Political Engagement from Within Prison Walls

Civic engagement is essential to a healthy democracy. The traditional form of civic engagement is voting -- a right enshrined in the U.S. Constitution, but taken away from most people once they become incarcerated. DC residents, however, have had that right restored, and cohosts Pam Bailey and Terrell "Tee" Peters interview two individuals behind bars about why they want to participate in the election -- or why not.

We also talk about other ways to be active citizens, beyond voting, and how a recent Bureau of Prisons restriction on the use of email is making it harder for those it confines to stay connected to their communities. 

Follow this podcast so you'll be informed when new episodes are uploaded (twice a month). Meanwhile, read more stories and learn how you can contribute to reform; visit MoreThanOurCrimes.

Transcript

PAM BAILEY: Hi, I am Pam Bailey. I'm host of Voices Unlocked, a podcast produced by More Than Our Crimes. And my co-host is Terrell “Tee” Peters, who was released from federal prison last year. 

Today's episode is a very timely one because we have a very hotly contested election coming up. Our topic is civic participation. Now to me, what that means is being involved, being an engaged resident of your community and your country, whatever the unit is, to the point that you care about its policies, you care about community life and you're engaged in it. One type of civic participation that we're going to talk about first is voting. And you may be wondering what does that have to do with prison, since we focus on federal prisons and bringing some of the voices out so you can hear them. Well, Washington DC just happens to be, along with Maine, Vermont and Puerto Rico, one of the few places in this country where people who are still incarcerated can vote. And the first interview you're going to hear is from council member Robert White, who introduced the Restore the Vote Act in DC. He explains in this video why he did and why it's important and why it's called Restore the Vote. 

ROBERT WHITE: I'm a lawyer, and so I know that there's nothing in the constitution barring incarcerated people from voting. So I said, let me go into the history to understand when, why and how the right to vote was taken away. And as soon as I started researching when each of the 48 states and the District of Columbia took away the right to vote, it was almost all surrounding passage of the 14th Amendment ending slavery and the constitutional amendment granting black men the right to vote. So, it was absolutely directly a racist history that we needed to unwind, which is why I called the bill Restore the Vote, because I wanted to remind people that it was a right that was taken away. As I really looked at the Constitution, I said to myself, most rights, you still carry with you into prison, constitutional rights, the right to marry, freedom of religion, freedom of speech. But the most fundamental right is, as Conrad says, a hallmark of democracy. The right to vote was taken away as sort of a privilege. The right to vote is not a privilege; it's foundational. It's a hallmark of democracy. 

TEE PETERS: Well, I remember when the DC Council passed the Restore the Vote Amendment Act of 2020. And in 2020 I was in Bennettsville, South Carolina, in a federal prison, and I was given the first opportunity that I ever had in my life to vote. Me coming from the environments and the households that I came from, where my family never talked about voting, people in the community never talked about voting. And just to have that opportunity to vote inside of prison, I felt compelled to participate in our democracy by voting. 

PAM: What about the reaction of other DC residents around you at the time? Were they all feeling the same way you did? 

TEE: Well, it was mixed feelings, because like myself, a lot of us lacked the education that we needed to “see” the candidates. Not at the presidential stage, but the local stage. And being inside a prison, you don't know what's going on inside of DC because when you’re in federal prison, you're sent all over the United States. So sometimes we are out of touch as to what is going on in DC. We don't know who's running, who's the best candidates, and we don't know exactly who to vote for. So basically, in 2020 I voted in the presidential campaign, and I just voted for the names on the ballot that I was familiar with. 

PAM: Well, yeah, so you said you immediately wanted to vote and you did vote, you were able to vote. And actually when you look at the statistics, it's still pretty small, the number of DC residents who are actually taking advantage of that restoration of their rights. So for instance, if you take the primary that we just had in June, 

TEE: When I voted again, my first time voting since I’ve been… 

PAM: Since you were free?

TEE: Since I was free. 

PAM: Only about 23% of DC residents in federal prison registered to vote, and only 8% actually voted in the primaries. Now, there's a couple of reasons why it's so low. One huge category is just the logistics. The Bureau of Prisons has not made it easy. It's getting better over time, but there's a lot of difficulties getting registration forms and ballots in. So, for instance, early on, the federal prisons were not treating ballots as legal mail. So there'd be a huge delay in getting the ballots to begin with. Lots of logistical challenges like that, which there's still a fair amount of. 

