An Army of Normal Folks - How One Person Can Fix a Broken Justice System (Pt 2)

Episode Date: March 10, 2026

After helping free his childhood friend who spent 18 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit, Georgetown professor Mark Howard couldn’t return to his normal life. Instead, he built programs that have exonerated 13 innocent people, educated 250 incarcerated people, helped 150 people return to society, and have brought to normal folks into 30 prisons across the country. This powerful conversation challenges us to rethink justice, redemption, and the role each of us can play in bringing light into broken systems.Support the show: https://www.normalfolks.us/#joinSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Everybody is Bill Courtney with an army of normal folks, and we continue now with part two of our conversation with Mark Howard right after these brief messages from our generous sponsors. Next Monday, our 2026 IHeart podcast awards are happening live in South by Southwest. This is the biggest night in podcasting. We'll honor the very best in podcasting from the past year and celebrate the most innovative talent and creators in the industry. And the winner is,

Creativity, knowledge, and passion will all be on full display. Thank you so much. IHeartRadio. Thank you to all the other nominees. You guys are awesome. Watch live next Monday at 8 p.m. Eastern, 5 p.m. Pacific free at Veeps.com or the Veeps app. In 2023, a story gripped the UK, evoking horror and disbelief. The nurse who should have been in charge of caring for tiny babies is now the most prolific child killer in modern British history.

Everyone thought they knew how it ended. A verdict, a villain, a nurse named Lucy Letby. Lucy Letby has been found guilty. But what if we didn't get the whole story? The moment you look at the whole picture, the case collapses. I'm Amanda Knox, and in the new podcast, doubt the case of Lucy Lettby, we follow the evidence and hear from the people that lived it, to ask what really happened when the world decided who Lucy Lettby was.

No voicing. of any skepticism or doubt. It'll cause so much harm at every single level of the British establishment of this is wrong. Listen to Doubt, the case of Lucy Letby on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm Nancy Glass, host of the Burden of Guilt Season 2 podcast. This is a story about a horrendous lie that destroyed two families. Late one night, Bobby Gumpright became the victim of a random crime. He pulls the gun, tells me to lie down on the ground. He identified Termaine Hudson as the perpetrator. Germain was sentenced to 99 years.

I'm like, Lord, this can't be real. I thought it was a mistaken identity. The best lie is partial truth. For 22 years, only two people knew the truth, until a confession changed everything. I was a monster. Listen to Burden of Guilt Season 2 on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Segregation and the day integration at night. When segregation was the law, one mysterious black club owner had his own rules. We didn't worry about what went on outside. It was like stepping on another world. Inside Charlie's place, black and white people danced together. But not everyone was happy about it. You saw the KKK?

Yeah, they were dressed up in their uniform. The KKK set out to raid Charlie, take him away from here. Charlie was an example of power. They had to crush him. From Atlas Obscura, Rococo Punch, and visit Myrtle Beach, comes Charlie's Place, a story that was nearly lost to time. Until now, listen to Charlie's Place on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Welcome to Dirty Rush, the truth about sorority life, the good, the bad, and the sisterhood with your host, me, Gia Judice,

Daisy Kent, and Jennifer Fessler. Rush, the recruitment, the ritual, the reality of Greek life has been a mystery for those outside the sorority circles until now. Is it really a supportive sisterhood that's simply misunderstood? Or is there something more scandalous happening on campuses across the country? In this podcast, we pledge to peel back the layers and spell the truth one Greek letter at a time. Pledges and active rush chairs and ritual keepers. Some call it the best time of their life, while others say it's a nightmare. From a perfect rush to recruitment scandals.

What is really going on behind the doors of those? sorority houses from Alpha to Omega. We're taking you inside sorority row, including the chapter room, as we explore the fellowship and the frenemies. Let's get dirty. Listen to Dirty Rush on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. I talk to a lot of police officers, and I do so, again, with a lot of respect.

And there are many who tell me that that's what they wish they could do, but that there's a lot of pressure, deep, hard career pressure in the other direction, which is not to root them out, just to look the other way at misconduct and abuse. That's why internal affairs guys and police departments are often hated. That's right. And look how they're treated. They're called rats. What they're trying to do is actually find the truth and ferret out misconduct,

but they are viewed as the enemy. And I think the work they're doing is really important because, again, I want ethical, honest policing. I think we all do, but I don't think it takes place regularly. And I think that when you look at it through the lens that I have been exposed to, which is wrongful convictions, first with Marty's case, through and through police misconduct, like disgusting, absolutely indefensible police work in his case. But then you start looking at other cases as I do all the time.

But before you go to other cases we want to go to, it can't go without saying it's not just the cops it's a prosecutor absolutely the judge it's the entire apparatus that is stained by these people absolutely it's the entire apparatus so it often starts with cops who you know again it might be intentional it might not i mean they're trying to close cases there's a lot of pressure by the way to close cases typically the pressure comes from the prosecutor's office because they're up for re-election right so remember that we're the only country in the world that has elected prosecutors and elected judges in most states. That's huge political pressure to close cases and as it turns out and a lot of research is shown not to appear to be soft on crime.

I was about to say and to look tough on crime. That's right. Because the kiss of death, if you're a prosecutor or a judge, kiss of death is to look like you're soft on crime. Yeah, you're going to get elected out. And so you're going to go extra hard. And there's all this research showing when an election's coming up, they go for longer sentences. Judges when they're up for a election give, you know, there's some studies showed like 28,000 more years given to sentences. Are you kidding? In a, like, an eight-year period. It's directly correlated to a campaign.

Yeah. So, like, if you're a defendant, if you could magically pick your judge, which you can't, you would literally want to see, like, when is the next election? And if this guy's up in six months for election, you do not want that. But if someone just got elected comfortably, okay, maybe they're going to give you a fair chance. That's crazy. Holy smokes. Okay, so Marty, not only did you not shrink, it exploded you.

It exploded me, yeah. And you, from Marty, started your first real project. Yeah. And that was... Well, the Georgetown Prisons and Justice Initiative, but I really started several things at the same time. Okay. And so it's kind of hard to sequence it exactly chronologically.

Because there's another branch that maybe we can hold off on, but let me just mention, which involves, when I started volunteering in prisons, teaching classes in prisons. And that was in about 2014. Marty was exonerated in 2007. So it was kind of all Marty, all wrongful convictions. And then I started to realize, I want to understand prisons. I want to understand what goes on inside of these spaces that are closed off to society

where people get sentenced, where our country has over two million people locked in cages. And I don't even know what that is going on there. Most people don't. Sure, you can see Oz or the... wire or get some, you know, fictional sense of it, but I wanted to go in. That led me down a path that has also completely changed my life and led to a lot of the work that I do with the Georgetown Prisons of Justice Initiative, teaching in prisons, running educational programs in prisons, having a bachelor's degree program in prison, doing a lot of work when people get out of prison,

so we can get into that. But also the Frederick Douglass Project for Justice, which is about bringing people inside of prisons and jails all around the country. We're a national organization. And that has come through that 2014 turning point where I started going inside regularly. And now I'm at a point where I'm in prisons and jails two or three times a week all over the place. Like I have something like 1,400 days spent in prison, but no nights, which is a key. You may have a latent desire to be arrested as much time as you spend in prison. I'm just kidding. Well, I hope the judge will count my time served. Probably so.

All right. At first, it was the Marty story invigorated you, and you worked with other wrongfully convicted people. So just tell me about that a little bit. But at first, that was it. That was it. Yeah. So tell me about that a little bit.

You can see like this expanding circles. First, it was Marty. Then it was other wrongfully convicted people. And now it's become really all incarcerated people. but still a lot of attention placed on wrongfully convicted. Let's go that. So let's go there. So one is I just started reading about meeting people, talking to other exoneries,

talking to other people working on wrongful convictions, lawyers. And that was a part of what I was doing when I went to law school and then became an attorney myself. But then through that, Marty and I started something together. And there's a really interesting backstory to that, which is that I teach a class at Georgetown. It's now a huge lecture class and has a big waiting list and all that. It's called prisons and punishment. And initially, when it was a smaller class, I would always have, well, I still actually have Marty give a guest lecture.

And that was often a highlight for my students. And he was a great speaker. You know, he had his incredible personal story. I mean, it's like, you know, all the. Right there. Yeah. So, and it's, you know, my own origin story, too. Yeah.

Yeah. So that was a highlight. But then we started to talk and think, what if we, did more than that? More than just a one-off lecture within my lecture class, what if we taught a class together? And we put together the initial ideas for a class that's now become another huge institution of Georgetown called Making an Exanoree. So Making Exanoree is now, and it's ninth year. It's a spring semester class with 15 students, highly selective. We get about 100 applications. They have to submit video applications, by the way. So it's a spring semester class.

It's really intensive in terms of what materials they have to propose as a way for us to select them for the class. So the 15 students who get in, they feel like they just won the lottery because it's so hard to get into. And in that class, what we do is we have our students work on other real live wrongful conviction cases. So they work in teams of three. We pick five cases every spring semester in the start. How do you know they're wrongfully convicted in the first place? Initially, the first year, it was through work. word of mouth. We knew people who were lawyers or who heard about a case. One guy Marty knew from

or had a connection to when he was in prison. No, no, no. Not how do you know about the cases? Well, then we do our research. How do you know they are actually wrongful? We don't always know for sure. And that's what our students have actually made. Some of it is actually let's vet this. Yeah. Yeah. We do what you might call pre-veting beforehand. In other words, when we hand them over to our students, we have a good sense that the person was wrongfully convicted. But then sometimes we've had to drop cases. We've had to say, you know, we found out some stuff that's more complicated. We don't like this. We're not comfortable. And so we always have alternates. And sometimes we use those alternates. But the model is 15 students, five cases,

working in teams of three. And they have to reinvestigate the cases, which means they travel. They go to the crime scene. They are investigating. Some of them, they're like on a fire escape, measuring the trajectory with a string and where they said that our guy was shooting supposedly, which was total bullshit. And then the autopsy report that shows the bullet going in an upward trajectory, clearly having been shot like basically, you know, parallel or from a little below. They are going interviewing witnesses. They're interviewing the original prosecutor, defense attorney judge.

