A Former Supermax Prisoner Shows How Civic Power Can Reach Behind Bars

The DC jail has something most cities don’t: its own elected neighborhood commissioner. That means the people living inside a jail can have a formal liaison to city government, and our guest Harold Cunningham is doing exactly that as the ANC commissioner for the jail. We talk about what it looks like when incarcerated residents organize, document problems, and push concerns about conditions and legislation straight to the DC Council. 

Harold’s credibility comes from a life most of us can barely imagine. He spent decades incarcerated, including years in ADX Supermax solitary confinement, where isolation and dehumanization are built into the design. We get into how mental health care breaks down in extreme custody, how a class action lawsuit can force accountability, and why it matters that someone who survived that system is now focused on civic leadership instead of just survival. 

We also dig into voting rights in Washington, DC, including the Restore the Vote Act, and what changes when incarcerated people can cast a ballot. We share what it’s like to register voters inside the jail, why so many people start from distrust and apathy, and how education on local issues, candidate platforms, and ranked choice voting can turn “my voice doesn’t matter” into real civic engagement. We close on the bigger goal: building durable political power around reentry housing, jobs for returning citizens, sentencing reform, and ending solitary confinement practices. 

If this conversation challenges how you think about democracy, share it with someone who needs to hear it, then subscribe and leave a review so more people can find Voices Unlocked.

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: I’m Pam Bailey, co-host of Voices Unlocked, which is the podcast of More Than Our Crimes. And we bring the voices from behind federal walls and the DC jail out to you so you can hear what it's like inside. And my co-host:

ROBERT BARTON: And I'm Robert Barton, Pam's co-host of Voices Unlocked and we have a special guest today and this is very dear to my heart because when we're talking about bringing voices of incarcerated people out, well here's a person who is representing a whole prison or whole jail of people who he's serving as their direct contact for all their issues and getting them to city government.

PAM: Yeah. And so what Rob's referring to is DC has a very unique form of micro democracy, grassroots democracy. I'm not sure if any other city/state in the country has it, but it's called Advisory Neighborhood Commissions and they're like neighborhood-level, micro districts that take grassroots, everyday citizen voices and make sure they get up to the DC council. And Harold Cunningham is the current ANC commissioner for the jail because the jail is its own ANC.

ROB: And it's amazing, one, that you have someone that's incarcerated that can basically serve as a liaison between his population, which is the DC jail, and our city council. And so with being able to do that, he's able to take all their concerns about their conditions, different legislation that's going on, and any other problems they have at the jail straight to the city council. He has his own office, his own email. It's just very progressive and I commend DC for being at the forefront of something like this.

PAM: Yeah. And when you hear Harold talk shortly, I want you to remember... He's a pretty amazing person actually because not only did he come out of many, many years in federal prison. Too many. But he actually spent like two decades in the ADX, which is the Supermax, the worst prison in the U.S. In the world. Not in the country, in the world. And say why is it? Why?

ROB: Because you're locked in 23 and 1. It's total isolation. It's the highest level of security. You're in a cell within the cell, meaning you have a door and then they have bars and the officers step into what they call the sally port that's between the door and the bars to feed you. You never really have no human contact and it's just a very dehumanizing, isolating place.

PAM: And he only got out because he was actually the lead plaintiff in a class action suit that challenged the mental health care in the ADX. He was brought in in 2016. They immediately took him off his psychiatric drugs because he has a mental illness and the only treatment he was really getting was either through telehealth or like self-help workbooks.

ROB: Self-help books is something that you have to do to progress through the program. And so it wasn't to help him. It really is for them to be putting something on paper to say that he's done this and this is how they measure you to see if you are ready to advance to the next stages.

PAM: And this is somebody who'd been diagnosed with a form of schizophrenia. So there was a class action lawsuit, which they won. I think it was the ACLU, I believe, who helped them. And he was transferred out because of that lawsuit. So not only was he finally released, but he won relief and better care for everybody else who was there. And he ended up, that's how he ended up in prison with you.

ROB: Yeah, we ended up in Hazelton's special housing unit, which is like a lockdown unit for basically disciplinary reasons. And so we were there. I was in the cell with a guy who was also in ADX with him. And so we kind of met through him and we've been fast friends and talking to each other ever since. And I try to stay in contact with him while he's over at jail since now he has the ability to use email and also use the phone.

PAM: And why is he in jail now?

