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

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!  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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And 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. I'm on this journey with me. Each week when you join me,

we are going to chase down our goals. Overcome adversity and set you up for a better tomorrow. After no sleep, I'm ready for my coach to. 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 law 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 app. 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, Cut50, Jessica helped ban the shackling of jail pregnant women in 14 states. Her dignay 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 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 and 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. Oh my gosh, your background is crazy. I want to go back to so much of what I talk about, what I believe in, is that 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? I mean, 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, had bartended and here I was like holding 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 can 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 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 arm. So I remember walking out of that courtroom. 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 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 fall 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, 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, T-Universities, 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 leaving on, 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. I just said 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 gonna 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? Now 100% and it's funny, because now she's in college. She, I'm gonna start at,

she's a freshman at Penn State. Actually, today is her big day for her sorority. So we've been talking a bunch this weekend and it's funny because sometimes we talk about classes and she's like, how did you get through these classes? And you 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 a 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's certainly 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 I should probably be the one to tell her. So it's amazing, but that's exactly what I work so hard for for her to have a life where her biggest concern is,

which sorority she's gonna get in. And what internship is she doing this summer? I had a difficult upbringing, and thankfully, to your viewpoint, 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, you know, and I'm grateful that he has the life that he has.

But in some ways, don't you feel like that adversity, 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 why, 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, very privileged to be in a position where I can provide a life for her that is so different than what mine was. National security experts are warning.

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Yeah, I mean, this whole thing with him was just like, it was just that BS from start to finish, right? Like, I was working out to take care 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 walked home like a mile. And I get home and there's all these cars all over my grass, not even in my driveway, like they're on my lawn. I'm like, okay, this is weird. And I walk up to my own home and these detectives

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 even my husband's just been taking a 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 sort of relieved, like okay, now he's had some sort of contact with the system. You know, he's gonna wanna go to rehab. 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 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. Sky'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 guys 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 him, calling him, calling him. He doesn't seem to care. I'm like, I'm about to give birth to our daughter in my husband and 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 served one year in prison, but they would suspend that if you would go to this boot camp that was six months. And it's just 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 him probation. At the time, probation, like, okay, that sounds fine. Now I know, you 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 serves serves six Because you didn't take that deal and the lawyers like oh you better take it Like suddenly this guy like has read the fact of the case and he's like you better take it because if you go in front of the judge She's gonna send you to so much more time And I just remember him looking at us. It was like 15 serves six means. I'll probably serve about three and a half years with good time

And then he looks at us and goes but I I've never seen a couple of me get 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 saying there with a 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. I thought we would get a talk to a judge. Tell him that my husband's a good person. He's gonna go to rehab.

He's an employer. He's a great son. He shows up every weekend for Sunday dinner. We have 17 people who work for us. We're building this vision, this life together. He's a good dad, whatever it might be. 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 it is sort of public safety issue. So I think that's really when I started to get clarity. 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 were you able to wrap your head on 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 what you don't know, right? Like, I didn't know. There is no reason that like a Ragtag group of activists under one of the people who is championing the hardest

on top of crime, should have been able to pass the 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 works, where you come, you bring people, they share testimony, you talk to lawmakers, you, 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, my own persistence, because, you know, I, 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 whole 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 she get, and you know, I'm somebody who would much rather turn my anger into action than just sit around and be mad. 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 were just not aware. You know, it's so clear to you because you studied so much. You spent so much time hands on. You 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 of ways, right? We don't want to sentence people who have committed low-level offenses or non-violent

failure, whatever. You're going to draw the line somewhere for yourself, but you don't want to sentence them to die in prison. That means they're going to come home one day. 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 gonna 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 and 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 alone.

A lot of the time are on supervision. They can't leave the jurisdiction. They have all these onerous 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 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 in a 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? 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 friend of mine the other day. She was telling me she had heard that, you know,

there is a new wave of crime and 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 while 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 veteran sports, for example. If you're a veteran and you live in the right county and you've met 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 in to 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 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. 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 formerly incarcerated people that I work with, over at the formal lines, there are some really courageous people out there 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 stuff 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 this 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 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 shattering that the rages that the rages the rages the rages the rages the rages the rages the rages the rages the rages the rages the rages the rages the rages the rages the rages the rages the rages the rages the rages the rages the rages the rages the rages the rages the rages the rages the rages the rages the rages the rages the rages the rages the rages the rages the rages the rages the rages the rages the rages the rages the rages the rages the rages the rages the rages the rages the rages the rages the rages the rages the rages the rages the rages the the rages the the rages the the rages the the rages the the rages the the the rages these kids out of their mother's arms, just hours later, and taking them away, and then throwing them on back and 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, 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, but 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 herself screaming for help. And they finally came and took her to the hospital. And when she got to the hospital, the doctor said, we need to see the baby. We need to see that everything came out. And she realized she had no idea 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 it called her 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, she's been with us

for the whole rack. And so we get on the plane. It's like 6am, I've got my, then three-year-old strapped to me, famine-eyer 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 for an in-front of Congress.

