felony inc podcast Startup Radio Network

Artist, organizer, advocate and speaker, Aimee Wissman is a machine. An Ohio native, Aimee had a lot of instability growing up and those insecurities led to a heroin addiction at age 16 that lasted about 10 years. She did, however, manage to graduate high school and get a couple of years of college. But bad relationships and bad choices put her in the prison system. Aimee tried to get treatment before that, but the typical system of expensive treatments, no insurance, yaddah yaddah made it impossible. She did use her incarceration time to make a short film, reflecting how she tried to change her life but nothing was available in her situation. A burglary and robbery charge were considered violent crimes, so her sentence was harsh. Aimee gave birth to her daughter about a year before starting her sentence and tried to shake her drug habit. However, a domestic altercation with the girl's father threw a wrench into that path. Coupled with an eight-year sentence and a maximum security incarceration for the first two years, Aimee had her face-the-music moment. She began making art objects to send to her daughter to keep connected, and that gave birth to a full-blown program that was running full steam by the time Aimee left the system. Others have produced their own films and and have gotten public notoriety giving rise to a larger discussion of why people go to prison, and particularly, why women go to prison. And if you have a chance to visit the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in the near future, you can see Aimee's work on display.

Felony Inc Podcast with your hosts Dick Hennessy and Meg Thibodeaux

We record the Felony Inc Podcast inside NedSpace in the Bigfoot Podcast Studio in beautiful downtown Portland.

Audio engineer, mixer and podcast editor is Allon Beausoleil

Show logo was designed by Carolyn Main

Website was designed by Cameron Grimes

Production assistant is Chelsea Lancaster

Felony Inc Podcast supports City Central Concern at centralcityconcern.org

10% of gross revenue at Startup Radio Network goes to support women entrepreneurs in developing countries thru kiva.org/lender/markgrimes

Listen to the Felony Inc Podcast every Friday at 10:00am pacific time on Startup Radio Network at startupradionetwork.com

Founded in 1971 by Morris Dees, an Alabama lawyer and businessman, Morris saw an obligation to stand up for the disenfranchised. He sold a successful book publishing company and started a law practice to give them a voice. Jackie Aranda Osorno is a staff attorney at the law center. A self-described "Latinx queer woman", Jackie immigrated from Mexico and experienced legal systems that categorized and pigeon-holed people by stereotypes. After graduating from law school, she went to Southern Poverty Law Center for a couple of years, then left to do some immigration work, then returned where she currently resides. She deals with revising the legal system to direct sentences to be more in line with the crime, and treatment as opposed to long incarceration and real rehabilitation as opposed to warehousing with no change in behavior. In particular, dealing with prison systems that are overcrowded and understaffed is a huge challenge that she and the SPLC are addressing currently.

Felony Inc Podcast with your hosts Dick Hennessy and Meg Thibodeaux

We record the Felony Inc Podcast inside NedSpace in the Bigfoot Podcast Studio in beautiful downtown Portland.

Audio engineer, mixer and podcast editor is Allon Beausoleil

Show logo was designed by Carolyn Main

Website was designed by Cameron Grimes

Production assistant is Chelsea Lancaster

Felony Inc Podcast supports City Central Concern at centralcityconcern.org

10% of gross revenue at Startup Radio Network goes to support women entrepreneurs in developing countries thru kiva.org/lender/markgrimes

Listen to the Felony Inc Podcast every Friday at 10:00am pacific time on Startup Radio Network at startupradionetwork.com

No, not an ice cream flavor, Cheri Garcia is a vibrant personality, really more of a machine. Absolutely not from a broken home or the typical tough background, she was the ideal kid. On the cheerleading team, pitcher for the softball team, anchor for the school newspaper - the ideal kid. So what happened? She decided to try meth with the promise to lose weight. That did happen, but so did her interest in all the good things she was doing. As an addict, people stop caring about their former lives and that's exactly what happened to Cheri. Miraculously, she graduated from high school and managed through sheer will to cold turkey. Then she focused in on her life's goal, being a journalist on TV. She got a job in the newsroom and also pursued other entrepreneurial passions, such as teaching gymnastics. She then took her ability to the prison system, helping inmates in their entrepreneurial programs establish a business or career. Since starting a business with "fifty bucks and a bus ticket" was not viable, she shifted to helping get released felons prepare for and get a job. Having now put herself out of a job, she figured that now connecting those ex-felons with employers, and second-chance hiring was born. With a great name, Cornbread Hustle now finds itself with more demand for employees than they currently can meet, a real change in hiring philosophy on the employer side.

Felony Inc Podcast with your hosts Dick Hennessy and Meg Thibodeaux

We record the Felony Inc Podcast inside NedSpace in the Bigfoot Podcast Studio in beautiful downtown Portland.