ROB: Why is he in prison? Or why is he at the jail? And why would he transfer back? Oh, so he was transferred back because he's trying to give his time back. So it was for a legal issue and he's working on some type of appeal.

PAM: Okay. So you're going to hear now from Harold himself. He's actually in the jail talking to us by Zoom, which of course you could never do from federal prison.

ROB: He can't do that from federal prison or any other prison, unless you're in Massachusetts and they will allow you to do that.

PAM: So, Harold will tell you a little bit about his story.

HAROLD CUNNINGHAM: I've been incarcerated just about all my life, but however this stint right here that I've been in has been 34 years straight. I came in 1993 and I haven't been home since. But right before that I was locked up for five years in the Maryland system when I was charged as an adult when I was a juvenile. I came home and I was out there for seven months. I've been in since then. I came home in March of 1993. I was 22 years old and then October the 17th I was shot up real bad by the police in a shootout situation. At that time I was someone who, like I said, who'd just come home from being a juvenile, coming home as an adult at 22, suffering from mental illness and mental disorder. So it didn't take long before I was back incarcerated due to the actions that were going on in my head or how I felt towards police.

Someone like me who came 10, 20, 30 years ago, whatever, even 10 years ago, I could barely ... Well, I was learning how to read, write and everything. When I came into prison, like I said, I could barely read or write with an IQ of 68. All I knew was violence and that's how I lived. However, that person then, I wasn't violent just to be violent. As you know, Rob, we came in, it was guerilla warfare period. That just was the laws of the land where we came from. The strong survive. However, that person then, I wouldn't change too much because everybody goes through what they need to go through to become who they are today.

PAM: So, as we mentioned, Harold is back in the jail and he's really involved now in civic life, which is sort of amazing after the history you just heard. So I asked Harold, and I was assuming the answer already, whether or not he remembers during his childhood when he was out of jail, whether his family voted or if there was any kind of involvement with local government. This is what he said.

HAROLD: No, to be truthful, my family, my father was a big-time drug dealer in the city and as far as politics, any type of consciousness about my history, blackness, none of that stuff was talked about. Voting was definitely not talked about that I ever heard of in my family and not even the circles that I ran in because everything was about the street life and my upbringing.

PAM: So how does that compare to your childhood, what you heard Harold say?

ROB: It's pretty much the same. You're thinking about people who come from predominantly poor communities or communities where the only time politicians really come around is when it's time to vote. And so that process for us has always been extractive. Although my mother voted, a lot of people in my community didn't vote. They didn't believe that their voices matter, they didn't believe that their votes counted. And a lot of times they didn't just even have the bandwidth mentally to even think about voting because I'm worrying about how I'm going to eat tomorrow, how I'm going to pay my next bill, how I'm going to get some Pampers for my child, all those types of things that a lot of times government was unable to or seemed unable to help them with or fix. And so in a lot of ways this gave me a certain type of apathy towards the system.

And then later on, like Harold was talking about, I got into the streets and street life and things of that nature and then that moves you farther away from working within the system and wanting to vote because now they are the adversary, they're the ops and all those type of things. And so I concur, I really understand what Harold is saying. But today, just through doing his work...and that's what's amazing about Harold and him being able to get out of the ADX and get up to jail. Because I know he's experiencing the same things that I experienced. You come up there, you don't really believe in the system, you still are indoctrinated deeply into prison culture and the penitentiary culture and then you get up to the jail and you start seeing that you have a voice, that you are human, that people care about you and will listen to you when you know how to advocate for yourself or articulate yourself.

And so that leads you down a path of really understanding the power that you have and trying to share that with others. I commend Herald for doing that and I'm going to continue to do the same thing out here in society what I was doing while I was in prison.

PAM: So, DC is special in another way. It passed to Restore the Vote Act in 2020, which made it the third state/city after Maine and Vermont that allows people who are incarcerated to vote. So Harold ended up in the jail after that and I asked him about his evolution from hearing about it to being more engaged.

HAROLD: Well, I'm a little bit more conscious now than I was then many, many years ago. When I heard it, I thought that's a good thing. So right after that, I was able to come up here and I was able to vote and I voted and it felt good, now that I was in a position that I could really bring attention to that. So what I did was, when that came up and we was allowed to vote as soon as we got here and I got on the debate team, our very first debate team. And our issue on the debate team was about the right to vote. So I was able to initiate that and I felt real good about that because I know the importance of voting. So we had a debate about being allowed to vote and those who not being allowed to vote and our position was everybody should be allowed to vote and we debated Georgetown University on that issue.