And then another category of problem is what you mentioned, a real lack of education about how our political system works, even like what the two parties stand for, what different offices actually are empowered to do. And then of course, as you know, yeah, people do know when it's a presidential election, they know those big names, but there's a whole bunch of other races that are on the ballot that mean nothing to them. And actually a big focus of More Than Our Crimes in conjunction with a lot of other organizations has been trying to educate people. But it's also motivation. It's not just education. That's the other big bucket of reasons why people don't vote. There are a lot of people who feel disenfranchised, like you said, they came from neighborhoods… 

TEE: One of the main factors that I noticed is that no one wanted to be associated with the Republican party or the Democratic party. So inside a prison, a lot of individuals sign up to be an independent. So being an independent in DC, you can't vote Democratic. So that's a hindrance. 

PAM: That's because in DC all the candidates are Democrats. So if you signed up as an independent, you would not get a ballot for the Democratic primary. So you're not even able to vote [for the candidates who “matter” if you didn't register [as a Democrat]. People don't know that. 

TEE: And that matters in the primary. 

PAM: But I'm talking about people who don't care to even do that. They didn't register. They don't want to vote. Their attitude is, no matter what, a politician is going to tell you what you want to hear during the campaign, but then they're going to do their own thing. And actually this first interviews sort of reflects what I hear from a lot of people who don't want to vote and don't care. His name is Delonte Williams, a DC resident who is currently incarcerated in California. And you'll hear him say why he thinks it just doesn't make a difference. 

DELONTE WILLIAMS: I mean, from what I've been seeing, it seems as though our votes aren’t mattering at all. So I don't believe it plays any role in any way, shape, form or fashion. How does this one person represent me? And that person has never lived in the type of lifestyle I've lived in, or the community that I've lived in. They can't represent me. I think once they got the power, the power is really what matters. Just to have the right to have the so-called say-so because it's also the same way in here, with inmates. Once people get a certain position of power, I believe that they just want to flex their authority and then they can do what they want to do. And I don't believe that that's right. And it's definitely not democracy 

TEE: Based on what Delonte just said, I've experienced a lot of those same sentiments inside of prison and, more so, outside of prison because people do feel like our leaders don't care about us. And, actually, in my eyes, they don't care about the people who don't vote for them, they care about their constituents. And if we're not out there voting and putting the people that we want in the seats that we want them to be in, they're not going to care. 

PAM: Well, and I actually relate to Delonte because, and we're going to talk later about how it's different at the local level. I would say at the national level, I have to admit to having a lot of the same feelings because our Congress has been so in gridlock, it seems to me, and I think it seems to a lot of people that it's all about party. And you'll notice that there are people in office who said one thing during a campaign, but when they're pressured to fall in line behind other party leaders or they realize that, wow, if I say this, I may be jeopardizing my chance to get reelected. And it's a real fine balance. They justify it by saying, “But if I say something that's now unpopular and I'm not elected, then how can I do my job for you?” But it's like you're selling your soul in little steps, little baby steps. 

So, I understand Delonte's feeling at the national level, to be honest, especially when you mentioned you came from a community… A lot of these communities were disenfranchised, very under-invested. And it is true. Most of these politicians, you only see at campaign time. In fact, actually what was interesting is even Robert White, in a part of his interview that you didn't see, he made the comment that one reason why he was encouraging people in prison, and then when they get out, to all come together, is because if you can say that I can deliver 10,000 votes to you, they're going to listen. But the point is, the point that makes, is that it's about power. I mean, people are not going to pay attention unless they think you have some kind of power. And people in prison and from really poor neighborhoods that haven't learned organizing, they don't have money to donate. They feel powerless. 

TEE: And that's one thing that I remember about Marion Barry, our mayor in DC. We didn't only see him at election time, we saw him all the time, and he was close to the people. I believe that he understood the power of the people. He understood that people had power, so he knew how to reach those people. And those people, us being his constituents, made sure that he was voted in whenever he needed to be voted in. 