Audio engineer, mixer and podcast editor is Allon Beausoleil

Show logo was designed by Carolyn Main

Website was designed by Cameron Grimes

Production assistant is Chelsea Lancaster

Felony Inc Podcast supports City Central Concern at centralcityconcern.org

10% of gross revenue at Startup Radio Network goes to support women entrepreneurs in developing countries thru kiva.org/lender/markgrimes

Listen to the Felony Inc Podcast every Friday at 10:00am pacific time on Startup Radio Network at startupradionetwork.com

Brian Stanley is a Court Advocate for the East Harlem, New York City, for Avenues for Justice. Which means, he helps save young lives by giving youth who have been caught up in crime a second chance to straighten out their lives for the good. And the results are impressive. Through "AFJ" as they call it, young adults receive drug rehabilitation, education, counseling and job training to create a path to a successful life on the outside. And their results are impressive. AFJ has been at it for 40 years, and at a fraction of the cost of incarceration per youth, their website boasts that 90% of their graduates stay out of prison, versus the incredible high recidivism rate of the current prison system. Brian himself was arrested at 18 facing felony charges that gave him a chance to keep his records sealed if he got his life straightened out. He did, and went on to Howard University successfully and inspired him to want to show other troubled youth that there could be a second chance to a better life and was obviously drawn to AFJ and its mission. Perhaps the largest accomplishment of AFJ is its "partnership" with the court system. They intervene when they feel there is a youth who could successfully navigate their program and give the courts an alternative to incarceration. This model is one that definitely should be copied and recreated throughout the country.

Felony Inc Podcast with your hosts Dick Hennessy and Meg Thibodeaux

We record the Felony Inc Podcast inside NedSpace in the Bigfoot Podcast Studio in beautiful downtown Portland.

Audio engineer, mixer and podcast editor is Allon Beausoleil

Show logo was designed by Carolyn Main

Website was designed by Cameron Grimes

Production assistant is Chelsea Lancaster

Felony Inc Podcast supports City Central Concern at centralcityconcern.org

10% of gross revenue at Startup Radio Network goes to support women entrepreneurs in developing countries thru kiva.org/lender/markgrimes

Listen to the Felony Inc Podcast every Friday at 10:00am pacific time on Startup Radio Network at startupradionetwork.com

A middle school dropout, James Monteiro left his mother's house, moved in with a woman 10 years his senior and was "exposed to things no 15-year old should be exposed to". That experience set James up to spend the next 20 years or his life incarcerated up and down the east coast. Upon release, he only had his 8th grade education to fall back on and that led him back to prison, a repeating cycle. His last incarceration of 10 years made him think he never wanted to go back and he began working on getting a college degree. He got his associate degree, but a bachelor degree on his prison pay was out of reach. But he had people who believed in him and he was able to get the degree before release. However, as the Re-Entry Campus Program's website says, it's one thing to be locked up in prison, it's another to be locked OUT of society. So began Re-Entry Campus Program, to help other incarcerated souls achieve a college degree whether out of prison or still in. Nationwide, there are 90,000 incarcerated people taking college courses, but after release, there is no tracking of who is following through and finishing to get their degree. That's where Re-Entry is their safety net, helping them with financial aid, enrollment, proctoring exams and so forth. And so far, there has been little recruiting, almost everyone finds Re-Entry by word of mouth.

Felony Inc Podcast with your hosts Dick Hennessy and Meg Thibodeaux

We record the Felony Inc Podcast inside NedSpace in the Bigfoot Podcast Studio in beautiful downtown Portland.

Audio engineer, mixer and podcast editor is Allon Beausoleil

Show logo was designed by Carolyn Main

Website was designed by Cameron Grimes

Production assistant is Chelsea Lancaster

Felony Inc Podcast supports City Central Concern at centralcityconcern.org

10% of gross revenue at Startup Radio Network goes to support women entrepreneurs in developing countries thru kiva.org/lender/markgrimes

Listen to the Felony Inc Podcast every Friday at 10:00am pacific time on Startup Radio Network at startupradionetwork.com

Damien Linnane's first book, "Scared," is a reflection of his unusual background. From inner-western Sydney, Australia, Damien's father met his mother, a social worker, while in prison for robbery. His parent's relationship was rough, leaving Damien caught in the middle. This dynamic, combined with Damien's experiences of child abuse, manifested as anger issues leading to the violent incidents that put him in prison. Although sentences in Australia tend to be lighter than those in the US, Damien still had a few years in front of him, including therapy. Diagnosed with autism, he had to move to a large city for the specialized treatment, which was not funded. Moving meant losing his job, leaving him with no money to pay for the therapy, or stay in place and violate his court order and go to prison. Catch 22! He wound up with two years because he had $1,200 to hire a psychiatrist, but if he had $20,000, he would not have even gone to prison. But that's where he started his book, which he credits with making him take the time to write. And he wrote it in five months because of the focus of his time, which is very fast in the eyes of most writers.

Felony Inc Podcast with your hosts Dick Hennessy and Meg Thibodeaux

We record the Felony Inc Podcast inside NedSpace in the Bigfoot Podcast Studio in beautiful downtown Portland.

Audio engineer, mixer and podcast editor is Allon Beausoleil

Show logo was designed by Carolyn Main

Website was designed by Cameron Grimes

Production assistant is Chelsea Lancaster

Felony Inc Podcast supports City Central Concern at centralcityconcern.org

10% of gross revenue at Startup Radio Network goes to support women entrepreneurs in developing countries thru kiva.org/lender/markgrimes

Listen to the Felony Inc Podcast every Friday at 10:00am pacific time on Startup Radio Network at startupradionetwork.com