[music] I'm Alexander Heffner, your host on The Open Mind.

I'm delighted to welcome our guest today, James Jeter.

of the Full Citizens Coalition and the graduate of the Center foby Wesleyan University.ram He's a leading voice anand enfranchisement.e James, a pleasure to see you today and to talk to you again, now.

Its good toAlex.ere with you, let me ask you to begin with you're doing at Full Citizens tell our viewers about that work and what motivates you every day to, for all of the American people?

I'm the co-founder, executive director of the Full Citizens Coalition.

The Full Citizens Coalition is a Connecticut that's focused on undoing the disenfranchisement.ny Until all of our citizens are seen as full citizens.

Whimportant to me?rk of the Center for Education, I was formerly incarcerated.

Was released from prison after serving 20 years in prison, from 17 to 37 and, you know, fortunate enough to leave prison with a policy internship that and really, a job in understanding of how, a lot ohave been operatingunity fromsince, you know,oint since 1969.

And, just have an understanding, coming home and being on, bunch of different college campuses or legislative office building feeling, where we were losing our communities are losing, how that process is happening.

Andinto the researching the historical narrative.

That so many fail.

But mighit where we,gether, brouKennard Ray, to movender forward, in rights restoration for those on felony parole.

that legislation in 2021, and now we're fighting for fullfor all people.ment Just recognizing that, you know, disenfranchisement has been a staple in black communities since, the passing of the 13th amendment, since the the emancipation of, former slaves and, hohas probably been it the most effective, version that we've ever experienced.

it almost defeats the purpose of and rehabilitation,e to texiting the systemple from being able to vote.

something illogical about it.

Well, tycivic rights to,of your felony convictions.

You know, nationirst world goes, we're a minority.

You know, most first world nations couldn't imagine, removing the rights of their citizens, their citizens for any reason, especially for purposes of, as a huge hindrance being productive citizens in post incarceration.

So we're in a minority because of, you know, just, theof our country,tory you know, having developed a lot of it through slavery a free population that meant to be a part of the -the l-Right.rocess.

And something about freedom actually being an illusion and not real for many of our fellow Americans who seek that redemption.

And you can only really if you are able to get a job.

if you can operate in society independently.

I encourage to gof our viewers to felonvoting.procon.org where they can learn about in what states felons lose their vote permanently, where it's restored after prison, parole or probation, after prison and parole.

But it's alandscapelluminating of the varying states, that do not allow for, system impacted people to vote or only allow them to vote.

After specific, specific steps are taken, paying certain fees, a term of parole or probation.

The worif I understand it,t now, is cbut it has ambitions tocut, go to all states or the states where voting is restricted.

Is that accurate?

the work we're doing right now, with other, organizations who arnationally.s work So we're a part of the National Voting in Prison Coalition, ran the lease structured throand Stand Up America.ject Afor those who are fightingb for this nationally, to share on strategies when to assist, in efforts.

So, you know, there arethat we can doe believe of our state, small state, easifrom tip to tip.

car And having that ability an entire state is rare.

our efforts are concentrated in our five largest cities.

And we just think that there's some thingthat affordan do here other we can do that also.d say, Annow, you're looking att wanting to change the system.

So there is a full restoration.

to system impacted people now, when it comes to the franchise that you're pushing for?

for a full enfranchisement that people who are incarcerated will never lose their, like that anyone convicted of a felony would never lose their right.

Sodoesn't negateon to be civically active.

Let me ask you about that.

in your conversations with, representatives, lobbyists, citizens who you're interested in educating on this issue, is there a spectrum of where people come out on this?

And I'm curious about have been like with people who that you should lose access to voting as a result of being incarcerated.

What do you say to those people?

And what are those conversations like?

Those conversations are if cognitive dissonance.

Where, you know, there's no actual reason why.

People mostly rely on, mantras likeyou do the time.me, they rely on saying, well, that'Why should you?it is.

they can't tell you, right?

They just say that's just the way it is.

It should be that way.

this is a process that has been, in effect since emancipation.

Anto do with crime,ng it has everything to do to disenfranchize a population.

And, you know, it's not by coincidence that the communities that suffer proficiencies, the lowest labor the highest housing burdens, a lot of environmental, the communities are overpoliced, most overpercentaged, in our prison systems you know, according to, data, recap neighborhoods concentrated areas of poverty.

These are the communities the highest representation in our prison systems and the highest levels of civic disengagement in our country.

you can't look at it and say, oh, well, they shouldn't of committed crimes without looking at, well, crime is a product, its a product of really bad systems.

Crimes of poverty, you know, is a product of really bad systems.

about crimes of poverty.

And we're talking about hoonly became a thingt from the felony standpoint, you know, after theand the Civil Rights Act,ghts you know, these these things wrapped up in ‘68 and in 69, we announced the war on crime, inwar on drugs.

Right?he And then, you know, the rest is really, really tragic history.

And soof disengagement time disenfranchisement.

I'm curious if you see agency, the idea of agency, and the idea of citizenship.

And, you know, obviously, in a system of punishment, wha prison system or not,it restorative justice.

