The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – The Volunteer: The Failure of the Death Penalty in America and One Inmate’s Quest to Die with Dignity by Gianna Toboni

Episode Date: March 28, 2025

The Volunteer: The Failure of the Death Penalty in America and One Inmate's Quest to Die with Dignity by Gianna Toboni Amazon.com A riveting account of one death row inmate’s quest to die—and a fearless look at how America’s system of punishment has failed the public it claims to serve. When Scott Dozier was sent to Nevada’s death row in 2007, convicted of a pair of grisly murders, he didn’t cry foul or embark upon a protracted innocence campaign. He sought instead to expedite his execution—to hasten his inevitable death. He decided he would rather face his end swiftly than die slowly in solitary confinement. In volunteering for execution, Dozier may have been unusual. But in the tortuous events that led his death date to be scheduled and rescheduled, planned and then stayed, his time on death row was anything but. In The Volunteer, Emmy award–winning investigative reporter Gianna Toboni traces the twists and turns of Dozier’s story, along the way offering a hard look at the history and controversy that surround the death penalty today. Toboni reveals it to be a system rife with black market dealings and supply chain labyrinths, with disputed drugs and botched executions. Today’s death penalty, generally carried out through lethal injection, has proven so cumbersome, ineffective, and potentially harrowing that some states have considered a return to the electric chairs and firing squads of the past, believing those approaches to be not only more effective but more humane. No matter where you stand on the morality of capital punishment, there’s no denying that the death penalty is failing the American public. With costs running into the billions and countless lives kept in limbo, it has proven incapable of achieving its desired end: executing the inmates that fellow Americans have deemed guilty of the most heinous crimes. With The Volunteer, Toboni offers an insightful and profound look at how the death penalty went so terribly wrong. A spellbinding story down to its shocking conclusion, it brings to light the horrifying realities of state-sanctioned killings—realities that many would prefer to ignore.

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries and motivators. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times. Cause you're about to go on a monster education rollercoaster

with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Well, I'm Voss, here from the Chris Voss Show. Dot com. Chris Voss Show. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the show. As always, the Chris Voss Show is a family that loves you but doesn't judge you, at least not as harshly as the rest of your family.

We love you. We bring you the most smartest people in the world, the CEOs, the billionaires, the wildest presidential advisors, the Pulitzer Prize winners, all the brilliant minds who come together with their cathartic moments, their lessons of life, and they bring them to you to share with you to make your life better and learn more. Today, we have an amazing young lady on the show. Her new book is coming out April 1st, 2025. It is called The Volunteer, The Failure of the Death Penalty in America and One Inmate's Quest to Die with Dignity. Gianna Taboni joins us on the show today. We're going to be talking

to her about her insights and what she found in researching this book. Welcome to the show. How are you? Taboni I'm doing well, Chris. Thanks for having me on. Chris Thanks for coming. Give us a dot coms or any place on the socials you want people to get to know you better. Taboni It's pretty straightforward, at Gianna Taboni. So that's G-I-A-N-N-A-T-O-B-O-N-I. Chris And so give us a 30,000 overview, if you would please, of what's inside your new book. So this book centers around one of the most fascinating protagonists I could think up, a man named Scott Dozier.

He was a death row inmate in Nevada, and what made him unusual and particularly interesting to me is that he was volunteering for execution. So he wrote the judge a letter and said, hey, you said you're going to kill me, let's get this thing over with. And I alternate chapters between his story from birth until death, it's a deep investigation, with the broader story of the death penalty in our country, you know, grounded in historical context. Pete Oh, he was kind of an unusual guy. He asked for his thing to be moved up, his death. And what happened with that? What was the, did he get his wishes?