We run in, we get there and sit down and Karen Vass, who was the chair of the CDC at the time, is speaking Congresswoman Vass, who's now Mara over in LA, 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 business. She didn't know Pam's name, but she remembered the visit.

And 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 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,

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and this woman did in this specific situation, and kudos to her for having the courage to share, because nothing would have happened. Had she not be willing to share her story. But then, 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 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 are not 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, we'll work across the aisle. Another way that has been really useful and again, helped with the first step back, 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 in 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. What if they're guilty? 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, 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, we did an execution. She has been willing to lend her name or status or 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 talk to some, you know, a colleague, they're like, oh, that's great. Like that's kind of like what Kamperdashian 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 what's funny? So there was this article.

So we did this event 2016, home for the 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 communications. And I think by the end of his term, he had issued 1,017 under 15 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 with called a telephone mule. So after her son died, her son tragically died. She found herself in a position where 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 warning,

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 Miss Alice's case from that Google cut 50 event. And an article, Mike.com didn't article. I did some backgrounds with the reporter on it. Didn't article about her a few years later, like, where's Miss 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 screenshoted that and sent it to my team. And I'm like, Kim Kardashian's sad about Miss 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 formerly incarcerated. And we had organized to bring

70 formerly incarcerated women to the Trump White House. And the beauty and it was like, nobody really knew that they were incarcerated. So they're like walking around, talking to Jeff Stessions, talking to Megan 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 playing view to Jeff Session. And I just remember his face was like, 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 was like a little grandma sitting there, Sue Ellen 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 had 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 in carcery with her at Dan Berry. She's a firecracker. Da-da-da-da-da-da. And so Jared was like, just guy, 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 lawyers, reached out to the lawyers who were working on Miss Alice's case, one of whom had worked with me on the Clemencee 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 of Trump, I just remember her saying, this doesn't end here, like 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 exposure just from you know that one dominoe falling, but none of that would have if it didn't go back to you to go to college or then go interesting to me that I I'm interested to know be when someone truly finds

not that any of it's been things do fall in line. Food if I know one thing, it's freshness. Go to Randalls. You'll see, from the hand-cut fresh meats to the fresh produce, there's a reason I call Randalls home. They know fresh. Sincerely food, sincerely Randalls.

Yeah, for sure. I happened to go to a dinner that Van Jones was speaking at in 2012 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, because everybody's getting their books on. I waited in the line, and my friend, Patty, was actually assigned to be the person that drove him to the airport and then to his hotel and dropped him off. And so I said, Patty, can you introduce me? And so she introduced me to Van. And it just sort of jumbled out of my mouth.

That only been out of the 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 so many people in cages. And he's like, taking it 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 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 assembly and then in California.

And we went in 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 gotta raise your own money. So of course, that's how cut 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 Newt Gingrich on a show. And they were talking like the whole show is crossfire. They hold promise of the show as they don't agree on anything. They're fighting, fighting, fighting, fighting, fighting, all the time. And then one commercial break, Newton, him were were like making conversation and Newt's like, oh, what are you working on? And bands 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 may bring like conservatives to this. And bands 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 physically 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 a sentence to 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 the, you know, us building this coalition. So you're right, like everything fell

into place. There was so many little things that had it not happened. Yeah, who knows where it be? Well, I mean, I am blown away by the work they are doing. Thank you so much for putting yourself out there, for continuing to push an upheld 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 are seeing Congress right now. I want to prove that bipartisanship isn't dead on this issue. So we need you to go to reformaliance.com. Join us. You can follow us on social at reformalign. So 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 and 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.

You don't stop and look around once in a while. You can miss it. I'm on this journey with me. I hope you're enjoying this episode so far. I'm Jennifer Cohen, host the top ranking business and entrepreneur podcast, Habitson Hustle, apart the YAP media network, the number one business and self-improvement podcast network. So most people live the life they get

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