Empathy Behind Bars with Megan McDrew

Walking into a prison for the first time changes your body before it changes your mind. Gates, rules, metal detectors, and then something you don’t expect: a room full of people trying to practice honesty, calm, and respect. I’m joined by Megan McDrew, founder of Empathy in Action at the Transformative Justice Center, to explain how her volunteer-based prison program brings civilians together with incarcerated men and women to build the one tool trauma most desperately needs: a meaningful relationship.

We talk about trauma-informed rehabilitation through the lens of ACE scores, fight-or-flight stress, addiction, and the growing recognition of post-traumatic prison syndrome. Megan shares why “choice” can get sticky when your nervous system has been shaped by early harm, and why prisons can be both traumatized and traumatizing environments. Then she walks me through what a real night inside the program looks like: breathwork for nervous system regulation, intention setting around virtues like forgiveness and accountability, circle “families” using a talking piece for deep listening, and a closing ritual that helps people leave the room lighter than they entered.

We also get practical about outcomes and scale. Megan breaks down retention, why volunteers keep coming back, how incarcerated facilitators are selected, and what reentry support looks like when the community stays present after release. You’ll hear about the Going Inside documentary and the Time Together YouTube series, plus her vision to expand this restorative justice model to more prisons across the U.S. and even abroad.

If you care about criminal justice reform, empathy training, prison rehabilitation, and reducing recidivism through real human connection, hit play. Subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review. What would it take for your community to show up this close?

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Welcome And Guest Return

SPEAKER_00 0:12

Well, hello, and welcome to the Healthy Living Podcast. I'm your host, Joe Grumbine, and today we have back with us a very special guest. Her name is Megan McDrew. And Megan, you were here last August, I believe, and we were talking about your program, Empathy. Shoot, I'm sorry, my notes. Empathy in action. And that's your prison program where you bring in college students basically, and you work with the inmates. And why don't you kind of bring us back up to speed with your program that's going on in there?

SPEAKER_02 0:51

All right. Thank you, Joe. Thanks for having me again. It's such an honor.

SPEAKER_01 0:55

To all your listeners.

SPEAKER_02 0:57

So I the program I created is called Empathy in Action. And that is a program where I bring people into prison. It used to be back about four years ago, college students, as you said, just college students, university students, where I was teaching at UC Santa Cruz.

SPEAKER_01 1:14

Right.

SPEAKER_02 1:15

And I decided when I saw the impact on the students, and they started asking if they could bring in their friends and family, non-UC Santa Cruz people, I decided to open it up to the public. Also, when we got quite a bit more media attention just locally in Santa Cruz. Nice. Now uh what started with 10 or 15 students. Last week I brought in 42 people.

SPEAKER_00 1:39

Wow.

Program Growth Across California Prisons

SPEAKER_02 1:41

We go, we have been going exclusively to what's called the correctional training facility of Soledad. It's often called just Soledad Prison or CTF. It's uh now a level two, level three prison in the central coast of California. And the program there is Monday nights, four to six. I bring in, like I said, on average, now it's about 30 to 45 people at a time. And we meet with around 70 incarcerated men, and it's an eight-week cohort. So the volunteers nor the incarcerated participants change over the course of those two months. Just recently, actually two weeks ago on March 7th, 2026, we started CCWF, which is Central California Women's Facility. It's the largest, second largest women's prison in the nation. And we are now offering empathy and action there every other Saturday. Wow. Also year-round with short breaks in between. We've been invited into Salinas Valley Prison. Sorry, just real quick, we've been invited into Salinas Valley Prison, which is a level four, same as CCWF, that's the highest level of security. And we should start at Salinas Valley, hopefully, in the next month or so. It's just a little bit extra paperwork being a higher level security. And where is that one? That one happens to be on the same land as CTF, just set farther back. So they're they're really on the same exact property. CTF is one of the older prisons in California, it's built in the mid-1940s. And Salinas Valley Prison was just built in 2008. Oh and according to the incarcerated people who have been at both prisons, they say CTF is much is much better built.

