The Discipline and Punish Podcast

#14 - Desistance from Crime as a Social Movement: Change in an Age of Civil Unrest – Shadd Maruna

June 11, 2020 Thomas Baker Season 1 Episode 14
The Discipline and Punish Podcast
#14 - Desistance from Crime as a Social Movement: Change in an Age of Civil Unrest – Shadd Maruna
Show Notes Transcript

In this episode, Professor Shadd Maruna and I discuss his work on desistance from crime. We talk about how desistance is becoming a social movement, the importance of centering the lived experiences of the incarcerated and formerly incarcerated, and what we can learn from other social movements as we move to make change in policing following the George Floyd murder subsequent uprisings.  

Prior to moving to Queen's University Belfast, Shadd Maruna was a lecturer at the University of Cambridge and the University of Manchester, and a Dean of the Rutgers School of Criminal Justice (US). His book Making Good: How Ex-Convicts Reform and Rebuild Their Lives was named the "Outstanding Contribution to Criminology" by the American Society of Criminology (ASC) in 2001. He has been a Fulbright Scholar, a Soros Justice Fellow, and an H. F. Guggenheim Fellow, and has received research funding from the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation, the ESRC, and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, among other sources. He has received awards from the Howard League for Penal Reform and from the ESRC for the impact of his research on challenging the prison and probation systems. He has authored or edited six books and over 85 articles and book chapters since 1997. 

https://pure.qub.ac.uk/en/persons/shadd-maruna
http://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=e0qdrFUAAAAJ&hl=enTwitter: @istudytrustTwitter: @criminology

Tom Baker in a 2018 Tillman Scholar and has been a PhD student in UMSL's Criminology and Criminal Justice program since 2017. Tom received his BA in Political Science from Arizona State University and worked as a police officer for approximately nine years. His research interests include police culture, use of force, and qualitative research methods. https://pattillmanfoundation.org/meet-our-scholars/thomas-baker/

Twitter: @thomasowenbaker

Research Discussed:

Article: 

Maruna, S. (2017). Desistance as a social movement. Irish Probation Journal, 14(1), 5-20.

Book: 

https://www.amazon.com/Making-Good-Ex-Convicts-Reform-Rebuild-ebook/dp/B003Q6CX32/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Making+good%3A+How+ex-convicts+reform+and+rebuild+their+lives&qid=1591724104&sr=8-1

 Article Abstract:

Summary: Desistance from crime has been a considerable success story for academic criminology. The concept has deep roots, but did not emerge as a mainstream focus of study for the field until the 1990s movement towards developmental or life-course criminology. From these origins, however, the term has taken on a life of its own, influencing policy and practice in criminal justice. This paper will briefly review this history, then explore what might be next for desistance research among numerous possible futures. I argue that the most fruitful approach would be to begin to frame and understand desistance not just as an individual process or journey, but rather as a social movement, like the Civil Rights movement or the ‘recovery movements’ among individuals overcoming addiction or mental health challenges. This new lens better highlights the structural obstacles inherent in the desistance process and the macro-social changes necessary to successfully create a ‘desistance-informed’ future. Keywords: Desistance, social movement theory, mass incarceration, stigma.

 

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Tom Baker: Hey, thanks so much for joining me. I know it's busy for everyone and crazy right now. So I really appreciate you taking the time to spend it with us.

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Tom Baker: And I just sort of gave everyone a brief intro of who you are and the sort of work you do. But before

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Tom Baker: Before we start the discussion. I thought it's just to know a little bit more about who you are as a person. Maybe you could tell us like where you grew up a little bit, where'd you grow up.

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shadd: Yeah.

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shadd: Nearby, I'm from downstate Illinois you you wouldn't have heard of it in the cornfields about an hour south of Champaign, Urbana, so an hour south of the South is part that anybody has ever gone and downstate Illinois

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shadd: The I lived for a little while. Outside of St. Louis on the Illinois side the St. Louis side and fell in love with with with St. Louis.

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shadd: Certainly have strong connections to console and and i hope someday to to get back to, um, so I've had, I've had a lot of good colleagues there and a lot of associations there over the years but live in now a long ways away.

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shadd: In Northern Ireland Belfast and have been here for about 15 years or so.

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Tom Baker: 15 years and you what you studied, we're going to talk about today. Was there any sort of like a set of experiences that you had or

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Tom Baker: Someone that you mad or some some event or was it an intellectual pursuit, that sort of led you on the path that you ended up on and brought you to where you are today and studying what you study

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shadd: Yeah yeah yeah it's it's a real good question, especially since we're going to talk about. I'm very interested in lived experience in biography and people's own narratives and so forth. So, so

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shadd: It's very fair question. As you might have guessed me growing up in the cornfields I don't have a terribly interesting life story. My myself.

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shadd: That said very good friend of mine, went to prison. When, when we were both young others have along the way.

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shadd: The, the, and the idea of lived experience is, is, you know, part of my work, I think in important ways. The, the book that most people know me for is a thing called Making good and it came out.

