The Community (Part 1)

Transcript

Chris 0:35

Welcome to pulse check, Wisconsin.

1:03

Good morning, good evening, good afternoon. This is Dr. Ford with Pulse Check Wisconsin we thank you for joining us for another episode today we have an episode that's gonna be special. We have some folks from an organization called the Community, The community works to foster personal development and post-release preparation for incarcerated people, primarily here in the state of Wisconsin. As an organization was founded in 2014, and there's a lot of things that are going on with this organization in the community as well to help get people back on their feet after being incarcerated. It's gonna be something that's gonna continue to help push our communities forward. It's gonna be something that's gonna help get people back into the workforce. I want to bring on a couple folks with us to discuss what's going on with this organization, the community, and how we can get involved as members of our community as well. With that being said, feel free to sit back and enjoy the show.

Chris Ford 1:53

Alright guys, happy to have you here today. I wanna thank you for coming out and sharing some of the awesome work you guys are doing in the community. I gave a little bit of an intro at the very beginning about both of you. But if you could, could you give us a little bit of background about yourself who you are and what you do for the community?

Carl 2:08

So my name's Carl Fields. I am the director of correcting a narrative with the community. I've been with the organization since October. Of last year. Before that I was a shelter director, in Racine, Wisconsin. A lot of my peers treated me as a weekend warrior organizer. One of the reasons I wanted to, take the job was to get into the justice space full bore. The role for me is that in a lot of different ways and, my focus is the outside work in the correcting the narrative campaign.

Shannon 2:34

I'm Shannon Ross and, the organization started a little over 10 years ago while I was incarcerated. The focus was helping individuals through a newsletter called the Community. And I got out about four and a half years ago and we started our narrative work, which Carl talked about correcting the narrative work and now we just have that inside, outside game that Kyle talked about with our pre-entry, which is all the stuff we do in prison and our narrative correcting the narrative side of the house. Which is a variety of efforts we do to highlight the successes, the humanity, and the agency of people that have criminal records. In addition, I'm also involved with Marquette University and their higher education and prison programming. And I have some, projects I do in the reentry space, uh, locally and some, uh. Some fellowships that I found myself to nationally regarding different media and higher education in prison as well.

Chris Ford 3:19

Yeah, that's what, and you know, like you said, you guys started off with the newsletter. Start off from your experiences, Shannon and I, I mean, you guys got the video series. That's amazing. I was looking at it over the weekend recently. You know, your podcast, some of the community outreach, things like that that you guys do. Could you guys tell us. What is the community for those of our listeners who, who aren't as familiar with it, and how has it evolved in since the, since the onset until like all the things that you guys are doing now.

Shannon 3:44

Yeah. Um, so with that kind of brief element I talked about where 10 years ago it was just a newsletter. Um, that was the first six years or so, but the existence of the community, it was just the community newsletter and it went to about 200 folks inside the prison system. At first it grew to be about, up to 1,800 readers, we had, and ultimately it's been for maybe six years, maybe more than that, the most widely read publication in the Wisconsin prison system, which means that more people that are in prison receive, I don't know if they read it. I can't ever like, say for sure, I'm not there to see if they read it, but more people receive. And have requested to receive. Uh, that's an important thing. Our newsletter more than any other USA today, Milwaukee General Sentinel Sports Illustrated. So the way that then shifted when I was released is getting more into not just the newsletter side, but the narrative side. And for me, um, it was always apparent that underneath all the bad policies, all of the restrictive housing that people who own property will use as a reason to not, um, you know. To someone who's coming home from prison and has a record. The employment barriers that people face coming home, the barriers that people face in every realm. It came from that narrative of what it means to be a person that has a criminal record and what it means to then engage with that individual. Like you're incurring danger and risks upon yourself. Right? And so we wanted to kind of just. Combat that.'cause I knew so many people when I was inside that did not match that narrative. And I've met only more and more every week that I'm out. And so I was like, how do we start telling these stories more? How do we start bringing more balance to this view of a population of people that are the widest population across all demographics? Like you can't think of one religion, one race, one economic. Level one region of the country where there are not people that have criminal records. And so how do we start to highlight that and tell this story of these, these folks and this system in a different way? And so we now have these two sides of the house, our in prison work, our pre-entry and our narrative work, um, which is our correct in the narrative work.