SPEAKER_00 3:34

Oh, really?

SPEAKER_02 3:35

Yes, it's it's the older methods, less rushed. I think Jay just cut a lot of corners at Salinas Valley being in a newer prison, probably on less budget and less less care. There's so roofs leak really bad, and there's a lot of mold and issues like that. But but yeah, so there's the two prisons on the same property. We just the one that's closer to the freeway that you can see from the road is Soledad Prison. It's a level two, and then Salinas Valley is a little bit more hidden, set farther back, is the level four.

SPEAKER_00 4:08

Wow. And you were saying that in your program, the same volunteers and the same inmates are there for the whole program?

SPEAKER_02 4:17

Yeah, yes. So once people sign up and fill out the paperwork, I do the late work of getting them cleared, the security clearance. They are they are committing to the entire journey, whether that be the eight-week program or at CCWF, it happens to be four weeks, but every Saturday we're in there about eight hours. So it equates to the same amount of time. And yeah, so they sign up, they're with us the whole time, the men are with us the whole time, and that that really contributes to the depth that we're looking to achieve and the relationships we're trying to build through the course of the program.

Trauma, ACE Scores, And Prison Life

SPEAKER_00 4:55

Yeah, it's it's wild. Um Jay Wells, one of the inmates that actually the one who is our common thread. I've been working with him on a on a series that we're doing on the podcast, and he's been talking about you know the the trauma and and how virtually everybody that's incarcerated that's in the program with him has gone through some sort of childhood trauma. Yeah. One of the key tools that is so useful and helpful in overcoming the trauma is a meaningful relationship, a healthy relationship. And they're not easy to come by in a prison, but it seems like what you're putting together with a program that keeps the same people together at least creates a place for that to happen.

SPEAKER_02 5:56

Yes. And uh statistically, we see that people in prison have at least an average ACE score of the adverse childhood experience test that is often given. It's a 10-question assessment. At least six or over. And so it's very rare, if if not completely unfamiliar to me, to see someone in prison that hasn't experienced some kind of trauma before being imprisoned. And a relatively common quote, I think it's by Gabor Mate, who wrote The Myth of Normal and the In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts about addiction, he says the most traumatized environment in the world, the most traumatized and traumatizing environment in the world is prisons. Right. So not only do you find just uh just an ubiquitous amount of people that are have experienced trauma, but the the the environment itself is really conducive to being even more traumatized. So I've actually just saw on on social media the other day that an organization is starting to train people, providers like myself, in what they call post-traumatic prison syndrome. So to work with incarcerated, formally incarcerated people when they're being released with the trauma of imprisonment. And they call that P PTPD.

unknown 7:25

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 7:25

Post-traumatic prison syndrome. Uh-huh. Yeah, so it's a thing. And even before I heard that, I had interviewed a female, formally incarcerated female. Her name's Anastasia Schmidt. She's a pretty incredible woman, was incarcerated 18 years, and and now is getting her PhD at UC Riverside.

SPEAKER_00 7:44

Wow, good for her.

SPEAKER_02 7:46

Yeah, and this was probably 10 years ago. I talked to her. I met her at a conference, and then I had her present at in my UC Santa Cruz classes quite a bit via Zoom. And she was doing a dissertation on this term that she coined, post-traumatic prison syndrome. And she had said at the time that she came up with it. So I don't know if that's true, but now I'm seeing it actually being offered as a training. So it's I'm glad to see it's grown in and recognition that it's a real thing. I mean, she says there's something about prison you will never ever fully shake once you're out.

SPEAKER_00 8:19

Oh, it's just like going to war. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:21

There's no Yeah, there's no forgetting it, there's no leaving it fully behind. But if you can process it and just let it be part of who you are and not necessarily dictate your choices or how you show up in a negative way, then you've managed to that's key right there, is is how it's affecting you.

