Why Choosing to Change Is So Hard in California Prisons | Panel

It scared me so much that while I was going through this process, there was moments that I cried, there was moments that my stomach hurt. I would make myself ill. California is closing down more prisons and over the last few years the prison population has dropped by 30 percent and eventually a lot of these people in prison are coming home to our communities. The question is who do we want coming home? Do we want people to just serve their time and come back or is there a way for people to transform and become different in the prison system? Prison culture, everything is divided, dominated by a particular race. Surviving is that, that's it. What I need to learn to survive, I learned. So what's more beyond that? Today we sit down with a couple of former inmates that have been able to make it back to the society. They will tell us what it takes to transform in the prison systems in California. What's the culture like and can things change? I know I was digging in the right direction. So I would do this to force me to go into a direction that was a wilderness. Going through the rehab, it's essentially you're risking your survival in the prison system. Zach, Miet and Oscar, it's great to have you guys. Thank you for coming. Thank you for having us. Great to be here again. We want to talk to you about California prisons and rehabilitation and what's possible. Can you tell us who you were when you got into the prison? I was a teenager. I was confused. I was scared. I didn't have a sense of direction. I was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. And at that age, it's a lot to swallow. It's a really hard pill to swallow. And so what I did was I learned from what everyone else around me does, how they survive. I did that for quite some time until I get to a point where I realized that I wanted more. That's when I started to make small changes, little changes. And a lot of it has to do with people that are in my life. I think that's one thing I'm more fortunate than others. I still have the love of my family. My family is deeply rooted in Buddhism. So my mother would send me a Buddhist mantra. And she was like, if you recite it a thousand times, you go home. I'm like, wow, that's how it works? I'm just reciting this thing a thousand times, but I'm not going home yet. But she believed it. So it's something that instilled in me, but I didn't see the value or quality of it because I was too busy surviving. And then when I get to a point where I realized surviving is that, that's it. What I need to learn to survive, I learned. So what's more beyond that? I had to start digging within. So Oscar, what about you? I was 17 years old. And at that time, I already had adopted a view or the idea that I wasn't going to grow old. And I grew up in the part of the city called South Los Angeles. Once I started junior high, three or four of my friends would die a year. So I still remember a friend of mine asking me if I thought I was going to turn 18. And I remember I paused because I was thinking about it. And my friend laughed about it, but it wasn't meant to be funny. It was just this dry humor. And he tells me, do you think you're going to live to be 18? And that's kind of what was my mentality. I didn't expect to grow old. So when I was 17 and I tried as an adult and I was in an adult prison, I was sentenced to a double life sentence in eight years. I was lost, confused, scared, but attempting to project this toughness. And I'm around grown men that had been incarcerated maybe before I was even born. And they're lifting weights and they had been lifting weights in these maximum security prisons is where I was sent to. They were massive. So I'm pretty sure they could feel my fear, even though that I was pretending that I was tough and that was this and that was that. And that put me again, just like when I, in the town that I grew up in on survival mode, how can I stay alive? And what I identified, gravitated to was gang life in prison, thinking that that's what's going to keep me alive today. I worry about tomorrow, tomorrow. And so I was just a 17 year old in maximum, in a maximum security prison, busying myself. How can I stay alive today? So you mentioned you were starting to look at yourself, like what's the flaw and where did you go from there? I went back to where Oscar described, you know, to the beginning for me, where I started to develop this type of perception. Why did I believe that it's normal for me to go to prison? Why would I normalize that to die by gunshot or by violence is a normal thing? And it's because of the environment that I was brought up in and what I gravitate toward. And a lot of it have to do with my need to find some sense of belonging. And when I dig deeper than that, go way back to my childhood, where I was born in Vietnam, when my father had already left the country. I grew up in a country where social perception really mattered. And a single mom with three sons without a father, you know, there's a saying in Vietnamese, they say, it means children without a father is like a house without a roof. You know, and there's a social disdain placed on the family. But I didn't absorb those things like I didn't understand to absorb it, but I absorbed it somehow. As I grew up, I developed this insecurity. And so there's this strong need to prove myself, prove to be a man. And that's very easy for me to gravitate towards the gang life when we do come to America, when I meet my father for the first time. So it goes way back. It goes way back to the decision we make in life, circumstances that offer us and how we absorb and interpret that. And I interpret it all wrong, in a very naive and selfish way. How did you come in touch with Zach's program? Year later, after I started making some changes in my life, I started practicing Buddhism, I started to meditate. Circumstances changed for me. In 2015, there was a Supreme Court ruling. They say that to sentence a