Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan - #301: Turn Your Anger & Outrage Into ACTION, With Jessica Jackson Human Rights Attorney & Former Mayor of Mill Valley

Episode Date: March 7, 2023

In This Episode You Will Learn About:  The key to using adversity to become the BEST version of yourself   What it’s going to take the break the stigma surrounding formerly incarcerated people�� All you can accomplish when you become an advocate for what you believe in Resources: Website: reformalliance.com  LinkedIn: @Jessica Jackson Instagram: @jessicajackson Twitter & Instagram: @reform  Overcome Your Villains is Available NOW! Order here: https://overcomeyourvillains.com  If you haven't yet, get my first book Confidence Creator Go to nutrafol.com and save $15 off by using code CONFIDENCE Visit Indeed.com/monahan to start hiring now. Use promo code CONFIDENCE for 15% off sitewide at justthrivehealth.com/discount/Confidence  Show Notes:  You have the power to turn your anger into action and make a CHANGE! It can take time to get clarity on what you’re doing and what you’re after, but DON’T give up! Jessica Jackson, Human Rights attorney and advocate, is here to share how she’s bringing people together to lead the bipartisan movement to end excessive incarceration everywhere! Tune in to discover how she turned her life around to challenge systemic oppression.   About The Guest: Jessica Jackson’s quest for justice began in a Georgia courtroom as she watched helplessly as her husband was sentenced to 6 years in prison. In that very moment she decided to dedicate and commit her life to changing the justice system. Today she is leading the bipartisan movement to end excessive incarceration, starting in 2018 helping to pass the First Step Act, referred to by the NYT as the most substantial reform in a generation!  If You Liked This Episode You Might Also Like These Episodes: The Key To Motivate Yourself When You Aren’t Feeling It, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton Dream BIG & Bet On YOURSELF! With Candace Nelson The Founder Of Sprinkles Cupcakes  How To Turn A Negative Situation Into A Positive One, With Heather! 

The more you see in the system, the more you understand how broken it is and how rigged the system is. And the more outraged you get. And, you know, I'm somebody who would much rather turn my anger into action than just sit around and be met. I'm on this journey with me. Each week, when you join me, we are going to chase down our goals. We overcome adversity and set you up for a better tomorrow. I'm ready for my close. Hi, and welcome back.

I'm so excited for you to meet our guests this week. Jessica Jackson's quest for justice began in a Georgia courtroom. The high school dropout held her two-month-old daughter and watched helplessly as her husband was sentenced to six years in prison. At that moment, she decided to turn her shock into a crusade to change the justice system, literally. As a single mother, she graduated college and then lost. school. Today, she is leading the bipartisan movement to end excessive incarceration. Jessica's specialty is bringing political rivals together to pass bills considered impossible. I love that. As the bill's main advocate, she led the drive to pass 2018's first step act. The New York Times called the law

the most substantial justice reform in a generation. It has already helped free more than 7,000 people. While leading her national initiative, Cut 50, Jessica helped ban the shackling of jailed pregnant women in 14 states. Her dignity for incarcerated women campaign enlisted formerly incarcerated women and dozens of celebrities to deepen the focus on women's issues. At the helm of Cut 50, Jessica built the biggest national grassroots network for bipartisan reform, Cut 50's Empathy Network. She also produced the first ever bipartisan criminal justice. to summit attracting leaders as diverse as Newt Gingrich and then attorney General Eric Holder. Jessica has led not only on the national level, but also served as the youngest city council member

and mayor of Mill Valley, California. Today, she now helps lead Reform Alliance, an organization where she's continuing her work to end mass incarceration and mass supervision. Jessica, thank you so much for being here today. Thank you for having me on. My gosh, your background is crazy. I want to go. back to so much of what I talk about and what I believe in is at the core of achieving anything is that this need to be confident and have strong beliefs. When I see the magnitude of what you've accomplished in such a short period of time, but then I hear how you started out as a single mother essentially losing her husband to prison, take us back to that time and how were you

able to find the fortitude and strength? And did you have this vision back then? It's a hard time. Whenever I think about it, I can't help it, like, still get a little emotional, you know, even though it's been, gosh, 18 and a half years now. But it was probably the most helpless feeling. Like, a lot of people don't know when they hit the rock bottom, but that, you know, very much was rock bottom. I had struggled myself with addiction and, you know, had I had bartended and here I was like pulling my life together and, you know, just had a brand new baby. We had a house.