They're actually doing the police work that should have been done in the first place. Every single case within two weeks, they're like, there was no investigation. So we found, I think, the critical missing link, which is that while the Innocence Project and other organizations, they typically do DNA testing in cases that have sort of legal room for appeals with the new evidence from DNA. We take cases that are at legal dead ends, but that have never been investigated. And then what we provide is a full investigation that unearths all kinds of new evidence. And from that program, now over this last, what we've done at eight times so far in our starting our ninth semester, 13 people are now free. 13 people who had served over 300 years in prison are now free.

And the program is not just at Georgetown now, but we've franchised it. We've spread it. It's now at five universities. It's been at Princeton now. This is its fourth year. New York University, University of California, Santa Cruz, its second year at both of those places. And now it's starting at Rice University in Texas.

So we're from east to west, north to south, and we're working with this model of having students reinvestigate cases, creating documentaries. That's what their task is. It's not writing a paper or motion. It's actually creating a documentary which we then launch and share with the public. And through that, we create pressure, attention, and play a role in helping people get free. It's a lot. I'm conflicted.

Yeah, sure. Let's go there. I have personal friends who have been victims of very, very, very often. violent crime. Yeah. I know this may sound weird and it's a one-off, but I will tell you that rape to me, it's so much more than physical.

And, you know, stuff against children. I mean, I can get in a really dark place in the way I think about. what I'd like to do to somebody who's heard a child or innocent or picked on somebody who simply didn't have the ability to defend themselves it makes me sick yeah um then the frustration with you know well you have insurance having your car stolen it's not that big a deal if you've ever had your car stolen even if you've had your insurance you will understand the undue pressure it puts on you especially if you're among the working poor and you can no longer get to work. And you have to get a new license plate. There's no such thing as victimless crime.

And oftentimes the victims of crime are the family of the perpetrators. And I have studied and kind of gotten into all that. So my conflict comes from on the one hand, there is crime. And people that perpetuate that crime deserve to perpetuate that crime deserve to pay a penalty. A civil society requires it, I think. I also fully understand that if you don't read on grade level by the time you're in third grade, you're 60% more likely to either be in poverty or have incarceration in your life. And then that compounds itself generationally. So there's a societal issue to all of it. I,

one of my very, very dear friends, who is the president of the Chamber of Commerce here in Memphis, three, four years ago now, was walking down the street. Three guys got out of the truck right on the curb, point blank right in the back of the head, dead. Three, one was juvenile. One was, I was, I was,

say mentally he was challenged, and one was the ringleader, one was a female. And they left my friend there, and he died. And his family's devastating still to this day. On the other hand, the system that's supposed to hold those people accountable and needs to for our society that also you have had to work to free, I think you said 13 people in 300 hours of 300 years, excuse me, of jail time. who never did anything to be put in jail, that is abhorrent. So all of what I just said to tee up this, before we as listeners, before we as a side

and before I personally sit before you and kind of make my, continue to evolve my construct around justice in America, what do we have to understand that's actually happening. What does the average person get wrong about all this incarceration? Yeah. Well, these are really tough issues. Let me just start by saying, I share your horror at the crime, certainly against... And by the way, Marty's parents were killed. Absolutely. He was a victim of it, too. That's right. So how does he reconcile justice in America with having been unfairly locked? up. That's right. He's a victim. He needed justice for his family. I mean, and I think that struggle

is universal. Yeah. Yeah. For every, any, any clear thinking citizen in this country has to have a struggle with this. And so to get to that, what do we have wrong? What is the misconception? Yeah, we have a lot wrong, but there's a lot to unpack here. And so, so I just want to say from the outset that I agree with your characterization and that everything I do has a goal of preventing crime, minimizing crime, preventing and minimizing suffering, and particularly of defenseless people. I also agree, and we'll get into some of this more, I'm sure, but I have a very hard time with sex crimes and crimes against children for the very same reasons. It's a lot easier for me to take someone who, you know, pull the trigger in a moment of panic or in ebriation or all

kinds of situations than somebody who physically hurt another human being over a long-sustained way. There's something about a gun that is somehow easier to understand than the harm against a defenseless person. But it's all horrible. And all loss of life, all suffering is horrible. Oh, yeah, to the survivor. Yeah.

All of it. I get that. And I've been through that with someone close to me, and I share all those feelings of a desire for suffering from a person who did it. But there's an important but, and I want to make sure that we get to that. A lot of what I struggle with is that impulse on the one hand, which is real. and I think that just about everyone can share or would share if they were in that situation, unfortunately.

But with another one that looks at what are we doing to, A, hold the person accountable and B, prevent that from happening more in the future. And I don't think we're getting much right on that front. But before I get into that, I just want to especially highlight the wrongful conviction part. Because when you have a horrific crime, and you have victims,

whether it's a crime where the victim survives but is deeply traumatized such as rape, which is the worst situation where someone's surviving and has that lasting trauma. Or if it's a crime of murder where you have a loss of life that's fully permanent. That is so horrific. But is that victim made better?

is there any justice, is there accountability when the wrong person gets sent to prison for it? No, I think it's made worse. They're re-victimized, exactly. They are, because one, a free person is locked up as a result of what happened to them, and two, the person that actually did it is still out there. That's right. Exactly. And so what the problem is, is that most experts say that about 5% of convictions are of the wrong person.

That was my next question. as high as 10%. Let's do some quick math. There's 2 million people in prison today. 5% is 100,000 people. 10% is 200,000 people. But let's just go with 5%. Be conservative.

100,000 people in prison for something they didn't do. That's horrifying. We'll be right back. Next Monday, our 2026 IHeard podcast awards are happening live in South by Southwest. This is the biggest night in podcasting. We'll honor the very best in podcasting from the past year and celebrate the most innovative

of talent and creators in the industry. And the winner is... Creativity, knowledge, and passion will all be on full display. Thank you so much. IHeartRadio. Thank you to all the other nominees. You guys are awesome. Watch live next Monday at 8 p.m. Eastern, 5 p.m. Pacific free at Veeps.com or the Veeps app.

In 2023, a story gripped the UK, evoking horror and disbelief. The nurse who should have been in charge of caring for tiny babies is now the most prolific child killer in modern British history. Everyone thought they knew how it ended. A verdict? A villain. A nurse named Lucy Letby. Lucy Letby has been found guilty.

But what if we didn't get the whole story? The moment you look at the whole picture, the case collapses. I'm Amanda Knox, and in the new podcast, doubt the case of Lucy Letby, we follow the evidence and hear from the people that lived it. to ask what really happened when the world decided who Lucy Lettby was. No voicing of any skepticism or doubt. It'll cause so much harm at every single level of the British establishment of this is wrong. Listen to Doubt, the case of Lucy Letby on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm Nancy Glass, host of the Burden of Guilt Season 2 podcast. This is a story about a horrendous, that destroyed two families. Late one night, Bobby Gumpright became the victim of a random crime. He pulls the gun, tells me to lie down on the ground.

He identified Tremaine Hudson as the perpetrator. Termaine was sentenced to 99 years. I'm like, Lord, this can't be real. I thought it was a mistaken identity. The best lie is partial truth. For 22 years, only two people knew the truth

until a confession changed everything. I was a monster. Listen to Burden of Guilt Season 2 on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Segregation and the day integration at night. When segregation was the law, one mysterious black club owner had his own rules.

We didn't worry about what went on outside. It was like stepping on another world. Inside Charlie's place, black and white people danced together. But not everyone was happy about it. You saw the KKK? Yeah, they were dressed up in their uniform. The KKK set out to raid Charlie, take him away from here. Charlie was an example of power.

They had to crush him. From Atlas Obscura, Rococo Punch, and visit Myrtle Beach, comes Charlie's Place. A story that was nearly lost to time. Until now. Listen to Charlie's Place on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Welcome to Dirty Rush, the truth about sorority life, the good, the bad, and the sisterhood. With your host, me, Gia Judice, Daisy Kent, and Jennifer Kessler. Rush, the recruitment, the ritual, the reality of Greek life has been a mystery for those outside the sorority circles until now.

Is it really a supportive sisterhood that's simply misunderstood? Or is there something more scandalous happening on campuses across the country? In this podcast, we pledged to peel back the layers and spell the truth one Greek letter at a time. Pledges and actives, rush chairs and ritual keepers. Some call it the best time of their life, while others say it's a nightmare. From a perfect rush to recruitment scandals, what is really going on behind the doors of those sorority houses from Alpha to Omega? We're taking you inside Sorority Row, including the chapter room, as we explore the fellowship and the frenemies. Let's get dirty.

Listen to Dirty Rush on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. What's the entire prison population in UK? It's about roughly 80,000. So we have more. wrongfully convicted people in prison in the United States than UK has in total in their entire prison. Just consider that. That's right. That's equally horrifying. Yeah. And the trauma that happened, you talk about victims, then they go to prison and they become traumatized. Yeah, that's right. And then let's drill into what makes for a wrongful conviction. Sure. Sometimes it's a mistaken identification.