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shadd: 20 years ago now. And a lot of people will say it's the best thing I've ever done, which can be a little, a little bit depressing, considering I wrote it. When I was in my late 20s. It came out when I was 30

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shadd: And I'm older than that now but but the, I think it's no coincidence that you know I wrote that book. And when I was the same age as the people that I was interviewing. It was a book about

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shadd: Turning 30 I wrote it while I was turning 30 I was going through a lot of things. You know, I had just just had a daughter. I had just gotten my first real job after a long, long history of crap jobs and I was going through the cliche of settling down and

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shadd: Trying to become a grown up. And the book is in some ways about that exact process of settling down and trying to become a grown up. So, so I know

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shadd: There's a good bit of me a bit of the autobiographical in that book in in the although it's about other people's stories, not, not mine that my own story has is influenced the way I interpreted and understood the story so of the folks in that in that book for sure.

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Tom Baker: So it started off with sort of seeing these other people who you cared about go through this process of being incarcerated and then you yourself.

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Tom Baker: Experienced in the process of coming, coming of age and moving through the life course and then like sort of compare like thinking. Were you thinking, well, if I'm going through these challenges, what would it be like to go through these challenges facing was that what's sort of

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shadd: Yeah yeah no 100% you know there's there's a lot of the

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shadd: work that I do, that is, is universal and, you know, people will read the book and saying, I've never been to prison.

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shadd: But this book spoke to me. I went through changes, just like this. And that's because the people who go to prison are just like you and me and and so, so I've tried to write it from that perspective, it's not to say that you don't

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shadd: It's not a unique experience and then going to prison and and getting involved in the criminal justice system in general criminalization process, but there's a lot of that that experience that is

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shadd: Universal and and it can be compared to and understood by by those who haven't gone gone through the respect. I mean, that's the whole nature of social sciences and the work that we do. But, but, yeah, you know, I

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shadd: I worked in a halfway house for a little while, up in Alaska. When, when I was in that string of of low paying jobs as

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shadd: I mentioned before, gay getting becoming an academic and and and that was important for me there was certainly other formative events but but ultimately, yeah, I think, I think I got interested in the work.

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shadd: You got interested in redemption as a notion

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shadd: Based on on personal experiences, less than then watching others but but more, you know, we've all had to overcome the worst things that we've ever done. We've all had to to manage shame. We've all had to deal with.

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shadd: Issues of moving on from from different aspects of our life and and I think that's really what what i was able to draw on and doing this work. Yeah.

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Tom Baker: And I I identify with what you just said. Because when I read the book and then

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Tom Baker: I can also identify like identify like with this. And I think that's one of the important things that this type of work can do is make people realize that we're all human beings and we all experienced the same

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Tom Baker: Sort of route things but just in different contexts may play out differently, but we're all we can identify with what that must was what that must feel like can you so today we're going to talk about

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Tom Baker: Distance, and some people may not even like really know what that means. He talked about, like, what, what is distance and people may be more familiar with rehabilitate the word rehabilitate key talk about what what's the difference between those two things.

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shadd: Yeah, yeah. Great, great question. So yeah, assistance is a terrible academic word. It's hard to say, you know, for a long time people thought I was saying resistance, but people will know the the phrase cease and desist. So I usually bring them back to that and if since we hear that phrase.

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shadd: There, there's a reason we have the two words as different words cease and desist mainly means stop what you're doing.

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shadd: And don't do it again and and so so ceases is the stopping distance is the don't do it again. And we don't really have another word for that. That concept so so sometime down the road and criminology.

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shadd: We started using that word assistance for people who have had a pattern of engagement in criminal behavior. So they were what what the criminologist would call offenders or criminals, they were

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shadd: People who have that as part of their lifestyle but then they ceased it and then they didn't pick up again. So they went through a period of

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shadd: Non offending which is a weird thing to study in lots of ways, but it's kind of the crucial things study, you know, if

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shadd: It's so much with criminology is an applied subject, and we want to think that what we're doing can feed into

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shadd: What the work that social services or criminal justice is doing well. One of the main aims of a lot of the work and criminal justice. You mentioned rehabilitation is to

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shadd: Get people to stop offending and then help them not reoffend and that in order to understand how to do that, we need to to learn from the experiences of those who have assistant and done so successfully the origins of the word are usually traced to Marvin Wolfgang famous criminologist.

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shadd: The new book by Michael Roque has actually said there was usages of the word before old gang. In fact, one of his longtime collaborator, or a collaborator sourced and selling at had used the word in 1942 to refer to what we think of as assistance, so it has long origins in criminology.

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shadd: You ask, what's the difference with rehabilitation. The Origins The word when when selling and Wolfgang we're using it and another guy Gordon tressler and in the 1970s.

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shadd: They were very explicit, they were using it is the opposite of rehabilitation and that can sound weird, because we can think of, you know, the to have ultimately the same meaning.

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shadd: To be rehabilitated. You have to desist from crime and to desist from crime, you have to be rehabilitated at some level, but but the original usage of the word was

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shadd: To be rehabilitated means to be corrected or reformed by the state or by, you know, social services by education.

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shadd: to desist. It was it was originally called spontaneous assistance.