PAM: That's one reason I say, and we're going to talk about this later though, that local elections are different, because national, it makes it very difficult in a country as huge as the US. So this is a real challenge. But I do believe, and I think a lot of people believe, that party politics has become stronger than constituents even because you're pressured to go along with whatever your party wants you to vote for. Now, in the next interview, we're going to hear from a man named Alexander Penn. He's not from DC, he's from Ohio, but he wishes that his state was like DC. He wants to vote. And what's interesting about Alex is that when I first got to know him, his nickname for himself was Alexander FedUp. It was like a movement. He wants to start a “fed-up movement.” 

TEE: He's fed up. 

PAM: Yeah, he's fed up. I dunno if you ever saw that old movie about, “I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore.” He's like that, except that the good thing about Alex is he's not fed up just to complain. He wants to make change, 

TEE: And that's a good thing, 

PAM: And he wants to use that anger and channel it into change. But in this first soundbite from him, he's going to reflect about why he thinks so many of his peers in prison wouldn't want to vote, even if it was offered to them. 

ALEXANDER PENN: I mean, that is a very real belief system. It's a belief that I have to some extent. But that's because not only inmates, but especially black men in this country, we have no real evidence that change comes about through voting. We had Barack Obama and everybody thought then that that was going to be the turning point for us in this country, and it wasn't. And [same with] every president in the past. So it kind of discourages us from taking our time to even participate in the voting process because we haven't reaped any benefit from it. 

TEE: In light of what he just said, why do you think that he still finds the need to, like want to vote? 

PAM: Well, and that's what he talks about next. I'll let him say in his own words, 

ALEX: I believe that my right to vote is almost like validation that I'm a US citizen. Without that, what am I? And the reason why I believe that being able to vote is important is because just having the option to have some semblance of control over the people, the leaders in my community, the leaders in my country is important to me. 

PAM: Well, the other thing I've really noticed is that those people in prison I talk to, the More Than Our Crimes network, are following the election, who either can vote or even if they can't, like Alex, they're following it. They're engaged, they're debating. And I've noticed…the one thing that we debate a lot about is the fact that a lot of people tend to be single-issue voters. And that's true out here too. There are so many issues to care about. But Alex, in the next bite, talks about the fact that obviously people in prison are looking at, well, who's most likely to pass a bill or support a change in policy that will get them out? So Alex talks about that. 

ALEX: I mean, for prisoners, our main goal is to get out. His main goal is his freedom. And that's part of the reason why a lot of black men are gravitating toward Donald Trump as president. And you hear a lot of that support for him because they actually believe that, “Oh, if Donald Trump get in, he’s going let everybody out of prison. He is a criminal. He should have some kind of sympathy for criminals.” 

TEE: Well, I believe that people gravitate toward a certain candidate because that candidate is implementing actions, actions that align with their needs, their needs being, a lot of people in prison want to be released from prison. And if you're going to implement laws that release people in prison, of course a person, a lot of people in prison are going to be like…They're going to gravitate toward that person, because that person is passing those laws. One of the campaigns that I'm doing right now [is for] civic engagement inside of jails. We're trying to get people in jails to be able to testify at DC council hearings, and that gives them the chance to learn more about the candidates and the laws that affect them the most. 

PAM: Given the fact that we just discussed how people are distrustful, and again, this is not just people in prison, I think a lot of people are distrustful of candidates when they hear rhetoric during a campaign, and then when they're in office, they do something totally different. When I talk to members of the More Than Our Crimes network about why, and there's quite a large percentage that support Trump, and that may be surprising to some people, black men supporting Trump. But again, I have to say they're looking at actions, because they've learned not to trust rhetoric. And there hasn't been any really significant criminal-legal reform laws recently. The only one they can point to is the First Step Act, and now I have to point out that I don't believe Donald Trump actually initiated it in terms of discussions and work, I think that came earlier, but he signed it. And one…

TEE: Or the DC IRAA…

PAM: Well, we'll get into that when we talk about local elections. We'll get to that. Actions, actions matter. Actions matter. And one significant thing about the First Step Act is that before the First Step Act, people who filed for compassionate release, had to file with the warden and stop there. And wardens never approved it. The First Step Act allowed them to go to court. And so even though it's still a very small percentage, a lot more are getting compassionate release now. So they point to that, and say actions matter. 