You know, somebody was hurt. Let's say it's the crime of rape. It looks at it. the lineup, says it was that guy. It turns out it was someone else who wasn't in the lineup or whatever. You could call that just an honest human mistake. Those are actually rare. The vast majority, overwhelming majority, 90% of wrongful convictions have misconduct by somebody, police or prosecutions. In the system. In the system. And that's because they need to close a case. And so they have a case. They have a horrible crime. It's in the news. You've got victims. There's noise, we need to make this go away. And so what they typically do is they find somebody who maybe could be, could have done it in theory, has a criminal record, was up to no good, doesn't have an

alibi, doesn't have really much of a defense, meaning resources to pay. It's the profile. There's huge disparities in wrongful convictions. And boom, we focus on this person. Any disconfirms, any disconfirms evidence, we shove out of the way, anything else we incentivize, we get somebody else in jail, and we say, hey, we'll take five years off your sentence. If you can say the person confessed to you, there's all kinds of bullshit ways in which cases get made. And they might believe in their minds that they're doing the right thing. They say, hey, we're taking someone off the treat. He's doing bad and he's dealing drugs, whatever. Let's get him out of here anyway. It doesn't really matter. But what they're really doing is sacrificing the truth. And what they're often doing is what you alluded to,

which is leaving the real perpetrator out there. And there have been, multiple exonerations that have taken place, and these were through DNA when they did not want the truth to come out, and it turns out it was the wrong person, and guess what? The real person raped and or killed other people. And to me, that's on the state's hands. The blood is on their hands. Right. The state is contributing to the very evil that we are all against, and that the system is supposedly trying to eliminate. Think about that. But there are no consequences. Their police have what's called qualified immunity. It's very hard to sue police officers.

They have very strong unions and they rally together to prevent it. It's very, very hard. Prosecutors, you can't even try. They have what's called absolute immunity. A prosecutor can lie, cheat, steal, cover up evidence, falsify testimony, put on knowingly false. And they will face no consequences. No civil consequence. They won't have to pay.

No criminal consequences. They won't spend a day in jail. Isn't it interesting that the absolute immunity for lawyers comes from the lawyers who are often connected with or end up in Congress or state sentence where they have made laws to protect themselves from their own? Yeah. I mean, self-protection, but it's something that is defended by, frankly, both Democrat and Republican, administrations, there's this institution that is placed on the prosecution, this value that they need to be protected from, you know, some potential avalanche of frivolous lawsuits and that it's better off for them to have full immunity. By the way, I hope it's become clear billed that,

but I want to make it explicit, that everything I do is totally nonpartisan. I don't give what party you're in. I'm an independent. I think like an independent. I think like an independent. I think for myself, and I'll work with anybody from the right or the left, who wants to help get people out of prison and don't belong there. So that's my only view. I'm pretty independent, too. I think both parties suck. I could only say that because Alex left.

He hates when I go political. So with regard to understanding what's going on, what's wrong with incarceration in our country, I think you laid that out well. You have a metric ton of statistics. And I'm sitting here staring at some. of them. One of them, I think that I'd like you to talk a little bit about is that we have this inaccurate notion that since the 70s or 80s, crime has actually been on the increase in the

U.S. And it's actually decreasing. Talk about that. And it's been decreasing consistently for decades. Meanwhile, our prison population has quintupled. That's right. So let's go through that. Yeah, I mean. I think it's really important people understand that. Yeah. Yeah. No, a lot of this has to do with the lies of politicians to play up fear of crime as a way to get people to vote for them by saying they're going to have their tough measures. I think this also said ways well into what you're doing now and why you're doing it.

So talk about one of the things I read, and I'll just tee this up and you can go on it, is property crime or violent crime was it increasing. but incarceration was. There were decisions that were made politically in order to do with the perception of fear, perception arising crime, and that's very different from reality. I have a pushback on that that I don't really believe,

but I think some of our listeners may say when they hear that, is could it not be argued that crime wasn't increasing because incarceration was? Yeah, that's not the case. But I understand that, and I've heard that argument. But that's a perception.

Sure. So talk to it. Yeah. So all types of crime have been decreasing from a high that was basically in the 1970s and 80s, where there really was a lot of crime where New York had 2,000 murders a year. I mean, think about that. That's three or four a day, right? It's no, even more than that.

So, and they were unsolved and it was out of control. And that led to both a lot of tough on crime policy. that involve policing, but also in terms of incarceration. And then you saw the numbers of people in prison go from historically, roughly, like about 150,000, 200,000, suddenly with the spike in late 70s, especially during the 80s, accelerated in the 90s under President Bill Clinton. So Republican Democrat president didn't really matter. And passed the 2 million mark in the 2000s.

And that's when three strikes you out came around, all of it. Yeah, yeah. Now, in terms of, so, and meanwhile, crime was going down. So it would be argued, look, we're locking up all these bad people, crime's dropping. Yeah. Well, so this is where it's important to have a little bit of political science background. Unfortunately, I do have and still have, which is that correlation does not mean causation. In order to be able to analyze cause and effect, you need to be able to control for other factors,

and you can't just look at two things that are correlated. Otherwise, you could say, you know, people eat a lot of ice cream in the summer, and there are more shark attacks in the summer. So eating ice cream leaves shark attacks. So that's just my favorite example of correlation is not causation. You remind me of my old economics and political professors when you say stuff like that, because stuff like that I find just so interesting. But it's true.

You eat more ice cream in the summer. There's more shark attacks in the summer. Therefore, the increase in consumption of ice cream causes. Sharks to bite people. Yeah, that's right. Well, I mean, honestly, if you stick with a strict associative policy of A equals B and B C, then A equals C, you can draw those inaccurate conclusions. Right, right.

Yeah. So just prove it. So you need to look at each of those things separately. So in terms of the decline in crime, it has to do with a lot of factors involving economics, involving opportunity, involving activities for people, involving addiction, involving guns. And there's so many factors that go into crime. Now, it is possible that when somebody goes to prison, then they're not on the streets and they're not committing other crimes, of course, unless it was a wrongful conviction,

which five or more percent are. But the research on crime says that it's a very small percentage that involves what's called incapacitation, which is basically people being in prison so they can't commit other crimes. And the vast majority of the decline has to do with other factors that are separate from the prison population. In terms of the prison population itself, that rise has to do with policies that were made in terms of sentencing. So three strikes laws, you mentioned, length of sentencing. the war on drugs, which, you know, would send people to prison for decades for crimes that weren't violent. Yeah, for having a bag of weed. Yeah. And then you have, of course, the interest

that went into building prisons in the 1990s, when again, Bill Clinton was president, you had a prison opening every 10 days in America. They were building them in rural areas, land was cheap, you know, get a license for building and, you know, a lot of corruption going on, of course, with these contracts and whatnot, and a lot of vested interest that wanted to fill these beds. You know, they talk about occupancy rates in prisons like their hotels. So, you know, they want to fill them. Well, especially if they're properly run.

Yeah, which is only 7%. I think there's some misunderstandings about that. But the point is to pay for a prison. Mm-hmm. Yeah, there's somebody paying for it. It has to be filled. Yeah. So there has been a really striking,

decline in crime. And from the 1990, the murder rate was going down every single year up until COVID, which is, you never have any trend that's that strong, where it's literally, it's not even a blip here and there other years. It was going on every year. And then it went up a bit, and then it's been going back down ever since. But if you listen to politicians, and again, Republican or Democratic alike, they will constantly refer to a rise in crime, spike in crime, fear of crime.

giving the impression that it's this upward trend, when in reality, it's been a consistent downward trend. And that has to do, sadly, with politics, where politicians' priorities is not the truth, it's not a study, it's not careful research, it's about getting elected, and this tough-on-crime message and this fear-based thinking wins in elections,

to put it very simply. And so you have this phenomenon where there's this constant reference. And so what they'll do is there'll be a story. There'll be a carjacking. They'll be a murder. There'll be a very highly publicized case. And they will make it out. It'll be on the news.

You know, could you be next? And it creates this fear. And by the way, it's real. Like, I get it. It affects me. It affects you. It affects all of us, right? I mean, that's why it works so well.

But it's not borne out by facts. It's not borne out by evidence. It's certainly not borne out by truth. It's certainly not borne out by trends over time. It's not something I've heard you talk about at all. Not that you haven't. I just not aware of it. But as I was considering what you're talking about now,

as I was preparing to talk to you, something popped in my head too. Doesn't social media play a role in this as well? From a standpoint of policy, because, you know, back when you and I hour coming up. If it was local, we knew about it. But we didn't know about what was going on in Denver. We didn't know about it from Memphis. We didn't know what would, but now, anytime there's some horrific murder or whatever in any corner of the world, we know about it within minutes. Yeah. Does that not then make the public think crime is out of control when paired with the politicians in accurate narratives.

Do you not think that plays a role in that perception? Yeah, I mean, it definitely had started well before social media, so I don't think it's a new thing. But I do think social media amplifies it and certainly makes it more immediate and has now become the source of information for most young people and most people overall. Yeah, because it leads to one very short, obviously in terms of attention span, and then therefore you don't get into death. that you can get nuance, you don't get analysis careful. And then it's also rushed. It's fast.