We had, you know, an income through my husband at the time. And then suddenly he's gone. And it's not just that he's gone and there's nobody to, you know, hold her so I could take a shower or go to the bathroom. It's that his income is gone and I'm not working. I just had a GED at the time. Our house was gone. All these safeguards.

that you have were gone. The nursery I put together for her, everything, just gone. Simultaneously, there was a pipe that broke in the house and ruined half our stuff, right? So I really literally felt like I had nothing. And it was, it was scary because while having nothing, I also had the biggest responsibility I'd ever had in my life. I had to be a mother to this little tiny, sweet baby that was in my in my arms so you know i remember walking out of that courtroom um it was georgia 2004 you couldn't really breastfeed you know in the hallway so i walked into the bathroom and i remember you know i sat on the floor in in the bathroom stall and i'm just looking down at this baby and i was crying all over her and she's just so sweet and has no idea what's

happening, right? So she's looking at me with these big blue eyes and just nursing and like, she's in the happiest place. She thinks she's totally safe, right? And I'm like, your entire world just fell apart and you have no idea. But it's my job to make sure that you don't know and that you don't find out. And, you know, I worked my butt off. And it was a few months later. I decided I wanted to be a public defender. I applied to one school. Luckily, I had taken the SAT before I left high school. So I had that and I had a decent enough score to get in with my GED to University of South Florida. And then it was sort of just one foot in front of the other. Yes, I knew I wanted to be a public defender. I had no idea what that was going to entail. Right. Like I remember my mom trying

to tell me and me being like, yeah, whatever, that sounds easy enough. Like, I had no idea how hard it was going to be and how balancing, you know, this child and schoolwork and like doing it alone. And I just had no idea. And I'm glad I had no idea because I probably wouldn't have done it if I'd known how difficult it was going to be. But I just put one foot in front of the other and, you know, things fell into place and I just worked as hard as I could. And every day I came home and was inspired by the sweet little face sitting there, knowing that I had to make a better life for the both of us. So the real driver for you was your daughter and your responsibility? 100%. And it's funny because now she's in college. She just started. She's a freshman at Penn State.

Actually, today is her bid day for her sorority. So we've been talking a bunch this weekend. And it's funny because, you know, sometimes we talk about classes. And she's like, how did you get through these classes? You've got to take these classes that like, you might have no interest in. Like, I really did not care about geology, right? Or numbers, logic numbers or whatever these classes were I was having to take that weren't in my major. And she's like, how did you get through those? And I'm like, I didn't have a choice. Like you had to get them to get the degree to get the job I wanted to feed you.

That was it. You know, it was just one foot in front of the other. It's so, it must be so funny for you now to see her and how different her life is because of these difficult choices that you made. Yeah, it's funny because every once in a while, I'm like, you know, she'll be talking about something and I'm like, oh, you think you got stuff to complain about? But then I have to remember, like, this is what I wanted for her, right? Like, I would never wish what we went through upon her. And, you know, it certainly had an impact. She didn't know about her dad's incarceration until she was nine, actually.

I told her when she was nine, but she never knew before that. And I probably wouldn't have told her, but I decided to run for office and was a little concerned it might come out. And, you know, I should probably be the one to tell her. So it's amazing, but that's exactly what I worked so hard for for her to have a life where, you know, her biggest concern is which sorority is she going to get in? And what internship is she doing this summer? I had a difficult upbringing.