When Choice Gets Hijacked

SPEAKER_00 8:41

And yeah, you know, I I we go through life and we all have struggles and traumas and and challenges and whatever, you know, that is really kind of the nature of life, and some worse than others, but at the end of the day, we end up with choices, or hopefully we figure out that there are choices, and and and we ultimately decide how we're going to use them. But when you're going through a manager trauma and you haven't figured it out, a lot of times you're making these decisions and not realizing it and not always making the best choices.

SPEAKER_02 9:21

Yeah, that's when the word choice gets to be pretty, pretty sticky because it just sometimes I don't think people move through life and even knowing they have a choice because they're so it's like they're wearing goggles that are so fogged up from their early childhood experiences or addictions or whatever it might be that have really tainted the way we see the world. That that choices, it doesn't feel like choices, it becomes these impulsive decisions that are that are very narrowly thought out. Um, and and most of us don't even think about consequences.

Retention, Readiness, And Zero Recidivism

SPEAKER_00 9:57

Exactly. And I I you know, in the conversations I've had with Juan, he was talking about, you know, the when you go through trauma and you don't deal with it, you live in kind of an easily accessed fight or flight. You know, your lizard brain comes out real easily. And when you are faced with some kind of a challenge that for most of us is a choice, we say, Oh, there's a problem up ahead, what am I gonna do? You know, you you're working with your front brain and thinking, you know, maybe I'll talk to this guy or maybe I'll avoid it. But when you're going through trauma and you haven't dealt with it, usually you you run or you jump into a into the fray, and neither one of those are generally the better uh the better answer, and they're certainly stressful, and they keep packing on, you know, the stress and the trauma. So when you have these people come in, you know, you've got uh say an eight-week program, and you got the volunteers that are set up, and you have the inmates that are set up. What is the retention rate generally of both sides?

SPEAKER_02 11:58

My retention rate's amazing with the volunteers. I it's it's around 95%. I I might be missing a a couple every week, but nobody ever really drops out. I've never in all my years doing this, now this is my fifth year. I've never had anyone drop out. I've never had anyone say, I hate this, this isn't working for me. It's just not what I've been not not what I'm willing to do. That's never happened, which is kind of incredible.

SPEAKER_00 12:26

Love it. Wow, that's huge.

SPEAKER_02 12:28

It is huge. And then as far as the incarcerated men go, uh that's a little bit larger of a rate of not showing up. And I'd say it's usually about it's usually about 10 to 15 percent. And it's it's every session. I have 75 guys show up, I'm almost always gonna have 65 or 75 guys on the roster, 65 will show up. If I have 50 guys on the roster, 40 will show up. I'm usually down about 10, and that has boiled down to them having conflicts with work, right? School.

SPEAKER_00 13:01

A lot of reasons why you can't show up.

SPEAKER_02 13:03

A lot of reasons, or they've been transferred, maybe there's a disciplinary infraction, and and and maybe it's just not working for them, or they're not ready for it, because this model of bringing in so many people from the public, the university students and the community members that really do range in age from probably 14 years old to 80. Wow. Some of the guys are so scared and so intimidated that that they just they're they're almost frozen by their fear and by their anxiety about meeting civilians and being, you know, sharing their stories and and bearing their pain and their vulnerabilities. And but that is so rare because at least at CT at Soledad, there's a they they say one of their claims to fame is they have more rehabilitation programs than even Sam Quentin that has changed their model. And so the guys, the guys that have come into the program have seen have have seemed very ready, and they've already been doing what we, you know, they've already been programming for a number of years. What we're talking about might not be entirely new to them because there's only so many topics you can cover, but we talk about family and childhood and relationships and understanding anger and violence and trauma, of course. We we get into societal inequities, race, gender, social class, uh, sexuality a little bit. And then we get into shame and grief and loss. Those topics aren't new in prison per se, but what's really new is, like I said, this model of conversating about all that with civilians. It's never really been done. And there are models that we call it the inside out educational exchange, where there will be universities that have partnerships with prisons where they're both offering the same university course to the two populations. And then every once in a while they'll bring what they call the outside students in to meet with the inside students, and they'll have an academic dialogue around a shared book or or essay or whatever they're covering in the class. So that's that's being done, but that's there's little incentive there for both parties. There's units to be gained, there's a degree down the road, you know, that's what they've signed up for. Whereas this is completely volunteer, there's no there's no financial reward, there's there's no, this isn't a class. People are going in because they know they're giving a lot and they're really gaining even more. And so that's why I think it's grown so much. And what's related to your question about retention, uh what else is a great metric for me to see the success of this program is how many volunteers continue to sign up.