Chris Ford 5:45

And so, you know, one of the things that that, that I noticed, like when, when I was going through the website and looking at some of the videos and things like that, is one of the things you spoke to Shannon was like, there isn't a demographic that is not touched by incarceration. Right. And I, I, I can tell from my own personal experience, you know, growing up, you know, where I grew up running with some folks, I don't know, at every step of like, you know, growing up as well as every step of my educational level. Like there are folks that have been incarcerated. And so I, I feel like one of the things that the community does a good job at is kind of eliminating some of that stigma, saying that it's only a certain cohort of people that become incarcerated. Once that happens, that's the end. You can't. Enter back into society. And so, you know, you guys do a really good job with that. Could you guys talk a little bit about, that pre-entry that you're talking about? Right? So we hear about recidivism, uh, but we don't hear about, that concept of pre-entry as, as often and how that plays into, you know, getting somebody. Back into the system again.

Shannon 6:40

I've highlighted the newsletter, but we, we do more than just the newsletter now. We have a, our first in prison programming, which has just started recently at Racine Correctional and Cheetah Correctional. Uh, Totah is the primary women's facility in the entire state. And what we're doing with those is we have a community health worker. Pre-apprenticeship program, community health work, pre-apprenticeship program. And this is a position that various health entities in the country have for several years now, taken as a role that you have to have criminal legal system experience to get the job. So it's a reverse of what you oftentimes find is the, the reverse. You can't get the job if you have that. And in our partnership with Medical College of Wisconsin and especially, uh, Dr. Laura Hawks there, we just started talking about three years ago around how can we elevate. What I was looking to do was a fellowship inside with more people to kind of expand leadership qualities for those that are inside, because that's what kind of make anyone succeed in life is being a leader in their own life. The system hates that term, so I have to be very careful about saying you have a leadership program, uh, because they will look that as if you are trying to create people who are going to rebel, um, which is unfortunate because like, you know, you are ideally at the end of the day want everyone to be a leader as much as possible, and so that doesn't mean that everyone's like too many, you know. Cooks in the kitchen scenario, but that means that you're able to lead whatever the thing you're doing is right. There's just different scenarios that leadership applies to, and so we just created this. Ultimately, what is now. Hopefully very soon gonna be a certified pre-apprenticeship with the DWD for those inside to become on the course too, when they get out, actually get into the full on certified apprenticeship program. And so we're helping individuals inside learn, you know, different, uh, traits and qualities and skills that are going to be really helpful for both them and their ability to strengthen their community and their families wherever they go. Um, and that right now is the individuals inside. And the reason why we had that as a model is that we didn't wanna focus on people coming home. We have some folks that are coming home in the cohort, but they don't have to be coming home. We have folks that might not never come home. And the reason is because that what happens oftentimes is we look at people coming home as like the only folks that we should focus on. Mm-hmm. Because you know, they're the ones that are coming back to the community. We should get them jobs, we should try and have like some stability for them. But the people that are coming home are coming home after experiencing long terms of all the folks that are inside. They don't just deal with the people that are coming home, they're dealing with everybody. And you have to have that environment healthier. If you're trying to have healthier people coming home, you have to have that environment more stable. If you're trying to have more stable people coming home, you can't algorithmically choose when and how you're going to have people invested in and then think, oh, you know, they have a program, they're good to come. Like, no, they've been in this environment with these people for so long. If everyone in there isn't getting some kind of investment to, you know, benefit themself and grow, then that's gonna. End up resulting in other people having that same outcome to them. And the other side of it is that so many of us, I would almost say every single person who spent a lot of time in prison, even short times in prison, has been impacted in some positive way by somebody else who is not coming home anytime soon and may never come home. Right? And so how do we also honor that reality of what we are all carrying in a healthy way forward in our own growth process to show that those who are inside and may never come home are such a big part of those people who are coming home every day. And so all that to say. That it has to be the environment inside you're investing in if you want people to come home prepared. You can't just invest on the individuals when you think it's time for them to get the investment. And so our pre-entry work is all around the board meant to invest in people inside period. No matter your crime, no matter your sentence structure, no matter how long you've been inside. And we'll come home

Chris Ford 10:15

and, and for those of you just to speak to Shannon's, uh, point there. If you haven't checked out his podcast All In All Out Podcast, there was an episode recently that you did, right? It was a Diallo, uh, that you spoke to gentleman. He was serving a hundred years sentence. He dropped some dimes on there, man. Just, just knowledge.

Shannon 10:31

Yeah. Yeah. Chuck is great. Uh, it's so interesting. I thought that pod, that podcast was done like four years ago. I somehow. Found out that it never actually been released, so we just clicked it the other day. So it actually was on the platform for like four years and just looks like it was a new release. It's one of those like in the cut, but yeah, it's a new release, so yeah.

