The Hustler Files Ep 51

EVEN BEHIND THE WALL, EDUCATION WITH AN ENTREPRENEURIAL MINDSET

Venturing Out is the antithesis of what most women behind the wall at MCI Framingham (Massachusetts) will ever be granted.  Yet for Beth Goldstein and Elizabeth Swanson their in-prison initiative, Venturing Out, offers so much more than the literal description of their program.  For Beth and Elizabeth, whose day job is as educators at Babson College, to go behind the wall to empower and educate the incarcerated female population with an entrepreneurial mindset in humanities and leadership is a way to have local and personal impact on these women’s lives.

The Hustler Files Ep 50

PAROLE, FACT VS. FICTION

For most adults in the U.S. their only exposure to the criminal justice proceeding, known as parole, is what they see on film.  But the actual details behind parole hearings, those who qualify, and the process for those incarcerated to receive their freedom is not for the faint of heart.  As Attorney Ryan Schiff says, “In a parole hearing, we as attorney’s must take a back seat and no longer be the Director of the proceeding, like we are with our clients, pre-incarceration”.   Another fact, the knowledge of a parole hearing, for an incarcerated individual can be many years away.  As Attorney Melissa Celli states, “You can walk into any prison in the United States and ask an incarcerated individual the date of their parole hearing, no matter how far in the future, and they will know it.”   Join Melissa and Ryan as they open a door to the true facts behind parole.

The Hustler Files Ep 49

IN JANUARY 2024 PRISON REFORM TAKES ONE STEP FORWARD AND ONE STEP BACK

In January 2024, the criminal justice system progressed for many in Massachusetts and digressed for those on death row in Alabama.  In Massachusetts, Attorney Ryan Schiff and others ligated a landmark decision where it is now unconstitutional to sentence any adult, under the age of 21, to life without parole. This new law, in Massachusetts, currently affects 200 incarcerated individuals. The door is now open for them to apply for parole and show that they’ve rehabilitated.  This reversal of the current law is based on the advancements in scientific research that the brains of emerging adults, up to age 21, are not yet fully developed. Only one other state, Louisiana, still has a life without parole sentencing for those under the age of 21, for first degree murder.   Within 2 weeks of this landmark decision, the State of Alabama executed 58-year-old Kenneth Smith, for murder, with the use of Nitrogen Gas.  As David Hoose, a long time Criminal Defense Attorney notes, ‘there is never a good way to kill someone, and right now Nitrogen Gas is the flavor of the month”. So, as we know, once again, how you live or die depends on where you serve your time. 

 

The Hustler Files Ep 48

EMPLOYERS ARE RE-SHAPING BOTH HOW THEY HIRE AND HOW THEY MANAGE FOR AN A-HA MOMENT

 With 10 million job roles open, employers today not only need to broaden their search parameters, but they need to retain the employees they hire.  Across the U.S. there are organizations popping up to assist employers by re-imagining how they hire and teaching them how to combat the biases that political unrest, structural racism, and increased mental health conditions have levied on the workforce.  To the rescue in Chicago is the Chicago Resiliency Network, an initiative of the Corporate Coalition of Chicago.  Heralding their charge to help employers, across their region, create workplaces that are better for employees and better for business, is Program Director, Marcos Gonzalez.  Marcos and his team lead the employer cohorts through training and simulations that address the hiring of justice involved individuals and explore the root causes of trauma and toxic stress.  The outcome, new knowledge, better training, and stronger resiliency practices that best suit their business. 