And thankfully, to your point, my son doesn't. But I always think when we have those moments like your daughter, my son's 15, and he'll have those moments where it's so hard. I don't know if I want to play AAU basketball this season. And I look at him like, are you, that's hard? What are you talking about? Are you crazy? But then, right, I have to look in the mirror again and say, but I'm the one that's creating this life, you know, and I'm grateful that he has the life that he has. But in some ways, don't you feel like that adverse, that massive adversity, which yours is huge. It also ends up being a blessing, not in the moment, but years later. Yeah, sure. And my parents will say stuff all the time. Like my dad will say stuff about,

you know, like, oh, but you turned out fine because I'm like, you know, I went through all this stuff and of course I've got feelings about it. And, you know, when you're talking to your parents, they're like, oh, but you turned out fine. I'm like, I literally could have been in the morgue or I could have been, you know, like bartender for life or who knows what, not that there's anything wrong with that, but like, I could have ended up on a very different path, but instead got here. But I would never wish, yes, I think adversity creates resilience. I think adversity forces you to really reckon with who you are and the material of who you are, what you got in you, right? You get to know yourself in a way that you wouldn't otherwise, and you get to understand

your own limitations, and you get to understand, you know, how to exceed those limitations and how to get around them and what you're really capable of. But at the same time, you have the trauma of the adversity that you go through, which imposes its own limitations, right, and its own issues. So I would never wish it on my daughter. I hope that she becomes resilient without having any true traumatic experiences. But I feel very lucky and very privileged to be in a position where I can provide a life for her that is so different than what mine was. When you want more, start your business with Northwest registered agent and get access to thousands of free guides, tools, and legal forms to help you launch and protect your business. All in one place. Build your complete

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Like I was working out of daycare while I was pregnant. One day he didn't come to pick me up. And I'm like, okay, that's weird. I wonder where he is, right? And I get home and there's like, I walk. home like a mile and I get home and there's all these cars all over my my grass not even in my driveway like they're on my lawn and I'm like okay this is weird and I walk up to my own home and these detectives walk out and I'm like okay hi can I help you and they tell me you know my husband's just

been taken in jail and they're trying to make him sound like he's such a bad person and in my mind I'm like I don't, I feel like you guys just don't understand. Like he's a good person. He's just got this addiction. Right. And it's super sad, but we're trying to get him help. And I remember in the moment actually feeling a little bit of relief. Like I was, I was sort of relieved. Like, okay, now he's had some sort of contact with the system. You know, he's going to want to go to rehab. Maybe maybe they'll even say he needs to go to rehab to drop the charges. Then we go in to see the lawyer. The lawyer does not, he doesn't care. He's got, you know, hundreds of cases. At the time, there was no public defender system set up through Georgia. You just had, like,

these private lawyers basically operating as public defenders. This guy's got all sorts of cases. He's not involved. He knows none of the facts about it. He doesn't seem to care. I'm calling and calling and calling. He doesn't seem to care. I'm like, I'm about to give birth to our daughter and my husband's in jail. Like, he's going to miss the birth of our daughter. You know one thing I remember, we were talking about there was a plea on the table and we rejected the first plea. The first plea was 10 years basically of supervision, but serve one year in prison, but they would suspend that if he would go to this boot camp that was six months. And it's just like a, you know, like a wilderness thing. The lawyer was like, don't worry about it.

He doesn't have a record. like this isn't that serious. I can get in probation. At the time, probation, like, okay, that sounds fine. Now I know probation is actually a trap. But so I'm like, okay, so we turned down that deal. And they come back and they said, okay, well, now 15 serve six because you didn't take that deal. And the lawyer's like, oh, you better take it.

Like suddenly this guy like has read the facts of the case. And he's like, you better take it because if you go in front of the judge, he's going to sentence you to so much more time. And I just remember him looking at us. He was like 15, serve six, means he'll probably serve about three and a half years with good time. And then he looks at us, he goes, but I've never seen a couple make it more than two years.

Yeah. Yeah. And I'm like, oh my God. What? So we end up taking the plea. He goes to like, you know, prison that day. I'm staying there with the baby. he's like handing me his car keys, his wallet, his phone, which he never would have before,

you know, and he's like, here's everything and like, good luck. And I just, I bring the baby home myself, right? But that's probably when I started to get clarity because I was like, this is crap. Like this whole process has not taken into account. Like I thought we would get to talk to a judge, tell him like that my husband's a good person. He's going to go to rehab. He's an employer. He's a great son.