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shadd: It was these are people who are growing out of crime on their own, they wasn't a matter of being changed by some program or some intervention.

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shadd: They just changed on their own. And so that was the origins of we need to learn from these this sort of organic model of rehabilitation.

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shadd: In truth, both are myths and I've argued this in my work. There's no such thing as as someone who's changed by the state, you know, outside of Clockwork Orange, or our affections, you know,

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shadd: Nobody can force someone to change. Who doesn't want to change. Nobody can can hypnotize prisoners and turn them into good people. They have to that change comes from within. But likewise.

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shadd: Nobody who actually does this say they dismissed it on their own. They didn't get help from people, family, friends,

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shadd: Society employers, the state, you know, everyone is involved in that process so so distance research is about trying to understand all those complicated mechanisms involved in that change.

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Tom Baker: So the rehabilitation is from the term. The word is about from from without. So some out outside entity. Yeah, shaping you and then the distance is about something from within. But what you're saying is it's sort of a co production.

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Tom Baker: Where something that happens from within, but they are these external forces as well.

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shadd: Yeah, and that's a popular new term and Beth Weaver and others are talking about co producing assistance.

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shadd: Some talk about it as an assistant assistance or the like, you know, it's I think it's really important to

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shadd: Challenge that notion of people hardly even use the words like reform are correct anymore. Those have already become pass a 1950s words but rehabilitation has remained and

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shadd: I can understand that it's a word that we understand and know you know, unlike assistance and it has

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shadd: Particular meeting in terms of the purposes of punishment and so forth as a goal of prisons is rehabilitation and I think it's a noble one and important to maintain that

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shadd: Arguably, and I understand some of the criticisms of it but but

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shadd: But distance. It's an important challenge. So when we talk

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shadd: about changing the language to Assistant. Assistant, it's to remind those who are who think of themselves as being in the rehabilitation game that you know what

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shadd: You're not doing this to somebody you're doing it with them and you're assisting them on a journey that ultimately has to be their journey.

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shadd: Because you can't. And they know that and

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shadd: I say they, you know, I could be seeing this as part of that you know we when we're working with President I volunteer. I teach in a prison. I've done that for a long time.

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shadd: I don't see when when I'm doing that teaching. I don't ever imagine. And now you do any of my colleagues in the prison, imagine that they're changing people

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shadd: In the way a doctor can cure a patient, they, they, they, they know they're working with people where they are and that's what the language of assistance tries to remind us. Yeah.

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Tom Baker: Okay. Excellent. Well, I one thing that you said was what I thought was interesting is you use the phrase you said grow growing out like people grow out of them.

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Tom Baker: Can you, can you talk a little bit about this connection because I know I've read in the literature. This connection between age and assistance, he talked about this sort of connection.

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shadd: Door i mean it's it's a huge correlation. So, so

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shadd: So huge and we sometimes talk about in just one of the kind of seven or eight settled facts about crime that there is a relationship to an agent crime.

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shadd: Crime, at least in the terms of street crime. Now we're not talking about corporate crime or or political crime State crimes. We're talking about street crime.

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shadd: Is largely seen as a young man's game and and the, the man part is not me being sexist. It's a huge disparity between men and women. And then there's a huge over representation of young people and involved so so

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shadd: The peak air the peak age of criminality varies between 16 and 21 years old, but it's somewhere in there, those late teens, early 20s.

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shadd: And it sort of plateaus in the in the mid 20s and then then it starts to drop dramatically around age 28 830 you get this this huge drop in crime to the point that

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shadd: Some commentators have said there's no better crime fighting tool than the 30th birthday. And in fact, that was the criminal, logical consensus really until the the the assistance research started exclusively in the 80s and 90s. There was a sense

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shadd: The Glocks Sheldon and Eleanor block back in the 1940s had a theory called maturation will reform theory and and the theory was criticized because it wasn't well developed and the

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shadd: It was a circular argument they were making basically but but it's simple summary of the theory was that people grow out of crime and

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shadd: The, the, the kind of consensus going forward to all the way to go for it and in Hershey and they're famous general theory of crime.

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shadd: Wilson and Bernstein and their 1985 quote was that

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shadd: Spontaneous assistance happens to everybody. We don't know why it happens, it just happens. It's like puberty. It's something that we can see in every society and every culture, and therefore must be this kind of automatic process and and

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shadd: In again the correlation is strong enough and and appears frequently enough, you know, you can find references and Shakespeare to

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shadd: The age between 18 and 23 is is this dangerous time when young men can't be trusted. So we've known young males in particular for for many centuries have been seen as this dangerous class and in various ways.

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shadd: But, but the new assistance was born when we basically decided to challenge this this this theory, which was really just a correlation, rather than a theory, but to say okay

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shadd: We need to unpack and unpick this notion that notion of maturation, it's too easy to say that age causes crime and age is just a number, as we know.