SPEAKER_01 16:06

Yeah.

A Night Inside The Circle

SPEAKER_02 16:07

I have volunteers that have been with me since the inception, you know, the last four years. They never miss a session. That's probably about 25%. And then repeat volunteers, I call them like, you know, repeat offenders. Um they I usually have around 80% sign up again and again and again and again. So I I really do love that. And we're building this family inside. Um, we call the groups, the circles we sit in to discuss, we call them families. You know, are you in family one, family two, so on? And they truly become like that, especially when we do keep coming back, you know, session after session after session. We we know these men relatively intimately, you know, in the safest way possible. The the prison really does they do forebode over familiarity if you know familiar the term the lot that that can destroy a program if people are sharing too much. But that boils down to personal information like one's address and phone number and things like that. Having having familiar conversations and opening up to each other in intimate ways that are safe and vulnerable and supportive is a whole different story, and they do encourage that. So that's what we do, and it's really led to just some incredible transformations on both sides of the wall. And I've supported 45 men on the way out now that have been in Empathy in Action that are returning citizens, and 0% have gone back. So I I also use that as a success rate for the incarcerated participants. And on top of that, a number of them keep coming back to prison with me to continue the work. Yeah, it's it's it's amazing.

SPEAKER_00 18:08

And I when you when the when they get together, I'm trying to get my head around the actual program. It lasts for a couple of hours. They go in, and you know, there's a whole process to get into a prison, and you got to go through all that, whatever that is, and then you get into the room, whatever, and and the the inmates get get brought in, or they're already there waiting. And then is it is it uh like a a student teacher type of a of a setup, or is there one person that kind of leads it or is is how how does it actually run?