He shows up every weekend for Sunday dinner. You know, we have 17 people who work for us. Like, we're building this vision, this life together. He's a good dad, you know, whatever it might be. Like, I thought we'd get to talk to somebody. They didn't care. It was just all what was on paper and, you know, how they felt in that moment. The actual sentence, if they were willing to just let him do six months,

but then came back with six years, like it bore no relationship to any sort of public safety issue. So I think that's really when I started to get clarity. Like there's a better way to do this and I want to be a part of that solution. So there's no doubt that there is a better way. However, it's looking at something so massive. I'm sure so many people said this to you like, oh, don't think you're the first person that thought you can change the court system, but it can't happen. It just seems like the Titanic trying to turn it right before it's going to go under.

How are you able to wrap your head around this idea that everyone's telling you, like, no, there's no possibility that you are going to be able to change or really impact something to making that decision that, yes, you could. Again, it's like you don't know what you don't know, right? Like, I didn't know. There's no reason that like a rag tag group of activists under, you know, one of the people who has campaigned the hardest on tough on crime should have been able to pass a bill that would get thousands of people out of prison. But we didn't know that at the time. We thought, you know, the system worked. where you come, you bring people, they share testimony, you talk to lawmakers, you know, convince them

that you've got evidence-based solutions that are going to do a better job of keeping people safe and then you get a bill. So I think in a lot of ways, my own ignorance has been one of my biggest blessings and then also my own persistence because, you know, I was outraged. I still get outraged all the time. I'm working. There's a case that I just learned about that I'm trying to help on. I just learned a a bunch of outrageous things that happened to this guy. And I couldn't even sleep last night. I was so mad. I was practicing talking points on it and like, if I could get on Tucker Carlson, this is

what I would say about this case. You know, like, this is why everybody should be angry about it. I just woke up with a fire in my belly, you know, when I finally did fall asleep. And it's like that every day. The more you see in the system, the more you understand how broken it is and how rigged this system is. and the more outrage you get. And, you know, I'm somebody who would much rather turn my anger into action than just sit

around and be met. Oh, I love that. I was just talking about this the other day. You can choose to be a commentator in life or you can choose to be a leader. And the difference is being willing to take some risks, take some action and try to create change. So I completely applaud what you're doing. For so many people that are listening right now, Jessica, they're saying, no, leave bad guys in prison. What is she talking about?

And I truly believe myself included, there's this element of ignorance that we're just not aware. You know, it's so clear to you because you've studied so much. You spend so much time hands on. You've had personal experience, right? Clearly, anyone that's had a personal experience that has lost someone who's a good person into the system and felt that it was unjust, they're going to understand it. But for the 90% of population out there who hasn't, how can you explain it to them? I mean, I think you can think of it in a couple ways, right? We don't want to sentence people who have committed, you know, low-level offenses or nonviolent

or whatever. You're going to draw the line somewhere for yourself, but you don't want to sentence them to die in prison, right? That means they're going to come home one day, right? So you've got to think about what's going to happen to them when they go into the system. And by the way, 95% of the people in our system, there's about 1.8 million people who are incarcerated right now. 95% of them are going to come home at some point. So this is somebody whose child is going to go to school with yours. Is this somebody who's going to work in your community?

This might even be your neighbor, right? So do you want them to get ripped out of their home, ripped out of their life, have all their networks severed, and then end up being traumatized in overcrowded, dangerous prisons with bad nutrition, terrible health care, treated like an animal. They don't even call you your name.

They give you a number, right? You're now a number. And then just open the doors and let them out into the community. But by the way, they now have a criminal record. So they can't find housing. They can't find a job. They can't get a loan. A lot of the time are on supervision.

They can't leave the jurisdiction. You know, they have all these owner's rules that they have to follow. They can't associate with somebody else who has a felony or they'll go back to prison. Right. They're shut out of society still. But what does that mean? That means that they don't have a whole lot of options, right? So the cycle is leading to massive failures.

