Conditions of Reentry with Bruce Bryan

Host and Founder of The Fortune Society welcomes Bruce Bryan, a criminal legal reform strategist, author, and mentor who was wrongfully incarcerated for 29 years and granted clemency in 2022. Together, David and Bruce discuss the current state of reentry and the realities and challenges of returning home.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Hello, I'm David Rothenberg hosting this podcast, The Re-Entry Reality Check of the Fortune Society, a nonprofit organization which advocates for the formerly incarcerated and for men and women still in prison. We also provide multiple services for the thousands who walk through our doors each year. Thank you for joining us. There's re-entry and then there's re-entry. When I first met Brute Bryan, I was aware of his story, much publicized, clemency after 29 years in prison. And there was not a hint when I met you, who he's he's sitting with me right now, there was not a hint that I've seen in hundreds and hundreds of men and women coming out of prison who had done times like that. We'll get to the re-entry. Let's quickly set up the uh your life situation, Bruce. You went away at 23.

SPEAKER_03 1:11

And absolutely. My name is Bruce Bryan, and I was arrested and charged with murder in 1994 in Queens, New York. Um I was sent to Ragas Island, of course, for almost three years fighting my charge. Um I had a rogue prosecutor by the name of John Scarpa and a horrible ATB who was seeing psychiatric treatment. A Teen B is a lawyer from Legal A. 18 B is a lawyer from Legal A by the name of Reginald Tao, who was suing the city at the time. None of this I had knowledge of at the time. He was suing the city because he was slashed by his previous client. When you said you had a rogue uh DA, is he still around? He's no longer a prosecutor. He was arrested, sent to prison, and disbarred. He was sent to federal prison for three years. Um as a defense, he was pushed out of the DA's office in Queens and went on to become a defense attorney. And he continued in the same behavior because a leopard doesn't change their spots. In the same behavior he did as a prosecutor, and as we, you know, those of you who don't know that are listening, prosecutors have immunity, defense counsels don't. So what he was doing as a prosecutor, he could not be charged for. He continued that behavior as a defense attorney once being pushed out of the Queen's DA's office, and he was arrested by the federal government and sentenced to 30 months in federal prison and disbarred. But in the meantime, you did 29 years.

SPEAKER_01 2:46

In the meantime, I did 29 years, almost 30 or 40. Your case the whole time. I want to get past your case to talk about your re-entry, which is so startling. But how were you able to get clemency? Because there was no DNA involved, and that's almost essential for all the dozens and dozens of re-en of uh clemency cases we read around the country.

SPEAKER_03 3:07

Well, thank you, Governor Kathy Hoke, first of all. I'll be remiss if I didn't express my gratitude for me being granted executive clemency. Um, and for the extraordinary attorneys, the likes of Steve Zeitman, um, Josh Dubin, and Dr. Carter of the Sean Carter Foundation. All um were instrumental in helping me gain executive clemency. Steve Zeidman was, you know, uh the premier, the lead uh attorney in my uh clemency application and his extraordinary students and staff over at um CUNY School of Law. And I think for me, based on what I was doing inside, because I made a conscious decision early on to not serve time, but to have time serve me. Um so having earned my associates, earned my bachelor's, having founded the first New York State prisoners, gun buyback, um, um, book drive, book giveaway, and being so instrumental in the community because I believe that incarcerated people are an extension of their community, which is something I learned in the Resurrection Study Group. I believe that we still had an obligation to uh put our have our footprint in the community in a meaningful way. So I continue to do the work for 29 years until I was released. And I think based on the work that I've done inside, also um Kathy Holker realizing that former Queen's prosecutor John Scarper went to prison and that I had been pleading my innocence for almost 30 years.

SPEAKER_01 4:40

But that's that's key. The fact that you, and we'll talk about the extraordinary journey that you had while you were incarcerated. But to get clemency, the case itself still has to be uh.

SPEAKER_03 4:52

I don't think so. I don't think so. I think in my case, they as the the case has to be assessed. Um and of course you always get opposition when it's a homicide. Um Queens has a policy for the most part that anyone pursuing clemency that has a homicide, they often um oppose it. Which doesn't mean that you don't get it, but they just don't, you know, um they just don't support it. In my case, they didn't oppose it, and they didn't support it. They stood silent.

SPEAKER_01 5:23

Well, because of the pr the prosecutor by calling attention to the case, it calls attention to the faulty prosecutor.

SPEAKER_03 5:31

Absolutely. And John Scarper has a history going back to the 80s of wrongful convictions and convictions that were overturned several.

SPEAKER_01 5:40

And we and we've learned over the years, especially when you talk to people from the Innocence Project, or men and women who have been released, that the reason pro DAs often object to it is it casts a negative uh aura on them as prosecutors, and it also uh they're concerned about the state being sued. Absolutely. And so it becomes a dollar and cents thing, and the truth is almost secondary to the reputation of DAs and to the fiscal stability of the state.

SPEAKER_03 6:15

The truth actually is secondary in comparison to um the DAs and their quests for convictions and how they are rewarded um for convictions.

SPEAKER_01 6:28

All that being said, when I met you, knowing this part, I was looking for clues of uh institutionalization. Obviously, there must have been some inner things that I didn't see, but the external is I would have, if you were on What's My Line, I would have said you're an ad executive, a television reporter, or a Wall Street wannabe. Uh what the journey that you had inside, but coming out, what what was the what were the difficulties? What was the adjustment? What was the reality for you?

SPEAKER_03 7:12

The reality for me coming out was a completely different world. Going in at 23 and coming out at 53. Um meant society had vastly changed. Um from everything from the AI that we see now uh to the uh the cell phones, just to the lack of communication that you see amongst people every day. Uh people are normally locked into with their headphones, head down on their phones.