child to life without the possibility of parole is cruel and unusual punishment. Because neuroscience at that time discovered that the brain free frontal cortex is not fully developed. So they're incapable of making sound decisions. They are impulsive by nature because the brain is still developing. And so I fall under that category. So they sent me back to court for resensing hearing and reduced my sentence to a life term, which affords me an opportunity to earn parole. That in itself takes me off of the mandatory maximum security prison and bring me down to a lower custody level, level three. That's where I met Zach and the Positive Change Program at Wasco State Prison. I met my friend over here too. And that's where I joined the Positive Change Program. So the program was never accessible to me until that happened. Tell us about the moment you remember when you come in touch with the program. We heard they're going to bring dog onto the prison yard. So everyone goes, this is not true. You know, we hear rumor all the time because in prison you hear rumor and everyone, only a fool get excited. Until one day we saw a flyer. It's a Positive Change Program. We saw, you know, dog on there. They actually bring dog onto the yard. And so everyone went and signed up for the program. I signed, I myself signed up. And on the day they do the interview, they have us all line up to go inside and do interview. And the setting was similar like this. I myself have been scared of dog all my life. So, and so I'm like, I want to join the program, but I don't know how I'm going to overcome this fear of dog. You know, like they're not my friend. And so what happened for me when I went in and I did the interview just like this, very, you know, I'm very shy. You know, my, I stumbled on my word, but I never touched a dog, you know, just later. And after the interview, they said, okay, you know, we'll let you know how it go. I went back out. I'm thinking to myself, I'm not going to get it. And I even looked at the dog. I didn't pet the dog, but sure enough, they got me in the program. So that was a funny story. They got me in the program. And I think the reason was they asked me how I was feeling. And I say, I was honest. I say, I was unsure. And Zach, for you, how did you get the idea to create a program like that? Well, let me just spin off of one of the things he said. What he said is that he was honest in the interview. And as some of the best people in the world were at Wasco doing those interviews, John and Leah and Lisa. But what you're looking for is someone who can be honest with what they're experiencing and feeling because they're going to be transmitting that down the leash. And if someone, a lot of people, especially in prison are going to tell you what you want to hear in terms of what they're willing to do, where they're coming from, how they're checking in. And for someone to be honest and truly communicate what they're feeling, that's something important that I'm sure they valued. Because if you're honest about what you're feeling, you can then take a breath, ground yourself, talk to somebody, whatever, and then work through it. The Positive Change Program was developed in a very interesting way. So at the time in 2014, we had people that were fostering dogs, helping us save their lives. So we would go to the shelter, pull dogs. We would bring them into someone's home. They would foster one or two dogs. Those dogs, they would hold an environment, create rules, boundary structure for that dog. It would then get adopted. We were a community organization entirely. I had a friend, Robbie, who got out of was difficult for him to reintegrate into society. He didn't make a lot of eye contact. And when he showed up to my house with his mom to adopt this dog who had been shot, Shadow, you watched everything in him change. And you started to see him smile. You started to see him connect. You started to see this person I was quite frankly scared of when I answered the door, became someone who I could very much relate to. So I watched as that dog changed his life over the period of months. His entire trajectory changed from one of very little hope, probably not going to integrate into society very well, didn't have any friends, didn't know how to talk to men or women. And all of a sudden now he's got this dog that creates social scenarios wherever he goes. He brings Shadow with. He automatically has a common denominator that he can talk about that he can be comfortable with. And it really helped him. And it was a combination of those two things. So we needed more foster homes to be able to save more lives. And I saw what dogs could do to somebody who had just gotten out of prison and what that relationship meant. So we set ourselves to trying to find our way into a California state prison that would accept us. That was a two-year process of trying to find institutions that were willing to allow us to bring rescue dogs into prison, to train student inmates to be there for those dogs, to help rehabilitate those dogs, and to also train our students to become dog trainers. And that was easier said than done. People were not, believe it or not, they were not chomping at the bit to provide programming for the incarcerated. You know, the culture back then certainly is the incarcerated are to be locked up and thrown away. I knew all those things. And I knew that what prison really was, was a place filled with potential, filled with individuals who wanted to improve their lives and have something incredible to offer our society if only given the chance. So finally in 2016, 2015 excuse me, Warden David Long at the California City Correctional Facility took a chance on us, got this incredible group of trainers together, and we went into that institution. And we brought in 10 dogs, and we brought in, and we matched up 30 student inmates, and we began that program. We sent in the worst possible dogs that you, almost all of these dogs had acute problems. They were