Lauren Ruffin So, I originally reached out to him in 2017. It was just a couple weeks from his scheduled execution, his first scheduled execution. And typically, to get an interview with somebody on death row and be there with them in person with cameras, with audio, with the whole crew, the person has to have an execution date. And so that was a big part of the reason that we chose Scott Dozier for this interview. I was making a documentary for HBO and you know, when we showed up, we were brought into the visitor's room, we were brought on death row and, and we were really thinking that he was going to be executed hours from the interview. And he said goodbye to his family and friends, we wrapped the interview

and his execution was stayed at the last minute. That ended up happening to Scott Dozier again, several months later, his execution was stayed. And to me, what it represented was, you know, how broken this death penalty system is, because whether you are pro-death penalty or anti-death penalty, this book is neither. This book just investigates a broken system because here you have an inmate who wanted to be executed or preferred that to life in prison. And here you have a state whose, you know, goal theoretically is to execute this person and still they can't carry out the execution. Now that has to deal with a lot of kind of broader themes that you may or may not have read about in the news that we can get into, but that to me was, you have both parties with a common goal and they can't actually do it. I've offered wonder what that's like when they constantly reschedule the death of these inmates and

then they stop. And you know, it's kind of, it's got to be, I mean, I don't, I'm not trying to, I mean, there's, I suppose somehow we have to, we have to wonder what, you know, what we're doing to the patient, but that's got to really fuck with your head to, you know, have your death penalty date set. You arrive there, you're ready to go, you've done your final thinking through the process of what you're going to experience. And then it doesn't go down.

I mean, that's almost got to be torturous in and of itself. Katie Fetcher-Klein Chris, there's this really emotional scene in the book right before his second scheduled execution. His family and friends are there. They're saying goodbye, they're hugging, the whole thing. And then the warden comes in and he looks at them and he says, this execution was stayed. And he's there with his US Army Ranger best friend and his mom and his sister and his inner circle. And you don't actually have to sympathize with someone convicted of murder to find this moment incredibly emotional,

because it's not just the person at the center of it, the death row inmate who, yes, it is like emotional whiplash like no other, but also the family and friends, to get to a point, obviously innocent people, to get to a point where you know, obviously innocent people to get to a point where, you know, you're sitting in a room with your loved one, you know, with your son or brother or husband or whatever, and to say goodbye to them and to emotionally process that you're about to see them executed by the state that you've paid taxes to for your whole life. And then all of a sudden, it's not going to happen. It's incredibly emotional. I can't imagine how anybody processes that experience.

Yeah, because we try to say that, well, the death penalty is the same way of doing justice. But in recent years, there's been a lot of issues and maybe, I imagine you discussed this in the book, of botched death penalty carryouts, the wrong chemicals or bad chemicals. And then lately, I guess some of the chemical companies have been providing the chemicals, so they're trying to do other different things to do it. In fact, didn't they just have a firing range one done? Kirsten Khire, Ph.D. They did, yeah. Because what's happening is that, you know, to give you a little bit of kind of context in history, you know, the public was not giving their support to the death penalty the way they are today back in the late sixties. And so what ended up happening was that politicians evolved the way we executed people.

Of course, it used to be hanging, electrocution, firing squad, these more sort of outwardly brutal methods. The public kind of said, we're not cool with this. And so we started to kind of evolve it. And in the late seventies, early eighties, lethal injection became the main method, which in some ways kind of sanitized execution. You know, it pacified the public. We were all made to believe, okay, someone sits on a granny, they go to sleep. What's the big deal? They're not, they're not suffering to death. This isn't brutal. This is medicalized. And in fact, in this book, I outline how that's not true and how anesthesiologists and expert

witnesses who have looked into this, who have studied hundreds of autopsies, who have witnessed these executions themselves say that these folks are to a virtual medical certainty, being tortured to death in many cases. And I can explain why that's the case. But that's where we've landed with this. And states continue to go to great lengths to get access to these drugs, as you've said. But in some cases, they either can't get access to the drugs or there are Eighth you know, Eighth Amendment challenges, Eighth Amendment is, you know, prohibits the cruel and unusual punishment of a citizen by its government, which prohibit them from carrying out these executions. And so inmates themselves have

actually said, I'd rather have the firing squad, I'd rather have the gas chamber, because they themselves believe that lethal injection will create more suffering in their experience than say the firing squad. And when you look at the rate of botched execution, and this is kind of shocking Chris, lethal injection has a 7%, 7% rate of botched execution. Firing squad is effectively 0% botched execution. So I can understand why a lot of these incarcerated folks have said, look, if I have to be executed, I'd actually prefer the firing squad.