It's immediate. So it's not necessarily based on reflection or letting the sort of facts emerge and so on. That said, it can also be really effective. And I, you know, use social media and think that it adds a lot of benefits. I'm just saying it feels like the more you see, the more you hear, the more you feel, the more you believe, even though the data and the fact don't bear out what you're being fed. Yeah. And then there's the silos part. I mean, I do think the algorithms are really damaging because you get fed what you like and that might be what your friends like. So you're

getting just the same thing over and over and over and you get a sense of, well, this is everywhere. Right. So you don't get the wide view. You don't get the parts you might not agree with, but you need to know in order to form fully, you know, fledged opinions of bad issues you may otherwise not know much about. So that's a problem. Along the lines of what we also don't understand about incarceration in America, one thing that I read really stuck out to me is that 30% of the female population of incarceration and the entire world is in the United States.

Yeah. Well, 25% of the overall population is in the United, of incarcerated population. So we have 5% of the world's population, 25% of the world's prisoners. but you're right among women, which, by the way, is only 7%, I'm going to throw some numbers out here, 7% of American incarcerated people are women. So it sounds like it's very little, but it's actually several hundred thousand people, which in a world perspective is 30% of world's female incarcerated population. In other words, we incarcerate a lot of women as well,

even if they tend to be forgotten in the American context, but the global context bears that out. So leaning back on, before we go on, next is what you're doing, what you transitioned into. I have to understand this. Yeah. Because I think it all synergizes together. Leaning back on your pre-2001 life is a poor, simple, political science professor who's fluid in about 19,000 languages. You're fluent in, like, French and Russian and German.

Yeah. crazy, but who wrote his thesis on different approaches to, I'm butchering this, but different approaches to government, well, part of government is criminal justice and crime and prisons and all of that. I just can't help but think with that background, you haven't looked at the American justice system and started comparing it to those. other developed countries to form some ideas and conclusions about what's ailing us and what other people do well, right or wrong. And I think it's interesting how your two worlds collide there.

Yeah, so I'm glad you bring that up because my third book and most recent book, I'm working on a new one with Marty, actually. That's going to be a big one with a major publisher and totally different audience than the academic books I did before. You absolutely will get one. But I wrote a, my third book was like a bridge book, which was still academic-y, but more for a popular audience and with a trade branch of Oxford University Press. And it's called Unusually Cruel. And the subtitle is Prisons, Punishment and the Real American Exceptionalism. So I compare the U.S. to a set of European countries. And the real.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, the way that term has been used is sort of city on a hill, beacon of democracy. And what I'm saying is for a country that's built on a slogan of land of the free, we sure have a lot of people that are living in cages in captivity. We have incarceration rates that are 10 times higher than comparable European countries. So what explains that?

We'll be right back. Next Monday, our 2026 IHeart Podcast Awards are happening live at South by Southwest. This is the biggest night in podcasting. We'll honor the very best in podcasting from the past year. and celebrate the most innovative talent and creators in the industry. And the winner is... Creativity, knowledge, and passion will all be on full display. Thank you so much. IHeartRadio.

Thank you to all the other nominees. You guys are awesome. Watch live next Monday at 8 p.m. Eastern, 5 p.m. Pacific free at veeps.com or the Veeps app. In 2023, a story gripped the UK, evoking horror and disbelief. The nurse who should have been in charge of caring for tiny... babies is now the most prolific child killer in modern British history. Everyone thought they knew how it ended. A verdict?

A villain. A nurse named Lucy Letby. Lucy Letby has been found guilty. But what if we didn't get the whole story? The moment you look at the whole picture, the case collapses. I'm Amanda Knox, and in the new podcast, doubt the case of Lucy Lettby, we follow the evidence and hear from the people that lived in. To ask what really happened when the case. the world decided who Lucy Lettby was.

No voicing of any skepticism or doubt. It'll cause so much harm at every single level of the British establishment of this is wrong. Listen to Doubt, the case of Lucy Letby on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Nancy Glass, host of the Burden of Guilt Season 2 podcast. This is a story about a horrendous lie that destroyed two families. Late one night, Bobby Gumpbright became the victim of a random crime. He pulls the gun, tells me to lie down on the ground. He identified Tremaine Hudson as the perpetrator.

Germain was sentenced to 99 years. I'm like, Lord, this can't be real. I thought it was a mistaken identity. The best lie is partial truth. For 22 years, only two. people knew the truth, until a confession changed everything. I was a monster. Listen to Burden of Guilt Season 2 on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Segregation and the day integration at night. When segregation was the law, one mysterious black club owner had his own rules. We didn't worry about what went on outside. It was like stepping on another world. Inside Charlie's place, black and white people danced together, but not everyone was happy about it. You saw the KKK? Yeah, they were dressed up in their uniform.

The KKK set out to raid Charlie, take him away from here. Charlie was an example of power. They had to crush him. From Atlas Obscura, Rukokokokov. punch and visit Myrtle Beach comes Charlie's Place, a story that was nearly lost to time. Until now, listen to Charlie's Place on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Welcome to Dirty Rush, the truth about sorority life, the good, the bad, and the sisterhood with

your host, me, Gia Judice, Daisy Kent, and Jennifer Fessler. Rush, the recruitment, the ritual, the reality of Greek life has been a mystery for those out outside the sorority circles until now. Is it really a supportive sisterhood that's simply misunderstood? Or is there something more scandalous happening on campuses across the country? In this podcast, we pledge to peel back the layers and spell out of time. Pledges and active rush chairs and ritual keepers. Some call it the best time of their life, while others say it's a nightmare.

From a perfect rush to recruitment scandals. What is really going on behind the doors of those sorority houses from Alpha to Ome? We're taking you inside sorority row, including the chapter room, as we explore the fellowship and the frenemies. Let's get dirty. Listen to Dirty Rush on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. I'm going to take this up for you.

Yeah, sure. Well, yeah, we incarcerate more because we have more crime. Yeah, so that's actually false. So if you look at, I'm thank you for saying that. If you look at studies of crime, comparatively, we actually, with one exception, which is homicide, which of course has to do with guns, we have more guns. than people in this country and a lot of other countries don't have for use of guns. Homicide, we have higher rates.

But the vast majority of crime, of course, is not homicide. Property crime, all kinds of other violent crime, drug crime. Our rates are actually slightly lower than average among other countries. We do not have higher crime. That is completely categorically false with the exception of homicide. Yet our incarceration rates are basically seven to ten times higher depending on the country. and there's not a single European country that's even close to the U.S.

I mean, I have these charts in my book that are just show. It's like off the rails, off the track, completely different from other comparable countries. Well, and it wasn't always the case, by the way. So there's... It started back in the 70 years ago.

Yeah, if you go back to 1971 before the Real Rise started, and that's the first year where I was able to find data on other countries. The U.S. is pretty close. If you look at the number of incarcerated people per 100,000, That's the usual metric.

We're at about 160 per 100,000 at that time. European countries are about like 80, 90, 100. So we're kind of like close. But then they stay more or less flat, go up a tiny bit, like 5, 10%, but it's pretty flat. And we go up like this. There's just spike that takes place to the point where we reach 700 people per 100,000. So five times higher than it was in the 1970s.

What explains that? So this is what I argue in the book that has to do with four factors that all changed in different ways in the 1970s. So one is race, the way in which in the post Jim Crow era mass incarceration became basically a proxy for race when you could no longer have explicitly racial exclusion in their laws. Second, it has to do with religion when you had suddenly what was always a very strong religious existence identity movement in this country but became a very, very political, Starting in the late 1970s, the religious right, Jerry Falwell and others became very, very politically active, whereas before they were explicitly apolitical. There's a big difference in what Billy Graham was in those guys.

That's right. Third, you've got politics. The elections of judges, you have the whole Willie Horton scandal where this sort of presidential election in 1988, many argue, was decided based on a political. advertisement that had to do with a message that Dukakis was soft on crime because he let someone out on a furlough, committed another crime. Actually, remember that? Yeah. And then fourth is business, that you have a lot of vested interests that now have real skin

in the game, money skin in the game, and that don't want to change that. And that's not just the private prison companies, but I'm talking more importantly, all the vested interests, all the commissary products and all the prison unions. that want and need prisons to be full. And so with that, it makes it very distinct in the U.S. to other countries. And I've been to prisons in other countries. I've been to prisons in France, Germany, Norway, and I've also been to prisons in Brazil and Japan.

And, you know, totally different experiences everywhere. And I'm not trying to say it's better everywhere and always worse in the U.S. And there's some much better prisons in the U.S. in some places than elsewhere. and there's different security levels, and there's some that have a lot of programs. And by the way, I'm not an enemy of private prisons per se, and I don't think that they're necessarily worse.

I just want prisons to treat people in humane ways. And to have people that are in them be guilty. Be guilty, that's right. And that's about the judicial system. But I've seen other countries where it works much, much better. And that's what I try to bring forth in this book, is to learn from successful models, because the U.S. is doing everything,

wrong. Everything wrong on a judicial level. Everything wrong in terms of prison conditions and how people are treated when they're incarcerated. As an aside before we go forward, I would love for you to call me later, but I get we have more homicides because of our right to bear arms and guns and all of that that don't exist in most of the other world. But we had that same right in 1960. We had all those same rights prior to 1971. Yeah.

So I would argue based on that, maybe inaccurately. But I don't want to be the shark with the ice cream guy. But we had the right to bear arms prior to 1971.

Homicide rates have always been higher in the U.S. But I'm not trying to say that changed, per se. I agree. That's just part of a natural tradition. I think that's an interesting, maybe an interesting thing just to look at. Yeah. Because, okay, yeah, we got guns. Homicides higher than everywhere else because we got guns and I get it.