We have very high recidivism rates. That means somebody who gets out and ends up getting re-arrested, sometimes not even for committing a new crime, sometimes just for violating a condition of their probation, and getting returned back into the system. So we're investing billions and billions of dollars every year of taxpayer resources into a system that's failing, on average, about 68% of the time. Right?

So if you could buy stock, are you going to take your billions of dollars and invest it into stock? That's 68% chance of failure? No, of course not, right? Now, if you were to take a step back and say, how do we break this cycle? What you're going to see is you've got to look at why crimes are being. committed. You've got to address the underlying reason why people are committing crimes. A lot of the time it's addiction like my ex-husband. Sometimes it's mental health issues that are going untreated

because it's very hard to get mental health support here in America. Sometimes it's just lack of an opportunity, right? You have to feed your family. What would you be willing to do to feed your family? Right. So if there's no jobs to be had, who can blame you if you take another path, right? Sometimes it's, you know, lack of educational opportunities. And this is what there is. I was actually just talking to a conservative. A friend of mine the other day, she was telling me she had heard that, you know, there is a new wave of crime in Philly of youth. And a big part of it is that they got locked out of community centers where they would go after school during the pandemic. So many of them turned to the streets. Right. So there's all these underlying reasons why people commit crime.

And we do nothing to address that. We just simply take people say, okay, now you're going on timeout. You're going to be traumatized until you're on timeout in this cage. Okay, now we're letting you back in. But by the way, we've made it even harder for you to succeed. So what we need to start investing in is diversion programs. We need to start investing in education. We need to start really investing in mental health.

We need to really start investing in substance abuse treatment, economic opportunities and mobility for vulnerable populations. We need to start investing in things that we have evidence works. And we know it works because there are pilot programs out there or even systems set up, like the veterans courts, for example. If you're a veteran and you live in the right county and you commit a crime, you have access to the veterans courts. And there they actually take the time to figure out like,

why did you commit this crime? Oh, you're having mental health issues. Let's get you into the VA and get you the therapy that you need. Let's assign you a mentor. Let's get you job placement. Let's get you financial literacy. Let's help with that substance abuse and get you into substance abuse treatment. And instead of failing 68% of the time, the data from those courts shows us that people are succeeding 82% of the time. Wow. That's huge. Huge. So is that your ultimate goal is to make that pivot, but globally not just for veterans? Yeah, I mean, I think our ultimate goal is twofold. One, it's going to take us a long time to get rid of the stigma that has been attached to people with criminal convictions and with criminal records. So we have to break through that stigma. We have to get more people out there who have convictions or have been in prison talking about their experience. And I'm lucky, you know, with the empathy network and with so many formally incarcerated people that I work with over at Reform Alliance, there are some really courageous people out there who, who are willing to tell their story, willing to risk, you know, being further stigmatized by it and traumatized by it and willing to put like a face to this issue, right? Show, these aren't bad people. These are people who made a bad decision, but they're worthy of rehabilitation and they're worthy

of redemption. And then second step is we have to change the laws. So we have to, you know, change hearts, change minds and change laws. So how are you able to unite the bipartisan effort to pass the bills that I mean this is something that no one can do in our country right now and you've done successfully yeah I think it comes down to a very human element right like I'm in this because of my personal experience there are people on the right who have been personally impacted and I'm lucky to work with a whole bunch of them in our coalition but I think it just comes down to a human element one of the major ways that we were able to build this coalition was through our Dignity for Incarcerated Women campaign over at Cup 50 because it was just so

incredibly outrageous that departments of corrections were shackling women in labor. Like, I've given birth three times. I promise you I'm not going anywhere while I'm in birth, right? But the fact that they were shackling and handcuffing women and placing the children's lives at danger and placing the mother's lives at danger and ripping these kids out of their mother's arms just hours later, you know, and taking them away and then throwing them on back in shackles and bringing her bleeding back to herself. And it's just so horrific what is happening to women that everybody we talked to about the issue, you know, especially when we brought women who had

been through that. We had one woman, Pamela Wayne, from Georgia, and just the rawness, the trauma from her just radiated through the room when she talked about what had happened to her. She had been five months pregnant, put in the system because of a health care fraud and Medicaid fraud. She was working in a doctor's office. She actually herself wasn't even really responsible for it, but she kind of got caught up in this. She was put in the system at five months pregnant. She's trying to navigate being in the system, being in shackles, and being pregnant. She trips over her shackles getting onto a bus one day.