What happens in that 7% when it's botched? I think I've heard of cases of that, but I mean, that sounds like, I think they die in agony or there's some sort of, or they have to pull them off the gurney. And I don't know, what happens a lot of times in these 7%? You know, one of the issues is that oftentimes people aren't trained, you know, as well as they should be trained. And so, they can't place the IV correctly.

You know, sometimes they have to do a cut down procedure in the groin area of the inmate in order to get a vein. So there's that part of it. And sometimes that lasts two hours, of the person just being poked and prodded, which again, a lot of people may not sympathize with this person because they've committed whatever brutal murder.

But I think it's important to note because the process is not exactly professionalized in a lot of places. And the second thing is not just that, but it's the drugs. And so there's a drug called Medazolam. Medazolam is a sedative. So the idea is that this sedates them, it puts them to sleep, it knocks them out, makes them unconscious, right? I mean, that's what the states are saying. And then the person gets the paralytic. This is the drug that paralyzes them so that they're not

able to move their body, they're not able to show if they're in distress, but also it paralyzes them so that they're not able to move their body, they're not able to show if they're in distress, but also it paralyzes the diaphragm so it stops their breathing, which they aren't supposed to feel because of the sedative, but that's not always the case. And then the third drug oftentimes is potassium chloride. And of course, these drug cocktails vary state to state, but this is a common cocktail that you see in a lot of these states. Potassium chloride without a bulletproof painkiller or sedative is, or general anesthesia really,

it feels like your body's being lit on fire from the inside. And what has happened in some of these executions is that because the sedative is so weak, it, it, it is not strong enough to mask the feeling of these strong stimuli like potassium chloride. So guys have woken up in the middle and said, I feel like I'm on fire. I feel like my body's on fire. So they're actually, they're feeling the drugs, but what might be more kind of. You know, sinister really than that is what's happening inside their bodies that they can't articulate. So because they're paralyzed, we see some sort of gasping

for air, some choking, some snorting. And what anesthesiologists, expert witnesses have said is that these people are experiencing the sensation of drowning to death because when you overdose somebody, their lungs fill with fluid. It's the process called pulmonary edema. So it's like being waterboarded to death effectively. I mean, you are drowning, but you can't show that you're in distress because of the paralytic. I mean, it's like some gross horror movie, but that's what the experts say. A lot of these guys are, are witnessing.

And so botched executions to answer your question, they range, you know, it's, it's a whole range sometimes, sometimes blood is squirting, you know, some to out of the, you know, IV entry point, you know, sometimes it's just the gasping for air. It ranges some is more outwardly brutal, but I think, uh, I think a word of it's, you know, IV entry point. You know, sometimes it's just the gasping for air. It ranges, some is more outwardly brutal, but I think a word of warning is that just because someone looks like they're peacefully falling asleep, that's not necessarily the truth. Pete Slauson Well, if they're paralyzed, it'd be hard for the body to show any reaction, wouldn't it?

Lauren Ruffin Exactly. Pete Slauson You know, but still, there may be something going on inside there. The professionalism you mentioned, I know, but still there may be something going on inside there. The professionalism you mentioned, I mean, I always assume like probably most of the public that there's professional doctors that show up and administer this, but now I realize that those doctors may be concerned about a liability. They just have some yokel at the prison do this or how does that work? I mean, it's a great point. And look, I think in a lot of places, wardens really do take

this seriously and really do go through the rehearsals and make sure that their staff is as trained as possible. And Chris, I also sympathize with a lot of these prison employees who are doing this work because that also can cause trauma. And a lot of these people have experienced PTSD. I go in depth into that in the book. But yeah, in a lot of places, we've learned that some of the folks who are doing this work who are placing the IVs, many of whom are volunteers, are not as trained as they should be. And we know that based on them, pointing the IV in the wrong direction, not landing a vein. And sure, that based on them, you know, pointing the IV in the wrong direction, you know, not landing a vein. And sure, there are challenges. I mean, a lot of these