And we could, in good Lord, that's another five-month conversation and argument to be had. But the point is, if the homicide rates have also spiked, we can't just say it's because of guns. They haven't spiked. They've always been high. They've always. That's okay. It's not a spike. They are just consistently higher in the U.S. than in other countries that don't have guns.

Got it. But it's not a causal argument. It's just that that's just the way it basically always has been. So, Marty, free the folks that are wrongfully convicted. But now you have, as you talked about just a little bit earlier, you're now embracing the guilty. they did it yeah why why are you embracing them yeah well and that's a little tongue-in-cheek to get it up for you again but i mean why embrace the guilty yeah um and let me just first say this is something i've spent a lot of time thinking about working through struggling with and so

what i'll ask you and especially your listeners is for a little bit of grace to allow me to explain how I got to this point because it's not something that you can just sort of like intuitively grasp. It's not something that certainly from a position of thinking of victims of crime that automatically makes sense because I understand the perspective of someone who says this person committed harm. Why should they ever get to enjoy a single thing of life ever again? I understand that. But I, ultimately in the end, think differently, respectfully. And the reason why is that 95% of people in prison are getting out one day. In other words, they don't have life without parole sentences.

They don't have a death penalty. They have a sentence that will allow them to get free. Going back to what we talked about earlier, I want a society that has low crime. I don't want people to be hurt. I don't want there to be future victims. If there's anything I could do that would be for the future, it would be to minimize future people from being hurt. I believe very strongly now based on evidence and their stats to back this up, but also my own lived experience now, that when people who are incarcerated and let's say who were guilty of the crimes they were convicted of, when they are given opportunities to grow and change, they will not go back to a life of crime.

And so when they reach that exit door one day, they will be prepared to come out and to stay away from crime, to succeed, and to be positive contributing members of society. And I've seen this over and over again. So either we say, hey, anyone who commits a crime

should never, ever get out, period. I would disagree with that, but I would understand that somebody would have that view when they're pissed and they're vengeful. But since that's not the case, and I don't think that will be the case, I think it's very important to do everything we can to change people when they're in prison. That's what they do in Norway and Germany and other European countries.

Prison is the punishment for having committed a crime, and that punishment is the separation from society. You don't get to live at home anymore. You don't get to be with your family anymore. You are put in institution for a certain number of years decided by a system, by a judge, et cetera. And then during that time, the prison and the prison system will work on rehabilitation, on making it so that you change, so that you overcome your addiction problem if that was a part of it. You work through your violence and your anger. you are given time to change and age out of crime.

So much of crime is simply about simple biology. And, you know, people who are young who don't have their prefrontal cortex form and make stupid decisions, especially boys. Especially males. Yeah. I mean, there's so much evidence on that. I mean, mine is still forming.

I know. Yeah, arguably from that and never fully. She'll tell you. My wife. Yeah, yeah. But so if you accept, the reality that 95% of people are going to get out, and if you want to prevent and minimize crime in the future, you would and should, I would argue, support programs that will allow

people to improve while they're in prison, and that when they get out, they will not even think about going to a life of crime. And I hope I'll get a chance to talk about some of the programs that I've been running in prisons and jails, because it is proof of that concept. This is it. So I want to hear about it. I think our listeners need to hear about it. I know. And again, this is really tough.

This is tough to grasp. And so I'm asking you and listeners to kind of walk into prison with me to see this, both now as I talk about it and then eventually with the Frederick Douglass project on a visit in prison to meet actual. As I listen to you, I'm reminded of one of my favorite quotes. Little perspective. Yeah. And maybe a little wake-up call is that we are still a predominantly Christian country.

And our whole faith is based on grace, which is forgiveness. Yeah, I know. And the irony that still more than 60% of us say we are at least in some way Christian or faithful, subscribing to the notion of forgiveness and grace, because without grace and forgiveness, what's the point in Christianity in the first place? That's the whole story of the crucifixion, to then turn around when we are sinners

and expect grace and forgiveness for our own salvation and then not want to offer it to another fallen human being. So from a faith standpoint, I'm very conflicted. And I'm also reminded of one of my favorite quotes was from JFK, and he said there is a difference in a pardon in forgiveness. Society cannot pardon the missteps, but we have to forgive them. Yeah. So I just thought I'd tee up that perspective when you go into your programs.

Yeah, yeah, because I think that perspective is really important. I don't want to delve too far into the religious aspect, but I would love to see a lot more forgiveness, grace, redemption. compassion, all of which I think are very deeply central to Christianity, but I think tend to get a little forgotten in this criminal justice discussion. And the same people who like to stand on the foundation and beat their chest that this country was founded on Judeo-Christian values are oftentimes the same people that say they want to be tough on crime and throw these people in jail forever. And it's hypocritical issue.

Yeah, yeah. So go into your program. Yeah, so, you know, I started, as I mentioned earlier, I've started volunteer teaching in prison in 2014. And that was because I was starting at that point to teach about prisons. I was reading about them, but I really had very little understanding

of what actually took place inside. I was able to start taking my students on a tour and visiting a prison, but it was under very restrictive conditions. The warden would say things like, no eye contact with the inmates. you know, and it was like this, by the way, I don't use that word inmate, and I want to get you and others to never use that word.

It's a very dehumanizing, stigmatizing word that just doesn't see them as human beings. What do you want to call them? Encarcerated people. Okay. So those visits, you know, I could see, like, I would walk through and see where the buildings were and what a cell looked like, and that was useful,

but I couldn't talk to people. And I wanted to talk to people. So I found out about a program that was in a prison in Maryland, not too far from D.C. I started volunteering, started teaching, and I just got hooked. And I developed incredible ties with a group of incarcerated men, 30 or so, plus or minus, and over different courses for years where I was going in week after week, you know, fully volunteer, paying my own gas, whatever, just because I loved the exchanges that we had.

And I would be teaching, but I was learning so much more than I was teaching when it comes down to it. I was learning from them. And I saw this transformation happen in front of my own eyes. I saw a man with a huge tattoo on his forearm that said, Killa with an A, who left his gang as a result of the first class he took with me and ended up becoming an amazing student, ended up getting a bachelor's degree that he was almost done with in prison, and then got released from prison and got it when he came home from prison.

I've seen so many other people who previously have been violent, have committed harm, have hurt people. I don't want to mince words. I don't want to shy away. I want to be real. I'm not trying to say they were in for smoking a joint and got pulled over and sentenced to 30 years. They're talking people who were bad dudes and did bad things, but who are capable of so much more and who are capable of

transforming as they age, as they grow, as they learn, as their priorities shift. And when they get released, again, I'm not controlling their release. That's the court system, which is flawed too. But eventually they get to that door, and they're going to be ready. And now through that, I taught in that program. Then the program got canceled, ironically, because we were doing such a good thing. And there was so much interest in these classes.

And the prison was like, oh, this is like too much now. They're, you know, they're writing like grievance letters and they're demanding their rights and so on. So they shut it down. Then I went to a different facility, you know, expression, one door closes, another door opens, started up a program at the D.C. jail. This time I'd built up more of an institution at Georgetown. I'd started the Prisons and Justice Initiative. And I said, hey, how about we bring a Georgetown program to the D.C. jail? The director responded, yeah, yesterday.

We started two weeks later. Then a semester after that, we started offering credit-bearing courses. Now we have four credit-bearing courses a year taught by Georgetown faculty. at the DC jail. We have students. Called by Georgetown fact. Yeah, it's a Georgetown program. These guys are getting a better education than, I mean, that's a lot of people. Yeah. And then we started, hold on, a bachelor's degree program in a Maryland prison, which took so much work. A bachelor's? A Georgetown degree program. It's a five-year program. We have one more year and we're going to have our first graduation in a prison with Georgetown

diplomas that are handed out to incarcerated students. And when they get out of prison, they will have a Roma from Georgetown. That's right. They're going to have it even while they're in prison. How could that not be life-changing? It's totally life-changing. But now, I know there's a part of you and certainly listeners who are saying, why do they deserve that?

Why are they getting a Georgetown degree? And it's for free. We have it funded by donors and by foundations that have supported our program. And my answer is, we are reducing crime. We are reducing costs. It costs $50,000 a year on average to incarcerate somebody. Some states it's as high as $80,000 a year. when somebody is ready to return to society

and when somebody does not commit a future crime, we are saving money. We are saving victims, which is even more important than money, it's priceless. We are reducing crime and we are making our society better. We're helping children. 50% of incarcerated people have kids.

Imagine, and I know you had some on your football team that you coached, who've got a parent in prison. How hard is that? That kid is doing the time. Many. Many. Yes, I know. that kid's doing the time too, and they are fully innocent.

And so what we're doing with these programs, we also have re-entry programs, which I can get into too when people get out. But we are helping to reduce crime and costs and making our society better by giving people support in prison so they can change their lives and turn their lives around and be positive contributors and role models to society. We'll be right back. Next Monday, our 2026 IHeart Podcast Awards are happening live in South by Southwest. the biggest night in podcasting.

We'll honor the very best in podcasting from the past year and celebrate the most innovative talent and creators in the industry. And the winner is... Creativity, knowledge, and passion will all be on full display. Thank you so much. IHeartRadio. Thank you to all the other nominees. You guys are awesome. Watch live next Monday at 8 p.m. Eastern, 5 p.m. Pacific free at veeps.

At vips.com or the Veeps app. In 2023, a story gripped the UK, evoking horror and disbelief. The nurse who should have been in charge of caring for tiny babies is now the most prolific child killer in modern British history. Everyone thought they knew how it ended. A verdict, a villain, a nurse named Lucy Letby. Lucy Letby has been found guilty.