But what sort of surprised me was Delonte, as negative as he was about voting, “I wouldn't vote,” when we started talking a little bit more, he expressed a sentiment, which I've tried to encourage, which is looking beyond just one issue. The fact is, it's [an attitude that’s] very hard to find. I mean, you may find a candidate who agrees with you on one issue, but then there's a whole bunch of other issues that will affect you later or your family that they're very negative on. So it's actually really important to try to look holistically at a candidate. And that's sort of difficult to get people to do. But as you'll hear from this next comment from Delonte, this negative person about voting, the more I talked to him, the more I sensed some possibility there for him. And he talks about the importance of looking at a whole host of issues. 

DELONTE: I mean, I take a broader view of all of that because I actually care. I mean, there are people that I do care about that are in society. So if I do sit back…Like, that stuff does matter because it affects their jobs, it affects people's lives. And it's not like I have a life sentence. So it could potentially affect me and things as far as me going forward. 

TEE: For instance, compared to the national level, at the local level, you can actually see where your vote is impacted. And for example, the Incarceration Reduction Amendment Act, which is IRAA, in DC if we didn't have those elected officials in office, that law would've never made it. I wouldn't be sitting here today. 

PAM: Well, explain what IRAA means and how it got you out of prison. 

TEE: Well, what IRAA meant was… There have been different versions of IRAA, and I believe that I was in the 2.0 or the 3.0 version, the 25 and under when you committed your crime version, and I was 25 years. 

PAM: You had to have been under the age of 25 when you committed your crime and have been in prison at least 15 years. 

TEE: 15 years. 

PAM: And so that's why you're out. You probably wouldn't be out today.  

TEE: I wouldn't be out. And thank God I did everything that I needed to do while I was in prison to transform myself and become a productive member of society and to be engaged the way I am engaged in my civic responsibility, which is educating others about their civic responsibility. 

PAM: Well, that’s a really good example, let's take a look at how IRAA came to be. It's called second look or second chance acts. 

TEE: Second look.

PAM? And a lot of states don't have them yet. So DC is still…and we sure don't have it at the federal level. So DC is a bit of a leader. And that only happened because, and I think this is a really important lesson to share with people about how being really involved in your local government, not just at election time, makes a difference. So for instance, one of the DC residents who was in prison who is out now on IRAA too, talked to his sister, and she was the one who came up with this idea because there had been a lot of evidence, scientific evidence coming out about how the brain doesn't mature… 

TEE: Or develop fully. 

PAM: So you really, you're more impulsive, you're more likely to commit crimes when you're young. 

TEE: Well, that's your decision-making area of your brain, which is your frontal lobe. 

PAM: So all that evidence was coming out, even at the Supreme Court level. And so she went to a local nonprofit called the Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth, and they developed the bill, the bill that became IRAA. First, it was 18 and under and then expanded to 25, and they brought the bill to the DC Council. 

And the key thing here is to have people on the council who are progressive and are willing to entertain the bill. If you did not have that kind of person on the council, the bill would've gone nowhere. So that's why it's so important to elect that kind of person to the council. It's a perfect example of how an engaged citizenry, not just votes in those kind of people, but then also brings an idea for a bill to a local nonprofit who then brings that idea to the council. And that's actually the next thing I wanted to talk about. One of my favorite topics is to promote something called participatory democracy. It's a mouthful, but basically what it means is that democracy can't be limited to elections because the fact is it's true. People get elected to office and then they've got all sorts of pressures on them to make, well, “Gee, if I don't make a deal on this, then I won't get this [other] bill passed.” 

So yes, they start compromising values they expressed during election. That's natural. So what you need is for ordinary citizens to be able to participate in important decision-making, not just at election time. It can't be electing somebody and then they go off for two or four years and then you do it again. I mean, what Delonte said is, “How do they know what my needs are? They have never been impacted, they've never been poor.” I mean, how many people in office have lived below the poverty line? 