folks who are being executed, you know, have used drugs for years, so maybe they don't have the best veins. But when you talk to people in the clinical setting, and you know, they've read these accounts, they say, these people aren't trained, they don't know how to do this work. And what you say is true, I mean, there's an obvious conflict of interest for someone who's taken the Hippocratic oath, right? Do no harm, where physicians are not jumping up the opportunity to execute somebody. But there are some who, they do raise their hands and they go in under a black hood and robe in some cases that it's totally anonymous, so nobody knows what they're doing and they do it. Pete Wow. That's wild. I thought they had this shit down, you know, like you say, I'm

part of the public and I think that they have this stuff down. What drew you to this story? What was the proponent for this? Lauren You know, when I first wrote Scott Dozier a letter back in 2017, I didn't know if he'd called me back. And frankly, I wasn't trying to start a relationship with this guy. I just wanted an interview for the documentary I was doing. And then once I realized that he was almost perfectly representative of this broader problem in our country of how broken the system is, again, whether you agree or disagree with the death penalty, it's undeniable that the system

is broken. I thought he was a really interesting case study. But then after the documentary aired, he kept calling me and I kept answering. And that's when his story really started to take these turns that were frankly just stranger than fiction. He was put into solitary confinement for extended periods of time. And when he'd get access to the phone, a sympathetic guard would in the middle of the night say, all right, here's, you can have it for half an hour. He'd call me and I'd record the conversations. And I could see how solitary confinement was eroding his mental health.

He was a guy who was, his energy was just popping out of the phone. I mean, he was just like always a mile a minute. And then after days, weeks in solitary, he started to change. His voice started to change, his appearance started to change. He started to cry. He would just be inconsolable. He was just, he was broken. He was broken by solitary confinement. And I felt that that part of the story was a big part of the reason that I should tell this story. And so it caused me to do this deep investigation where I submitted a bunch of FOIA requests to the prison, which is the Freedom of Information

Act, to get their emails, to get their text messages. I wanted to know what the warden was saying to the mental health team, why he was being kept in solitary. I wanted to know what the warden was saying to the mental health team, why he was being kept in solitary. I wanted to know if the governor was aware of this and directing the prison to do that. I wanted all of these answers because I was just hearing about it from Scott Dozier side of things. I wanted to know what the prison was saying and what their justification was for keeping him in solitary, which led him down a tragic path. Pete Yeah. You know, we kind of muck around with these guys and it's kind of forced upon them. You know, people want to die, they want to die, but it seems like, you know, to my understanding is they automatically appeal this into eternity. And so, lawyers just have jobs forever to represent these folks. And

I'm not saying they shouldn't, you know, we have the constitutional thing that says you have a right to defend yourself in a court of law. But I think my understanding of it is a lot of the appeals are automatic because it's the death penalty, right? And so it just makes these things go on forever and ever and ever. And it's almost like the, you know, we've talked on before on the show about the industrial complex of our prison state and, you know, how it's grown since Reagan. And it does seem torturous in a way. I mean, if somebody wants to check out, you know, I mean, you can say whatever you want

about who's that one guy who hung himself to avoid the billionaire, to avoid the sexual... Epsine. Epsine, yeah. I mean, on one hand, I mean, yeah, if you check out sooner, maybe it's better, but you know, then justice isn't served. But for some of these people that if they want to die, you know, maybe we should just let them. I mean, it's kind of interesting, our whole process of it. No, we need to keep you in suspense for 10 years, 20 years of being on death row. You know, you hear about these people that are on there forever and you're just like, what's going on? Lauren Ruffin I mean, I think it's a great point. You know,

the person is sentenced to death, right? And a lot of these guys are never executed. Only 15% of people who are sentenced to death in our country are ever actually executed. Really? One-five, 15%. And as taxpayers, we pay as much as 10X for those sentences and the appeals process and all the rest. And the appeals process is very important, of course. I mean, we've seen how many wrongful convictions there have been, but we're paying all this money for something that never actually happens. So you have to sort of ask yourself, what are we doing here? And to your point about, you know, should we just let people die if they've been sentenced to death and they volunteer for execution? I mean, I think that

