a sense of security and that helped you to understand gives gave you an idea but not an idea but it gave you a sense of being you know  when you're able to articulate a self with that then you become powerful you know i'm knowledge is power and the more knowledge that you have the more powerful you become mest that's in any arena so is it fair to say that you were model prisoner are someone that wasn't causing trouble for the system and yet you were growing in developing and reading in and understanding yourself much more once you have a sense with it i believe anyway i want you have a sense of self at least an idea of who you are as an individual and you hold on to that and you accept that then you're able to more you know better move around in an environment where a cause of how they'd look down on your sofa you're able to be on your own so to speak and you got that and i don't know actually i got that not only from again like i said before prior to coming to present it was self educated self taught myself so i had a lot of knowledge when i went into actually my name as a flap soon was knowledge born each really had a name that identified who they are and what their knowledge born represented a person who has a lot of knowledge and he brings birth to knowledge through his actions  of any quality plus steps two and six six and two is eight that would be build so basically what you're saying if you have wisdom and you know how to bring the wisdom will bring about the quality that will help you to build a sense of nature o om community even a sense of power so each thing had it gave you a sense of self and that's basically what you needed in terms of on trying to not only live in society but in prison you had to have a sense of so because if you didn't have sense of self they would have you know like they talk about all people to be beat up in jail to sexually molested in jail although you know even those things took place if you had a sense of who you are and you you know you state yourself you mind your business more so well how would you describe yourself the first of the years where you get to the prison system you have to think about how an individual is on the outside because been know how you are an outside that's what you take with you wherever you go there you are so to speak so that even on outside as a leader i never allowed myself to be a follow up a gang or anything like that always and that again i stay to myself when i did my things i did my things on my own  with myself so i had to worry about you know look behind my back to make sure somebody is you know following me or nobody's getting caught the sodomy tell on me so i was always a leader in myself so when i went to prison in jails jails and prisons i was the time you know it got to a point where it got me in a lot of trouble and i was moved a lot around to different facilities because you were organizing the fellow well i mean you well you know you're not actually naturally you have to fast here too far but but again ok so we want to get so we want to get into what happens to you after you leave as well we want to talk about the topic to get away from some of the stuff you are going talk about want to bring this into our discussion to what and what what you know the authorities are trying to do is they take you to different facilities and then finally leaving and then what happens to people it turns out that meeks ordeal actually illustrative of a whole hidden driver of mass incarceration these petty probation violations now when you strip away all the fame and fortune far too many of us recognize what meek is going through from our own lives we've seen our family members our community members being endlessly monitored by the system and it even stolen from us for the slightest little mistakes he's been on probation for literally his entire adult life now probation is supposed to be an alternative to prison that lets people move on from their mistakes and make a better life on the outside but what it really needs is that you are under the watchful eye of the state for years and sometimes for decades it's like finding a contract for your freedom but the contract have little tiny fine print at the bottom that simply guarantees that you will never truly be free probation violations are treated very very harshly by our system yielding tougher punishments for little minor infractions than you would ever see prison time for if you weren't on probation at all now that some people end up on probation for more than a decade be late to a meeting because of traffic two more years of probation miss a meeting to attend a job and five more years of probation you get targeted brutalized by the cops maybe because you're black you will most certainly in the going back to prison and you can even go back to prison just for being homeless not having up a house to live and good from here to there if you need to travel for work good luck because every trip you take even if it's job related path to be pre approved and they can turn down your request for no reason at all they want now what were these violations the judge inside it were so essential the need needs to be in a cage for number one he sought treatment in atlanta for his open door the kitchen trying to get off drugs number two breaking up a fight and protecting an eighteen year old kid who already had a bullet lodged in his head number three  was sentence one in three prisoners is locked up not for any new conviction but just because of a probation violation the use of probation to fuel incarceration is highly racialized black people are overwhelmingly disproportionately sent to prison on probation and parole violations in one study of four counties black people were sent to prison for probation violations at rates between fifty five and one hundred per be holding themselves to a higher standard by adopting rules and policies that make it harder to fill up prisons with parole and probation violations but we've got to hold them accountable when they've gone too far and start having a pattern for behaviors that ruin people's lives so please go to a free meet mill that work where you can demand that judge brinkema refuse herself from the case and also you can find out more about how we can stop the harms from this unjust ridiculous probation we understand it there's a system and this particular system this criminal justice system is a self perpetuating vehicle that psychosis self reproduces itself and it