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shadd: There's huge differences in and when people desist from crying. Some disses at 16 some of the system 19 some not till they're they're 35

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shadd: What it, what do we even mean by by taking a correlation and then making it a theory and saying,

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shadd: Okay, turning 30 causes assistance. What is it about turning 30 and that's what our research is trying to look at is it

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shadd: The other opportunities that are different for young adults than are for adolescents over people in their early 20s.

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shadd: Are their expectations from society that differ, you know, do we look at the the 21 year old who's getting drunk every night.

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shadd: Differently than we look at the 41 year old who's getting drunk every night. You know, there's different social pressures shaming mechanisms.

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shadd: stigma that goes along with different age groups who we we kind of expect like Shakespeare those 21 year olds to be sewing their wild oats didn't seem to be

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shadd: coming in late and hanging out with the boys and so forth. And we expect different things at different ages. So it's all those kind of the economic the historical the personal psychological, sociological dynamics that we look at when we try to understand assistance.

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Tom Baker: So it's taking something that's very generalizable across time and culture and something that's become like an external event, except except that axiom and the discipline and saying, Whoa, whoa, whoa.

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Tom Baker: That's too. So that's an oversimplification, just say you turn 30 and desist, and you want to unpack it and understand it.

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shadd: That's right. I mean, that's what we do in social science. We try to complicate things that are common sense and try to get underneath that common sense and it's been, you know,

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shadd: These, these 30 years assistance has become one of the most published about

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shadd: Topics, and in the field. It's arguably today what what our delinquency theories were in the 50s and 60s. You know why the kids get involved in crime has become

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shadd: Why new older men get out of crime and it's the same kind of energy. We saw 30 years ago around delinquency, we're seeing now on assistance. So yes, it's, it's a has been a rich area of study.

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Tom Baker: And it's, it's very intuitive. I know like just at a personal level when I was, you know, 18 I, you know, join the army jump out of airplanes, you know, do all this crazy these crazy things and

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Tom Baker: Policing, you know, I want to chase cars. I want to do this. And now that I'm older. I'm in my 40s. Now,

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Tom Baker: And and I would not. I would just not engage in those behaviors. Now I don't know if it's because it may be in part because of the expectations on me that society places. Is it. There's some biological element. I'm sure there's a

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Tom Baker: You know, with the testosterone levels. There's, there's probably a whole host and experience. And there's a whole host of things that go on there so I can imagine it's a lifelong exercise trying to catch something so complicated.

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shadd: Yeah, yeah, that's right, yeah. Everybody say gets and these big issues. You know why, why, why are soldiers. You know why, why do we recruit among the young and and as you say there's there's all sorts of fascinating aspects to it to the question. Yeah.

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Tom Baker: And I have police officers who listen to this and I'm sure they can mean on a regular basis interact with people who say, you know,

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Tom Baker: You run them you interact. You stop somebody and they've got prison tattoos and they've had this long, it's obvious that they had this long experience.

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Tom Baker: And as a police officer over time you learn to recognize well with their above a certain age, you're probably going to have a slightly different experience and that you learn that

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Tom Baker: From having conversations where people will tell you look

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Tom Baker: I got tired.

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Tom Baker: I got tired of that, you know, I can do that anymore. I'm done that I'm doing this now I got kids. Now I got grandkids. Now I got a job, you know, there was this change over the life course that

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Tom Baker: Even though you may not be thinking about it in a systematic way. I think it is intuitive to the officer listeners out there what

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Tom Baker: So, this is this, this idea of assistance, it's, it's something that's not new, but it's really become invoke invoke in the last couple decades, what

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Tom Baker: What, what have governments done like around the world. Is this something that has taken off. Is it something that's a foot with with governments in the recent past.

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shadd: Yeah, absolutely. So, so for, you know, the first 15 or 20 years of the distance research. It was largely just an academic concept and you you you know you would take it.

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shadd: outside of academia and people, as I mentioned, wouldn't know the term wouldn't know what you're saying and so forth. But it has moved from the academy into

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shadd: The real world in lots of ways. So, so certainly in the UK, Ireland, other parts of Europe, but also in the US and Canada. You can't go to a

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shadd: Conference certainly and probation community corrections without hearing practitioners, talk about it assistance thinking or the assistance paradigm thinking differently because of assistance.

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shadd: Assistance oriented policing even and assistance oriented this that and the other. Sometimes this is empty language and, and

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shadd: You know through, through no fault of anyone's they're getting confused with the concept of rehabilitation. They just think this is a

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shadd: New new term for saying the same old thing in terms of prisons being or, you know, assistance focused

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shadd: I had the worst, most cynical Miss interpretation. I heard once I was in a conference, it was, it was asking somebody if her prison. She was in prison psychologist.

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shadd: If her prison was doing anything in terms of of the arts or getting getting prisoners involved in those sorts of things. And she said,

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shadd: No, no, we're we're entirely assistance focus. These days we were which she didn't realize I wasn't assistance researcher and and no reason she should but but you know the the irony is

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shadd: The assistant researchers are very interested in the arts and so forth, and her interpretation was no we only talked to prisoners about their offending and because that's

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shadd: What assistance meant to her, but but that's that's fairly rare. Most folks who are using the term actually do get it and and there has been a kind of

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shadd: Light bulb moment for a lot of folks and criminal justice most will use the term strength assistance to refer to like strength based programming the

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shadd: Strength based idea comes from a critique of most correctional programming is seen as focusing on risk focusing on needs and is deficit focus. So, so there's a

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shadd: Kind of paternalism, where we're going to correct you you you have criminal thinking. And here we're going to show you the right way to think and so forth and and

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shadd: Assistance a language assistance oriented practice has come in to say, actually, you know, prisoners probationers are people with a lot of strengths as well as risks and needs.