there's actually a humanity argument here because, you know because when I have walked into these cells on death row in multiple states, I mean, holy crap, is this inhumane. You're talking about people in cages for 22 to 24 hours a day. I think it's actually less humane than execution. And I know that might be controversial, but I mean, a lot of these people are just being tortured to death every day, every day. I mean, people need, I believe, eye contact and human touch as much as they need food and water. And when you're in those cells, you know, in some cases all day, by the way, every day for weeks, you lose your sanity. You know, I mean, this is the World Health Organization, I mean, any major medical organization would say that this is completely inhumane and it

leads people toward suicidal ideation. And so, yes, I came to the conclusion after visiting Scott Dozier on Death Row that, look, if someone wants an out, they should be granted that if they're sentenced to death. When I was walking on Death Row in Texas and I was going to interview a Death Row inmate there, I glanced to my right as I was walking down the hallway and I saw this big sort of plaque and it had a group of employees, their photos and their names and on top of it, it said suicide watch and we're on death row here. And so I was thinking about it as I was walking down the hall to death row that here's a state, here's a prison system that

employs a group of people to ensure that these Death Row inmates who have been sentenced to death, you know, who theoretically are there to be executed, keeping them from dying by suicide. So is the point that these people are supposed to die or is the point that the state should have the honor of killing them? It's a good question. It's a powerful question. Yeah, that's something we need to think about as a public and I'm glad you're educating the public on what's going on behind the scenes because I've often wondered, you know, I'm not trying to minimize what they did to their victims in any way, shape or form, but it does say in the constitution that we're supposed to, you know, be human about this, at does say in the Constitution that we're supposed to be

human about this, at least in a certain level where we're not causing more harm than good. But yeah, I think it's well-known, well-documented that solitary confinement can drive a person insane. It's kind of a way of torture really when it comes down to it. Yeah. And I think that's absolutely true. And when you talk to the experts on this, you know, the physicians, that's what they say. And some of the death row inmates on Nevada, who I interviewed a bunch of them, they say it's actually used as retaliation, as punishment, that they'll be stuck in the infirmary for suicide watch or what's called mental health observation, purportedly for their mental health to prevent them from dying by

suicide. But what they say is, no, this is used against gang members, cartel guys, this is used to shut people up, to retaliate. And that's a big allegation, you know, but I also had people who worked for the prison call me and say, 100%, that's what it's used for. You know, we say that this is, you know, just to sort of, you know, ensure that their mental health is in the right place, but when someone's acting out, they get thrown there and it teaches them a lesson. Pete Yeah. And the American public on this has kind of a throw away the key and forget about it sort of attitude, I think, to the prison system and prisoners. Is that accurate in my perception?

Look, I think, so 52% of Americans favor the death penalty for someone who's convicted of murder. Okay. penalty for someone who's convicted of murder. Okay? I think that if Americans saw up close what was happening in these prisons, I think if Americans witnessed these executions themselves and understood what a person is experiencing mid-execution, I think that those polls might be different. I think that people may feel differently. Not to say that they would disagree with the death penalty or think it should be outlawed, but just that we're not doing it the right way, no matter how inhumane it is and agreeing with the death penalty as long as it's done within a certain code that we all subscribe to. There's a major difference there and I think, yeah, Americans may feel differently if they

knew a little more. Pete Slauson Do you think we should have public executions to try and raise public awareness? Maybe you know, I mean, you saw the reaction to George Floyd, which was basically a, it was basically a public lynching that would have happened in the, prior in the 1800s or something, in early 1900s. And their public reaction was, you know, they were really horrified and, you know, there was a lot of blowback.

We're at least, maybe we need to have public executions so that the public can become more aware of this. I don't know, what are your thoughts on how to. I mean, that is obviously such a controversial and lightning rod suggestion, but I appreciate it because I think this is the problem with execution right now. I think that states have very effectively

whitewashed the brutality of executions. And I think that it's their prerogative to keep things behind closed doors, to keep the appearance of, you know, just a man falling asleep, you know, peacefully. And I think that if there were public executions, I think we'd have rioting in the streets. And I don't think there's, and I say this in the book, I don't think there's been, you know, a major protest against the death penalty with more than 50 people, you know, and probably more than a decade in this country. You know, people come out for Black Lives Matter and women's rights and climate change and, you know, all honorable causes, but we're talking

about torturing citizens to death here. And you don't hear a peep from the public. And I really believe it's because we have effectively sanitized this practice, made people believe that it is not brutal when in fact it is. Yeah, I mean, politicians would never do it because it would work against their cause. But if there were public executions, oh, holy hell, people would be rioting for sure. Pete Slauson Yeah, I think we need to be exposed to that because, you know, there's too much of that not in my backyard sort of attitude towards prisons. And we, I mean, we do have a prison industrial complex. You know, I've had friends that have been on parole and it seems like anything to drag them back and put them back in the system and of course, cost us more money.