reactive, they were shy, they were shut down. We were having gang members from rival gangs, rival races, working together, living in the same housing unit, cooperating. There was less violence, there was less drug use, there was less everything. There was a lot more of an onus on programming. You had people who had never gone to a class or taken a program the entire time they were locked up, were not just doing the dog program, they were doing other positive programming. They were pursuing spirituality, they were pursuing sobriety, they were pursuing giving back. And all of a sudden you saw an entire shift in that entire housing unit towards wellness and towards believing in themselves and towards service. And we knew we were on to something very special. And all those very difficult dogs got adopted when they got out. And then, you know, a month later we brought in a whole new batch of dogs and so on and so forth. 11 years later, we have graduated something like 1,700 students, 800 dogs. We've the most dangerous kind of shutdown level four prisons as well as juvenile facilities. You know, we've had the only of its kind in the United States of America boys and girls live-in dog programs. We've had a female federal program. And what's even more incredible than that is that so many of our guys have gotten out of prison and pursued careers as entrepreneurs in the pet industry. So you have guys like Newt and Oscar and so many others, many of whom are former gang members who are men of color, who are serving life sentences, who are now out of prison and not only serving their community in an incredibly meaningful way, but providing a service that we are very, very in need of. We have now roughly 30 formerly incarcerated dog trainers that are out on the streets who are contributing to this economy in a meaningful way, contributing to their societies, having families, you know, and really becoming contributing members of society in incredible ways. And one of the keys, one of the things that we really unlocked in Positive Change that are what someone in recovery who's pursuing sobriety or spiritual wellness or trying to build themselves up, what we need are rules, boundaries, discipline, exercise, affection, and purpose. And what does a dog need in rehabilitation? It needs rules, boundaries, discipline, exercise, affection, and purpose. So while you're giving this dog what it needs to rehabilitate, you're giving that to yourself. And there's this incredible mutual rehabilitation that is undeniable. And when you see another man engaged in that in a place where it's not encouraged, it really encourages you. So it has this domino effect. They leave a positive streak wherever they go and you start to see it affect so many others. And it's really become kind of its own little revolution of sorts towards programming, towards service, towards all of these things that are not encouraged in prison. You know, prison is a place where kindness and moving in acts of kindness, loving kindness, moving through space in a loving way can be considered weakness. And you can put a mark on yourself if you behave that way. But by setting that example, it really created cultural shifts within the institution that made hope and opportunity available to others. If Oscar, you can tell us your story. How was it for you getting out of that? Out of that rut? Yeah. I was 17 years old and I was in an environment if I didn't mature and learn how to navigate and mature to behave like an adult as defined by a prison setting, I was going to live a very short life, even shorter than what an adult who knows how to navigate in prison and is mature under the description of a maximum security prison. So the fear, that urgency, put an urgency inside of me to begin to look. So whenever I got into a conversation with anybody that was on that yard that was incarcerated, at that time with my thinking detected that could help me, I would listen. I started reading. I got into the habit of reading when I was a 12, 13, 14 year old. The group of people that I was surrounding myself with were not interested in school. To go to school, to go to class, and to do your work to the teenagers and to eventually me, that was not cool. What was cool was the opposite of that. So when I went to prison, along with learning how to survive, a part of that process of learning how to survive was education. I saw that immediately, but I first saw it in the hole. And there was men that had been incarcerated since the early 70s to the mid 70s, and they were offering me reading material. They were offering me The Republic by Plato. They were offering me all these different books. I ended up reading 9 or 12 Shakespeare plays and some of the histories. And I would sit in the ventilation system, because that's how you communicate with your neighbor, about books. And they would ask me, what do you think this meant? What are you reading right now? And I developed the process, an early process of what ended up becoming how to think about things more critically, through that process of reading and then discussing the books with people who had already read them multiple times, because they were in the hole for 10 years, 15 years, or in some kind of isolation. So they were just reading and writing essays on books they were reading. So this same process eventually helped me to turn this part of me that's, I started becoming aware of my awareness of me. And that's when I started to investigate early on, who am I? I was shy, insecure. I lacked confidence as a kid. And I attempted to project this image of me being tough, of me, of projecting this image of me knowing what was going on, how to figure things out. But I didn't have a clue. But this process introduced me to what little I actually knew about the things I was projecting. And the more that I investigated this, not only did it help me understand that I knew even less, but it started to give me some understanding of what I was holding onto in the forms of ideas. And then