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shadd: They have talents that we need as a society and and giving them opportunities to show these talents. So, so, you know, they would be more like

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shadd: Things like inside out, or learning together classrooms were prisoners are sitting side by side with university students and are treated as

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shadd: Kind of experts by experience rather than being treated as well. You're all illiterate and you don't have life skills. So we're going to teach you. Here's how you should act in society. It's giving them.

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shadd: A different expectations that we talked about that with maturity as being changing expectations we have for people so strength based

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shadd: Or assistance programming would would go in with the assumption that these are good people who have made a mistake and need a way to prove themselves as the good people that they are so, so there's a lot of emphasis on

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shadd: Empowerment and giving back community interventions, where they're able to to make some contribution to the community prove that they're more than just the sum of their offenses.

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shadd: But also things like mutual aid organizations where where prisoners are putting leadership roles, who are acting as the deliverers of treatment to their fellow prisoners or or acting as as fellow

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shadd: Travelers in a mutual aid so it sort of situation. These are the kind of

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shadd: Interventions that we we are often seeing the label distance focused when when we hear talk about

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Tom Baker: So it's, it's a very rare instance where you can say, so there has been, I feel like we're constantly talking about how everything's negative, negative, negative,

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Tom Baker: You can say with some confidence that over

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Tom Baker: Over the past couple of decades. You've seen

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Tom Baker: This this growing within these institutions throughout

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Tom Baker: And in North America and in Europe, and it's sort of, I'm not saying that the problem is far from being fixed, but you see some positive movement where this academic idea is filtering in to practitioners and making real change people's lives.

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shadd: Yeah, I think so. I mean, yeah.

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shadd: Again, yeah, you want I want to balance that hoping and then being overly naive obviously things are very bad. I mean, in my

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shadd: I mentioned being a Belfast for 15 years I was in England for 10 years before that. So I've been in the UK for a long time.

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shadd: So this is really the place I'm most comfortable talking about in our prisons right now are in a crisis and they've kind of always been in a crisis as many would say but but in terms of violence staff.

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shadd: Prisoner

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shadd: Conflict and numbers of suicide and self harm. We were in a really bad place with the presence and this is even before Kobe with covert now we've got

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shadd: 23 hour lockdown so forth. So I don't want to be naive and say the, you know, assistance has saved the justice system because it definitely hasn't

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shadd: But yes, if the question is are there pockets of important good work going on that's been motivated by some of this assistance theory or at least supported and, you know, oftentimes

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shadd: The, the, the, the practice is already happening. And then they discovered the theory and say, that's what we're doing and and the theory can give them a rationale to keep going with that and and it can be

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shadd: An important motivator and so forth. Definitely. I've seen that. And yes, who's been some some good work in that regard. Yeah.

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shadd: Maybe the best thing that I've seen you know the thing I'm proudest of with with assistance research is is the number I think

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shadd: There's always been a role for ex prisoners to get involved in the correctional system so called in some way or another. But I think there's been a real explosion of that with assistance research. And so, so we see prisons scrambling

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shadd: With with inspectorates and others here in the UK, asking them, you know, what are you doing to support assistance, a number of prisons and probation units as well.

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shadd: will point to look we are employing ex ex prisoners ex offenders so called to to deliver these programs were employing ex prisoners to work as his

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shadd: Probation support workers and others and and this kind of role modeling mentorship role is kind of key to to the assistance process. It's one of the kind of things we have found

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shadd: As as being supportive of assistance that says it's great to be mentored and great to be coached but but part of

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shadd: The, the, the developmental process is moving from being the student to the teacher and becoming the coach becoming the mentor to others who have gone through the same problems, you know, younger guys are walking in.

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shadd: The shoes that you've walked in can be a real important part of the assistance process and and that element of the research has been picked up and you're seeing more of that even

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shadd: In folks who are still in prison being assigned roles that are more empowering that are about helping others then then then just getting help in that passive so sort of way.

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Tom Baker: I think this is a great time to train transition to the paper. We're talking a little bit about a paper your career did not end when you wrote that fantastic but

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Tom Baker: I'm going to put a put a link to the book, but I'm also going to put a link to a more recent paper that you wrote, which I found

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Tom Baker: really enlightening. And then, especially with what's happening today. I think it's something worth thinking about.

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Tom Baker: And in the paper which everyone should read more will be in the link use this. You talk about wounded healers. Can you talk about like what is what's a wounded healer and can you sort of link that concept to assistance.