to drag them back and put them back in the system and of course cost us more money. I remember when pot was being argued to be legalized, I think for recreational in California or maybe it was during the medicinal part of it, but the biggest opponents to it, the biggest people that were spending the most money to not have pot legalized was the prison unions and the police officer unions. And it was like, are you serious? Those guys are the biggest. And they did it because it's about jobs and money and power and the infrastructure of our industrial complex.

And we jail more people than anybody on this earth. You probably talk about these numbers on your book. We're just really obsessed with it like we are obsessed with the trans fats. Lauren Ruffin It's true. I mean, incarceration has become big business in our country and how gross is that, but it's true. It's true. And that happened in a very strategic way. We've privatized it and that is not the way the system should be by any means. Pete Yeah. I mean, the privatization was the worst. I'm… Lauren You have stakeholders.

Pete Yeah. Lauren You have stakeholders in incarcerating people. I mean, it's just, it's really perverse. Pete Yeah. And of course, their benefit isn't to recidiv… Lauren No way. Pete … recidivization. You know, and we have a high recidivization rate in this country because of it. Lauren Ruffin It's around, yeah, 40 to 45%. And what's happening in California right now is interesting. Governor Newsom has said, I'm not about being weak

on crime, I'm gonna be smart on crime, which is to say that he's flooding the system with programs. And what he's found with data is that when people do these trauma-based therapy programs, educational vocational programs, they don't recidivate, they don't re-offend. And so he's saying, this isn't for the inmates, this is for public safety. If our priority is the public, public safety, then we should recidivate these people so they can go back out in public and re-contribute in a healthy way to our society. Pete Yeah. One thing that's kind of interesting is I've listened to Sam Harris' and some of the conversations about free will. And one of the arguments of free will is that we don't

really have free will. We're going to behave the way we're going to behave because that's how we are. And some of that is trauma-based that shapes us. You brought up trauma. And yeah, I agree. A lot of the problems we have in society, you're tied to a failing family structure, parents in the home. I've joked for 40 years that you should have to go to college before you can have kids. And you should have to go see a psychologist to work out your shit. But I don't have kids because I didn't want to share my trauma and my damage. But you know, most people aren't going to do that. It's just kind of a fantasy I have in my head, I guess, of how things could be better. But you know, what the fuck? Let's

have some kids and roll up all of our trauma into them. Yeah. I mean, what happens with generational trauma? I mean, it's such a, it's such a huge point that I think, particularly with incarcerated people and people on death row, it's not talked about enough. And when I met Scott Dozier and I have interviewed a ton of death row inmates, one of my colleagues, Nicole Bezorgmeier, who I produced this documentary with, we had a conversation at an airport on the way to one of these prisons where we said, at what point should a person's story begin? Because a prosecutor starts the person's story at the time of the crime, right? Here's this monster who did XYZ or prior offenses. But if you take it back to when they're a child, I mean, almost always, with the exception

maybe of Scott Dozier, there is a story to tell that leads the person on their path. And I take it back, and it is the case with Scott Dozier too. But you find a lot of times with these guys, you know, they were traumatized, they were abused, they didn't have the benefit of childhood sobriety. You know, they experienced head trauma. They had some kind of severe mental illness where, you know, auditory hallucinations started from a young age that caused them to assault partners.

And look, I'm not one to sympathize with someone convicted of domestic violence. You know, I feel like I'm pretty hardline on that kind of thing. But when you interview someone as I have who has, you know, killed a spouse, killed a child, but who has severe mental illness, who experiences psychosis, who has voices telling them that if they don't kill the child, the devil will take them. You begin to think about the issue a little differently.