SPEAKER_01 7:43

Well, Bruce, people uh I've often heard a lot of people say that, but when I probe, one of the things that people when you really get to it, the technology you can learn, the pace of people outside compared to the pace inside is an enormous adjustment. It's an enormous adjustment. It's sensory overload. Well, that's that's the part that people don't talk about, and you appeared to have overcome it. Now I met you three years after you were out. I'm wondering when you got out. Was it there was anything in the 30 year that you did? And you talked briefly earlier about uh the programs you were involved in, the elders, uh the untold story of prison life, how olders take young men under their wing and prepare them. But uh uh you compare somebody for a mental state, but not for the pace of a society, not for traffic lights changing, cars honking, and people pushing on the subway. That's that's a whole different world. It's a whole different world. Did you but did anybody talk to you about that part of it?

SPEAKER_03 8:50

No. No one talked to me about that part of it. Um I had to figure it out on my own. And it was really, really, really um, it was a lot. And to be quite frank with you, it's still it's still a lot. Still a lot for somebody that's never been in. That's never been in. Exactly. Um, and I think one of the things I realized is being in society doesn't mean that you have to embrace that particular pace that you see society moving in. I think it's it's important to brace yourself and say, well, hold on. I don't want to be um sucked into this. I gotta take my time and gradually reintegrate because there's so much coming at me. I mean, from going in the supermarket, the aisles and the choices to make overwhelming. Overwhelming, right? Um, you go in the serial aisle, it's like, I mean, I I grew up eating Captain Crunch Frosted Flakes. Now you got about 700 different still.

SPEAKER_01 9:49

Can I share with you a wonderful story? At the castle, the Fortune Academy, an old timer named Angel Ramos, who had done a lot of time, because he was in a room that people could share their feelings, talked about what you just said, how overcome he was those first couple of weeks when he wanted to buy something. He said, I had soap handed me for 30 years, suddenly I had to choose. I had shampoo handed to me. And he said he wasn't prepared for the fact that that would scare him or intimidate him. So when he brought it up, two other men who had done a lot of time said, Yeah, me too. And they started shopping and they called themselves Three Brains in a Shopping Cart. Three Brains in a Shopping Cart. And their sharing of it, but uh why that is so extraordinary is that uh it's such a um universal factor for people coming out who have done a lot of time that's never dealt with in preparing people to come out. They talk about jobs and housing, all of which is real, but that survival thing.

SPEAKER_03 10:55

That hypervigilance, that survival thing. And being accustomed to seeing two colors for the most part, gray and green. Um, color theory.

SPEAKER_01 11:06

Explain that in prison.

SPEAKER_03 11:08

In prison, gray and green. And every institution I've ever been in, it's been painted the same. Um, the color scheme, color theory. Uh it made me get into reading a book about color theory.

SPEAKER_01 11:19

You're not talking about the uniforms you're wearing, you're talking about the walls.

SPEAKER_03 11:22

I'm talking about the walls and the and the emotion that they evoke, the mood that they evoke. It's it's by design. And I've been in prisons in America and in Africa. Um, several prisons over since I've been home. And I've even been in Crossroads in Juvenile to go in and visit and sit with the juveniles. I've been in Bedford Hills, I've been back into Green Haven, I've been back into Sing Sing for graduation. Um, and each, the schematics of every prison is very, very similar.

SPEAKER_01 11:55

So when when people talk about, oh, we're gonna do paint this uh day room yellow, that's more significant than the average person would think.

SPEAKER_02 12:03

Much more significant.

SPEAKER_01 12:05

I've never heard anyone articulate the the gray what were the two colors? The gray and the green. Gray and the green.

SPEAKER_03 12:11

A very um, a very dull green. It's all designed to evoke a particular emotion, a level of depression, a level of oppression.

SPEAKER_01 12:22

So in the re-entry then.

SPEAKER_03 12:24

And then the re-entry and you colors startled you? Absolutely. Did they frighten you or intimidate you? What? I wouldn't say intimidate. I was very frightened by the color scheme. It's it's a lot. It's sensory. Because nobody understands that you can't talk to anybody about it. Because you can't. There's no one for you to say, all right, hold on, let's go.

SPEAKER_01 12:42

See, I've never heard it said before. And I suspect that if there's 20 guys who did a lot of time, they'd nod yes.

SPEAKER_03 12:50

Absolutely. Sensory overload with the color schemes and the different emotions that the colors that you see in the free world evoke in comparison to what you've seen for more than half of your life if you've been around.

SPEAKER_01 13:06

I I I heard someone say that uh children hearing children in a schoolyard startled them when they came home.

SPEAKER_03 13:15

Beyond a shadow of a doubt. Um just going out and hearing the horns and the sirens, and I'm I'm still startled at times when I'm driving and I see the lights and I'm startled, you know. Um the noise. In prison, you learn to block out the noise because you have to you have to study, right? Um I consider myself an incarcerated person that was pursuing higher education and self-development at the same time. So I was going to school, but I was also in school while I was in the cage working on myself. So my the cell was an office for me. And you had you learned to block out the guy next door to you that's blasting Drake or Tupac, or the person on the other side of you that can can can never sit in a quiet cell until completely lights are out and the officer starts yelling at them. Because most people in prison can't live with themselves. When they get into that cell, they either blast the music or blast the TV, or they're yelling on the gate. Because it's difficult to be alone and to and and to sit with yourself.

SPEAKER_01 14:22

So solitary confinement then becomes uh devastating. It becomes completely devastating. It's devastating for people who've na who are sane.

SPEAKER_03 14:32

Absolutely. It was something that something that always troubled me while I was inside. Did you do it?

SPEAKER_01 14:38

Were you in the hole at all?