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shadd: Yeah, yeah. So, so the wounded healer is sort of the person I was mentioning this this, a former

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shadd: Is someone who is involved in crime, someone who did these days. We talked about it is lived experience or experts by

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shadd: Experts by experience people who have walked in those shoes who want to get involved in helping others.

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shadd: Avoid those same paths same mistakes they made. And it's a remarkably common process. When you talk to people who are in the

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shadd: Harder, the deeper end of the correctional system and you ask them what their goals are, where they'd like to see themselves in 510 years

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shadd: They will often say, you know, I'd like to be a drugs counselor, I'd like to help young guys. I'd like to be a gang interventions worker with the interrupters organizations like that and and this, this is coming from.

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shadd: An interesting process is very human process of looking for role models and and finding few of them among

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shadd: correctional personnel or the criminal justice system, more broadly, but but finding other wounded healers who have helped them along the way and saying,

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shadd: Well, if they've gotten through. I'm going to make it through and how will I make it through. Well, I'll just do what they've done and and this, this kind of very interesting cyclical process, you know the the

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shadd: One of the, the phrases that I've heard and doing this work is is you know distance or reintegration. It's like a minefield.

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shadd: And how do you get through a minefield. Well, the only way to get through is to follow the person in front of you and if if they get through.

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shadd: Walk in their footsteps and and so so this this this role modeling process that we see among wounded healers is a kind of each one teach one

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shadd: You get through and then you turn around and you help the person coming after you to get through themselves. And it's also, as I mentioned, it's an empowering process, you can feel

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shadd: Good about yourselves and these are individuals who are very stigmatized swimming and shame, often for what they've done and constantly reminded of that fact by, you know, they're very

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shadd: The label, they're given as offenders, but also the structure of the justice system is a constant reminder to them that they had done something terribly wrong.

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shadd: So it's a it's an important part of the redemption process to be able to say, okay, yes, I did these these things wrong. I'm not gonna lie or

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shadd: Deny what I've done. But, but I've also been able to take that turn it into this valuable experience and help others through through the process that I went through and

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shadd: You see that all and you've seen it now for a long time on a kind of literal one on one level often working on small groups.

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shadd: guys getting involved in mutual aid organizations Narcotics Anonymous Alcoholics Anonymous. And in these other ways, but in the paper. We're going to discuss I've argued that the wounded healer.

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shadd: Impulse has has gone a step further and is now working on a kind of macro level a larger scale healing, so to speak, rather than the kind of healing one on one, and the recovery process more of a national conversation that we're having

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Tom Baker: And you, you use the word you use this phrase like the you tie it to

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Tom Baker: Other similar what you call you call them social movements, where you mentioned you just mentioned, like maybe like

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Tom Baker: A are some people are on this journey, and it turns into something more than just the one on one, it turns into like a social movement. He just for people who aren't familiar with that term social McKean maybe just tell us

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Tom Baker: What what is a social movement, and how might the assistance become a social movement.

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shadd: Yeah, it's a great question. It's not one all answer easily, you know,

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shadd: Partially because I'm not a social movement expert, but also the those who I've consulted.

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shadd: Have a variety of different definitions and it's one of these words bit like the systems, but I think even much more. So, where, where

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shadd: It's, it's very difficult to to pin it down and to give a definition of what is a social movement. Some, some of the definitions. I've seen say, you know, it's obviously a and aligned group people who have something in common, who are using

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shadd: tactics of

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shadd: Unusual means to to to get a wider message across that that's a pretty weak definition but but these these the professionals definitions are a bit bit fuzzy as well. So, so it's

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shadd: You know, it's one of these things we know when we see them. And actually, oftentimes, you only know it was a social movement in retrospect, but but we've had social movements.

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shadd: That the most famous, of course, is the civil rights movement and in the United States and and that movement was so successful that it spawned

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shadd: Multiple new social movements. They were called in the 1960s and 70s so so movement around LGBT Q writes a movement around

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shadd: Women's rights and so forth, although there's there's been women's movements preceding the 1950s, as well. And the most interesting for

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shadd: In the article are parallel movements in addiction recovery and also mental health and recovery and these movements have been very important in terms of changing the narrative and those fields so so people who who have gone through the addiction process and recovered.

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shadd: weren't always speaking out and we're always able to have the voice that they've got today. That was a long process of organizing

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shadd: And developing a social movement around recovery and making you know now we see recovery parades. We have recovery day, we have you know obviously communities and networks that have

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shadd: lasted a long time but but they're also coming out with recovery and and and getting that message to to the wider world. And that's

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shadd: Something we've not seen with prison issues, but I argue in the paper that it's starting where we can see the, the initial

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shadd: Roots taking shape of a social movement around assistance or around ex prisoner issues.

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Tom Baker: And so it's difficult to describe. But it's this this this movement is begins to take place.

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Tom Baker: But you say you talked about in the paper, how it's it's a trend. There's a transition from the scientific pursuit and like you're saying this, this term.