beginning the process of eliminating what I was discovering, I didn't serve me to navigate that environment. Didn't serve me as to the things that I wanted to include in this life that I have, that I call me, to be part of me, as to be honest, as to be a friend, these qualities. I started to care and think about, and I will repeat this process, to see how I was aligning to these values or virtues. And as I started to do this six months, a year, two years, three years, I started to, I came across an understanding that I didn't want to be a gang member anymore. I no longer wanted to be a gang member the more I did this. Not only did I didn't want to be a gang member anymore, I started to think, then what am I going to be? Who am I? I started asking myself these questions. Who am I? It scared me so much that while I was going through this process, there was moments that I cried. There was moments that my stomach hurt. I felt I would, I would make myself ill investigating this, contemplating this, taking things apart, dissecting these things, and to see what they would reveal, the more I would take them apart. And there's nothing like sunlight to expose something. So for you to go through this process, you wanted to give up the gang life, but then you didn't know who you will be. No. And that was a kind of a scary, there was no other alternative in your mind. The foundation of what I, of what was propping up the gang member that I had become, for one, the more I looked at that, it was already hollow. It had no foundation. The more I looked at what I thought was... It was just made up. You were making it up. I need to begin the process of constructing another foundation where they will then bring up, suspend this other life that would be based more on what I really do discover through these investigations of what's meaningful, of what's of value to me. So I would force myself, I would just give myself time. If I had a very strong emotional outpouring of queasiness or crying at night, I'll come back to it a night, a day later, two days later. But I wanted to go back and dig because I know I was digging in the right spot inside of me. And I would get scared of where, what direction am I going to be going? Because I don't, I haven't navigated in that direction. I don't know what life looks like in that direction. But I told myself, okay, if I don't do it, even though I don't know what's out there, I know what's here. And I've already looked at this enough times to tell me I don't want to be here. This part of me that has created this gang life. I wanted to reflect on specifically one thing that both of them have engaged in. And prison culture is a very powerful, powerful thing. Gang culture, racial culture. It is pulling you, almost demanding you into a role. And for these guys to make the effort to break out of that and to take the road less traveled is an extremely difficult thing to do. So tell us about this culture, because a lot of people might not know about it. That's up to them. How does it work over there? When you decide to make a pivot, you want to change. And this is very important because a lot of Californians, there is a shift in the way we're looking at prisons. So for instance, in most prison yards are separated by race in one way or another. They're separated by gangs, by cars, each one representing a different racial classification. Whites, blacks, northern, southern, and then others. These five groups. And then you're forced to politic within that culture. And it keeps you on a track that is, like Oscar was touching on, destined for negativity, violence, and death. You don't usually get out alive. So from my vantage point, to be able to watch them make that effort to take that road less traveled and break out of it into something positive, into something service-related, and to better their lives despite that threat is something that I think we should do. So we should definitely discuss this. When you were making the change, was it difficult to get out of that? Is there risks to people that go through? Because essentially you guys have done the rehab route and you've succeeded at it. We want to get to that. Like, is it hard to do this? Well, there's definitely risks. So just like Zach described, the way I look at prison culture, it's almost kind of like a whole different world. And in this world, everything is divided. Everything is divided into sectors, right? And each of those sectors is dominated by a particular race. There's no law. There's no rule. The most dominant or the most ferocious and dominant will be able to dictate the majority of the resources that is available. And if you live in that world, then you need to be part of a group. Or how you will be prey on is the survival of the fittest. The reason they do that is for safety. Safety and regulation. So they can feel a sense of assurance. When they come into a place, oh, there's another Asian guy. At least I know there's another Asian guy there. I'm not by myself. And somehow prison have adapted this culture where they respect that. OK, there's a group then we will acknowledge. It's almost like a U.N., right? Even if you have a small country, OK, we'll acknowledge you at the U.N. table. But we're going to discuss everything big with the big guy. Once in a while, we'll give you a little partner here. But you're part of it. But it's the same thing. So in prison, it's like that. The biggest car are the Hispanic, the white, the black. Those are three dominant cars in prison. And so when prisons are built and they put out four workout bar area, those three automatically go to those three main race. Automatic. The last four depend on which one of those three are interested in. And they will say, if we allow it, you guys can share with us. Or no, you guys do not have a space. And the Asian or the other car have to fight for that. So if you go to a yard that a yard that have a bar of their own that call other that the three main race respect, that mean there was a riot