PAM: So, we just heard that Harold has come around and is really engaged now, but I know from you going into the jail recently to help register them, talking to all the guys in prison, that there's still a lot of people that have not come along.

ROB: It's a lot of work. So one of the things that More Than Our Crimes does is we went to all the candidate forums, we took notes and then educated the guys that's incarcerated. We wanted to make sure that they're informed voters, especially when we're talking about ranked choice voting, where you can't rank a candidate if you don't know their agenda or their platforms or things that they running on. So we sent that into all the guys in the federal system. But I also go into DC jail biweekly with the League of Women Voters and try to help them get the guys inside registered to vote. And that's kind of like been an uphill battle. You walk into the unit, it's hot and the officer announced, "Well, we have these people here and they're trying to get y'all registered to vote." And immediately everybody walked away from you.

It's like, "Well, man, nobody cares nothing about no voting. What are you talking about? Our voices don't count. Why should I vote?" Or "Oh, I like Trump. Can I vote for Trump?" I mean, that's usually the conversation, but through my experience of just being in these spaces and being able to go to talk to them, although it's an uphill battle, I'm able to get some of them to understand that, okay, well, let's talk about a bill like the Incarceration Reduction Amendment Act that I came home on. I just break it down for them, so that's why I want you to vote. But what's more important than that is being civically engaged all the time. And what that looks like is you need to be civically engaged all the time because nobody knows what you need more than you know. And so for us, it was like a person like Crystal Carpenter who learned about the ruling of the Supreme Court that said that juveniles shouldn't be held as culpable as adults in Alabama vs Miller.

And then she took this ruling to the Campaign for Fair Sentencing of Youth and they started advocating and rubbing shoulders. And before you know it, there was a whole bill that was built around this type of science, about the brain science of juveniles being different from adults and not fully mature until you're 25 years old. And that's how you come up with a bill like the Incarceration Reduction Amendment Act, which has spread all over the country. But it started from people talking about the things that they needed. It came from the public, it came from the constituents, it didn't come from a legislator making this law on his own. And so once I explain this to people while they're in prison and tell them that if it wasn't for a law like this, I wouldn't be home, then it starts to click and they understand more. Like, okay, all right, now I see why we should vote.

Nowadays, even if I don't want to vote, I understand why I should be civically engaged. And that's kind of like the uphill battle that we continue to fight against. I've written, like we're sending a book in right now to everybody in the federal system as a motivational tool. I've written letters to them and just trying ... I mean, the work never stops, but I feel as though it's important, I know it's important, and it has to be done. And so you'll hear the same thing from Harold that he's wrestling with over at the jail and being boots on the ground right there with them. But at the same time, you've got to keep on pushing. And I believe that... I know that through our lived experience and peer support or that peer information that these guys are more apt to start being civically engaged and voting.

PAM: And part of the challenge is, Rob, you touched on IRAA, the bill that allowed you to be free and a lot of other guys to be free. And that's what everybody cares about : Well, will they do something to get me out of prison? But what they're not thinking about is...

ROB: Is how these bills affect their mothers, how the laws affect their parents, their children, their home lives. Like you love your mother, you care about your mother, you care about your children. Well, the things that they're voting on, these politicians, is going to impact their lives.

PAM: And it's not just that. Once they get out, once they're released, then they find out how hard housing is, for instance, how hard is to get a job. And those are broader issues that the council is debating all the time. And they don't always think ahead to think, oh, there's a lot of other issues I need to care about. Harold talks also about his struggles to get people to care.

HAROLD: Listen, we're dealing with something new. The only thing that I can say, if you want to interest the people that's in, they've got to be hearing from people like me. They've got to be hearing from people like Rob. They've got to be hearing from people like Tone. They've got to be hearing from the men that came home that's doing things in our city. If you're going to get the brothers as well as the sisters in the federal system or even the state to be interested in voting and voting for a candidate, we have to get the literature in specifically...well, they ain't got to specifically highlight one candidate...but we got to at least be talking about showing them that these candidates are for prison reform or something. They're suffering right now. They want to hear something that can be beneficial for them for them to give up that vote.

That's the only way I see it. If I was in that position, I'd be like, shoot, what type of candidate... Are they for keeping the Second Look Act moving forward and in a better situation? Are they for abolishing mandatory minimums? Are they for abolishing life without parole? The candidates are going to have to be speaking to them the same way they speak to their constituents out there about changing things from fixing the streets or whatever like that.