It begins to complicate, you know, your view of the so-called monster behind bars. Pete Yeah. It's damaged people damage other people. And you know, maybe, maybe there's a time that we look at, you know, I remember we had an author on the show who talked about the Reagan years. And one of the problems that happened in the Reagan years is they took away, Reagan took away all the mental health clinics and support that were out there in the public. is they took away, Reagan took away all the mental health clinics and support that were out there in the public and they just increased the police presence. And the story was from this young lady is her, they were raised in the ghetto and her mother was an alcoholic. Well her mother was pretty stable and working before Ronald Reagan and you know the start

of this whole police state if you look at the curves. And she was fine. She was functioning. She was still an alcoholic, but she was going to the meetings or whatever sort of welfare system we had for that before Reagan. And then Reagan came along and they wiped all that away. And this is almost like a purposeful hand, if you understand Reagan's liberalism, the racism of the shining city on the

hill, et cetera, et cetera, and what he brought in. But as soon as they took away that support system, her mother was deep in alcoholism. Next thing you know, she gets picked up by the police. Next thing you know, she's in prison. Next thing you know, she can't get out of the system. And like I say, I've had friends that they've done time and they've gotten good and they've done helpful programs in prison. They come out and just the simplest thing can drag them back in. And the parole agents, I'm not knocking parole agents, but it's almost like they want to drag you back. Like, oh, you escaped our little system, now we need you back. And just the simplest thing can claw you back and as simple as some fracturing, even if you don't communicate with your prolegio, it can claw you back.

And it's almost like the system just kind of is this monster that just feeds itself and holds whoever gets entangled into it and the thing. And I think more and more we need to look at recidivism rates and how to keep people and some of the things we're talking about here. Maybe in rehab we deal with people's trauma from their childhood, their issues and everything else. And maybe we should be doing more of that instead of just throwing away the key and having the public forget about these people. I mean, the thing is for I think probably 95% of people who are incarcerated, no matter if it's for drug dealing or murder, can be rehabilitated with the right programs, with

the right accountability measures, with tough parole boards who aren't gonna let the guys who are just going through the motions through. This works. There's data that shows this works. It works in Norway. It's starting to work in California and other states, North Dakota, Washington. I think culturally, we have a problem though. Culturally, we can't get past the idea that we don't forgive people who have killed. the idea that we don't forgive people who have killed. I think that there is a deep, you know, devotion to holding people to account and not forgiving folks who have, you know, it's the eye for an eye, effectively, right? We can't let go of that biblical verse in many parts of this country. And I think, you know, again, it shouldn't be seen as a political thing. It shouldn't be seen as tough on crime or weak on crime. I really subscribe to this idea that we should be focusing

on public safety and what comes hand in hand with public safety, treating people humanely and trying to help them out. Now, I will say, I do believe that there are some people who, for whatever reason, cannot be put out on the streets. Pete Yeah. Katie There are some people who cannot be rehabilitated, but I think it's a very small percentage of people. And I think for the most part, when done correctly, you know, without the waste, without the corruption, but with database solutions, you know, I think people really can be rehabilitated. Pete And a lot of times, people talk about how all we do is we send them to criminal college

is what prison really is. Yeah, it makes them worse. They steal a Snickers bar or maybe rob a store or something like that, and then they just upscale and they learn how to do things better and make a bigger mess. And there's lots of examples of that where they let the rapist guy out and he rapes again, that sort of thing, or mirrors again, they just upscale. And yeah, we should focus on fixing these people. We have a lot of this discussion with psychologists and people come on the show about child-based trauma and how it affects

the arc of their lives. And we throw so much money at this industrial complex of prisons and nobody else does this. I think I saw some sort of documentary show or whatever on the Norway thing. I don't know if it was a European country and these guys had a prison cell that to, to make them grow and educate and, and not recidivize. And they were like, they had TVs in their cells. They, their cells were fairly comfy. They were relaxed. It wasn't, I mean, it was punishment cause you're locked up. I mean, you can't just go to the seven lemon anytime you want, but it was humane and almost

too humane. But when I saw the reaction of the people and the recidivation rates, I was like, well, shit, maybe that does work. Yeah, it's really interesting, Chris. I write about this in the book. The head of state of Norway came to San Quentin in California where California's death row is to meet Governor Newsom. And I was there with the both of them and he talked through what their system was like