SPEAKER_02 18:52

Yeah, let me work with let me walk you through it. So I I call these like roots of the program. So no matter if we're in a different prison or jail, or women's or men's, it's always going to be the same. So a few of the things that stay the same, most of the things that stay the same, as the volunteers all meet in in the in the lobby, we call it of the prison where there's a sign-in process, everybody shows their ID. The bags are searched, people go through a metal detector if that's available. And then we, you know, 40 people is a lot to bring into prison, so it takes a little time. Right to sign in and get searched and whatnot. So after that process is over, we go through various gates and we get into the facility. We find our way into wherever the program is being held with a larger group. It's almost always the gym or the visiting room in the prison. Volunteer, the chairs will be set up. Chairs are always set up, and I call it a lecture style format. So Matt, I I like I like to liken this program to a classroom, a higher education setting. So we have first the lecture style format where the instructor, who is almost always myself, is standing in the front and everybody is facing me. We encourage the incarcerated residents to be to be seated with the volunteers. So we we're not trying to segregate the two groups, you know, men over here and volunteers here. So people come in, they sit wherever they want. And it's worth mentioning because it's not commonly done. You know, when I first started the people overseeing the program in these respective rooms said you're letting them sit together. And it's like, yeah, yeah, that's that's what we're trying to embrace normality as much as possible. And so that's part of it, is just people sit wherever they want, and we're not having, we're not seeing them as them over there and us here, and we're all as one. So that's an important aspect. People start making small talk, which is also great just to make conversation about anything. So it's not this structured, very emotional talk, it could just be about the day. And once I get started, oh, we calm the room down, we do breath work for about five minutes. So it's a big part of the program, is just regulating our nervous system. And I'm I'm teaching this really as tools to be used outside the program. So when people do feel stressed or triggered or just anxiety or whatever it may be, I teach about eight different types of breath work that they can then use in the future. We do that for about five minutes. We always finish with what a call and response. So I will say, What time is it? Everybody bellows out now. I ask, where are we? People say here, and I ask, why are we here? And they respond to love, to be loved, and be all that we can be. So we finish, we try to make an intention around a virtue. Like I create virtues each week that we we practice, usually with a homework assignment. It could be love, forgiveness, accountability, kindness, worth, healing, truth, so on. We make an intention around that. I'll talk about the subject matter for the night, as I already talked about, could be trauma, gender, masculinity, social inequities, conflict, that kind of thing. And then we get into the families. So the families are group discussion circles. Uh, there's usually because we have large groups, maybe 10 families or so, we have about two to four volunteers with six to eight incarcerated participants. Okay. The ratio that I like. We use a talking piece. It's stress heart. And people like people like that, right? It gives them an opportunity to really feel like they have the floor, they're being listened to, no interruptions, no. You know, giving advice at, you know, right in the middle of someone sharing, no crosstalk. We just really focus on the person sharing. We listen actively, and then we pass the talking piece. So that really regulates the space and the time. There is a lead incarcerated facilitator. So that per per family. So that that man has done a lot of work to be in that role. There's a nomination process, and you know, there's almost 3,000 men on the yard we're on, and there's a giant wait list for the program all the time. And there's a longer wait list of men who really want to facilitate. So we have an essay writing process, and then we elect them. Wow. And they take that really seriously and they do such a beautiful job. They hold the space, they use their confidence and courage to interrupt when they need to and say, you know what, let's let someone else share for a minute. That's hard to do sometimes. And and they they make sure it's a safe space of confidentiality and and and attentive listening and you know, truthful sharing. So we do that for about an hour and a half. So a lot of conversation going around and around and around. And then we finish back into that lecture style of seating where we do what we call sparks from the fire. People share voluntarily, three to four people will come up and share something particularly transformative, insightful, memorable that they heard. And then we finish, we try to shake it off. You know, so we're leaving the space, not just with this weight of everything we've we've heard and held and shared. We finish with final affirmations and then the one of the most beautiful parts is I have the volunteers line up uh on the way out the door, and the incarcerated residents will shake our hand. And that takes so that also takes a while when you have 40 volunteers and 80 guys.

SPEAKER_01 25:04

Right.

SPEAKER_02 25:04

They're all wanting, they're just so especially with the ones that have been there for years, there's it's just so much laughter and gratitude and crying. It's just a beautiful way to to close the sit kind of the ceremony we've been in together.

SPEAKER_01 25:21

Yeah.

The Documentary And Mini Series

SPEAKER_02 25:22

And that's what it looks like every week. Until our final week, we do a performance night where there's a talent show. I bring in lots of food and fruit, pizza and fruit and cookies, and we just celebrate and share our talents and again laugh and cry and just feel all the good things. Actually, your your contact won. We'll be filming it this Monday.

SPEAKER_00 25:48

Nice. Wow. Speaking of filming, I hear you had a movie, a little uh documentary, or tell me about what's what happened with that.

SPEAKER_02 26:00

So last last fall, a filmmaking company from Petaluma, California filmed filmed for two months inside the prison, the whole program.

SPEAKER_01 26:10

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 26:10

They had a film permit through the California Film Commission and got approval through CDCR. They're called Humans Being Media. It's a husband and wife team, Aliyah and Vince Beaton. I'm calling them out. Um and they did a beautiful job documentarying documenting what we do in there from the car ride following. They sat in the car with volunteers on the ride in, especially the first timers that never been in prison before.