Believe in, in a sense, restricting the agency of people.

of abolitionists who want to destroy the whole system and basically end prison and jail totally.

I'm just wondering where you fall on that spectrum if you an abolitionist,ourself are you distinguishing between agency and citizenship and saying you shouldn't lose your citizenship in the system, even if you are losing agency?

Yourto some degreelity as a result of punishment.

if you see those two things agency and citizenship?

I see agency hindered by the inability to give someone full citizenship.

And then I see punishment for lacking agency.

Whencommunities,bout impoand this is for anys, impoverished communities, especially for communities, for black communities anhappen to be overpoliced.ust Right?

We're talking about the of police contact.ion what it does to a child, right?

Like we'intelligence.g about, I stood bhe told medge a 17, I was anI knew better.eenager, That of my life.mation You know, this is a white man in his 60s, right?

Who of my upbringingding and really couldn't care.

a justification for my actions.

if you can't understand the lack of agency in communities where a child's world at best, even at 17, iright?square mile, Where you caright?n your own, intake of information is rofrom your home.e mile And, you have factors that hinder agency.

The labor market engagement by the federal government as an accumulative score of the education in a community, tin a community.ism And another factor that on right now, forgive me.

However, why is it these factors or what do these determine?

Ityour community's value, and your human capital value.

To theThis is aright?

metric of human capital, but it's also a metric that shows you how the subconscious develops around what's possible.

So we'that affect agency.e end in a single family home, I'm in a uthat is failing me.ystem profession in my community.

From what I can tell as a child is a CNA or warehouse worker.

And that's not knocking CNA just talking about outcomes.

No.

I hear yeah.you saying, the development of the outcomes.

No, I think you're makinthe reality of,about impaired agency, inhibited agency, not as a result of the justice system, as a result of an economic system on the front end before people get trapped in, a vicious cycle.

Let mfor Prison Education.enter alum of that institution, set up by Wesleyan.

Wesleyan and Bard have been the gold standard of prison education.

You said something interesting to me that took me a back, but then I heard you.

And Iwith our viewersre it think the work that Wesleyan and others do to teach and educate in the prison system is, valuable for people who participate.

You made the point to me that we shouldn't think of it as, we're going to bring world class education to prisons, and we'recidivism.

reduce You made the point that you don't think those things are correlated or they're just not correlated.

Yeah, I one, I thinkthere's, recidimetric, right?wards It's a harmful metric.

And, it's a metric of redemption.

I think redemption is a very, it's a byword, because in order to be redeemed you have to first have been deemed something.

in redemptive narratives, you're talking to zero sum.

You're talking no room for development and failure, is a part of development.

And so recidivism can be looked at in the same light if I get violated on parole, that's a bump.

That's not necessarily the end of me or a judgment of my permanent outcome.

Its just a hurdle.

People come home from prison, unprepared all the time.

prepare you for the mental, the mental return, the emotional return.

Agrant you opportunitiesly to show the world exon an intellectual level.

of don't just fly open for you in the corporate world, or in the world of academia, because you were in a college in prison program.

And so when we tie, success to, a metric like recidivism that the standard is that no one comes back to prison, not that people are developing and becoming well rounded, world class, you know, thinkers and, you and whatever.

and wives That thnot that.t, it's Whereas in asettingr educational to make that a metric.

So if all of the language around is that we're bringing the into these settings,sity then yothat don't existetrics as a standard of success.

Jamand illuminating thinging you said to me.

And you repeat it now, just for our viewers.

And I appreciate that.

Anwhere I was coming fromand and coming from.l am Is this idea that thehas been so, bloated,em, that in order to shrink it and to give people opportunities, you know, to exit the system, the center for Prison Education, can exist as a pathway that you just established, of educational, intellectual, economic, aptitude and capacity.

And I know that you are accthat can be the result ofngs for Prison Education and others who establish programs like that in prison.

what you said to me is that.

whose motivation to participate or lack of motivation to to participate will not change based oof a programbility like Wesleyan Center for Prison Education.

I know you're an advocate of duas much as possible,work but it was striking to hear you say that because in trying to reduce the size of the most incarcerated country in the world.

If Education is not,ison cannot be correlated with the reduction of, reentrance into the system, maybe it can be correlated to shrink the system.

that the back end of the system is where so many people fall into a vicious cycle and, you know, sentences that are for rehabilitation, essentially without the opportunity for eventual freedom.

That was my point.

-It was just -I...dea that can.. yeah.

the idea, and I wasn't know, from a standpoint of saying, I reject all of that.

I'm coming from a standpoint of saying that has become the entire conversation.

Ana lot of other factorsg thatof the prison system.tion I think we're missing a lot of the factors that if we bring them then we actually produce, a far more success stories through, college in prison.

And I think some of the, and so these are nuanced factors that aren't accounted for any parts of our system, right?

Prison is punitive.

to have four metrics, right?

Four reasons of causation, only being one of them, the othethe other being,tation, an example.

Right?

you give a long sentence to, from committing the same crime.

Like they have these metrics.

Well, in Connecticut, one of the metrics that exists in the prison system.

Our prison systems are literally structured by law as, detainment centers.