SPEAKER_03 14:39

Yes. When I heard uh people say, oh, this pandemic is like being in solitary confinement. And I would always sit in the cell. Um, and it would it would anger me. I mean to the very to my very core, I would be totally upset. And say, these people that are saying this have no clue. They can go outside, they can go to the store, they can look out their window, they can go throughout their building or their community. Um they're clueless as to what solitary means. I've said when And that was the worst time of my life, being incarcerated for the family.

SPEAKER_01 15:09

For how long were you in solitary?

SPEAKER_03 15:11

About six months. At what age? I was about maybe 31. And the reason you were in there? I was in there because I was in a prison called Shuangong Correctional Facility, and an officer actually lied and said that I caused a flood. A flood? Yes. He said I flushed the toilet. Yes. He said I flushed the toilet in a cell upstairs that I was occupying, and it caused a flood downstairs. He claimed that they made an announcement early and said no one flushed the toilets because we knew the solar.

SPEAKER_01 15:48

So the the the way of cleaning up the water was to put you in solitary. Absolutely. See, I've I've said to people when they when they talk about solitary, and correction often says, so how do we deal with people? I've I've said to civilians, lock yourself in your bathroom for 48 hours, no phone, no radio, no nothing, and lie in the tub. I literally just told someone that yesterday.

SPEAKER_03 16:12

You go mad after I said, imagine laying in your bed and being able to reach your toilet bowl. In Sing Sing, you lay in your bed, you can reach your sink, and you can reach your toilet bowl. And imagine being in that cell just for a week.

SPEAKER_01 16:29

And then the next question is that person is being released next week to come out on the street. How are they going to function when they come out? It is, and that's why re-entry is such a complicated and vital subject. If you're talking about reducing crime in America, you have to know what the re-entry process is.

SPEAKER_03 16:50

You have to know what the re-entry process is, and it's one of the reasons why work release is so important. It's one of the reasons why work release is essential because it's what we call a step-down approach. It doesn't take you from solitary or from a prison cell and throw you back into the world, and you have a million things coming at you. Because you see, the novelty of being fresh out of prison wears off on your family in a week. After that, you gotta start to understand what bills are, you gotta understand how to clothe and feed yourself. Um, you gotta understand how to communicate in the real world.

SPEAKER_01 17:26

You know, you know, but there are people around who know this. There was used to be a man named uh Major John Case. He ran a county jail in Bunks County, Pennsylvania. Fortune, early days, he invited us down, and cells were open, and we would sit and talk with guys in their cells, and there were all these civilians walking around. He brought community people in and set up jobs, and they could earn time outside working with the people that they were coming in with. And we found this extraordinary. And I said to a major case, why are you doing that? And he said, Because when I'm when they finish serving their county time with me, they're gonna be out there. They have to learn how to be, live out there, not learn how to live in here. What a what an obvious and a revolutionary concept.

SPEAKER_03 18:17

Absolutely. Because learning to navigate a confined environment, a controlled environment like prison is a lot different than navigating the free world.

SPEAKER_01 18:28

So vocationally, you've you've done quite well. I met you because you're in you're a host on a podcast and you're interviewing people.

SPEAKER_02 18:35

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 18:36

How did that come about? And is and was is the vocational part, I don't even know what your housing situation, uh if you're comfortable talking about it.

SPEAKER_03 18:45

Absolutely. I came home in three years ago, April 24th, 2023, and I was blessed to be able to come home to my mother, who was in the house. She stayed with you through the whole stayed with me through the whole. Unfortunately, my father didn't make it. He passed away in 2006.

SPEAKER_01 19:01

And they lived in what town?

SPEAKER_03 19:02

Queens, New York. And so you had a home to go to. So I had a home to go to, which is essential for anyone re-entering. A roof over your head. A roof over your head.

SPEAKER_01 19:10

What was it like when you first came in? Did you have your own room? Did your mother?

SPEAKER_03 19:14

Yes. She had my own room, own kitchen, own bathroom.

SPEAKER_01 19:18

Were there adjustments at home? Did your mother have to question you on?

SPEAKER_03 19:22

There were adjustments.

SPEAKER_01 19:23

Did you pick up the silverware when you when you were finished eating?

SPEAKER_03 19:27

Yes. Yes. But also, one of the things I found early in my release was that I would always stay upstairs for very, very long periods. To the point where my mother would come to the stairs and say, Bruce, you're not coming downstairs? And I realized, and this happened over and over again, and I realized that I was so comfortable and used to being alone. And you were you were emulating your prison life. I was emulating my prison life.

SPEAKER_01 20:03

You remind me there was a man that came to fortune. He ended up doing quite well. Still drill around. But he said that when he came out, he was living at the Y on 34th Street, and he had a job, and he would eat in the cafeteria, and then he would walk around the block about six times, and he realized he he had the awareness that he was walking around the yard. And he said, I don't want to walk around the yard, I want to move beyond it. So and that's why he came to Fortune. But but no one had told him that there are that there are these habits.

SPEAKER_03 20:39

The psychological impact of incarceration. I was just literally in Albany two weeks ago with Senator Zell Normai and talking about Who was an extraordinary man. Extraordinary human being, talking about passing the challenging wrongful conviction act. And a friend of mine asked me to walk with him by the diner. When we got by the diner, his wife wanted to go get something to eat, and then she wanted to use the bathroom. And he said to me, he tapped me and said, Come on, let's walk. And I said, Where are you walking to? He said, Nah, we're just gonna pace. We're gonna walk. This guy did 20-something years. He said, We're just gonna pace, we're gonna walk back and forth. Let's just walk. And I said, I said, no, I don't want to just walk. I said, You still, you're still in the penitentiary. This guy's been home for some years. And he said, No, I'd just like to walk. And he continued to walk and pace. I took one walk with him and then and looked at him and said, Do you realize that this is some some prison stuff? This is walking the yard. Literally in a big cafeteria in Albany, walking back. Who is this walk? A friend of mine spot Rennie. But he had done time. He'd done significant time. He was wrongfully convicted as well.