So there's different tactics. One tactic is called a citizens’ assembly. And this has been done in other countries, mostly in Europe, but it's starting to happen in some places in the US, where they actually take a random sampling of residents to reflect the true makeup of the community. And if, well, in Ireland for instance, that's how they decided to legalize abortion. So they made sure to include people who had to make that decision, who would face that decision. Because if you think about it, look at that issue. No one making laws today ever had to face that decision themselves. They never had to face, “Gee, I'm not ready to…” So make sure people who have lived experience are included. And then present information on both sides of an issue and let them deliberate. And here's the interesting thing. People assume when they first hear about it that, “Oh, people will be hitting each other and shouting at each other” because they don't think we can have a civil conversation. And what people who have done citizens’ assemblies have found is that when you take the politics away and you take the social media away and you put them in a room with their neighbors and they hear different points of view, they actually can have a civil conversation. 

TEE When you allow those different diverse perspectives inside of those hearings, you get a more inclusive community. So it's very important for you to be able to hear from those people who do have a different perspective. 

PAM: And so in this next bite from Delonte, again, I mean, it was really interesting, he starts off the conversation and he was really negative, right? And the more I talked to him, the more engaged he got. He talks about another form of participatory democracy, which is the idea of having referenda. So let's listen to him. 

DELONTE: I think that the way things should go is that they should present laws and then everybody should vote on whether these laws are passed instead of this group of people saying what they think is best. How does 350 people decide what's best for 350 million? And they never live the majority of the lifestyles that any of those 350 million live. 

PAM: But going back to voting for a second, we agree there's a lot of flaws in voting, except locally it's your best chance. But Alex makes an interesting point that when it comes to civic participation, a lot of people, and not just people in prison, but particularly people in prison who've been in for a really long time, it's like a muscle that's gotten flabby. You're not used to participating. People in prison, you're ignored. You don't have opportunities like most of us do. Of course, out here we have opportunities and we don't use them. So it's still the same thing a little bit. But if you become really used to not participating in civic life, it's like a muscle, you lose muscle memory. And he makes the point that the reason why he thinks voting is important is that it starts the habit. It's the first step to developing a habit of civic participation. So for instance, okay, maybe it doesn't make much difference but just to vote, you want to be a little informed about the issues, a little bit informed of who the candidates are. So you take that first step. 

That is the first step. And that starts to build a little bit of a habit of paying attention to the news. It's really the first chapter, then doing some more things like you just mentioned, testifying at hearings, contacting your council member with your opinion. But you have to start somewhere. The vote's a good place to start building that habit. So this is what Alex says next. 

ALEX: It's just like with any learned behavior or any kind of grooming of a person's perception, you have to, it is a learned behavior. The mind is just like the human body. If you don't work out and exercise, then your body is going to perform poorly. Your body is going to crave sweets and bad food. But when you start to treat your body another kind of way…If you start putting different things in your mind instead of transgressive information, destructive information, and you start to engage and socialize with people who are on this level or in this realm of thinking, then you start to gravitate toward other things and your mind will start to function differently. So when we start to… politics is just one way to change your thinking pattern, just a different way for you to engage your mind in something constructive. 

PAM: So one big activity of More Than Our Crimes is to send in email newsletters in very simplified form, both to DC residents who can vote… And so we need to inform them about the DC candidates. You mentioned, for instance, that they get really confused about the fact that if they register as independent, they won't get the Democratic primary ballot. 

TEE: Some people still don't know that. 

PAM: Right, so we try to educate them. But we also have a list for everybody because it is really my belief that even if you don't have a right to vote…Not everybody can afford to get subscriptions to newspapers. I think even if you don't have a right to vote, learning about and hearing about issues and laws that are being passed. And I don't just focus on issues that are related to getting out either. I actually try to encourage debate and conversation. I ask them to respond, and then I share their responses with everybody. And it really gets a bit of a debate going. I can give you one example. There was cases where parents are being held responsible when their child commits a crime. And I've asked the question, I shared an article where that's discussed, “So, what do you think? Should parents be held responsible?” And we've gotten a really healthy debate going. It's great. What do you think about that? Do you think that encouraging interaction and caring about issues outside of prison life…what benefit do you think that has? 

TEE: Well, I think it strengthens social bonds and it adds to that person. It adds to their humanity while they're incarcerated. And it also helps them be more connected with the community. It gives the community more cohesion with them and what they want to see happen in their lives. 