Chris Ford 10:49

We'll take it, bro. Yeah, yeah. No, definitely. Go check that out. Carl and I were talking a little bit about before we went on air,, just healthcare in general, right? And some of the barriers that are set up, not only in the community, but in my experience as a provider, seeing folks coming in and outta the emergency department. For those of who don't know, a lot of times in the emergency department will see a lot of people who are, in locked facilities, people who are under arrest. And what we see is, a lot of times those folks, don't have access to healthcare. Before they were incarcerated or are there to be quote unquote medically cleared. Right. And so in my experience, it's one of those cases that, especially you, like I said, coming up with a lot of folks who I know, who have been incarcerated before, I find it to be very vulnerable time for them. Right. Especially if they get a physician or a nurse or somebody that's looking at'em in a certain way. Right. Um, and so, you know, one of the things that, that I was reading about, your organization was along those lines too. In terms of making sure that, you know, we're checking for that too. Carl, I guess in, in your experience, what are some of the most pressing health challenges that are faced by incarcerated individuals, not only here in the state of Wisconsin, but throughout?

Carl 11:49

Well, I will certainly say that food is, is huge and mm-hmm. The way with which a person is fed the, the, not just at the schedule and the calorie count, but the quality of food. The tiered level food that is acceptable to feed to human beings in an incarcerated scenario. That's a, that's a, that's a huge factor that plays into a person's health, uh, to the umpteenth degree when that comes to challenges and, and a medical system overall. There's a, a belief that. And there was a phrase for it too. Once upon a time that Cadillac Healthcare existed in prison, not only is that not true, but it is to demonize both the healthcare system itself and the people who are receiving Sid Cadillac Healthcare. Um, and, and, and I myself spent 16 years when I was in prison. And because of that, I experienced the healthcare system in a number of different ways. I, I, incurred an injury while I was in prison. Um, I had a hard time with. And receiving care with that injury, uh, released while still dealing with that. And it was hard because every single conversation that I had with a healthcare provider or with a staff member, usually a security staff member, I was met with a minimal kind of statement, and I was told my issue either isn't as serious as it really turned out to be. Or it was just all in my head and it wasn't an issue at all. And I was trying to make noise in order to bring, gain attention because I was an incarcerated person. And that's what they do.

Chris Ford 14:14

And, and like you said, that, that's a, that's a shame a lot of times when I'm doing lectures to residents or like each of my bedside, things like that. You know, one of the things that I, that I speak to, and this is one of the ways that I was taught as well, this may be the last time that somebody gets an opportunity to seek that care. Uh, I'll tell the story at, at a individual in his nine, his 19 or twenties. He was the early twenties, and he came in and he had just been involved in a high speed chase with the police, um, and was sitting out in the waiting room for a while, right? He was out there for about an hour, hour and a half. And it wasn't until he got back that I was able to see him in the triage area and say, Hey, you know, how's it going? Checking on him, asking him questions at the end of it, you know, I was like, how fast were you going, man? He was like, I don't know, probably like 80, 80, 90 miles, hour before I hit the tree. I was like, wait a minute. Like officer, he, he was going 80 and 90 miles per hour. He was like, yeah. I was like, bro, you're, he's a trauma, right? He should be in the trauma bay an hour and a half ago. Right? Yeah. Young man, fortunately, were able to run him through the whole trauma algorithm and he has some life, you know, threatening injuries that we ended up catching at that time. But I mean, to your point, Carl, right, like a lot of times, you know, these, these things aren't put in the forefront, right? And these are, these are situations that, you know, people are vulnerable when they're coming in under police custody,

Carl 15:28

right? I totally agree. Totally agree.

Chris Ford 15:30

One of the things that, that your website and your organization speaks to is addressing mental health and the mental health needs of incarcerated individuals. Um, how does the community address these, uh, issues of mental health needs? And especially considering, you know, the high prevalence of mental health issues in prisons as well as, you know, substance abuse disorders, things like that.