SPEAKER_01 21:48

Do you did you have difficulty in restaurants with menus, the cho choices to order? They they say I take too long to order food because Did you? Because you I they still say it.

SPEAKER_03 22:00

Because there's so much to choose from.

SPEAKER_01 22:01

Do you know what I learned when in the early days of fortune? Uh uh guys would say, Uh, you'll go first, and then no matter what I ordered, they'd say, I'll have the same. And after that happened a few times, I started saying, That's not acceptable. What do you really want? And that became a discussion about choices. Choices are very tough. Crossing a street when the lights change, ordering a meal, not pushing back when you're pushed on the subway. And you know what?

SPEAKER_03 22:36

I always say I relate choices to options. Good. Because you never really understand your choices until you're exposed to the options. So when you have so many options on a menu, you're still oftentimes from coming out of prison, you're still stuck on, well, I'll just have what you're having, David. You know, I'll just have the basic stuff because it's it's so much to choose from. You don't know if you're getting something good, bad, you may like it or not like it. Um so I often take a very long time, and I often have the uh the way to explain to me what's inside of everything and what everything consists of.

SPEAKER_01 23:14

Well, I'm gonna go to a restaurant with you and I'm gonna insist, you first.

SPEAKER_03 23:17

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 23:18

All right, so you're home three years, you're working, we haven't gotten to that. What but we'll get to the vocational part, the housing you covered. What do you still pause about? What are the things that uh you said that when you hear a siren, for example, you immediately you assume that they're coming after you.

SPEAKER_03 23:37

You just it it just gives you it's kind of triggering. But I also find myself quite a few times in restaurants, as you just mentioned, and I've I've said they're taking too long, they're taking a while to bring my tray. I refer to dinner as a tray. Um I've done it countless times, and people have tapped me and said, that's not a tray. And I say, I know. All right. And then at the end, I would say, do we pick up our trays and dump them or do we? Because of the programming of always, you know, either leaving your tray in some prisons and just picking up your fork and your knife and dropping them in the in the bucket. Um I refer to dinner plates as trays numerous times. And people have to warn me, like, listen, relax. And even shopping for clothes. Shopping for clothes, um, they say I shop like a woman. They say you take so long. I said, why? They say because women take longer. You don't know what you want. You're in the store for hours. And I'm saying, but there's so much to pick from, so much that I like. So many options, other than state greens.

SPEAKER_01 24:49

You know, somebody's gonna protest, say women don't take longer than men necessarily.

SPEAKER_03 24:53

Well, I I probably take longer than most women. Right now, today, I take longer than most women to shop.

SPEAKER_01 24:58

And I and I'm exactly the opposite. I if I need a pair of pants because I've out my belly's gotten bigger or something, the first pair I try on, I'm taking because I can't stand spending time shopping.

SPEAKER_03 25:10

And I refuse to shop, I refuse to order stuff online. Because you get it, and it's nothing like what you just saw on the computer.

SPEAKER_01 25:18

Well, that's I don't know if that's necessarily a incarceration because I won't order food online either. I want to see what I'm I want to see what I w I go to the store and buy food too.

SPEAKER_03 25:28

Yes, I don't like Uber Eats or any of that. I don't I don't like Uber Eats and none of that stuff. I'd rather go to the store myself.

SPEAKER_01 25:34

It when you see children, are you comfortable?

SPEAKER_03 25:38

Yes. Yes. It's your children often are um yeah, I'm probably most comfortable around children.

SPEAKER_01 25:46

Well, let me elaborate on that. You went away, you did 30 years. You wanna i the guilt or innocence is, well, of course, it's a factor in your life, but in terms of what incarceration does, you go away at 23, you come out at 53, so at your social judgments or feelings out here, even at 53, in many respects you're a 23-year-old, aren't you?

SPEAKER_03 26:12

In some sense, you you there's a level of arrested development in terms of the yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:17

Did you find yourself relating to people and you're thinking that they're the same age as you, and they th you thought they were much older because they're 53 they're your age?

SPEAKER_03 26:26

Yes. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 26:29

Is that problematic at any point?

SPEAKER_03 26:31

It's problematic when you think a woman is much older than you and she's younger than you, or she's your age.

SPEAKER_01 26:37

Um Well, dating, of course, is I've heard many men that say that. And I said, fine young-looking 30-year-olds.

SPEAKER_03 26:50

Or he's looking for another prison sentence. Because if he's if he's only dating someone.

SPEAKER_01 26:55

So there is that phrase, throwing a brick. I'm sure you've heard it.

SPEAKER_03 26:58

Just throwing a brick. That's beautiful. Which means what? That means uh re-offending or committing something.

SPEAKER_01 27:04

But what is but throwing a brick means that you really want to go back in.

SPEAKER_03 27:08

It means that you you you have not developed a healthy coping mechanism for the outside world. I don't think it necessarily means that you're not.

SPEAKER_01 27:16

No, not I should I correct me. It's not going to go back in. It's reaching a point.

SPEAKER_03 27:21

You're going back to what you're used to, what you're going to do.

SPEAKER_01 27:23

You know how to function there and you haven't learned how to function out here out here. So the key then, re-entry again, is how to function out here.

SPEAKER_03 27:32

It's really, and I always say this, um, re-entry, freedom is not simply about walking out of prison. It's learning to live with the things that you carry. So developing a healthy coping mechanism out high outside in the free world requires you to, number one, be patient with yourself and take your time. Um I think you've got to give yourself grace. Don't be too hard on yourself when you make the mistakes of saying, I want to dump my tray. Or some guys I hear all the time say, Man, I went in the shower with my underwear on. Um I was very conscious not to do that because you hear it so much. I was very conscious.