before that you were established in order to get there. And I have been in those. So I understand the severity of how commitment they think they require from each member, how committed they are required. So if one day you express them, you know what? I do not want to participate anymore. I don't care if there's a bar for us to work out. I don't care. We go to eat and I'll stand and eat, you know, like standing, eating on a table. That's not acceptable. It will be it will be a challenge to dissent of stability in itself, because that's so sign of witness. You can no longer stay on that yard. It's an immediate threat and you need to be removed. And that is on the maximum security yard. Because your own group would come after you. Because if your own group don't come after you, then you lose the yard. You lose everything because all the other bigger group now prey on you. And and so and that go with everything else. And so everything is structured. So it gives a sense of security. You come. Oh, yeah, this rule. If I follow this rule, I do what they ask me to do. I'll be fine. When you're deciding to join a program like yours, you know, going the rehab route, there is this force that, yeah, it's like your survival. Is that how it is? Like it's like going through the rehab. It's essentially you're risking your survival in the prison. I have invest, investigate all the choices I made, all the value. What what are my integrity? What are my value? And does that align with who I want to be? It doesn't. It does not align with who I want to be. I mean, I would like to be a good son. That I would pride myself as a good son. Right. But what I do does not align to being a good son. I'm not a good son. My behavior does not reflect that. My language, my attitude does not reflect. So if I want to be a good son, I want to be someone other people respect. Upstanding at the normal civil scale, right? Not just in a gang world. How do I make that changes? I have to take the risk. I have to take that risk. It's very interesting because back in the 70s and the 80s, there was a there was a comedian by the name of George Carlin. There's a skit where he says when he talks about the American dream. But one of the things that he inserts in that joke is that we have to be asleep in order for it to be. In America, there are these these ideas that we say, the American dream, and there's a track of how to achieve them. Many people have been on these tracks, putting their children on these tracks and how to achieve this unachievable dream. Right. And then each culture has a track of how to achieve what was valuable within their culture, within their family, of what what what maintains a roof on their on their home. Right. There's a track for that. How do you make that happen? How do you become a man that then becomes a husband, that then becomes that roof for your home? Right. And in society out here since the pandemic and even the times before that, many of us living in the US are now stumbling because they've been on this track that America has told them to get on this track to reach this dream, which is the American dream. And because of life being what it is, they find themselves either stricken by something that changed the direction of their life, whether it was divorce, illness or something. And they find themselves having to rethink what direction to go in in their life because where they were at no longer, it's not it's not working anymore. And now out here, I think that that is one of the ways that a person that's never been incarcerated might then be able to relate or understand what it's like for someone who's been in this path. Yeah. Being part of the gangs. The question is, how do we fix it? If this is a culture where people are stuck in and the promise is that we want to shut down some prisons in California. And if this is the culture and you guys are the ones that have made it because you put a lot of effort and you took the risk. And what about the others that are stuck now? I mean, so I think one of the reasons we were so successful as a program is because we didn't know any better. And we had the audacity to believe we could do it. So I didn't know. I knew there was racial segregation in prison and gang segregation. I knew there were consequences to not participating in what your gang needs you to do. But because we didn't really realize the extent of it, we said, all right, there's three of you guys. We're putting you all together on this dog. And they're going, what? You're going to put me with him? We're going to have to talk about this. Maybe we can, you know, and we'd have guys pull us aside and be like, hey, you know, but because we didn't know any better, we were pairing people up outside of their race. So we were looking at what the dog's needs were instead of what the political needs were within the institution. We didn't know about cars or keys or any of those politics. We just knew that these individuals had the ability to help us with these dogs, that we were excited about the opportunity of helping them and changing the trajectory of their lives. And we were going to give it a shot. And we were so assertive in our approach that they allowed us to have some of the wiggle room we needed to be successful. So we were able to pair students outside of their race, outside their gang. We were able to start seeing some of the politics and the culture within the pod shift towards programming and towards getting along. I think to answer your question, the California state prison system will never change unless there is a better effort to remove drugs and to encourage programming. And right now there just isn't enough of an effort to do either of those things. For instance, you know, I've offered, I taught the first of its kind sponsor and sponsee program within a level four prison recently on Alpha Yard at Tehachapi. And it was an incredible program where we have 16 substance abuse counselors. These men have gotten their certification in prison to be