strives off of our failures as n makes as probation is as pro parolees they can't succeed unless we fail one and therefore have six months before you go home so you want to pay it so for the returning back to society and that's basically what this particular program would do suppose it had done this is where my first feelings for what i did i got out of prison came into play where my work with you know addressing the details of the criminal justice system getting working with you getting into you know different types of programs that was unfortunately not this not a the prison into the prison it was a different situation we were supposed to prepare individuals who had six months before they were released right and basically what we did for them was we help them with finding out they had any you know like any violations on their license help them to get their birth certificates help them to get this so security guard small things like that important very very important but when you talk about a person who just did twenty twenty five years and he's on his way back out into society that's that's a minimum of importance although they need it but this person needs a home to stay in to a lot of them their release even though when i see same thing when i worked for the fortune society i was part of what they like he said it's like a contract and a show obligation to fulfill your end of the contract get a job or go to school stay out of trouble you know if you're a drug and alcohol treatment program and what haven't i did everything that they asked and so i was awarded by getting a lesser sentence on my parole i knew i had to do that but also i wanted to get off the row because i knew that parole would limit me from what i really wanted to do which was to get back in the field to help individuals so you sucked it up and you're going to put up with that need and are a put up with it i tolerate i mean although it did help me in the sense because you know i addressed my alcohol and drugs i was a cocaine addict  you know i sniff cocaine like drinking water so help me i got into a drug program i was able to get off of heroin i was able to get off cocaine marijuana stopped marijuana i stopped all those things but basically the understanding is that you have to first realize that these things need you need to get reduced things if you have you have to have some you have to have a purpose a higher purpose and a tell you a power greater than yourself my power that was great in myself  daughter my daughter was born while i was in prison and two years later i got out and you know vowed to myself that i would never go back again because i was one raise my daughter i know how my father was with me and you know this is my only child i'm going to raise my door and that was my higher power i do not and on this is there is a political movements that you've been involved in although that was helped you figure out who you were but it this very personal family relations you have to have something more than has something ok because society is not going to give you anything you know and you talk about people who you know that come from the hood and they come from you know poverty stricken neighborhoods underprivileged neighborhoods is very hard for you to be able to you know find that something that's going to push you forward that's why we get involved in gangs that's why we get involved with drugs that's why we get involved with you know crime it's not so much people get this idea that we get involved with those things because something's wrong with us mentally that's partly true but the fact is that there's a social environment that you like we call a culture of poverty as a culture a subculture of crime that you  obvious self when it's like you feel good about the fact that i'm able to be somebody you know work what you've learned that you know a lot of girls that going to you know the young and women that go into these gangs they get into it because it gives them a sense of identity i'm somebody now where before i was nobody in other cases it's for security reasons you know for protection because a lot of times when these kids are approached by these gang members in schools and things like that they have a choice and you get beat up every day when you come to school because they're recruiting you get a big beat up every day all you join a gang and you know we won't beat you up anymore and a lot of times they get involved again not wanting to be involved in gangs but they have in their police they have no choice you know they're acting out of a sense of of justice that this is something that they should be doing fighting back against the system and creating known not in that sense and it's not and no in a sense that you know again i have no choice you know i i walk from home to school every day i get into school i'm here to learn or what have you but in the process once i get to school i'm approached by a gang member who says listen we want you as a part of our gang if you be a part of our gang are we going to beat you up at school you know that's what he says don't choice really you know i really don't have you know really don't have the choice and a lot of times those individuals who don't you know who get into the gangs as a an alternative you know to be a part of something they end up getting into gang that know what's really is involved in securing a positive reentry model for individuals who are being released from prison or jail and or jail when the oldest organizations are a one of the only ones organization and pretty good reputation they have a good reputation fortune society has helped many thousands of individuals find their first job right in fortune society one of the major things  fortune society tries to do is that they're built on second chances so one of the major states they try to do is they give you second chance of trying to come doze people can find a job and outside the skills and experiences they've had like i had there use got the idea behind that is that we found that a lot individuals who were released from jail don't have a full opportunity to prepare themselves for a productive role in society because they're you know if you're not doing a year rikers island then you'll be released within you know whatever your court demands you you know you not stay long so you don't have that opportunity or that time to be able to prepare yourself for to return back to society so what we do is we'll pick you up from