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Tom Baker: Coming from deep in the bowels of academia, you know, like it's the it's not something that people are is on people's lips, and then to have it make this transition from the scientific

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Tom Baker: venture into a social movement. When I think of social movements and then I think of the scientific community. I think I don't think of them as as fitting

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Tom Baker: fitting together neatly or or transmitting information I think of them as almost adversarial and some, I don't know, in my mind, I think so. Like what is, what is the

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Tom Baker: Barrier to that taking place and maybe a better question would be, how can you bring these two very different sort of ways of thinking together. Does that make sense.

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shadd: Yeah yeah no great question, and it makes a lot of sense. So

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shadd: You know i i think it is a kind of logical trajectory and and I talked about in the paper is being there. The, the logical next step so so so

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shadd: Part of the assistance message when it was an academia. Only when it was just an academic concept was

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shadd: If we want to understand and assistance, we need to listen to the stories and then the testimony for the narratives of those who have been there and the process that we did too much kind of

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shadd: Assuming what reformed, people thought like, and not enough listening to, to their story. So that was the kind of the big achievement.

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shadd: Of the assistance research on the academic community. And then when it moved into professional practice, as I mentioned, it kept with that same kind of

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shadd: Narrative, it says that if you want to rehabilitate folks, you need to bring in the expertise of wounded healers who have been there, who've been rehabilitated and they can convey their story and that then others can follow that story. So again, the process of listening to the expertise.

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shadd: To me, the logical next step is that if these two groups need to continue the scientists and and the practitioners need to continue what they're doing 100% but really the message is that it's time to hear from

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shadd: Leadership amongst those who are assisting that the, the, the, kind of the big national conversation we need to have around rehabilitation or prisons or the like.

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shadd: Shouldn't be led by either that the academics or the practitioners, according to the theory. Anyway, it should be there should be a strong element of the voice of those who've been that I lived experience voice. And so the to go back to the the

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shadd: The examples we've given you know, you couldn't imagine in today's world, a conference about African Americans, where it was all white experts talking about

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shadd: You know, African Americans behind their backs, you know, maybe 100 years ago that would have been possible, you know, sort of Commission on the Negro family with all white experts talking about them.

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shadd: But today, it would be an absurdity, and it would never, it would never pass muster. Likewise, although this is newer

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shadd: In the mental health community, you know the the advocates, those who have been diagnosed with with autism spectrum disorders with with other personality disorders all along the way.

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shadd: Have have developed a slogan called nothing about us without us that says you know you can't be having these Commission's having these these these

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shadd: Meetings and expert academic subjects without involving us in the process. So, so, so they've demanded a kind of seat at the table.

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shadd: And and to a degree, it's been successful someone you know someone say this is only tokenistic you know but but but when someone gets a grant

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shadd: To do some research on a mental health subject they almost always need to give a portion of that grant to a board of lived experience experts who will

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shadd: Be be a part of a sounding board of the wider research grant

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shadd: We don't have that in criminology. We do you know we do prison conferences, all the time. I go to lots of them. I speak at a lots of them where we don't have any ex prisoners on the panel, we don't have any ex prisoners in the audience.

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shadd: And and that's been fine and we do good work. And I'm proud of everything we've done. But at some point, you do become a bit confused a bit ashamed of, of

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shadd: How can we be doing this behind the backs of the people that were talking about, you know what, we shouldn't they be here, shouldn't they

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shadd: Be at the head table. And that's this sort of nothing about us without us notion and and and increasingly we are starting to see that and you hear that argument. So, so

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shadd: There's a group of criminologist called convict criminologists, and they are not entirely, but largely former prisoners who are now PhDs.

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shadd: Who study prisons and other subjects and they bring their, their lived experience to the table, but there's also a variety of organizations outside of academia to that are doing really good work.

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shadd: We do in the paper. I mentioned just leadership and in New York, which is one of the best known

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shadd: There's other organizations here in the UK. We've got groups called unlock another called user voice and then our newest new one called prisoner policy network that's doing just fantastic work that's

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shadd: These are although they do some direct, direct delivery work.

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shadd: They're largely campaigning organizations that try to get that voice of the former prisoner into the public conversation about prisons about criminal justice in general and and

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shadd: It's it's it's a difficult thing to to to argue with obviously we still need science, you know, you mentioned the two being at loggerheads with each other, you know, I would never say

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shadd: We should only listen to those who have been there and destroy all the data and forget about all the scientists and all their expertise, you know, absolutely not.

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shadd: But I don't think the science could carry on without acknowledging this group in a way that we've seen in mental health and recovery. We need to reach a kind of a, of a piece and and we need those voices in our theories and in our conversations that we're having

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Tom Baker: So the moving forward. Would it be fair to say that something that you've mentioned several times this idea of lived experience is centering the lived experiences of the people who

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Tom Baker: Who are in the process or have

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Tom Baker: I guess it's not a never ending process of this this assisting and that you by centering those lived experiences that the scientific community can then know what questions to ask.

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Tom Baker: And you can like, and like a genuine partnership and cross pollination, where you have people who've had that experience coming to academia or partner with academics and asking questions.