But what if we didn't get the whole story? The moment you look at the whole picture, the case collapses. I'm Amanda Knox, and in the new podcast, doubt the case of Lucy Lettby, we've found follow the evidence and hear from the people that lived it to ask what really happened when the world decided who Lucy Lettby was. No voicing of any skepticism or doubt. It'll cause so much harm at every single level of the British establishment of this is wrong. Listen to Doubt, the case of Lucy Letby on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Nancy Glass, host of the Burden of Guilt Season 2 podcast.

This is a story about a horrendous lie that destroyed two families. Late one night, Bobby Gumpbright became the victim of a random crime. He pulls the gun. Tells me to lie down on the ground. He identified Tremaine Hudson as the perpetrator. Germaine was sentenced to 99 years. I'm like, Lord, this can't be real. I thought it was a mistaken identity.

The best lie is partial truth. For 22 years, only two people knew the truth until a confession changed everything. I was a monster. Listen to Burden of Guilt Season 2 on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Segregation and a day integration at night. When segregation was the law, one mysterious black club owner had his own rules.

We didn't worry about what went on outside. It was like stepping on another world. Inside Charlie's place, black and white people danced together. But not everyone was happy about it. You saw the KKK? Yeah, they were dressed up in their uniform. The KKK set out to raid Charlie, take him away from here. Charlie was an example of power.

They had to crush you. From Atlas Obscura, Rococo Punch, and Visit Myrtle Beach, comes Charlie's place. A story that was nearly lost to time. Until now. Listen to Charlie's Place on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Welcome to Dirty Rush, the Truth About Sorority Life, the Good, the Bad, and the Sisterhood. with your host, me Gia Judice, Daisy Kent, and Jennifer Fessler. Rush, the recruitment, the ritual, the reality of Greek life has been a mystery for those outside

the sorority circles until now. Is it really a supportive sisterhood that's simply misunderstood? Or is there something more scandalous happening on campuses across the country? In this podcast, we pledge to peel back the layers and spell the truth one Greek letter at a time. Pledges and active, Rush chairs and ritual keepers. Some call it the best time of their life, while others say it's a nightmare. From a perfect rush to recruitment scandals, what is really going on behind the doors of those sorority houses from Alpha to Omega?

We're taking you inside sorority row, including the chapter room as we explore the fellowship and the frenemies. Let's get dirty. Listen to Dirty Rush on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All of that is so pragmatically, fantastic, pragmatically. But I think there's another reason. The question was that you just asked us that we should be asking ourselves is, why do these people deserve it? Why are they getting this? And the pragmatic answer is everything you just said.

I think there's an idealistic answer, too, that actually matters. And it comes from this question. what percent of the people you work with in prisons are victims of some kind of childhood trauma themselves almost all of them and that is so important to be mindful of so grateful that you brought that up it's something to be honest i didn't fully recognize and appreciate when i first started doing this work and i remember getting a little bit of a sense of it and then you know because society likes to make this distinction, you know, good and evil. You've got shows like law and order where there's like, you know, the good people trying to solve the crimes and the bad people who committed them. And it's

just like all one of the other. And it's so neat. Exactly. Every episode, you tie up in a bow and go to sleep at night, feeling good. Oh, the bad guy got caught. We're all safe, right? Right. Well, I remember once being in a room, and by this time, I'd been going regularly, these guys, we had trust, we had a bond. They trusted me. And that, in some ways, was harder to earn. I had to earn their trust. I do every single time I go into a prison. which again is like you know several times a week um but i remember one time i just said you know i'm curious how many of you before you came to prison how many of you lost a close person i mean close you know someone that you grew up with a parent a sibling there were like 30 guys in the

room like 28 hands went up and i'm thinking that is just unimaginable to me yeah what's What's the odds of that rate? And in a way, I think, is a direct cause for the conduct they then committed that led them to go to prison. There's a guy that I remember... How many of them were abused? How many of them... So many. How many of them as children grew up?

All that stuff. All that stuff. All that stuff. All that stuff. You know, I remember a guy Bobby who... He was telling a story. And he mentions in passing that he was about... I think about 10 years old.

And he was going to get to another part of the story, which I don't even remember. And it doesn't, it's not even relevant. But just in passing, he's telling me how he had these two older brothers. And they were his role models. And they were really close in age, all three of them. And he was the youngest of the three. And they were two older sisters.

But he was so tight with his brothers. And he just admired them and idolized them the way a younger brother does his older brothers, right? And he mentions that they were both murdered within like three months of each other. And he was then getting on to a point. And I'm like, Bob, and he was a kid, right? You were, you were 10 years old, and you lost, to murder, you lost your two brothers. Like, and then at 16, he commits murder and goes to prison for life. But so is he guilty of murder? Did he take it? Yes. But you got to take that into context. And when you start

hearing those stories over and over, you realize we're not really solving the problem. of harm, we're just sort of actually perpetuating it over and over. And prison, the way we do it now, in general, doesn't help people. People come out worse than when they went in, which is why we need these programs, why we need so many more of them. This should be all across America. Prison should be about rehabilitation. I'm not, and I'll be clear on this, and I have sometimes students who are like strident, like I'm a prison abolitionist, no one should be in prison. I don't agree with that. I think somebody who's hurting other people should be separated from society. But they should be safe.

It shouldn't be subject to violence, sexual violence. If we didn't even get into that, that's the horror show that takes place in a lot of prisons too. But they should be given opportunities to change and to improve and to come out better. Other countries do that. Some American prisons do that. Some programs, including the programs that I run in prisons, do that. But we need them to be everywhere because otherwise we're doing. literally just contributing to more crime. So we think it's being tough on crime, but we're actually

enabling and contributing to more crime down the road. That's the... What does it cost to house a, not an inmate, an incarcerated person annually? It costs anywhere from 30 to 70,000 a year. So I say roughly 50,000 on average nationally. It depends on the area. What's it cost to educate one of them in prison? Oh, I mean, a fraction of that. You know, I mean, you know, when you have... There's another pragmatic answer to it right there. I mean, just from a cost standpoint, what are we doing? We spend more to imprison a person than we do to educate.

I mean, in Memphis to send a kid to school is $16,000 a year all in, and it's 50 to lock one up. We can educate three for locking up every one. What are we doing? That's right. So there's a lot that should be done on the early end, too, and a lot of states have cut their education budgets just as they were increasing their correction budgets.

These are like two lines that cross, like an X. But I really believe, and I know you believe this as well, that we should never give up on anybody. I believe people are capable. I absolutely believe the human is 100% redemptive. Now, there are some people who are... Yeah, there's some... There's a very small percentage. Psychotic, something or other.

Yeah, but that's not what we're doing. tiny percentage. No. The vast majority people are capable of change, are capable of overcoming circumstances, are capable of being good and doing good. And I believe that, and I think that I've helped to create that and want to continue to expand it. So then the next step is after prison. I asked you earlier, what do people not really understand about incarceration in the United States? And I think you amply answered that. The next step is, what do people not really understand about re-entry? Yeah.

Which is horrifically difficult. It's really hard. Yeah. So I should say, again, learning from the European model, as I wrote about in my book Unusually Cruel and have experienced in spending time in other countries, other countries not only is incarceration about rehabilitation and preparing you, but they actually help you with the reentry process. They help you get a job.

Your last six months of incarceration, you're working in a job. going out of the prison and then coming back. So it's all about a gradual transition process that makes you a contributing member of society. They work with you on your resume and how to explain in interviews that you were incarcerated. What do you do when you have a gap like that? I mean, in this country, you come out

and your record still haunts you. You're wearing a big scarlet F on your chest for felon and that in every job application is going to come up. There's this whole thing about ban the box, about the first stage when you apply, about whether there's a box to check that you're a felon or not, and a lot of people are excited because some cities and states have banned the box so that you don't have to do it, but it comes up later anyway, and it's just as damaging. The problem is that you never really get over your past in this country, and there are all these what are called

collateral consequences, these ways in which you're restricted from public housing, from food stamps, from, you know, it depends on the state or on the jurisdiction, but there's all these ways, like you can't do certain professions, be a firefighter, be a barber, things that are totally irrational. Yeah, in many states, you can't be a barber. And sometimes in prison, that might be your job. That's what they're good at. Yeah, yeah. Well, oh, you know, scissors could be a violent weapon.

Oh, for God, it's so stupid. There's so much irrational fear. And in many states, it's hard to vote. You know, some argue that the term in the 2000 presidential election. I don't want to get into that, but, you know, there's a lot of people in, in, in, in, in, a number of states where you can't vote for a certain number of years, even potentially for life when you have a felony record in the past. Most other countries, you can vote while you're incarcerated, which, by the way, you can do in Maine, Vermont, and D.C. Those are the three jurisdictions with the tiny populations.

But let me say this, what we've done at Georgetown in our programs through the Prisons and Justice Initiative, and then we've had two reentry programs. One is called the Pivot Program. So, you know, Pivot, you know, change direction. and that's in business and entrepreneurship. It's a 10-month program, fully paid in partnership with the D.C. government. We've had, we're now on our eighth cohort, eighth year. What's a cohort?

I read that. It's a year. Yeah. So it's a year long. It's a 10-month program. So it's every year we start a new cohort. Eighth year of the program. Yeah.

Each cohort is a different group of people. Got. And then we have a paralegal program. Hold, hold, hold. You're on your eighth of the pivot. Yeah. Yeah. And what are the results?