SPEAKER_01 28:11

You mean alone in your alone in your own place?

SPEAKER_03 28:13

Alone in your own place. You go in the shower. With your underwear on it. With your underwear, and some people with their underwear and their socks. Or sometimes even with their slippers on.

SPEAKER_01 28:21

I shouldn't laugh because it's part of it's it's complicated.

SPEAKER_03 28:25

It's very complicated. You're so used to going into a bathhouse in prison or someplace they call it the car wash, like Elmyra, where there are 60 stalls and you know, men lined up. Car wash. Yeah, men lined up in in stalls going to wash. And you only you're only given in maximum security prisons I were I was in for the whole 29 years, you're allowed three showers a week unless you're in the honor dome. So Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, you can get more. In the summer too. In the summer, you can get more if you shower in the yard. If you're willing to take the chance of potentially being stabbed or hit or hit over the head with a brick while you're in the shower, or standing next to someone that's hit over the head with a brick and stabbed in the shower, which happens uh essentially every day in places like Clinton, Danamora, um, Sing Singh. This this happened, this is uh very common in the yards when guys go out there to take showers.

SPEAKER_01 29:21

Moving on, Bruce Bryant. Job-wise, when you came out, uh you didn't fall right into the your how I met you interviewing people for a podcast. Well what was was there an immediate rush to f to have an income?

SPEAKER_02 29:38

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 29:39

That's that's what pressure it you you didn't know you you didn't have to report to anybody when you came out.

SPEAKER_03 29:44

With clemency, you don't have a parole officer or anybody or no, I had parole because Kathy Hoku, unlike um Governor Cuomo, the previous governor before her, when she gave clemency and you had a homicide or or any clemency she's that she's ever given, she had sent she commutes the sentence and sends you to a parole board.

SPEAKER_01 30:05

Uh yeah, that's they do that in California. So how long are you on will you be on parole? I'm off.

SPEAKER_03 30:10

I did three years to the date.

SPEAKER_01 30:12

So, all right, so when you came out on parole and you have you're accountable. Um and I and people come to Fortune and they say right away, I have to find a job. Uh you'll have to l you know, can you hold a job? Can you you know, can you do all the things? The pressure is to find a job and to make money so you can to live. What you you had the the benefit of coming home to your family. Yes. 50% of the people coming out are homeless. So, but you still wanted to work.

SPEAKER_03 30:45

I still wanted to work. I still wanted to get into what it means to live in uh a free world and to be a productive citizen in society and do things that are conducive, not just to myself, but you know, to for my mother and to make sure she's gonna be. And what and what happened work-wise? What was I started working with the courts, not not in the courts, but I started working with young people that were justice impacted. A paying job? A paying job with uh Queen's Defenders, um, advocating for alternative to incarceration for um formerly incarcerated people or juveniles that were facing difficulties.

SPEAKER_01 31:23

And so you had to show up at nine and I had to show up at nine to five. Now was that was that an adjustment to you for you? That that is an adjustment.

SPEAKER_03 31:32

That's an adjustment. Um because it's not just finding a job, it's relating to people and showing up. It's it's relating to people showing up, um, learning how to communicate in social settings, um, not telling a woman she has nice shoes or she looks nice because that's in these days that's sexual harassment. Um so you had to learn, you know, what it meant to be in the workplace and to communicate with your colleagues on a professional level. Because it was so easy to be um to be viewed in a particular way, especially for someone, especially when they know your friend being caught.

SPEAKER_01 32:15

I've heard people who are being reviewed who saying getting criticized, and there's there's a difference between being reviewed and being criticized, but if you're not used to it and you've been in a institution uh where you get punished.

SPEAKER_03 32:30

Where you get punished. No one tells you, which is something that I've been um I was doing when I first got out. I was talking at parole, I was speaking every Friday, um, the third Friday of every month to new parolees and telling and talking to them about soft skills, which is something that fortune does as well. And people need more of. The vast majority of re-entry programs in the country that I know of, and I've read about thousands of them. They don't understand the importance of soft skills. Of soft skills. Communication, the handshake, the eye content.

SPEAKER_01 33:09

We have a we have a class called Greet and Meet, you know. The first thing when you go in for a job interview, uh because when we first started, I remember an employee saying, No, your guys are good, but they don't look me in the eye. And I said, Well, because they come from a place where looking somebody in the eye can be called uh silent insubordination. Out here, people don't understand that. Exactly. But also the guys going for the jobs don't understand that the criteria is different.

SPEAKER_03 33:38

The criteria is completely different.

SPEAKER_01 33:40

But who told you, though, that that there was a difference?

SPEAKER_03 33:42

Um I read every publication you could think of while I was inside. So I would read stacks of newspapers that I take off the garbage can. Um I would sit in the cell and read them. And you begin to learn um, you know, the different languages that people use in the workplace, um, how people are addressed, how they communicate. Um, you don't learn everything. Some stuff I had to learn the hard way. So, Bruce, you get it off the newspapers that you grabbed.

SPEAKER_01 34:11

Are there any programs in prisons that really prepare people for re-entry? Have you seen any that lessen the complications?

SPEAKER_03 34:23

They have a thing called transitional services. Um, and depending on who's running transitional services, that would determine whether or not you're getting anything that is actually useful in there for that we're getting upon.

SPEAKER_01 34:41

Did you get anything useful?