-So th-Yeah.really only about warehousing people.

-And so -Yeah.ou start from there, right?

When youthe back end.shrinking you have to remove the influx.

The influx has to also shrink.

the smallest part of the influx.

Some people right?t of prison, Like when you get through brain development, when you're fully formed, when you can thbetter.ough things just age out of prison.

simply don't go back to prison, on a regular basis.

So, there arright?ain factors, And I'm bringing these up because, I did 20 years, who have done a lot of time.

Andand I spent, you know,les in the school system, pre Wesleyan program a bunch of students, students who formed a program.

They were just coming in running college prep classes.

five years in the program.

AnI would see the womene, come out of the York program, the developmental issue, the prison won't address become the biggest hindrances.

And I think that these college programs have an opportunity of development into a system that won't take into account, in a redemptive narrative.

let me give an example.

We were just in, a prison voter registration to their [inaudible] population, their jail population.

we can bring pens in, our registration forms.

We get to the prison, they say, no pens.

in the block to bring pens down.

So we have 40 guys coming down the block with no pen.

The CO who runs the block and in prison, the CO is the authority.

I donis, who's in charge,date a block runs according to how that CO deems to run thefor not bringing pens out.hem Anno one told them.l, And they're like, well, that's not good enough.

Theyfor the world.eady They're not fit for the world.

She was comparing their ability to live, to them to bringing a pen down.

So when you're caught in a place thazero sum,verything everything zero sum, it's psychologically wears down on you.

And so when prison creates, so when college takes anything they don't give you room, with being unprepared in things, as a part of life, right?

But like when most college kids they're not prepared.

I thought I was prepared.

I didn't understand this much freedom or responsibility.

a rough first semester.

No one throws them away.

We get caught in those narratives in the prison system, we get caught in those narratives in college in prison, is still a prison.

So when I'm outside of that environment, I'm playing basketball and somebody gets frustrated and punches me, where I go to say, they kick out of the program, zero sum, and then I bear that, it's like, oh, he should've known better because, well, I can't control other people.

holding the responsibility and I've lost the program.

that the program was that, it's that its in prison.

Anin a punitive manor.e What the program's responsibility for, since I was in the program, and I'm actually, appreciative of, nah, I had a chance to help form some other programs, like the Yale program should be an incubator, right?

Like when you think about, like, incubators on eggs, if there's not a mother hen to sit and nurture these eggs, you can put them in this heated incubator and bring them to, what's already inside, out.

Right?

And that's like the best because you allow development, youto actually fully developple into themselves and not just say that they've amassed credits or a degree.

I didn't get a degree.

I took, you know, I took an insane amount of classes andof literature classesunt becawas everything.ative when I transferred to Trinity, half my credits, you can't take all these credit, all these lit credits with you.

And Ibecause that's that for my development at time.

I dida bunch of, take I didn't transcript.-rounded, into this thing to work on me.

if any, you use to encourage people toyou know, say,at least, hey, give it a shot.

You mefellow men who,round, to join you in that program.

that you just kind of, you didn't do any encouragement.

You justdecide, oh,t people I'm going to give this a shot.

Or were there any words of encouragement or wisdom that you share with them to give it a try?

to challenge themselves, you know, like, don't run from a challenge.

I never made it zero sum.

-Like this is going... -But would folks ask you, like ask you what it's like?

That were curious about it.

Peoplwhat it's like.o know But, prieverything'sce where to your freedom, right?

how this going to help you?

What are you going to do with this when you get out?

And I'm like, I don't know.

But it's challenging me and I need to be challenged.

But there must have been some people who saw the light.

That is, once you recognize it.

I don't know if it, was it that you recognize that this was going to be about development as opposed to education?

But once you did see that light.

I think now I can tell like in 2020, I can look back and say Ito develop.

the means I realto be vulnerable.

means And I guess that's the correlation.

Like, I didn't recognize.

I knew that prison isn't a place of vulnerability, but I have found this space -wher-Right.n argue just an argument.

Right?

And I'm talking about not like a, like a heated debate, extremely heated debates happening in this space.

And we left, we were okay.

We didn't, it wasn't zero sum.

It didn't lead to anything more.

It we were engaging it.od Men cried in that classroom when they had revelation.

-You can-So you.

the block.

and so you were still there at a point where you saw how it was, in some ways, as much as your mind to do that.

that to fellow, do people class to basically tell them this isn't just for what you're going to do on the outside.

This can help you in the here and now.

Andif you were ableing towhat you're saying to me,e, essentially, that it's about, capturing something from within.

Yeah.

I think the the two messages that I would tell people is that you know, examine what college is and how does it operate, and what do you want from that.

Don't think about prison, right?

College is a place of learning and a place of networking.

So if you want those two things, then take the classes, like that's it.

Like, don'tbecauseabout prison you'll get caught in something in your mind to really develop into this.

But if you want to learn and you want to create a newtake the classes.self, James JeterCoalition,ll Citizens I admire the work you're doing and the way you're able to educate our viewers and me on the subject based on your experience.

Thank you so much for your insight today, James.

Thank you for having me.

I appreciate you.

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