Well, I'm going to get to that. Oh, okay. We've got six cohorts that we've had so far of our paralegal program, so six years of that, and that's a six-month fully paid program in paralegal studies. Combined with those pivot and paralegal programs, we've had 150 graduates. One is back in prison out of 150. The national rate is 70%. We are under 1%. The national recidivism rate is 70%. That's right. Meaning within three years. People are back in prison.

Someone released will be back in prison. That's seven out of ten. That's right. We are one out of 150. That's right. So what this... And 93% have jobs within three months. Some have started their own businesses.

And I'm so proud of them because I know them. I care about them. I love them. But I'm also happy to say that this shows that it can work. In other words, people are capable of doing, making good choices and having good outcomes. And I cannot go back to the pragmatic. What is the financial benefit of taking somebody who's costing society $50,000 to $70,000 a year, and they are now part of society buying homes, paying property taxes, paying income taxes, paying income taxes,

paying into the Social Security Administration. It's, I mean, it literally is if it costs somebody, if it costs $50,000 to keep somebody locked up, and then you turn around and somebody's contributing positively $20,000 in taxes to society, that is a $70,000 a year pragmatically. We're not even talking about the human side. That is $70,000 per person per year times $150,000. Taxpayers paying the bill.

Yeah. Actually, right, that's it. Times 150. That is 12.5 million annually positive. Right. Saved. To just that one community's coffers. It's staggering.

But it is staggering. It's also easy in the sense that it's cheap. It makes perfect sense economically. And we just got to get over our sense of, they don't deserve it, they got to be punished. We've got to get to our sense of what's right for society, and they are being punished. Their freedom has been taken from them.

Their children are being punished. But they are being punished. Again, it's a difference in a pardon and forgiveness. We're not saying to harden them. No. We're just saying forgive them, and let's make society better with them if there's a better answer.

That's right. Yeah. And so I believe strongly that, again, and through this bizarre route that I've taken that started with Marty and then went to wrongful convictions and then started going into prisons, that I've been able to see a magic formula that with proper support, and a lot of this, I mean, all of this depends on philanthropy, everything I do and I've got four nonprofits

and I have to raise every penny of it, and it all depends on people who care and who see the good that's created and believe that, you know, this is a better way. We don't get, you know, government funding. We have some small grants in here and there, but it's really donor-based philanthropy 501C3 funding that allows us to do this work that ultimately saves taxpayers,

you know, like you said, millions of dollars and creates a lot of good and beautiful stories of redemption. We'll be right back. Next Monday, our 2026 IHeart Podcast Awards are happening live at South by Southwest. This is the biggest night in podcasting. We'll honor the very best in podcasting

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Watch live next Monday at 8 p.m. Eastern, 5 p.m. Pacific free at Veeps.com or the Veeps app. In 2023, a story gripped the UK, evoking horror and disbelief. The nurse who should have been in charge of caring for tiny babies is now the most prolific child killer in modern British history. Everyone thought they knew how it ended. A verdict?

A villain. A nurse named Lucy Letby. Lucy Letby has been found guilty. But what if we didn't get the whole story? The moment you look at the whole picture, the case collapses. I'm Amanda Knox, and in the new podcast, doubt the case of Lucy Lettby, we follow the evidence and hear from the people that lived in. To ask what really happened when the world,

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This is a story about a horrendous lie that destroyed two families. Late one night, Bobby Gumpbright became the victim of a random crime. He pulls the gun. He tells me to lie down on the ground. He identified Tremaine Hudson as the perpetrator. Germain was sentenced to 99 years. I'm like, Lord, this can't be real.

I thought it was a mistaken identity. The best lie is partial truth. For 22 years, only two people. knew the truth until a confession changed everything. I was a monster. Listen to Burden of Guilt Season 2 on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Segregation and the day integration at night. When segregation was the law, one mysterious black club owner had his own rules.

We didn't worry about what went on outside. It was like stepping in another world. Inside Charlie's place, black and white people danced together, but not everyone was happy about it. You saw the KKK? Yeah, they were dressed up in their uniform. The KKK set out to raid Charlie, take him away from here. Charlie was an example of power.

They had to crush him. From Atlas Obscura, Rococo Paul. punch and visit Myrtle Beach comes Charlie's place, a story that was nearly lost to time. Until now, listen to Charlie's Place on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Welcome to Dirty Rush, the truth about sorority life, the good, the bad, and the sisterhood, with your host, me, Gia Judice, Daisy Kent, and Jennifer Fessler. Rush, the recruitment, the ritual, the reality of Greek life has been a mystery for those outside

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Listen to Dirty Rush on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. You alluded to the Frederick Douglass Project, and I wanted to give you a quick opportunity. It's built on a pretty simple idea. People change when distance appears, which I found kind of interesting. that's really interesting because I think that could be even multi-layered itself. When it disappears. Yeah, from when distance disappears.

And what actually happens when someone sits from the outside across from someone inside a prison. And I want to also offer the opportunity when we talk about distance disappearing, not only from people working with folks who are incarcerated, but also when family. family is able to visit in that distance disappears. Well, for most people when they get incarcerated,

they might as well go to Mars. They're so cut off from society. They might have some family visits, but frankly, those are often few and far between. It's really hard to visit prison. They're far away. People are poor. They can't get there.

Lots of prisons have found that contraband gets into the prisons through those visits. And so many prisons in the United States have just suspended all. all of the family visits, unfortunately. Yeah, yeah. Which makes a person feel like more. Because that's the story that prisons will give you about contraband,

but the vast, vast majority of contraband comes through guards. From the guards. Right. We're corrupted. I'm sorry. I misstated that. It's true that some goes in. No, the argument is that contraband comes in.

So the prisons have used it as a way to suspend. So when you say people on Mars and then they have to pay for phone calls, they literally, the distances, you might as well be on more. And so the Fedraigd-Darly project says less the distance. We break down those barriers, break down the distance, and we create proximity. We bring people inside. So it's not just the physical distance. It's like the emotional distance.

Because if maybe like your average listener, who probably has never visited prison, maybe has had a family member incarcerated, maybe not. But doesn't really know more than what's on. TV shows and probably has a sense that, you know, there's like prisons are scary and people are coming, running around with shanks and that it's, you know, it's sort of like dangerous place. And that couldn't be further from the truth. You've got a lot of people who, again, done bad things, made bad choices, but are trying to get on a better path.

And what the Frederick Douglass project does is it brings members of free society into prisons and jails all around the country. we're in we're about to be in our 17th state and we're in about 30 facilities and we're spreading quickly and we're coast to coast. I could name all our states, but really like from New England to Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, we've been to departure and farm into some prisons outside of Jackson. Which is tough. Yeah, yeah, very tough. We, yeah, we're about to start soon in Texas, but we're in California. We're about to start in Arizona, Washington State, and we're in Idaho and a lot of the Midwest to Illinois, Ohio, Michigan.

So we're really in all different areas. And we bring people inside for about a two to three hour experience, the heart of which there's a visit of the prison. You get C-cells, but the core of it is sitting down with incarcerated people, men and women, and talking with people. And we have a set of conversation starters framing the first of big group conversation introductions and then small groups where people go really deep into who they are. It's not about crime. It's not about prison. It's about who we are as people.

And let me tell you, when people walk out after those experiences, they are changed. They are moved. The outside participants, as we call them, we don't use the word inmate. So the outside participants come out, blown away by the people they met by just the richness and complexity of the conversations. The stereotypes. Yeah, everything melts away. And then the inside people, suddenly they have purpose.

They have hope. They realize there's a society out there that's going to welcome them when they come home, that they might have job opportunities, that they're capable, that they're worth something. I cannot tell you how many times I've had someone say, I feel human today. And then they call their loved ones, their spouse or their children. And, you know, it creates this connection to the outside world that gives them meaning, gives them purpose. And so it's a beautiful program for everyone who participates. And the amazing part of it, when I started this, I thought,

it's going to be hard to get correctional officials to trust me enough and my program enough to let us in. Well, now they're calling me. They want this program because it works so well. I've never had a program get canceled, even though they could, you know, like that if something went wrong. And they realize that it makes their prisons easier to run because people are more upbeat.

They're doing positive things. They're not getting in trouble. Exactly. If they feel more like human beings and they're more energized and hopeful, they're less likely to do something stupid. Yeah. So our mantra in that program is common humanity.

And that's something emphasized in all my programs and all my work, which is that we need to recognize the common humanity. We need to support each other as human beings, regardless of where we've been, regardless of what we've done, that we need to rise above these categories that society has,

impose and regularly reinforces on us and to achieve something better as human beings together. So once someone from the outside, I think you call them from the outside. Yeah, outside participants. Yeah. They're like I'm talking about water world or something. But once somebody from the outside, the system sees people inside the system, it's hard to stay a bystander. What does that realization ask the rest of us to do? What does that ask of our listeners?

What does that ask of the Army of normal folks? What does that realization from what you've seen in the program you've created need to say to the rest of us? Yeah, no, I have a clear and simple answer to that. So I'll say it in two parts. One is if there's ever an opportunity to visit a prison through the Frederick Douglass Project for Justice, please join us. Go to Douglasproject.org. Look at our sites and join a visit if there's one in. proximity to where you live.

Then you'll have that experience firsthand. Actually, one thought I had in real time, Bill. This would be great for our Army activations. So for our service clubs, we're launching six around the country, I was telling you in the car. It'd be a great thing for these service clubs to do as a group. You're going there together. Absolutely.