where you left off that and we'll prepare you for we need to feel so you feel that you were doing something really worthwhile at that point are i learned a lot and then yeah i learned a lot thanks for being the program coordinator for the reeling program but you're no tell us why you're no longer doing that or well it's generally i'm no longer there because of the simple fact that i'll just say that the the whole program was transition to another department within fortune society and i was supposed to have been moved to another part of fortune and that didn't pan out for whatever reason and so you know i had a lot of slack with you know a lot of flak know what the side it to while i was on your own and develop your own i've always wanted to do that right because it was right of fact that my experiences taught me that especially being a part of other organizations that were don't suppose you don't the same thing my experience taught me that they weren't doing enough ok they weren't addressing the issue as i felt that it should be addressed based on my experiences in the criminal justice system really create a true to address the needs of empower me i've learned through my experiences that one of the major reasons why i was doing what i was doing right and individuals that i was working with was doing what they were doing they didn't feel empowered enough to take another avenue you know to do the right thing so to speak so they did the wrong thing so what i felt was that those missing links from what they felt was empowering what was absent from that i wanted to include like for example jobs housing mental illness education those are things that i felt feel that are very important in allowing an individual ten pounds so to say i'm going to do the right thing so to speak so they know really who they are and have a much firmer foundation you have to be able to give them most importantly a sense of self yeah you know i have i have to feel good about who i am as an individual in order for me to do good in the world if you meant if i am in an environment that simply humiliates me shayne's me makes me feel that i'm less than gilligan here again shame disrespect disrespect you know you million good bits me like you like this you know you don't feel a sense of empowerment enough to say ok i'm going to go to school get it college degree i'm going to go out there and get involved in this job world then charge it you know stand on to the lie would hundreds of people looking for work and so forth a saw you you don't feel it's not a new to say that it's worth all that you know  continues and perpetuates that negative sense of self in your in your report that i read on the hopes of indifference i read the part where you mention the fact that a lot of these programs like fortune or not you know they get to a point where in the beginning maybe they want to help you know the individuals that if you know to get to where they need to get and do what they need to do but then it comes a funding i would like to hope that i could be able to influence enough people to say that they will support me with just funding from their own a lot of organizations and businesses and people who would be willing to fund their pocket as opposed to having to be subjected to the laws and regulations of a federal funding or state funding also what i'd like to do is i've learnt that and this is work with fortune society that a person i used to see the kids come in that had gotten jobs most wanted thing fortune does is they offer you an osha training and what not and what this particular osha training what it does sense of being a sense of purpose just knowing that look i got i got a construction had i want to know you know so they feel empowered so wondered programs that i wanted to answer to is a job development program that goes from train these individuals and construction from training them into construction allowing them on the job training on construction sites and then the same size that they were because in new york city especially there are so many abandoned buildings aband homes that the state owns that the city owns and what i wanted to do was to be able to allow these individuals to go from the vocational training in construction to don't want a job training within the homes that which makes it real yet makes a real that not only that hasn't we want to hear more about this we have the educational component most of individuals who are not in school who never had a ged we did some people i believe educational some of vocation right so we want to do an entrepreneurial program where they can learn how to start their own businesses what that entails and so forth the saucer the educating in the field of entrepreneurship as opposed to the ged although we offer ged training what we know but a lot of individual like you see a lot of rap is now to go in that people want to rap they want to go into in street and rap and but they don't have the knowledge about the rap industry with teach them those things how to start your own business how to write a business plan you know because this way they have have access to the same families that they left in the first place for whatever reason mom you know that we have that they're not allowed because they've been involved so sort of drug situation where they're not allowed back in the projects or you know the family just insecurity you have vulnerability vulnerability zaya the anxiety go all those components and communities trauma you know and these things are not addressed in our communities because of a lot of most because of the stigma of mental illness in the black community you know we don't believe in the doctors were afraid of going to the doctors to have somebody work messing with our head so to speak we don't have the monies to go to do you know the doctor's office to get the right psychiatric treatment or therapeutic treatment that we need we don't have insurance you know there's no way in the home in the home structure you know we look at it as a weakness you know so you know mental illness a very important tremendous it's been here to have you here and this program we want to follow it as it goes on to its fruition because it really does sound like and seem like something that we really are general population sixteen to twenty one year you know because i want to hear what they say they need what they and that's how we got and that's the start i think of so many important things here what the poor