SPEAKER_03 34:42

I got some stuff useful because I had a guy named Taten Townsley. His name is Salaudin. He's a Muslim brother, uh young brother, who was running transitional services in Sing Sing. And what Taten Townsley would do was he would make sure the counselors that were part of it would bring in adequate, viable, important information, whether it was pamphlets, whether it was outside people to come in and sit with them. The outside people coming in, that's very, very, very important. So Taten Townsley was he helped me a lot. Even though I was, you know, I was educated and I was preparing myself all along. Because I think re-entry starts from the day that you walk in. From the day that you're incarcerated, re-entry starts. And I learned that from guys like Ronald Day and uh and Ronald Robinson and other guys in the resurrection study group under Eddie Ellis, that re-entry starts the day you're in jail. Larry White, Luke Mann.

SPEAKER_01 35:38

I was fortunate enough to have people who we know what fortune through the years. So many people have come in and said, Eddie Ellis told me to come here. Luke Mann said to come here.

SPEAKER_03 35:48

Luke Mann, these are the guys that trained me. What breaks my heart is that, and I wrestle with this often, is that there are no more of those guys inside the prisons anymore. That generation has either died off or been released. The Herman Bows after 48 years. There are no new people that you know. There are no old timers like DeRonald Day. There's no uh uh resurrection study group guys really giving guys this information in prisons across the state.

SPEAKER_01 36:16

Can I tell you a Larry White story, Lucman came to the castle, did a lot of time, very quiet, soft-spoken. And he's I've quoted him so many times since, and I don't know how he had the insight and the self-awareness. And he said, to survive in prison, I had to put on coats, one after another. He said, obviously, not real coats, coats of survival to learn in there. And and then, of course, the obvious thing is he has to take the coats off. But he said the wisest thing was I have to take those coats off, but I need you all to help me take those coats off because I'm in unknown territory. That's right, and he understood that he carried a lot of stuff. But asking for help was not a weakness, it was a strength. That's a tough one.

SPEAKER_03 37:11

A very tough one. A very, very tough one. And pulling off those coats, it takes help. Because I often say this, I use the analogy of sports. I like to say that every boxer, no matter how good he is, he has a cornerman that tells that boxer, listen, he's dropping his left hand, you should throw the right hook. Um, you need to be more on defense. He's focusing on your body and you're leaving in opening spots. You may not realize that because you're in the fight. See, the boxer doesn't realize the mistakes or the openings that he's leaving because he's in the fight. But the cornerman does, because he's on the outside watching. Spectators often see better than the players. So the spectators on the outside, you need them to help you take off those layers of coats of incarceration that you carried, right? That and Luke Mann understood that. It's why therapy, I'm a huge advocate of therapy because therapy is something I've dive through out of the way. To get rid of the not just to get rid of these and replace them, but to be able to identify them.

SPEAKER_01 38:21

Yes, because it's gonna hit you again.

SPEAKER_03 38:24

It's gonna hit you again, they're gonna surface.

SPEAKER_01 38:25

There are people that may press your button. That's the easy one. People may press your button, that's a fact. And you're gonna run into that characteristic and you don't even know it. And it's gonna sit off of that.

SPEAKER_03 38:37

You need to understand what your triggers are. And oftentimes, when you talk to a therapist after coming home from prison, a therapist can identify the hypervigilance, the PTSD, the trauma, the little idiosyncrasies, the habits that you developed in a confined environment. How you're always walking in that circle, how the eagle that sits with the chickens long enough thinks that it can't fly, that it can that it only has those that short space to walk in until someone takes it and throws it in the end and realizes that it can actually soar. Right? You begin to psychologically um you know decompress in a way that it allows you to say, I can take my wings can take.

SPEAKER_01 39:23

To recognize it is the key. To recognize it is the key. See, here's here's something that comes up. It happens at at the Fortune Academy. People just uh we have discussions, and this has happened often. Somebody will defend what I think an irrational position. For example, the pecking order that's in prison based on the crime. And I would question, and somebody would say, Well, you don't understand, you haven't done time. And my answer was, no, I haven't done time. But why did you how many times did you go before the board? Eight. Why did you want to come out if you want to hold on to the things that make you live that exist in there when that's not how people judge out here? And but you don't understand. Well, no, that's what I'm told that I don't understand. And I say, I really don't understand because I haven't done time, but I know that the guys that make it, the women that make the transition, don't carry that with them. And it's the letting go, which is as tough as that picking away.

SPEAKER_03 40:29

It's extremely tough. Because in prison, a hostile, volatile, um, controlled environment.

SPEAKER_01 40:36

On the subway, somebody's gonna push you. That's right. How do you deal with it inside? You have to push back. Out here, if you're on parole, you push back, you're gonna be back inside.

SPEAKER_03 40:46

Exactly. So I say the most important thing is to change your mind. You change your mind, you change your life. But those are instantaneous things. Somebody pushes you, it's you have to be prepared. You have to become conscious and aware. I think becoming self-aware is so important. Because when you're in prison, I don't think if you're in prison for a week, if you're in prison for 50 years. Your mindset is survival. Survive. And until you learn to shift that mindset from survive to thrive, you're gonna carry those things together. Say that one again. Until you shift that mindset from survive to thrive, you're gonna have those idiosyncrasies and those traits. That's a word, but it makes sense. No, survive is a word, and thriving is a word. Thrive. So how do I thrive? Because in society, you don't want to just survive, you want to be able to thrive. Oh, thrive. Thrive. Right? T-H-R-I-V-E, thrive. In prison, you're survived, you're in survival mode, constant survival mode. And the vast majority of us that come out of prison, we don't leave behind that mindset of survival mode. So we come home and it's survive, right? And you're in this, you become embraced by this, embarked into this um this remote.

SPEAKER_01 42:08

You don't want to be a quote, ex-convict all your life. You want to be a formally incarcerated person.

SPEAKER_03 42:14

Person. You want to be a returning citizen. A citizen. Right. And you want to be conscious of the fact that you deserve to thrive.