SPEAKER_01 26:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:40

And they uh they stayed till the bitter end, the final performance night.

SPEAKER_01 26:43

Nice.

SPEAKER_02 26:44

And they put together a 37-minute documentary. It's called Going Inside.

SPEAKER_01 26:48

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 26:49

Double meaning there.

SPEAKER_01 26:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:51

Double meaning. But we have the the film now on Vimeo. It has a password. If your listeners would like to see it, they are welcome to email me and I can send them the link and the password. We do film screenings regul relatively regularly in Monterey, and we're having one in Santa Cruz on March 29th. Nice at the Center for Nonviolence. So that's our first showing outside of Monterey County. We did bring the film to Texas. We showed it in Austin, Texas at the at the Texas Film Festival.

SPEAKER_00 27:24

Nice.

SPEAKER_02 27:25

And it won it did win Best Documentary, so that was exciting.

SPEAKER_00 27:28

Wow. Fantastic.

SPEAKER_02 27:30

And then the same filmmakers created a YouTube series. There are eight mini documentaries. They range from three to seven minutes. It's called Time Together.

SPEAKER_00 27:42

Nice.

SPEAKER_02 27:45

It's very good, right? So and you can read those names so many different ways. But the Time Together series is on YouTube. It's under the Transformative Justice Center. So those are open to the public anytime. And they some of them are excerpts from the film. So you will get a peek at what it's like. But that series just won third place in what they call the Weeblies Anthem Awards. They're the YouTube anth YouTube awards for series. There was over 2,000 entries from 42 different countries. So we won third place.

SPEAKER_01 28:20

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 28:21

Yeah, the filmmakers were so excited. They guess it's a it's a bigger deal than I know about. And they they went all the way to New York for the award.

SPEAKER_01 28:29

Wow.

Ceremony, Boundaries, And Support After Release

SPEAKER_02 28:30

Yeah, so those that's available anytime. It's just under Transformative Justice Center on YouTube.

SPEAKER_00 28:36

Oh, fantastic. I I have a lot more questions, but we don't have time for a lot more questions. But I I'm just enthralled with this program. I think you've done a an amazing job, you know. It combines a lot of useful tools. You know, I do a lot of work with indigenous medicine people, and we do ceremonies. And you you you mentioned, you know, it was sort of a ceremony, the way you set it up. And there's something about that that works with the human psyche in a very powerful way. And things like how you set things up and and and the way that you communicate and the things the the order of doing things, and then even the the ritual of of the handshaking as you leave, going into it, doing it, and then leaving it and and and going out of it, those are things that not everybody thinks about. And I know that the value of these ceremonies that I participate in, you know, just out here in our garden, it's so healing for so many people on so many levels, whether there's medicine or not, it's just being together and and and in this type of a setting, sharing yourself, being vulnerable, being the same.

SPEAKER_02 30:04

You know, I say when we do the breath work that we are purposefully coming into this space with intentionality and our full consciousness so we can receive the medicine that we bring to this program and that we bring to each other and that we bring to ourselves. So it it is very medicinal in a different way. And and it and I do craft it like a ceremony where there's a very intentional opening and closing, and then all the good stuff happens in between.

SPEAKER_00 30:33

I love it. I love it. I I suspect there's a propensity for some of these volunteers to get attached to some of the inmates. Do they communicate outside of this in any way? Or is there a lot of it?