And she fell. And it caused miscarriage, which she had. alone in her cell screaming for help. And they finally came and took her to the hospital. And when she got to the hospital, the doctor said, you know, we need to see the baby. We need to see that everything came out. And she realized she had no idea, you know, where her baby was. And so she looked up at the guards and they said, we threw it in the trash.

Oh, my gosh. Yeah. So bringing her with us and her courage. and willingness just to relive for worse moment over and over and over again. In all these meetings with Congress members, you know, it just was so powerful that we were able to get provisions banning the shackling of women in labor written into our federal bill. And when we had the vote, it was amazing. They'd done the Senate vote. I had flown down to Georgia for one day to see my parents. And while I was down there, they scheduled the House vote.

And Pamela Wynn lived down in Atlanta. So I called it. up. I said, hey, they're going to vote on this in the house. Do you want to come with me? And she said, of course, you know, she's been with us for the whole rack. And so we get on the plane. It's like 6 a.m. I've got my then three-year-old strapped to me. Pam and I are on the plane. We get up there and we make it over to the house, barely make it to the house. I remember handing off the baby to a babysitter right in front of Congress. We run in, we get there and sit down. And Karen Bass, who was the chair of the CBC at the time is speaking. Congresswoman Bass, who's now mayor over in L.A. And she's speaking on the

floor. And suddenly, I hear her retelling Pamela's story. And I'm like, Pam, this is like she's talking about our visit. She didn't know Pam's name, but she remembered the visit. And, you know, she's like, this is why we have to pass this bill. It's people like Pamela who have had these terrible experiences in prison. And then the House voted to advance the bill, meaning it was going to President Trump's desk for his signature. And I just remember, like, Pam and I bursting out in tears. Like, oh, my God, we couldn't have done it without the stories of people like Pam who came with us and fought alongside us this whole time.

And, you know, there's just a very human element to this issue. And I think that resonates with both sides. And I think it resonates beyond the political spectrum. We had the NFL endorsed the bill. We had, who weren't very political at the time. We had Verizon endorsed the bill. Like, you know, this was the most unlikely coalition, but it was because of these human stories and this incredible traumatic impact that the system was having on people.

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Quince.com slash confidence. This is such a great example of the power of storytelling, first and foremost, which you've, you know, really brought to life. And this woman did in this specific situation and kudos to her for having the courage to share, you know, because nothing would have happened had she not be willing to share her story. But then, you know, also just humanity is good when people do hear what's actually going on. The problem is elevating it in such a noisy world so that people, you know, can hear this. What are some of the other tactics that you've leveraged in order to do so. We work hard to reach audiences where they are. So when we're bringing in our grassroots partners, you know, we aren't afraid to work across the aisle. If it means that we're going to have access to somebody's platform, if it means that we're going to have access to their networks will work across the aisle. Another way that has been really useful and again, helped with the First Step Act, has been working with influencers. We have influencers like Kim Kardashian, who, you know, when she got involved in criminal justice reform, it was still a very obscure niche issue. Nobody really

cared about it. I used to go to cocktail parties when I was working on death penalty cases. And like the fastest way to kill a conversation would be, you know, somebody had asked me what I do. And I'm like, oh, I represent people on death row. And they're like, okay, offer it. Like, they didn't know what to say. Right. It was like such a weird thing to them. Like, what if they're guilty? Like, oh, yeah, no, no, the ones I represent. Yeah. they're guilty. Yeah, no, but they shouldn't die. And people just didn't think of it that way. There was such an uphill battle. And Kim, you know, alongside a few others, really made it like a popular issue. She went in a prison on her show. She showed the process. She brought everybody along. She live tweeted an execution. Like she has been willing to lend her name, her status, her audience

to this issue in a way that nobody ever has in the past. and it has resulted in, you know, this issue becoming mainstream. When I talked to some, you know, a colleague, they're like, oh, that's great. Like that's kind of like what Kim Kardashian does, right? And I'm like, yes, absolutely. Like, same thing. We're doing the same thing. We're working together.