drug and alcohol counselors. And they are counseling 16 men off the yard to help, again, pull them out of that trajectory of deprivation and violence and into something of hope and opportunity. And just trying to carry that program out, I did it for free. I'm not compensated in any ways. But the rules around trying to execute that program, just trying to get in there every Wednesday to teach for two hours is almost impossible. They can shut down. We had class shut down for a month. You are not told you can get an email two hours before you walk into class. Your class is canceled for the next month. And we're not going to tell you when it's going to start again. California does a very good job of trying to incentivize people to go work inside of prisons. But prisons are violent, scary, oppressive places. And you also have to fit into that culture yourself. If you expect to go into a California prison and just blow up the culture yourself, like you think so highly of your program and yourself that you can just change everything, you got a rude awakening coming because it is a very well-worn rut. That culture exists for a reason. It is there for many, many decades for a reason. So you have to try to fit within that culture. And you have to also be respectful and earn respect. And you have to apply yourself in a way that is very contrary to how you apply yourselves out here. What I have learned over the last 11 years of working in there is that correctional officers who have an interest in bettering the lives of those around them, instead of holding their thumb on those around them, will help make the institution a much better place. People who enter those institutions to believe in individuals and help them get out and lead productive lives. What the California state prison system specifically needs in order to improve are much more substantive drug and alcohol opportunities, much more of an onus on programming, despite the violence. So violence, what happens right now is there is so much violence, we can't bring in programming. So they will say to you, sorry, the yard is on lockdown. We've had stabbing after stabbing, after stabbing, after fight, after riot. We can't have you on the yard. We can't have any programming. But the only way to make the yard less violent is to offer more programming. So it's this really difficult cycle where because there's so much violence, we can't program. But we have violence because we don't have programs. Yes, exactly. And it's been going up, right? There's more violence in the last year. There's been a lot of violence in California state prisons because prisons are shutting down. People are moving to different facilities. You have non-designated yards, SNY yards, general population yards. A lot of people are moving down from level four for the first time in a very long time. People are being reclassified. There's a lot of resentencing. There's different laws that have been passed. I think generally speaking, the government in California has done a very good job to offer change into the system so that more people can get out of prison, stay out of prison and become productive members of society. We have this cultural idea that the incarcerated need to remain there because they are scary, worthless, hopeless people who are only dangerous. And you see two examples sitting in front of you that prove that immensely incorrect. And what you really do have and what I've gotten to observe over the last year is hundreds of thousands, certainly tens of thousands of individuals that are committed to self-improvement in a way that is profoundly impressive to observe and that can set an example for so many of us out here who are trying to find that right path. So in terms of the population, when you look at the population, the prisons in California, you guys have been there, you have seen the people. Is there a percentage that are ready to rehabilitate right now? And then is there a percentage that it would be very hard for them to change? It is really difficult to expect people to rehabilitate when you do not offer them hope. What is the point of rehabilitating if you don't offer someone hope? You might as well stay mired in whatever rut you've been pursuing, whatever detrimental culture and self-process you've been involved in. You have to offer these individuals hope. You have to give them a path to where their effort and their application is going to change their lives. And we don't do enough of that. And the dog program is a big part of that. We are bringing in these furry balls of medicine and transformation. We're bringing in unconditional love. What dogs are is unconditional love personified. It is something that is going to look at myself and Oscar and say, I love you regardless. I love you unconditionally for who you are and I see you. And we don't have almost any of that in prison. What prison needs in order to fundamentally transition is individuals like myself, individuals like thousands of others who work in the California state prison system, who are willing to believe in these individuals and give them a true opportunity to change their trajectory. There is an aching loneliness that I feel every single time I walk into prison, a desperate aching loneliness that just emanates from that place. And what we've been able to do in programs like Positive Change is alleviate a lot of that loneliness because we come together as a fellowship that is striving towards improvement. And that's what prison needs. You have to counteract this really negative, dark culture with your own culture of positivity, uplift, belief and hope. And it takes individuals. It takes program. It takes funding those programs. It takes lessening some of the restrictions on people like us to help make a difference in prison. One of the things that frustrates the most about working in a California state prison and providing in many cases, free programming is how difficult it is to apply yourself, how difficult it is just to show up, perform