END PERPETUAL PUNISHMENT-My conversation with Zaki Smith, a formerly incarcerated person, discusses his work with dismantling the collateral consequences of incarceration.

Michael “Zaki” Smith was a policy entrepreneur at Next100. He is an entrepreneur and activist with more than fifteen years of experience in youth empowerment and social justice. Zaki has recently worked with the Clean Slate NY Coalition to advocate for automatic expungement of criminal records in New York State. Zaki launched the #EndPerpetualPunishment arts campaign, which uses murals and art in the neighborhoods most impacted by the criminal justice system to educate and empower community members around making policy change. I am a Muslim. A father. One of the 70 to 100 million formerly incarcerated individuals in this country.“There are 47,000 punishments for a person with a criminal conviction—and in some states even an arrest—that could bar you from employment, housing, education, licensing, and voting, to name a few. All the things that can impact a person’s ability to stay out of prison are now restricted or taken away. My passion is to create policy to remove the heartbeat of recidivism that is collateral consequences.”