How do you figure out, you know, to target a Kim Cardet, like, how do you figure out who those right people are to go after to be your advocates? You know, it's funny. So there was this article. So we did this event, 2016, Home for the Heart. holidays. It was about clemency. It was really pushing President Obama, like, use your clemency power. You're leaving office. Let's get as many people out as we can through the presidential power of issuing commutations. And I think by the end of his term, he had issued 1,715 commutations,

which is huge. It's great. But there was a woman who had been denied three times under his administration. The 63-year-old grandmother, Miss Alice Johnson, she had been what's called a telephone mule. So after her son died, her son tragically died, she found herself in a position where, you know, she would answer the phone and tell somebody, this is where you go and pick up the drugs. And she got swept up in conspiracy charges and was basically going to die in prison because of it. Little sweet lady, firecracker, just left such an impression, even in prison, just left such an impression on everybody she met that the warden, he loved her. And he actually allowed her to Skype into an event that we did, the home for the holidays event,

to kind of put a face to this. So we had a bunch of reporters. So a lot of people learned about Ms. Alice's case from that Google Cut 50 event. And an article, Mike.com did an article. I did some backgrounds with a reporter on it. Did an article about her a few years later. Like, where's Ms. Alice? Why is she still in prison?

And it published. And then Kim Kardashian just happened to see somebody tweet it. And I remember she tweeted like a sad emoji with a tear. And I screenshot at that and sent it to my team. And I'm like, Kim Kardashian sat about Ms. Alice. Like, that's cool. Didn't think much of it. We're working on the bill.

We're working on First Step Act. And this woman I work with Topeka Sam, who's like force of nature. She is formally incarcerated. And we had organized to bring 70 formally incarcerated women to the Trump White House. and the beauty in it was like nobody really knew that they were incarcerated. So they're like walking around, talking to Jeff Sessions, talking to Ben Carson, talking to Betsy DeVos, like, and then at one point in the program, we're all sitting there on stage.

And Topeka is like, okay, raise your hands or stand up if you have been incarcerated. And all these women stand up. And I just remember, I was sitting like plain view to Jeff Session. And I just remember his face was like, like that. like women he had just been talking to and, you know, listening to had actually been incarcerated. And he couldn't believe it. You know, it's like a little grandma sitting there, Sue Allen Allen and other women who, you know, you never would have guessed looking at them.

But those women all on that day and Topeka showed up wearing these pins and their pins said, Green Miss Alice. And we were in the green room because Jared Kushner was on our panel as well. We were in the green room. And Jared was talking to Topeka and I. just introduced him to Topeka. And I remember he pointed at her pin and he said, well, tell me about this woman. I've heard about this case.

Tell me about this woman. She said, oh, she's great. I was incarcerated with her at Danbury. She's a firecracker. Da-da-da-da-da-da. And so Jared was like, Jessica, I want to connect you with somebody else who's working on this case. So he connected me and my boss then Van Jones with Kim Kardashian. And Kim had reached out to her, had her lawyers reach out to the lawyers who were working on Ms. Alice's case,

one of whom had worked with me on the clemency now campaign, and they were trying to push Trump to a commutation. So we all joined efforts, and as soon as Alice got out, and Kim took that famous picture with Trump, I just remember her saying, this doesn't end here. Like there are thousands of Miss Alice's, and I need to help them. And then she helped us with the federal bill, and, you know, she's been on fire ever since.