SPEAKER_01 42:21

Do you have challenges every day, Bruce? Absolutely. Well, I mean, that we all have challenges. Do you have challenges that are uniquely yours because you did time?

SPEAKER_03 42:30

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uniquely mine because of my past experience. Right. I I still today um I find it difficult to sit down on the train. Because of years of watching the news, you always see you always hear people are getting pushed. I go from here to Manhattan, I stand the whole time. Or I do it all the time. I do it all the time. But my but I also, when I walk into a train station, I'll I also find a space where my back is to the wall. That's important to me. Um and I think something like that I probably never let go of. Um because of you consume so much media and sensationalism about over the years, people getting pushed on the train, people with mental health, and you think that this is happening everywhere, every day. And it seldom happens. It makes a headline, but it's it makes a headline, but it seldom it doesn't happen as often as society would have you believe. So you can and I consumed a lot of news. There's really wasn't much to watch on television in prison, right? Um I watched the CNN and the news all the time. I watched 60 Minutes, you know, different new news broadcasts. I read the New York Times, I read The Times, just newspapers. It was important to stimulate my mind, but it was also important for me to know what's going on in society.

SPEAKER_01 44:00

Does the system, the prison system, have organized programs where men like you go back in regularly and reflect on some of these things. Are men inside that are tr who have to s learn how to survive in there? Are they ready to think about another way of living when they're still trying to survive in that un that irrational, unrealistic way? Yes.

SPEAKER_03 44:30

Yes. Especially when they see guys like, you know, Ronald Day, JJ Velazquez, Jermaine Archer, LaRon Rogers. These are all guys I've done time with that are doing good, that are still in touch with guys in prison.

SPEAKER_01 44:46

But does the system encourage them coming back in? Does the system see them as a part? Does the system see coming out as a way of reducing crime as their responsibility?

SPEAKER_03 44:59

No, it doesn't. What I would say is today with this new commissioner in New York State Correction. Hopefully? It's hopeful. Um and he does allow and invite people to come in. My friend Jermaine Archer, he is the executive director of uh RTA now, Rehabilitation Through the Arts. So he goes back in. You know, recently when a young lady uh committed suicide, Manny, in Bedford Hills, um, Jermaine Archer brought an art program in there and he did sister act with the women in there to try to relieve some of the tension because they were so depressed and sad, because everyone knew Manny prior to her committing suicide. And the commissioner welcomes that type of stuff. John Adrian Velazquez, who's been exonerated, but he goes in and he brings everyday citizens from the community in through the Douglas Project to come and sit with incarcerated people. Because we believe proximity changes things.

SPEAKER_01 46:01

Can you comment on the fact that New York City's new commissioner? What are the implications of that for people, not even those that are doing time in the city or awaiting trial? Do you have a sense of upstate? Has that been heard?

SPEAKER_03 46:20

Has it been heard? It is literally the epitome of the power of transformation and what's possible. And guys see that. I get phone calls, not twice a week, three times a week. I get phone calls, literally, no exaggeration. Every single on my way here, I was talking to a guy in Elmira. I'll put it to you like that. I get phone calls every single day from guys either in jail or in prison. And sometimes my family's like, you know, sometimes you gotta not take calls. I said, but these guys, I can talk to you all day, but these guys I can't. They may have 10 minutes, 15 minutes. Um, and the reality is I grew up with them in prison for more than half my life. I can't just forget about it. Are they aware of Stanley Richards as well? Yeah, but Stanley Richards, they call me and talk about it. Yo, this is changing. The system is changing. Yo, I want to get out there, I want to be a part of it. How can I contribute?

SPEAKER_01 47:10

As one who's known Stanley for 30 years, it's not just the label, it's the man himself he carried. Not just the label, the man himself, but also the um the image, right?

SPEAKER_03 47:22

Never before have you seen a guy walk from prison to become the actual commissioner. What does that mean? What does it mean?

SPEAKER_01 47:29

His office on Rikers oversaw the cell where he was. It's unbelievable. Yeah. We were out there, we do a play called The Castle, four formerly incarcerated people. Stanley invited us out, and when he introduced us, he talked to the it was a group of the women. It was about 80 women that were doing time. And he said, I used to sit in a room like this. I sat in a room like this for two years waiting to go north. And then he said, There are other rooms that you can be in, and they have sunshine and they have hope. And I hope we can give you the clue on how to find those rooms. And then he introduced the play, and he said, if you listen to them, these are people who sat in these rooms, and they now sit in other rooms. It was, you know, as somebody who's been doing this for since Adam and Eve, I was overwhelmed by the possibilities.

SPEAKER_03 48:27

By the possibility and the hope that it has given to so many men, oh, the look on those women's faces. It's unbelievable. It's unbelievable. And it's, you know, it's it's a dream. It's almost surreal to know that a person was sitting in a prison cell is now overseeing.

SPEAKER_01 48:43

Well, you're a dream for some people too. What do you what are you gonna do? What do you I mean you we talked about the job at uh Queen's Defenders, then you but you moved on to what you're doing now?

SPEAKER_03 48:54

Working at justice defenders, bringing higher legal education to incarcerated men and women in 22 prisons in Kenya and Uganda, and starting this month, we're gonna be going. I went to Uganda and Kenya five times.

SPEAKER_01 49:07

I I you know, I do a radio program on BAI and people can listen all over the world. And I got an email from Uganda and I sent Fortune Literature. They wanted to know how to set up a program uh similar to Fortune in Uganda.

SPEAKER_03 49:22

That would be amazing. Maybe maybe we need to we need to take a trip there together and figure it out. I can hardly make it to Hackensack. You can make you can move around. Well, you still got great guys among you.

SPEAKER_01 49:33

The the um the the uh podcast that you're doing now, who under whose auspices?

