The Listening Post, Here's Ya Know That! Hey everybody in Radio Land, this is Jesse Hardman. I run the Listening Post project in New Orleans. We focus on topics that impact the city and invite you into the conversation on your cell phones, your street corners, and on your radio dial.
We're back collecting your thoughts and experiences on a new series of topics. This past month we've been collaborating with independent radio producer Eve Abrams and her imprisoned project. Eve had a question on her mind. What do jails do?
What do prisons do? I think I just wanted to find out what people's perceptions were. I'm really unsure what they do quite frankly. What do jails and prisons do?
That's a big question. Especially here in Louisiana, which you've no doubt heard many times over, has the world's highest per capita rate of incarceration. That statistic is so prominent that both sides of the political spectrum are even finding some common ground. Last fall, the conservative heavyweights, the Koch brothers held a criminal justice conference in New Orleans.
We've got two of the most brilliant political minds in the country to talk to this about criminal justice and politics this morning. First of all, to my immediate side here is Grover Norquist. It was the president of the country. It was a big government icon.
Grover Norquist was there. He said jails and prisons cost governments way too much money. We have too many people in prison for too many laws for too long a time and we need to rethink some of that. One of the reasons Louisiana has become such a poster child for incarceration rates is that the state has harsh sentencing laws.
James Brockway is a staff attorney with the Orleans Public Defenders. He represents local residents who can't afford their own attorney. That's also the population most likely to wind up in jail or prisons as Brockway. What do jails and prisons do?
Make sure that a certain group of people continue to stay at the bottom rung of the social hierarchy. Instead of dealing with the type of problems that explain why the things that might cause them to be in jail happen and trying to fix them. We just keep warehousing people. Our goal at the Listening Post is to get you citizens of New Orleans to share your thoughts and experiences on important matters like the role of jails and prisons in society.
We set up some new Listening Post recording devices at a recent Bring Your Own Event and the Alvi Library in the Bywater. And people shared some great responses. What do jails and prisons do? Serve the interest of the elite only?
What do jails and prisons do? I think what jails and prisons do is separate families with one thing. And then they make all the criminal criminals out of some way and they have this innocent crime. It's empty very small.
jails and prisons are a divider in society. Intentionally to separate supposed dangerous citizens from the rest of the population. Howes create and maintain slavery in the United States of America? When I was arrested, I was arrested wrongly.
I was a juvenile and I was treated like nothing. But they just looked at me as if I was a criminal and I was not. jails and prisons make a lot of money. That's what they do.
They keep people from voting. They absolutely just run Devastate Families from the cost for families to have to travel to visit and keep money in their loved ones commissaries to defines and court fees and all that stuff that people pay. Chills and prisons suck in Louisiana's number one in the world. The world.
We also gave people a chance to respond with their cell phones. You can join our project by texting hello to 504-303-4348. Courtney Williams, a Xavier University student, mid city resident and a budding radio reporter, stop by our listing post recording device in central city to read a few of the text messages people send in. What do jails and prisons do?
Jails and prisons teach folks that there's no way to escape the way they were brought up. Another person wrote in. The more time a person spins in prison, the less likely they are to successfully transition back into the community after their release. They transfer well from taxpayers to the prison industrial complex.
And here's the last text someone wrote in. Every human deserves love in their lives, especially those who've lived through violence and desperation. We should take a crime and not the criminal. A jail should be an environment of forgiveness and healing.
The last voice in this listing post episode belongs to 50 year old Michael Williams Sr. When I caught up with Williams, he was watering the lawn of the quiet subdivision home he shares with his wife at the end of a cul-de-sac in East Baton Rouge parish. Parked in the garage of Williams home is a sparkling silver Mercedes. I always love to drive.
I'll get up in the middle of the night right now and just go get my car and go take a drive. One of the reasons Williams covets driving so much is that for 15 years he couldn't. The last memorable drive Williams had was to prison after he received a life sentence from murder. Taking a long ride down it and going road.
And I know old school bus that was painted down and everything with chicken wire like on the windows and everything like that. And all the windows are open and you've got all these people dressed up in a white jumpsuit with shackles from here to toe. And you're just looking out the window watching your life pass your bike. Not knowing if you would ever come back up that road again.
In 1996 Williams a former offshore worker was accused of murdering 25 year old Michelle Gallagher. The case was built around one witness and Williams was handed a life sentence. He's always maintained his innocence. When Williams entered Angola he was in his early 30s married with a two year old son back in Gretna.
He was put in one of the open dormitories at the notorious state penitentiary. You have all these individuals so called Horton criminal scum of the earth. Society basically didn't turn any back on them. You sit in a trash and a lie laying in a bed with 83 other individuals in.
You don't know nothing about them you don't know nothing about their situation. You still have to navigate through this. For most of his decade and a half at Angola Williams worked an overnight shift in a kitchen for two cents an hour. He says every free minute was spent in the prison law library.
He routinely got write-ups for refusing to take a break from researching his case. Every opportunity I find that's where you will find me. Yeah you go like have a Marty like that. I already have a life sentence.
There's nothing more other than killing me that you can do to me. All I'm trying to do is help myself. Eventually Williams efforts paid off. He put together an appeal and with the help of the New Orleans Innocence Project.
His case was vacated. Evidence was deemed not reliable. In November 2011 Michael Williams Sr. left Angola a free man.
It was a beautiful day that day. Almost five years after his exoneration Williams can pinpoint a few answers to the question what do jails and prisons do. For him 15 years of incarceration made him a bit of a legal expert. Because colds articles and statues always change.
That's why they call them revised statues. They are revised over. Pills and prisons have also given Williams a perspective. Most people with life sentences never get a chance to experience or express.
You love a little bit harder. You appreciate life on a whole different level. Because only through suffering can you see past your own shortsightedness. You begin to appreciate things that you genuinely would overlook.
So when you come out here where everybody is lax and you're just sitting there and they think something's wrong with you. But really there's nothing wrong with you. It's just that you're viewing life differently now. This is the Listening Post.
Thanks for tuning in. Join our project by texting the word hello to 504-303-4348 and stop by our website at listeningpostnola.com. That's all for this week. We'll see you next time at the Listening Post.