It's incredible the momentum, reach and expose. just from, you know, that one dominole falling. But none of that would have happened if it didn't go back to you deciding with your GED to go to college and then go to law school. It's just so interesting to me that I believe, and I'm interested to know if you feel the same way, that when someone truly finds their calling, not that any of it's been easy, but that certain things do fall online. Yeah, for sure.

You know, I happened to go to a dinner that Van Jones was speaking at in 2000. And, you know, afterwards, I was jazzed up because I knew him as like the criminal justice reform guy. He closed prisons across California. And then I go to this dinner and he's just like talking about the environment, which is great. We have climate change. It's important. You know, we should recycle. But to me, it just wasn't as important as criminal justice reform.

So I waited in the line. He had just written a book. Everybody's getting their books on. Waited in the line. And my friend, Patty, was actually assigned to be the person that like drove him to, the airport and then to his hotel and like drop him all. And so I said, Patty, can you introduce me? And so she introduces me in a van. And it just sort of jumbled out of my mouth. I'd only been out of law school for like a year. But it just sort of jumbles out of my mouth. I'm like,

you know, he's like, oh, did you enjoy my presentation? I said, you know, the environmental stuff is good, but there's still people in cages. And he's like, taken him back. He's like, well, I did all this stuff on prison issues. I did this, this, this. And I was like, yeah, but that was 10 years ago. And he's like, let me get your number. We're going to work together one day. And so next time he was in town, he let me know he's coming in town. So I got my friend Matt Haney, who's now in assembling and then in California. And we went and met him for breakfast. And we're like, look, like we think there's a lot more that can be done on this issue. And we need somebody like you to believe in this cause and help us. And he was like, okay, I'm all in. Like you guys come

over. I've got a nonprofit. We don't work on this issue. But we can start. You know, we can give you guys a section. You guys just got to raise your own money. So of course, that's how Cup 50 got started. But at the same time, he just happened to be starting his career with CNN. And he just happened to be sat next to a guy named New Gingrich on a show. And they were talking, like the whole show is crossfire. The whole premise of the show is they don't agree on anything.

They're just fighting, fighting, fighting, fighting, fighting, all the time. And then one commercial break, Newt and him are like making conversation and Newt's like, oh, what are he working on? And Vans like, oh, I'm working with these like young activists in San Francisco that want to work on like getting people out of prison. And Newt's like, yeah, yeah, you know what? You guys need to bring like conservatives to this.

And Vans like, why would you guys care? And he's like, well, because we believe in second chances. We believe in redemption. We believe in fiscal responsibility. The current system is not fiscally responsible. We believe in systems being accountable and having transparency. The current prison system has no accountability, no transparency, right? You guys need to bring us into the conversation.

And from there was born the first bipartisan summit on criminal justice reform, which led to the first bill that we worked on, which led to us building this coalition. So you're right. Like everything fell into place. There was so many little things that had it not happened, you know, who knows where it would be. Well, I mean, I am blown away by the work that you're doing. Thank you so much for putting yourself out there for continuing to push an uphill battle to make the world a better place. What can the listeners do for anyone that's listening right now that says, I want to be a part of this, I want to do something good. How can people get involved to support you? Well, we need you guys. We need you. We can't do this alone. So I'm constantly trying to grow this coalition. We've got bills in several states right now, Pennsylvania, Iowa, Indiana. We're fighting back a bad bill. in Virginia, Illinois, we've got a bill. But we've also got a federal bill that we're going to be reintroducing.

And we need help. We need all hands on deck. You guys have seen Congress right now. I want to prove that bipartisanship isn't dead on this issue. So we need you to go to reform alliance.com. Join us. You can follow us on social at Reform Alliance. You can follow me, Jessica Jackson, and just join the fight.

We've got activations in different states, letters of support that you can sign on. to and send to your legislators in days where we go up and talk to your legislators and we need you guys in tow. Jessica, thank you so much for moving forward with the confidence that you have, the passion that you have and making this world a better place. There's nothing else to say about it. Guys, everyone listening, I'm going to put these links in the show notes below. Go check out Jessica's social, check out the Reform Alliance and do more good. Thank you, Jessica. Thank you.