PAM: One of the things I was talking to Harold about too is something that you talk a lot about. That one of the messages, one of the things that got him to care, one of the things he tells other people, is that the men and the women need to remember this is their city too. There's all this gentrification around, the city's changing rapidly, and yet it was Black Americans who really built DC. And he talks about that.

HAROLD: I would say we're living in a time right now that's very important and our city is going through a change right now, transformation, gentrification and everything. This is our city the same way we represent where we’re from in the feds and everywhere we at, our city, DC, they're trying to take our city. But however, casting their vote is something that might or can be the tool used to keep our city as our city. But we're going to have to vote and we're going to have to get the right people in there for us to see us and hear us. And our vote does matter. I just want to say this one other thing so they can understand. A lot of brothers came home like myself and like Rob, Tone and everybody else. We got some men out there, man. Y'all know how we carried it when we was in.

We’re sincere about this and we wouldn't be behind anything like this if it wasn't beneficial for all of us. So that's what I say.

PAM: So, the other challenge though is to get ... So one challenge is to get the people in prison to care about voting. The other challenge is to get the candidates to care because we get tons of information out here. We can go to forums, there's articles in the media, there's fundraisers, et cetera. But again, the prisoners are forgotten and giving them the vote was one thing, but showing them that they matter is another thing. So I also asked Harold, what would he say to candidates about why they should be finding creative ways, working with More Than Our Crimes, to get information in about them? Yeah, inside. And this is what Harold has to say.

HAROLD: They need to pay attention to us because we're going to be coming back home, if it be the will of God. And people like us, like the brothers that's already coming home and seeing what we're doing, in leadership roles. We were leading in prison; we're going to be leaders out of prison. Our name, the same way we carry ourself in prison, we're going to carry ourself out in the street. And if y'all want our neighborhoods, and if y'all want us to vote in here as well as out there, y'all going to have to deal with us. Y'all see a lot of us coming home and doing some good things and y'all are dealing with us. I see it. But I don't want y'all to be dealing with us just because we're home. Send a message about what y'all going to be doing for us while we're still in here to prepare us for when we come home.

ROB: And so, this is why we are in the process of trying to start a 501c4. Right now we're a 501c3 and with that, you basically have to be nonpartisan. You can't lobby for certain candidates. You can't advocate for certain candidates. You can't do none of that because you have to be nonpartisan. But if you are 501c4 you can do exactly that. And so similar to what Harold was saying, we are here and we want to be seen and we want our voices heard and we want our issues on the agenda. And so the only way we can do that is to come together as a strong voting block that has our own issues. So what I would like to do in the future is like have forums where the candidates come in, but it's a forum for people who are returned citizens and those that are still incarcerated. And the candidates would hear their issues.

So that way we can bring about jobs for returning citizens, housing for returning citizens. Issues like why are guys being sent all over the country from DC and the need for a prison in DC. So all these types of things that's not really being addressed or are not being ... There are laws and stuff like that and they talk about it. But it's not prioritized. And it's not talked about openly in those ways.

PAM: Well, and also, I talked to Robert White once who sponsored the Restore the Vote Act and he said, if we could go to a candidate and say we can deliver 5,000 votes... and actually, if we could coalesce returned citizens too it would be a much larger block. Then you can have power. Then you can actually negotiate and get candidates to commit to something when they know you can deliver votes. 

ROB: And that's what we aim to do.

PAM: Yeah. And actually the men and women in prison have been telling me, "Could you just tell us who will deliver for us?" So one thing you said....But we are unable to do that because we are a 501c3 and so we just tell them that we gave you the information. Make up your own minds.

One thing you said also earlier, Rob, that was really important is that power is built by not just voting. It's built by being involved and at the table all the time. So I asked Harold what his priorities are as ANC commissioner, not just to get out the vote, but what are the issues he wants to advance and push for with the council on behalf of the population in jail? And this is what he says.

HAROLD: Well, I'm definitely pushing for them to get off of this solitary confinement mindset that I see that's moving around here. Because I can see it because I've been through it and there's no justification for it and we know what solitary confinement does. It diminishes your mind mentally and physically you start deteriorating and it makes you worse than you were. So I know the importance of that. That's one of the things that I'm advocating for is making sure everybody else... They're scared that it's going to be more violent. There's no way your violence is like the violence we came up in. But if you give them something to do, I do believe they won't have to worry about it. But they've got to listen to people like us who've been through it.