and it's like dorms, right? It's like college dorms. And I was there with the both of them and he talked through what their system was like. And it's like dorms, right? It's like college dorms. And instead of guards coming in to handcuff them and retaliate for something, they sit down and play a board game with them and chat about things. And those guards, which they're not called guards, they'll kind of be doing some sort of like therapy as they're playing gin rummy. It's a very different approach. And like you said, it's data-based and it has

shown that it works. And by the way, in Norway, we're not talking about low-level criminals. They're murderers, as who they're putting through these programs. At San Quentin, I must say, walking through, I was sort of stunned the first time I was there because basically everyone there has been convicted of murder. They have life sentences and you walk through and no one's in handcuffs. Basically no one is behind bars and you're brushing shoulders with thousands of guys, former gang members, rapists, murders and so on. But there's this baseline level of trust, which is very intentional. And the

incarcerated folks know that the correctional officers are giving them this freedom and giving them this trust, and there's this kind of mutual agreement that you don't mess with that. And over the course, I've been there a few times and you get more comfortable each time you're there, but there is a part of me walking through there that just thinks like, this is insane. This is so different from other prisons that I've been to. And particularly when we're totally outnumbered, you know, like the civilians and the correctional officers are, I don't know exactly what the ratio is, but there are hell of a lot more incarcerated folks walking around. But anyway, it's kind of impressive.

And then when you go and you see the programs and you see guys running around the track and using their time in a way that is productive, you start to, and then particularly when you see the data in conjunction with that, it's easy to buy into it. Pete That's really interesting. Yeah. junction with that, it's easy to buy into it. That's really interesting. And it's good that your book is out that can educate people and make people understand things better. You see that in rehab, we just had someone from Rehab Clinic on yesterday talking about

rehab and he'd been an alcoholic all his life since he was, you know, his teens. And you know, one of the things that happens is trauma leads to, and sometimes this trauma comes out of desperate parental situations or childhood situations or adoption. And you know, then at least drugs to, you know, try and medicate the trauma. And then, you know, you've got to get money for drugs. So then you go you got to get money for drugs so then you go steal or whatever and then you know you're just on this pathway where you go to prison college on how to be a better criminal and then you come out and you're worse and you know really if we maybe sat down with people at a certain stage

and said hey and I think maybe drug courts may have done that and different interventions that maybe the courts have put in to try and, you know, rail that in early on. You know, a lot of this, I think, stems from that. It's just trauma and then it goes to drugs and then drugs go to higher crimes or, you know, you do the crimes while you're on the drugs. And so, yeah, it's just a cycle that if we could fix where it starts, maybe that would fix a lot of things. I think it was just pretty much in psychotherapy in high school, because you kind of need it

from high school. And honestly, a lot of the programs that the guys are getting at St. Quentin, all of them say if I had this as a teen or preteen, I wouldn't have landed here. Wow, that tells you a lot, doesn't it? Yeah. Wow. So as we go out, pitch't it? Christi Yeah. Mm hmm. Pete Wow. So, as we go out, pitch people on where to pick up the book, see your other programs and different things that you've done.

Christi So, the book is called The Volunteer, The Failure of the Death Penalty in America and One Inmate's Quest to Die with Dignity. You can find it at, you know, at your local bookstore, Barnes and Noble. You can find it anywhere online. But again, it's called The Volunteer and I hope you enjoy it. Pete Thank you very much for coming to the show. We really appreciate it. Thank you, Chris. Thank you. And thanks, everyone, for tuning in. Order of the Book, where refined books are sold, The Volunteer, The Failure of the Death Penalty in America and One Inmate's Quest to Die with Dignity out April 1st, 2025. I think it's something we definitely need to be aware of and be up on. There's always ways to improve everything, almost to infinity.

This is something we need to work on as well. Thank you for tuning in everyone. Go to Goodreads.com, Forchance.com, LinkedIn.com, Forchance.com, Chris Voss, Chris Voss, one of the TikTok, you know, the crazy place, the internet. Be good to each other. Stay safe. We'll see you next time. And that should have us out.

Great discussion.