PAM: Well, in fact, one time I remember sending an article about artificial intelligence because, and I'm sure you can reflect on this, one of the biggest things that changes when you're in prison, if you're in prison for a long time, is technology. And so I remember, it just blew their minds about how much has changed, the fact that you could have conversations. But they loved that. We had, oh my gosh, big dialogue. 

TEE I think it comes from being socially isolated. So now when you get these social bonds, you are more connected and it helps, it promotes public safety in a sense. So yeah, just being committed to doing things on the other side and having that connection, it helps with the humanity. 

PAM: And they feel like, “Okay, yeah, I can, even among ourselves, we can talk about it. I have an opinion, I can share it.” But the really sad thing is, recently the federal Bureau of Prisons, through their email provider, which is called CorrLinks on the outside, issued an announcement saying that now people can no longer send to more than 10 peopl in prison at a time. So, I have a list of 2,000, which is actually relatively small compared to some other kinds of nonprofit organizations. In the past, what I've been able to do is, I have a DC group, and all I have to do is hit DC and it goes to all the DC residents. And then I have one for everybody. And this made newsletters easy. And these newsletters keep them connected to the outside world. But now under this new BOP rule, I have to literally count one to 10, send to that group, then do another 10. And it's very time consuming. 

TEE: And what would be the reason why you have to do that now? 

PAM: Well, so I had a friend from Forbes call the BOP and ask what the reason was. And it was that apparently there was an Office of Inspector General report in 2020, four years ago, that expressed some concern about what the BOP was doing to control radicalization of people in prison by terrorist groups. 

TEE: Oh, wow. 

PAM: And so now the BOP has come out with its response four years later, and one of its responses of how they're going to prevent radicalization is to prevent group emails. Now, I find that really puzzling because it is hard for..

TEE: It is puzzling because here you're trying to help and create these bonds and to educate people on the inside, and now you have to deal with this. 

PAM: And it's like, if you think about it, I sort of think ISIS or Al-Qaeda are smarter than to send a recruitment newsletter over a government-monitored channel. Now, what’s also interesting is in the response from the BOP to this OIG report, it said, well, but there's so many emails that we don't have the staff to read them all. And their response was, okay, well we'll just make it harder. Because what they're figuring is that people won't have the time or the patience to send in a batche at a time. They just won't send them. Or what I see people doing is saying in their emails, “Hey, make sure that you print this out, share it with other people in the prison.” But with lockdowns, it's very hard to get out there and share it with everybody. To me, the real impact is you're going to have far fewer newsletters. Other people have newsletters with legal updates. I mean, people inside prison depend on them for updates on cases in the Supreme Court, for instance, that could maybe make it easy for them to get out 

TEE: Just to have that knowledge and just to be informed. So people look forward to being informed by those newsletters. 

PAM: Yeah. So anyway, in this final soundbite from Alex, he speculates on what he thinks the impact will be and the reason for this banning of email newsletters. 

ALEX: From the beginning, it used to be encouraged. Back in the day in prisons, we used to have volunteers able to come inside the prisons and communicate with inmates and interact with 'em, people from churches. They used to encourage that behavior from the community. But they brought a stop to it because it exposed too much of the cracks in the system itself. So now as you see, they’ve started to eliminate the outsiders from really interacting with people in prison. Just take a look at the new initiative to stop mass emails. Look at that for what it is, because that could be the only agenda, to sever the ties that we have with people out in the community. They don't want the people in the street to change their thinking. 

TEE: I wholeheartedly agree with Alex on the statement he just made about the BOP trying to separatize with the outside world, because they know how important it is for us to have those social bonds and how much it gives us hope inside of those places. So I would like to encourage everyone who can vote, vote on whoever suits your needs, vote on whoever is doing what you need them to do. 

PAM: And then I would add: after the election, hold them to it, Hold them to it. Hold them accountable. Talk to them afterwards. Make sure they hear your point of view after the election. Don't just go home and say, I've done my job.

TEE: Because they cater to the constituents and they have to know that, okay, there are other constituents as well. But in order for them to know that, we have to come together and we have to voice our opinions and advocate for ourselves and for others who can't advocate for themselves. 

So in closing, we want to thank you for joining us and don't forget to subscribe and like the video. 

PAM: And I would suggest that you share this episode with other people. It might spark a good, spirited conversation among family and friends.