Shannon 15:48

I was thinking about how we do do that and it's not in a direct way, COVID is a good example. When COVID happened, the mental health conditioning or condition of individuals inside just deteriorated significantly, and there was a significant lack of opportunity to get out of the cell to. Participate in programs to engage other human beings across the world. But in prison it was amplified as it always is. Prison's a microcosm of society. Everything's just either worse or more intense. And so what happened in that moment was the same scenario where they. Were so limited in their ability to have the outlets that provide, you know, some access to healthier mental state, even inside. Right. I know it sounds crazy to think you can have a healthy mental state, but you, you can inside and it was just so much more limited in that moment. And so what was happening is that the best option that folks had was. Being able to communicate with people by email, by letter, by phone. There were no visits, right? And so what we do at heart is provide that opportunity for people to understand someone is listening, someone is here right from the moment you enter the system. Our newsletter is a free source that people can sign up for and to start getting resources and examples that people who've made it and opportunities to do art contests and writing contests, resources for your loved ones, for groups to come together and to talk about what they're experiencing on the outside stories about systems and. Chains and fights that are going on across the country for inspiration. I feel like that alone, speaking from my own experience inside hearing it and going through it. What's huge for me and is huge for people just to be able to participate and know more than the bubble, the allegory of the cave that's happening on a regular day basis. And so that is the way what we do is beneficial and helps mental health, even though it's not something that we push and we. Move on. Are we endeavor for, just to try and have as a mental health benefit? It is a benefit because of the way we're just treating and, and navigating and, and trying to approach people?

Carl 17:43

I would, I would definitely say, and I would, I would give, you know, a particular phrase about it and, and it's that advocating for self is, is mental health and what it takes to do that. For the average person, call for new investments. And those new investments are, they look like through, you know, our vehicles, our mechanism articles in the newsletter. Seeing somebody speak and be loud about their current condition in the newsletter while incarcerated like that changes the circumstance. It's almost to some degree, like waking up within a dream to say, wait a minute. And we've all had that experience where waking up in a dream and you realize that's what this is, you get to move things around and change that experience and so. Uh, one of the things that I've appreciated about the community, even before I was, you know, part of this, uh, team, was that I saw that experience in what was happening. I saw how the fact that, you know, a learning platform existed, which is part of, you know, what we do on the inside campaign and the community healthcare worker, uh, the pre-apprenticeship inve, those are all investments that speak to the fact that a person is worthy of investment. Uh, situation aside. And that is a, and that both sparks and it creates the culture for a kind of conversation that the system may say they have created, but they haven't. And if it was there before, it's not there now. At least not by their own mechanism. It's these additional and supportive mechanisms that have brought that those mechanisms, in my opinion, have a humanizing effect. One that can't always be quantified, but it's present

Chris Ford 19:18

in your own experiences. So, you know, I know both of you, you know, kind of gave your testimony being incarcerated before, before the community was what it is today. How did you all, you know, get through it from a mental standpoint? Like how did, what were some of the things that you did to kind of help ease that those years or however long you were in during your time? How did you, how did you work through that?

Carl 19:39

So if. In my, in my era, I certainly, uh, you know, I didn't have tablets and I, I came to the system, you know, that I refer to as that forced time out during the era where the internet was just beginning to boom, anything that was sent to me while incarcerated with a, which a with was banned because it was copyright infringement. And so, you know, it was old school books. It was, uh, an old school treatment kind of condition. And smoking was still allowed. You name it, it was a different place than what it is now. What I saw and what I really embraced was that my options were severely limited when I was incarcerated and I had to figure out. One main thing, and I talked about this probably a week ago, was that I, I embraced the fact that I wouldn't be able to gain access to as much knowledge as I would like, but I could. What I could do was. Learn about different processes. What I could do is learn about knowledge as process and, and I embrace the fact that there are a lot of different processes that I could learn about. You know, like critical thinking. I may not be able to cite the Gettysburg address, but I could tell you that that was a powerful piece of our history. And you should go see that. And so I realized that in moving into this technological era, it wasn't about what you know, but learning how to find it critically, thinking about scenarios to build a way to get to a result that makes sense. And so I began to invest in that and that helped me. And in year one, I ended up in a lot programming that most people only get at the end of their prison term. And so me in year one with 17 to go, I got programming, I got into programming and got that out the way early and began to tutor and later teach those same programs years later. And so my whole trajectory changed because of my year one experience when

Chris Ford 21:37

Absolutely.