SPEAKER_02 30:48

They're not really supposed to too much without permission, so not not as far as I know. Uh there's the things that can happen without my knowledge, but uh there where I see the most communication happening is when these these men have gotten out and the volunteers continue to show up for them. So it's not just about supporting them in incarceration. I see the volunteers without me knowing, which is pretty awesome, giving them a call or writing them on Facebook that you want to take them hiking or out for coffee or a couple just bought a guy that just got out a yoga mat, you know, and they they do this without me knowing. So I I love that they take the initiative to continue to support. And I think that contributes a lot to the 0% recidivism we've seen of release participants. It's not only me supporting them. You know, I tried that for a long time, and I can only do so much as one person, and I decided I have to, I have to have other people be part of this to see what I'm seeing, to experience what I'm experiencing, and and to help hold that weight and to help bring in the light and to provide the support that they need. You know, one person's just not enough when you're dealing with this mass incarceration and all the trauma and all the pain and all the sadness you find in there. The uh and and and the volunteers I bring in are just so magical and so magnetic and so full of energy and promise that uh it's exciting and and you see the men's face just and a woman now, they just light up.

Funding Needs And Community Backing

SPEAKER_00 32:28

Nice, you know, friends. Oh, yeah, I love it. I'm looking forward to seeing it. So I I I can't tell you how impressed I am with both you and your program.

SPEAKER_02 32:40

Thank you, Joe. I uh it's an honor to do it. You know, keeping it afloat financially is tough. We did we received a match from an incarcerated man, has offered me three thousand dollars if I can raise three thousand.

SPEAKER_00 32:53

Nice.

SPEAKER_02 32:54

So we do have a match going on if anyone's interested in supporting that. It's on our Facebook. Okay, we're on Facebook under Empathy in Action, not the Justice Center.

SPEAKER_00 33:04

So Empathy in Action on Facebook. Well, I couldn't, you know, aside from my own nonprofit, I couldn't think of a better use of donated funds. You know, this is an amazing, an amazing program doing great work. And I know how hard it is to get people to separate themselves from their dollars, but you know, when when you find the right people, it's it's happening. Your family idea is amazing. Megan, if you had you know, one thought you'd like to leave our listeners with today, what do you think that would be?

SPEAKER_02 33:39

Uh I think it would be uh to get close to people that you might not otherwise want to get close to, to understand things you might not otherwise think you need to understand. There is so much wisdom and power and beauty and getting uncomfortable and removing judgments and misconceptions and stereotypes that you might have that are really rooted in a lot of fear and perhaps even hate, and to put that aside and to find that there can be so much beyond those those assumptions and and to all of a sudden find this great place of inspiration and hope and beauty, there's just so much to be discovered there. And whether that population is the unhoused or people in recovery or people that are sick and dying or that are incarcerated, there's no shortage of people and causes in the world that need support, but you can't really do anything from afar. And I realized working with the incarcerated that we can do so much on the outside to help them through policies and laws and things like that. But I'm much more of wanna, I want to take things on head on and know you're making a difference in the moment. Going into prison and getting to know the incarcerated was was the way I was able to do that. And getting close to them has been the most meaningful, profound experience of my life and of every single volunteer's life that I have brought inside. I don't think one person has said it hasn't been the most impactful thing they've ever done. And that's just a big statement to be coming from over 700 people.

Scaling The Model Nationwide And Abroad

SPEAKER_00 35:39

I can see how they would say it. I I got one more question. I know we're totally over our line, but it doesn't matter. I I I can do what I want, it's my show. But but uh I I really you you're clearly a visionary in what you've created. You've done something other people haven't done, you've you've created something so wildly successful, I don't see a flaw in it at all. Um except for the flaw that's with everything, great, is what do you do? How far do you go? What do you how do you grow it? What's your vision? If you could have the funding you needed, what would you see happening here?

SPEAKER_02 36:21

I would love to see it growing in at least a few prisons in every state. And and for it to just to become a different model that we have in in our prison systems around the world where the public is invited in, and we are meant to get to know the incarcerated, and we all we all play a part in their healing because in some form or another, I think we all played a part in their destruction and their destructive ways.

SPEAKER_01 36:51

Right.