Yeah, we love bringing full groups in, too. So that's a great idea, organizationally, to do, to link us together. But for those who can or who won't for any reason, Although, little footnote, I have brought in a number of people who've been victims of crimes, and that's really powerful because that leads to this incredible realization that is liberating for them as victims to achieve that type of forgiveness and to understand people who even have committed harm. It's not necessarily their own perpetrator in their case.

What is it for an incarcerated person to watch a victim of crime? It's moving. Forgiveness. That incarcerated person must be like, okay, it is possible that I can be worthy for society again. Let me tell you, incarcerated people are not supposed to show emotion in prison, especially men. Right. There's a whole value of toughness. It's a whole thing, right?

And I've seen a lot of really tough guys cry in prison. I mean, you'd think we're chopping onions all day long when I go in there. I mean, we're talking heavy emotions because it has to do. with harm caused, with forgiveness, with redemption, they go really deep inside of themselves. I can't imagine a more meaningful experience. Yeah, it's so meaningful. To watch the transformation of a grown-at human being. Yeah.

Who's been through it. That's right. So let me give the general answer now that I would love everyone who's listening to think about, which is picture somebody you know in your life. And it could be a brother or sister or a good friend. or somebody who struggled, somebody who has problems with addiction, has made bad choices, has just put themselves in the wrong situation with people and just done stupid things, stupid shit. I mean, you know, my best friend died of an overdose this past summer.

I'm still devastated by and don't know how it happened and can't believe it. But I want you to think about somebody who made bad choices, the kind of person you just love, but you just think, why, why? And imagine that person going to prison, making a decision that crosses the line of the law, they get caught, they go to prison. Would you stop loving them? Imagine it's your kid.

I mean, so many people, they have parents, they have moms, dads, who love them. Would you stop loving them? Would you want them to be mistreated? Would you want them to be abused? Would you want them to suffer? No. No, you would want them to rehab.

To rehab. You would want them to get better. you would want them to be treated in a way that allows them to turn their life around. So what I say is I think of every incarcerated person in the United States that way. I think of them all like they're my brother or sister or my best friend. Well, they are your brother or sister. They are. That's right.

And I want, that's what I try to spread. If I had to generalize it to one message, it's care about all incarcerated people like they're your own brother and sister and then treat them that way and support programs that will treat them that way. because we will all be better off. We will reduce crime, reduce costs, and we will be a much more healing and loving society if we can do that.

And you know what? It might sound like a pipe dream, but it's not. Like, it works. I'm doing these programs. Others are doing it. Like, it's doable. We need to scale it and do it more. But we actually have the solution at our finger test.

We need to just support it. When you put it on that personal level, it is profound. I did what you asked me to do as you were talking, and I thought about somebody who I love very, very much. who has struggled with bad decisions, but is a really good person.

And the last thing I want them to do is end up in prison, but if they did, I would do everything I could to support the rehabilitation. And if it's okay for that human being, why not for all the others? That's right. And that's what you're saying. That's exactly what I'm saying. And I didn't just... And in that context, how can you not support that? Yeah. Yeah. And I didn't just sort of have this from the beginning. I didn't just sort of invent it. It's not some slogan. It's literally something that I work through painstakingly in a torturing myself trying to grapple with these really hard questions. Like I'm in a room with 30 people who took a life. I mean, that's heavy. You know, that weighs on me. Yet I love them. And I try to understand. understand it all and bounce it all and think about it and come up with a solution that will

improve their lives and improve us as a society. And you know what? I'm a much better person for it too. I think that's why your story, Mark, honestly, is so compelling because you're not some guy standing on the corner waving some flag with a bullhorn screaming a society for being unfair. No. You're not doing it. Not at all. No. You're simply trying to support the broken. That's right. More than simply, like, you built a really comprehensive solution for one human being from exoneration in the prison to reentry. I mean, it's remarkable.

It is remarkable. How comprehensive you've been as one human being. What's also remarkable is it started defending the unjustly incarcerated and now are defending the incarcerated unjustly justly. Right. Crazy. Yeah. Marty involved. Yeah, Marty's on the board of the Douglas Project.

Of course it is. Why would he be? We work together. Exactly. Yeah. No, because, you know, many exonerese like Marty, they, through their own experience, they saw, you know. Well, they look along with good people who made bad choices. Yeah.

And they still support them and they want to see them getting free as well and doing good, the right thing when they're out. Good people do bad things all day every day. That's right. And if we really are the country and the society. society and candidly the culture, the Judeo-Christian culture that we claim ourselves to be, redemption has to be a part of this. And if you can come up with ways to create programs that people can actually earn redemption and re-earn their society from both the human and pragmatic win-win situation,

You know, I just can't understand how we can't start listening to this. But there's one of you, dude. Yeah, yeah. Well, I'm trying to create programs that are scalable. Yeah. And I'm trying to build teams in all my programs and organizations who are devoted and who get the message and support the cause and are really, you know, as committed as I am.

So it's by no means just me. And I'm trying to set them up so that they will survive me. And if I get hit by a bus tomorrow, that everything will be okay and the mission will continue. You know, as I said, a lot of it depends on philanthropy and on donors. I realize also that there's a paradox here, which is, and especially for an army of normal folk, which is that, you know, I do have fancy degrees. And, you know, I sometimes can play those up. I can turn up, you know, Yale, UC Berkeley, Georgetown and all that.

I can go into these fancy crowds. I was also, you know, elite tennis player and played, you know, at a close to pro level was Yvonne Lendell's practice partner when he was winning grand slams. And I can play up the country club crowd. But when it comes down to it, where I really find my moral compass is in prison. And that's totally bizarre. And I realize that doesn't make sense. Hopefully after this conversation, it makes a little more sense.

but when you're around people who have experienced real suffering, real struggle, real redemption, it's very different than just being in a world among privileged people. And I've been in both of those worlds. And I benefit from that. I'm not going to pretend that that's not the case. But where I think I truly find myself and where I've truly grown is through my experience with incarcerated people. And that's something I want to continue. But I also want to spread and I want more people.

to have that exposure to see that beauty and find that magic that I've found. We often talk about on the show that the magic in life happens when one's passion collides with opportunity. That's right. And your passion probably really fueled by your buddy Marty. That's right. And then the opportunity from both your political science background, your academic background, and the story of Marty.

collided at this world of incarcerated people with your passion. And, you know, Mark, it doesn't matter about all the degrees and stuff. Sure, the pedigree is cool, but none of that really matters. No, it doesn't matter to me. No, what matters is you've become passionate about a need. That's right. And you've figured out ways to fill it. And it feels like every step of your life from knowing Marty in preschool until this point

has led to this work. Yeah, that's right. just a normal dude finding his passion as opportunity and doing that's how i feel i mean i you know i don't have my diplomas up i honestly don't give it i don't care it's a piece of paper to me what matters is the life experience that i've led and sure it took me through some fancy places at times but where i really developed my moral core and compass uh is in working with incarcerated people and i find so much humanity so much beauty so much uh character in them And that's what I want to spread to people around the country around the world.

Mark Howard, everybody. Founding Director of the Prisons and Justice Initiative at Georgetown University and founder of the Frederick Douglas Project of Justice. And more importantly, a guy whose story, if you hear it, and you listen to the data, and you listen to the advice and you listen to the World War Experience, has got to challenge us to think about all this stuff, all prison reform and criminal justice, all of it, a little differently and challenge ourselves to remember what our foundation and our basis is as citizens of this culture and this society

and recognize we can do more. Mark, thanks so much. Thanks for what you do. Thanks for flying into Memphis real quick to share the story with us. And I just got to believe there's more down the road. so I can't wait to keep in touch with you and hear what's next. I look forward to that. Thank you, Bill.

Really enjoy the conversation. Thank you. And thank you for joining us this week. If Mark Howard has inspired you in general or better yet to take action by bringing making an exonerty to your university or visiting a prison with the Frederick Douglas project or something else entirely I'd love to hear about it,

You can write me anytime at Bill at normalfolks. And I will respond. If you enjoyed this episode, share it with friends and on social, subscribe to the podcast, rate it, review it. Join the Army at NormalFolks. All of these things that will help us grow, an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney. Until next time, do what you can. Next Monday, our 2026 IHeart Podcast Awards are happening live in South by Southwest.

This is the biggest night in podcasting. We'll honor the very best in podcasting from the past year and celebrate the most innovative talent and creators in the industry. And the winner is... Creativity, knowledge, and passion will all be on full display. Thank you so much. IHeart Radio. Thank you to all the other nominees.

You guys are awesome. Watch live next Monday at 8 p.m. Eastern, 5 p.m. Pacific free at Veeps. Or the Veeps app. Saturday, May 2nd. Country's biggest stars will be in Austin, Texas. At our 26 I Hard Country Festival presented by Capital One. Tickets are on sale now. Get yours before they sell out at Ticketmaster.com.

That's Ticketmaster.com. When segregation was a law, one mysterious black club owner, Charlie Fitzgerald, had his own rules. Segregation and the day integration at night. It was like stepping on another world. Was he a businessman? A criminal. A hero. Charlie was an example of power.

They had to crush you. Charlie's Place, from Atlas Obscura and visit Myrtle Beach. Listen to Charlie's Place on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Babes, what are you doing? What? I'm just mowing the lawn. No, it's blazing hot and dry out here. Don't you remember?

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With your host, me, Gia Judice, Daisy Kent, and Jennifer Fessler. The reality of Greek life has been a mystery for those outside the sorority circles until now. Is it really a supportive sisterhood that's simply misunderstood? or is there something more scandalous happening on campuses across the country? Let's get dirty. Listen to Dirty Rush on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.