The Hustler Files Ep 47

NEARLY 1 IN 3 U.S. ADULTS IS CUT OUT OF THE LABOR MARKET, BUT HELP IS COMING

 The murder of George Floyd was a catalyst for an onslaught of positive change in so many areas of our society, and no more so than in Chicago where business leaders came together to address the economic and racial inequities across all the neighborhoods in the Chicago region.  Out of that confab came the Corporate Coalition of Chicago with more than 40 members of the Chicago business community, 23 anchor partners and 5 initiatives to reduce long-standing and continuing inequities and create a thriving economy throughout Chicago.  One of these initiatives is centered in Fair Chance Hiring and addressing the talent shortage and the population that faces severe limitations to gaining employment because of a criminal record. This model is being adopted across the U.S. but can it grow fast enough to save our businesses who can’t find employees.

The Hustler Files Ep 46

MEDICAL & LEGAL PARTNERSHIPS ARE BREAKING NEW GROUND

In Episode 45, Attorney Ada Lin of Prisoners’ Legal Services in Boston, Massachusetts discussed the need for the pending House and Senate Bill that would allow for a more compassionate release of those incarcerated individuals who were terminally ill or permanently incapacitated and facing an end-of-life situation.  In this episode, Ada Lin returns with Dr. Alice Bukhman, an Emergency Department Medical Director, and Head of Medical Partnerships for Prisoners’ Legal Services to discuss the medical parole need in more detail.   Ada and Alice offer a voice for those in need of medical parole, and work with teams of hospital caretakers to improve management of agitated patients, and reduce bias, especially where it concerns a shackling of a patient who is already incapacitated.

The Hustler Files Ep 45

MEDICAL PAROLE, WHERE WOULD YOU STAND?

The Medical Parole House and Senate Bill, in Massachusetts, is described as the following: To ensure that the medical parole works as the Legislature originally intended by providing a measure of public decency toward incarcerated people who are terminally ill or permanently incapacitated while ensuring public safety. This Massachusetts House Bill was written by local Massachusetts House Representative Mindy Domb with the support of Prisoners Legal Services, an organization that considers itself a champion that ‘carries the water’ for current and formerly incarcerated individuals, despite the lawyer ratio of over 3,000 to one.  This episode’s conversation may be centered on the State of Massachusetts, but the conversation of Medical Parole is one that is played out, State by State, across the U.S.  The key words to finding success for this bill, human decency, and public safety.  Where would you stand?

The Hustler Files Ep 44

THERE IS ALWAYS A BETTER PATH IF YOU LOOK FOR IT

 While Stephanie and Corey have vastly different backgrounds and stories, the common thread for both is not only their association with the AISS program at the Hampden County Sheriff’s Office, but their passion to use their past to help change other’s futures.  The paths they chose to lead after overcoming lifestyles that ran the gamut from false accusations and wrongful arrests to domestic violence will not only inspire but hopefully activate change for those who may be looking for their better path as they unlock their past and rewrite their future.

The Hustler Files Ep 43

THE FEAR OF TOO MUCH JUSTICE

When a legendary lawyer and a legal scholar reveal the structural failures that undermine justice in our criminal courts, the result is an absolute MUST READ aptly named The Fear of Too Much Justice.  While this is not the first book for authors Stephen Bright and James Kwak, it is their first collaboration that offers a heart-wrenching overview of how the criminal legal system fails to live up to the values of equality and justice.  “- their goals are to protect the poor and innocent, expose the truth behind capital punishment and wrongful convictions, and call out corrupt prosecutors and incompetent judges, along with any other bad actors who have ruined our system”. – John Grisham

The Hustler Files Ep 42

REPRESENTATIVE LINDSAY SABADOSA, A VOICE FOR THOSE WHO HAVE NONE
 
Massachusetts House Representative Lindsay Sabadosa’ s path to politics probably started at the age of nine, when she held a protest march over the closing of her beloved town library.  Yet it took a few more decades of working in the private sector before she launched her political career.  While Representative Sabadosa takes up the flaming sword in a variety of arenas, she has a deep passion for criminal justice and prison reform, and in this episode speaks passionately about the House Bills she has launched, from changing the parole system for incarcerated elders to implementing an Act that will track how bail must be set, commensurate with a defendant’s economic means.