Shannon 21:38

Um, my, my journey was, was, um, one where I was very fortunate coming in to have been exposed on my life, uh, to a lot of family members that. Went to college, right? Mm-hmm. And so for me, it was one where I never looked at higher education as something that was other people's like wasn't something I couldn't do. And I also never looked at it as something that wasn't possible for me if I chose to go that path. And so I actually had to kind of be pulled into that sphere a bit couple years into my incarceration, my aunt started kind of coing me and coercing me to say, Hey, like, you know, we got these classes you can take, we'll pay for some. And I didn't wanna do it at first. I just did not like formal education. I'm still not the hugest fan of it. Um, but it has, its, its place, it's very beneficial for, you know, the mass majority of people that take it. Um, but I just didn't feel it was for me. And so, um. Kind of going into my incarceration with and, and a strength of mine being, um, writing and a, a desire to, and a willingness to read it kind of set me on a path to just do that consistently. I've always been very curious and so prison became this almost kind of grand mental spiritual gymnasium for me just to kind of. Learned a lot of things that I clearly didn't have situated in my life to end up where I did, and I know I was gonna need significantly if I was gonna try and attain the things that I thought I could attain when I got out. And that was my entire incarceration, was just my curiosity, saving me time and time again, and the desire to use. My time as efficiently as possible. Never meeting that metric, right?'cause I you always, the amount of times I think I woke up in the day in the morning and looked at my list and said, I'm gonna get this done, this done, this done. At the end of the night, I got maybe one of them done. And just because of the way kind of things go, but always. Wanting to make sure I was capitalizing on this time that I had because I wanted to return to society as ready as possible. And so, yeah, it was that mix of curiosity and that preparation, um, for my, my mind state around education. I think that just propelled me through a lot of darkness and confusion and, um, anger and, you know, sadness, um, over 17 years. Yeah,

Chris Ford 23:46

absolutely, man. What did you know, and like you said. Out of that came the community. Out of that came these newsletters. What, what feedback have you received from the incarcerated individuals regarding your newsletter and how has that served as a, as a tool for education for, for those individuals?

Shannon 24:01

We get the gamut. We get, um, a lot of stuff saying, you know, thank you so much. You know, you are the, the only ones that are communicating with us. The only place that gets back to me and the information you provide is so helpful to the. Y'all ain't doing nothing about this cold toast. Y'all ain't on shit. You know, goes, it depends on like what each person wants in their world and they think is most important. We've been cussed out a new a number of times. I think it's, I think it's, it's. It's a worry of mine if we don't get cussed out at least once a month by somebody. But even in that, we are like this sounding board. We're this place where people feel they can even provide that they can like send that information too. There's a, there's a grace and a growth and a healthiness in that because a lot of times they don't have anyone to even hear that. Right. And so people inside, oftentimes when you're helpless, you know, you just even have somebody to cuss out is like, damn, okay, well that. That's the beginning of a relationship. Sometimes, like, okay, you didn't, you heard me, you didn't, you didn't just block me. You know? So it's kind of that, that mix of where everyone is at, what their need is. If we are not that, or if they're able to recognize what we provide, you know, we get that feedback representing their, their gratitude or their frustration about the, the thing that they can't achieve or get that they, that they feel they need. But overwhelmingly, it's, it's good stuff that we get for, for feedback for sure. Awesome.

Chris Ford 25:19

One of the things that you guys mentioned was the community healthcare worker training program, uh, and its impact both on the participants as well as the broader community. Could you guys talk a little bit about that?

Shannon 25:28

Yeah, yeah. I, so this is an area where, um, we're kind of just like Ben on our team is leading that effort, right? Me and Carl not the, the ideal person to talk about it. But, um, definitely I can kind of talk pretty cogently about how it. Got to where it is now. It's if you take a community health worker, what that is, is an individual in their environment that is this kind of, um, you know, this really strong, powerful platform for helping people advocate or learn how to advocate for themself in a, in a healthy way. And that might be, where do you find the nearest hospital? Where do you get good information about? What health checkups and drugs and doctors are around. That could be a matter of which places and people you can rely on for information that are around you or what you should not tolerate from your provider. But it also extends beyond that. It's not just health, right? Health is, I mean, it's not just the concept of like medical health. There are a variety of different ways that if you are being preventative, you're going to avoid these things. And so how do we help people advocate for themself or help? Them get the tools to help other people learn how to then advocate for themselves. Each one teach one right around a myriad of things that are going on in communities. Right? How do you find healthy food? How do you find places for mental health? How do you find places that your kids can safely engage and learn? Right? How do you find ways to cope as an adult? Anything going on that creates a healthy human, a healthy family, a healthy community, a community health worker. Can be, and oftentimes by default ends up being that because it's of a lack of people around that can do those other things. And so how do we prepare people inside? To do that now within their community, inside, within their unit of a hundred people. How can you better be the person that helps those individuals solve these problems and to achieve stability and, and healthiness in their life? And when I was inside, when Carl was inside, when like so many of us that were inside, we were doing this work in some capacity. We just, you didn't just get released and start jumping into this stuff, right? We already were on this path, but we lacked the resources, we lacked the training, we lacked the connections. And so if we can just give the previous versions of who we are. Better resources and connections and guidance, people can come out even better and they can do even better while they're inside for their incarcerated community, which is, you know, uh, the folks that are coming home 95% of the time.