SPEAKER_02 36:52

And so I don't feel like the onus should just be on the government or the state or the city or the or the guards or the officials that are in those institutions. I think it's a community effort to bring about the healing of harm. And and I see the incarcerated population as part of our community as much as anybody else. We just don't get access to them as much. So this model of the where the public meets meets the prisoners should be a lot more uh should be it, it just just be the accepted model of how we do incarceration because it takes the weight off the administration and it actually works when you're going into a setting where they're not extremely violent offenders that would somehow create a riot or something. I've never seen that happen. You know, we're going into places where people are ready to meet with the outside world, and if they're not, they're not gonna stick around.

SPEAKER_01 37:50

Right.

SPEAKER_02 37:51

You know, we're hoping to go to Uganda, we're hoping to do an East African prison tour trip in July. Go to we're thinking of four different countries, four prisons per country.

SPEAKER_01 38:03

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 38:03

Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, and Kenya, um, with the prison fellowship international, and and they want to learn this model. So if I could get it into Africa, we can do it anywhere, right? So we'd love to see it just, you know, it's a it's a scalable model. I have a curriculum that is very easy to train people, and it makes sense at first to have partnerships with universities, bring in students because they're the most the most ready and open-minded, and a lot of their majors apply to what we're doing in the the program. And then open it up to the public and and you'll just see it become this widely popular thing that everybody's like, why haven't we done this before?

How To Watch, Donate, And Connect

SPEAKER_00 38:47

Right, exactly. Wow. Well, this has just been incredible. Time goes by so fast when we're doing some good work. Why don't you give everybody your contact information one more time and and maybe how they can reach you to get that password for the documentary?

SPEAKER_02 39:04

All right. So, so yeah, again, my name is Megan McDrew, and the organization is called the Transformative Justice Center. Website is Transformative Justice Center.org. And you can find a contact me page there. My email is there. It's it's long-winded to say. So just check out the website. Another easy one to remember is empathyprisonprogram.org. They'll take you to the same spot.

SPEAKER_01 39:32

Nice.

SPEAKER_02 39:33

And if you want to find us on Facebook, it's under Empathy in Action. And uh the YouTube channel is Transformative Justice Center. So please feel free to reach out if you would like to see the film as it is on Vimeo with a password for now. Otherwise, uh, another event we're having on April 11th is we're hoping uh we're hosting a welcome home party for uh Kane Velasquez.

SPEAKER_00 39:57

Oh, I just interviewed him.

SPEAKER_02 39:59

Just uh Yes, oh yes, you met him.

SPEAKER_00 40:02

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:03

So he's uh he's um we're hosting a fundraiser for this or my organization at the UFC gym in San Jose. He's going to be there from 10 to 2, signing autographs, taking pictures, talking about his life, his story, and we're we're doing that as a a donation-based fundraiser for the Justice Center. And he will be there.

SPEAKER_00 40:23

So I love it. Love it.

SPEAKER_02 40:26

It's all on the website too.

SPEAKER_00 40:28

Excellent. Well, Megan, thank you so much for joining us today. And we're gonna have to do this again. You you're you're covering so much ground. I feel like we we we barely scratched the surface of this conversation, and I'm just I love the work you're doing, and you know, I'm just beginning to do some work in there. We're getting ready to work on a garden program inside the prison and working with Juan in making that happen as well. So uh We shared that.

SPEAKER_02 40:56

That's amazing. I hope I hope it works out.

Closing Thanks And Sign Off

SPEAKER_00 40:59

I I think it will. We're we're I'll be connecting with the lady who ran the previous program soon and learning what she did and what how I can integrate into that. So just an absolute treat to have you here and just thanks.

SPEAKER_02 41:16

Thank you, Joe. We'll talk to you later. Have a great day.

SPEAKER_00 41:19

Excellent. Well, this has been another episode of the Healthy Living Podcast. I'm your host, Joe Grumbine. I want to thank our listeners who made the show possible, and we will see you next time.