PAM: The other thing that Harold says is, he wants to be a role model for others. I think the answer to the challenges that we've been talking about, like how do you get people to vote, how do you get people to care? How do you get people to engage? It is by being an example. So when Rob.... Now, they know about Rob. Everybody in prison knows about Rob. And when he writes now and sends messages in, they say, "Oh wow, look at what Rob's doing."

HAROLD: That's just life. Sometimes, especially when you're talking about peers. Even, like, you think about a child that's in the hood. They need to see somebody doing something positive to see that they can aspire to do the same thing. And so because a lot of times we don't see us doing this type of work in these type of positions, then you don't feel as though you can do those type of things. But seeing somebody like Harold at the ANC, seeing myself going down to Congress and James and Pete and all these guys doing this type of work out here in the community, boots on the ground, going straight to city council, talking to your council members and really working hand in hand with them a lot of times to sway certain legislation that affects our community. The guys appreciate that and they see that. You know what I mean?

ROB: Even when they were talking about taking the Incarceration Reduction Amendment Act away and how we coalesced around the issue and went down there and kind of like saved it, they see that and they say, "Okay, yeah, well now I'm seeing importance of being civically engaged and what that looks like." 

PAM: And not only that. So not only does it show them that, “Oh, I can make a difference,” but it's also like, “Wow, he's fighting so hard for me, I need to step up.” 

ROB: Yeah, I would hope that. I would hope that. 

PAM: So let's listen to Harold.

HAROLD: So my position is to get the word out to the men as well as the women that we are somebody. Carry yourself like you're somebody, move like that, get that DC swag back, but do it in a more positive, constructive way instead of a destructive way. So my voice: I put out stuff on the tablet when I can. I know they don't like me speaking here, but I do have people who are in high positions that respect me because I'm not going to bend or bow because I really love these brothers as well as these sisters and I'm sincere about it. So my position and my priority is to be a man of my word and let them know that I'm fighting for them.

PAM: So we just heard Harold say he wants everybody to know that is still left behind, so to speak, while he's able to be here in DC at least, that he's fighting for them, that he's fighting them. That was your goal. 

ROB: It's always going to be my goal because I have a lot of men and women who are still in prison who are wrestling with life sentences who could be doing amazing things out here in society. I know their intellect. I know who they are as people. I've spent a lot of time with them. And so for me, it's like you left a brother or a sister behind. And so I'm carrying them on my back. I'm always fighting for them and I always want to do anything and everything I can to make sure that their situation is best as possible. I don't want to say comfortable, but also if and when they come home that they have access to the things that they need and it feels amazing to be able to do this and I know Harold feels the same way. It's like, wow, that you can do these type of things.

PAM: And to all of a sudden be heard.

ROB: And all of a sudden to be heard and- To be the silenced for so long. Yeah. I mean, it don't give me a high anymore. It used to, but now it's just part of the work, but for him It's still a high. It's still fresh for him because he's still incarcerated, so it's fighting for them, but it's also for myself because I'm trying to change conditions for myself. And so he would tell you about that, what that feels like more and better than anybody.

HAROLD: Ain't nothing like having your voice heard. I've been in a system like the feds and everywhere else, especially in solitary confinement. When you can't have your voice heard, when no one can hear what you're going through, when you're seeking help, that's why there is the high rate of suicide I'm talking about in this place that I was at. When people feel as though they can't have their voice heard, it's like it's nonexistence. When your voice is muffled in silence, it's no different than out in the street. If Black people can't hear their issues being answered, it leads to anger, frustration, and that's out there. So just imagine in here: the anger, the frustration, the mental torment that your brain is going through by not having your voice heard.

PAM: So I hope that...For me, what I hope everybody who hears this episode who perhaps has not been incarcerated before is we take so much of this for granted. We take voting for granted and we don't do it or we don't get civically engaged. Listen, most of the people I know, they don't go to council hearings. They don't follow the bills. They don't testify. They don't speak up.

ROB: They just vote out of habit. They don't know what they're voting for. 

PAM: So we can learn something from this population as they realize the power that they have and work so hard to get involved. We all could be inspired and take a lesson from them. So this is our episode today. We hope that you will subscribe. We hope you share this episode with others and tune in and watch us the next time. 

ROB: Bye-bye everyone. Thank you.