your class, your program, et cetera. Because of all the restrictions around working in a prison, because of how many lockdowns there are, because of how many overdoses there are, because of how many stabbings and fights, it becomes almost impossible. The environment that is cultivated in there is one of such abject negativity. It's almost like a black hole where light is the mass of the weight of the culture in there is so heavy that light is incapable of escaping. That's really the best analogy to explain it. And in order to let light in, you have to bring that light from the outside in and you have to give folks the resources to affect change. For instance, we have a proven program over the last 11 years that has proven not only to rehabilitate individuals and help leverage their potential in meaningful ways that will make our society better, that will produce families with fathers and break cycles of incarceration, all these incredible things. Yet just our program to survive, we have to scratch and claw just to survive. We almost lost the whole program last year. Because again, people stopped believing in it. And you have to prove it year over year over year. I wish it weren't so difficult to provide something that we know demonstrably is so effective. And also, it seems like it's very difficult for people inside the prison to make the choice to change because there is a force that is almost threatening them every day to get out of it. Well, congratulations, you guys, for doing what you've done. And thank you so much, Zach, for all your efforts. Can I say one other thing? I don't want it to be lost that individuals like Mr. McComber, who is the head of California State Prison System, the CDCR, in terms of programming, have done an amazing job of opening up the prison to more programming. We have ideas now, like with OMCP. OMCP is Occupational Mentor Certification Program. We are certifying drug and alcohol counselors within the California State Prison System. These men need to be utilized to do their jobs. They are now certified professionals. One of the things that we can do within the system is allow these individuals to imply themselves as counselors, as sponsors, just like we did in our peer-to-peer program at Tehachapi State Prison, so that we can start to address the scourge of drug addiction in there. Drugs are ubiquitous in there, far more ubiquitous than they are out here. Is there a lot out there? You guys, people are doing them every day? No, absolutely. Every second. It's everywhere. I think that whenever there's an enormous amount of stress on people, the people gravitate to what may reduce the pain and suffering. For sure. And because drugs and alcohol are so accessible in such a small town that these prisons make up, a lot of people... A lot of people are doing them. And how do they get in? Visitation, drones, correctional officers, every possible way you can imagine, but they are everywhere. And we have to counteract it with positive forces. The only thing that's going to replace the negativity is something positive. And we have to be given the tools and the resources to be successful. And instead, every year, we're having to fight just to continue our programs, just to be able to have the little bit of money that it takes. We're a non-profit organization. We're not profiting off any of this, but we have proven something that has changed. So many of them have gotten out to create these incredible lives of marriage and kids and service and training and entrepreneurship. I mean, Nyot has hired three separate individuals who have backgrounds of incarceration. You know, I have talked to so many different people who Oscar has helped, families who were pulling their hair out going, I don't know how to take care of this furry lunatic that lives in my house. Can you please help me? And they're, of course, thinking to themselves with their own cultural bias. Well, boy, he was incarcerated for 26 years. And just last year, I just hired my first employee, which is a student at a local community college. Yeah, that's excellent. So this is, it's something that works. It's something that is, the output is evidence that this works. Just like us in any given society, I humbly suggest to include not coming in as having the answer, but having an element of what else can I invite in to make this work? Just like the people that are incarcerated to risk investigating, risk taking steps and directions to see what's actually there. Instead of having these rails, these guardrails, that these tracks that they're on, keep them from venturing out. You asked what we need in order to move the needle, in order to shift things fundamentally. What we need is to shatter our preconceptions of what it means to be incarcerated or formerly incarcerated. What I have learned is that these are incredible individuals who have mined their souls and their spirit in prison for decades to become the absolute best version of themselves in a hostile environment, whom have so much to offer on the outside, who are absolutely incredible individuals that can make this world a better place, period, end of story. And we have a scourge of incarceration that isn't changing. Who are the best individuals that might be able to shift that, to communicate with the youth, to make a difference in changing some of the sociocultural negativity that we deal with, like gang culture, etc. It's individuals like Nhatan Oscar. So I really hope moving forward that Americans in general will think twice about how they view the incarcerated and formerly incarcerated. Well, thank you so much for being here today. Yeah. Tell us what you think about this program on the prisons in California. Do you think it's possible to bring change into California prison systems and make it easier for inmates to change? Make sure to tell us by emailing siamak.californiasatter.com or comment. We read all of your emails and comments. I'm Siamak Khorrami. This is California Insider. We'll see you next time.