SPEAKER_03 49:39

I it's under mine. Um you have a production company? Hope train media. Um Hope Train Media is myself, uh co-founder of myself, Flow Genius, and Aaron Snyder. Um, an amazing production team. And Hope is the podcast, hearing other people's experiences. And I just want to stay stay on Stanley for one second. Um he is what Hope represents, right? He represents hope for so many men and women around the community. And I'm telling you the calls that I get seven days a week. I get calls on Sunday from prisons. And some guys still can't believe Stanley Richard is the commissioner. Right? So this brings so much hope. And what I think is so important is for men and women to understand that not only does he represent hope, he also gives you confidence and the understanding that you belong in these rooms. Right? We belong in those rooms. We belong in those boardrooms. We belong in those rooms where decisions are being made about our lives. So formally incarcerated people and incarcerated people need to understand that you're not a charity case when you come out. You belong in those same rooms that you see Stanley Richards in, that you see Ronald Day in, that fortune prepares you to be in.

SPEAKER_01 51:09

Bruce, you've given a new phrase. I used to say the in the corridors of power, but you're even more specific, in the rooms, not in the rooms. Not just in the corridors you're advocating when you're in the room. There's a song in the musical Hamilton. Uh it's uh the people I can't remember the title. The implication of it is three people in a room are making all the decisions that affect the people.

SPEAKER_03 51:39

And formally incarcerated people.

SPEAKER_01 51:40

Somebody's gonna send me the title of that song.

SPEAKER_03 51:42

Yeah, formally incarcerated people belong in those rooms where decisions are being made about incarceration, about crime, about the crime-generative factors that exist in marginalized and poor communities, about re-entry, about reintegration. Who better understands what we need than those of us that have been directly impacted? Right? Who better understands children of incarcerated parents than those who have been incarcerated and have, you know, I've been in prison with guys, one of your guys that was just released, right? It's amazing when you go into prisons and you see fathers and sons and nephews all in the same prison. Um these voices need to be directly um empowered to make decisions. I have to invite you.

SPEAKER_01 52:33

I have to invite you to see the play The Castle the next time we do it, because one of the people in it, uh Urban Hunt, is the son of a man that was in prison, the father of a man in prison. And he said, that's the untold American story, the three generations. Oh, it's the untold it's it's unbelievable. Where it's again, well, Stanley Richards has said that before he took the college programs at um Greenhaven when he was and he had dropped out of school because he had been told he was not smart, and he bought into that, and he suddenly realized that there were options for him. But he had never been introduced to those options. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 53:15

Absolutely. So choices are limited when you're not exposed to the options that are there. I tell you a story. For the past week, I've been on the phone with a young lady and her family, a young lady I found on Instagram named Tamika Drummer. And it's so important that we remember that name. Tamika Drummer is currently serving a life sentence in Mississippi under the three strikes rule for two ounces of marijuana, for less than two ounces of marijuana.

SPEAKER_01 53:42

I read about that kid.

SPEAKER_03 53:43

She's literally serving life. And when I found her on Instagram, I began doing some research on her, and I wounded up a month later finding her son. How old is she now? She's probably in her 50s. She's been in 18 years. She's in her 50s. Her son is now about 33, 33.

SPEAKER_01 54:03

And if it had happened in 49 other states, she probably would have had probation.

SPEAKER_03 54:08

Not only that, Mississippi in 2025 earned 11 million in tax benefits due to the cannabis laws. Directly related to the legalization of marijuana. This woman is serving death by incarceration, because that's what a life sentence is. Life without parole, let's call it what it is. It's death by incarceration. That's what you were facing, wasn't it? Absolutely. Death by incarceration. And this woman, Tamika Drummer, her son did 17 years. You or I can go up the block and go buy two ounces of marijuana today, legally. So when you talk about incarceration and intergenerational incarceration, we talk about children of incarcerated parents and how it impacts the whole family, and that family impacts the community, and that community impacts society as a whole. You know, it's important that these stories be told and people understand what the implications are, not just here in New York, but across the country, what incarceration has done, what um poverty has done. I always like to tell people that poverty is violence, right? When you don't have food, that's why fortune is so important, because it gives you the full 360 wraparound services, right? When you don't have food, shelter, or clothing. I see guys out there right now in Fortune eating cakes, getting a cup of coffee, getting a glass of water. Guys who otherwise wouldn't have that.

SPEAKER_01 55:52

Food is absolutely people come here for a meal and keep coming back because it's the only meal they get, but that while they're coming back, they meet people, talk to people, get involved, and see the world quite differently.

SPEAKER_03 56:04

Which is a part of reintegration, understanding your social having a social support system.

SPEAKER_01 56:11

Re-entry. Which is why we're talking with Bruce Bryan, who is an example of exemplary re-entry. We could go on forever, but uh I'm so old now I can't go on for that. You got plenty of time. You got plenty of time. Thank you so much for for being with me this morning.

SPEAKER_03 56:30

No, the honor is is mine. Thank you for calling me. Thank you for having me on your show. Um, I think you know what you've done is an example for the world, not just for across the country, but for the world. Who was thinking about re-entry and reintegration? Who was thinking about mass incarceration in 1967? Who was thinking about that?

SPEAKER_01 56:50

Well, it was there was it was it was unheard of.

SPEAKER_03 56:54

There was no voice. There was no voice. And to think that it came from as a result of you reading a play, Fortune and Men's Eyes.

SPEAKER_01 57:02

You've done, you are also a scholar, Bruce Bryan. Thank you. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 57:15

Give me one more chance to try and make it right. Give me one more go. Let me see the light.

SPEAKER_01 57:30

Thanks very much for joining this podcast. I'm your host, David Rothenberg. If you need more information, or if you'd like more information about the Fortune Society, check out our website. It's quite simply fortune society.org. Lot of information on it, as well as all of our podcasts.