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Tom Baker: That seems it seems like the way that the way to go. I can also see the the obstacles, having come into academia. I've sort of been

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Tom Baker: Because when you being outside of academia had this image of the left the academics who really want to like listen and and I've been sort of surprised at how

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Tom Baker: Insulated like I guess maybe that's not the right word about

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Tom Baker: Initially, I would have thought this was something that would be a lot easier than it is. And I think people will be surprised at how how tone deaf academics can be when it comes to recognizing that you don't need a PhD to be an expert in something

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Tom Baker: That if you live your entire life.

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Tom Baker: under the thumb of the criminal justice system and you develop a set of skills and a perspective that is rich and important, and I mean it's a beautiful life just like any life.

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Tom Baker: So I

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Tom Baker: I just

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Tom Baker: Do you have any, any final thoughts on that.

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shadd: Yo, I think it's a it's a great point. You know, I mean, some of it is, is the the the the ivory tower stereotype. And then there's the there's truth to a lot of stereotypes like that but but

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shadd: There's also, you know, it's a represents a real threat to to academic knowledge you know if if you ever want to to kind of scratch this and see

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shadd: What it provokes when academics mentioned the term, although it ethnography and auto ethnography is this this this methodology where somebody writes about their own experiences which it sounds a lot like

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shadd: Auto biography and and academics even good, you know, good, funny word. But, but even those who are supportive of lived experiences.

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shadd: As as a form of expertise will how let this notion of model. If not, it's not a real method that you know we should eliminate that from from our vocabulary and, you know, I, I've often said, you know,

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shadd: Are we saying that we don't think that, as someone who's been a police officer has anything to say that's useful about being a police officer. I mean, surely as as sentience human beings, all of us can can

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shadd: provide insight into the world that we're trying to understand by by living through it, you know, if somebody has been to prison.

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shadd: You know, even if they haven't got a PhD, they can give us an insight that the rest of us can't can't access so so

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shadd: I definitely think there's, it's a kind of territorialism around expertise. And again, it's, it's an understandable one and

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shadd: I've been on both sides. Obviously I've been at conferences where I've presented my painstaking data which is based on lived experiences you know 4050

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shadd: Life stories and then I'll have somebody in the audience, say, Well, you know,

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shadd: That's totally different than what happened to my uncle and and and everybody will side with them with, you know, as a single anecdotal evidence of one person you know it doesn't override

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shadd: Careful rigorous research but but at the same point. If our researches is dismissing

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shadd: Those experiences that people have a we're always going to be alienated and be that ivory tower that isn't

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shadd: You know making an impact on the world and in criminology to our credit has always wanted to engage in the real world and we have, we are less ivory tower than than almost any

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shadd: Other discipline and then one of the reasons where we're discreditable stigmatized as a discipline. Oh, that's not real science.

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shadd: Is because we get our hands dirty, because we we engage with with police officers and prisoners and others in the work we do so. So we do have some some form in this in this regard.

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Tom Baker: So it's it's attention with the dance that's gonna probably continue

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shadd: It will end and and in for the good you know

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shadd: We should be promoting this dance and this tension and bring it into the classroom, bringing it into our discussions because it's a it's a generative tension, I think. Yeah.

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Tom Baker: So I've taken up a ton of your time. I just wanted to touch on one more thing. Do you have a moment to talk. So there with what's what's been happening that the the the George Floyd murder and the, I would say crisis that the United States is facing right now with with

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Tom Baker: I don't want to say policing but social control like we have a major problem. We're in the middle of a crisis.

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Tom Baker: And I'm just wondering, and you don't have to answer this. If you don't have an answer. I don't necessarily have an answer either, but like, what, how can how can this idea of social movements, do you think, be applied to changing this system that we have in place now or Canada or Cafe.

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shadd: Yeah, yeah, I think. I mean, I think what we're seeing is a social movement around the Floyd murder. I think we were we're seeing huge societal change happening. And, you know, we're kind of an example of in order to

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shadd: Actually make these kind of substantial changes to society. You need bodies on the street, you need a

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shadd: Movement. Like, like the one we're we're seeing, so, so, so I think it's a great question. And as you say, we're in the middle of it right now. So, so there's only so much I can say that won't be completely changed by the time

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shadd: This airs, or somebody listens to it.

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shadd: But you know you can you can hear the, the impact of lived experience in the movement, we're seeing, even though the lived experience of those who've been to prison, you know, and I think

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shadd: That although there's, there's, there's other things going on, you know, it's a wider civil rights movement that we're seeing. It's a, it's a

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shadd: You know, it's a poor people's movement there. There's all sorts of important movements that that are being mobilized by the Floyd killing

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shadd: One of them that has been given impetus from this is that that notion of we've got to listen to those who have been policed in ways that the rest of us haven't been, you know,

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shadd: You can hear it in the kind of the commentary. It's confusion about what's going on, you know, how can they talk about defund the police.

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shadd: Don't they know the police are out there to protect us and and there's a huge aspect of the community and you know better than I do that.

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shadd: Don't feel that way about the police. They, they feel that they have a different relationship to the place and part of the this the movement of the last couple of weeks has been, you know, it's time for us to listen to those voices those experiences of people who have

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shadd: vastly different experiences and we do, and of course the ex prisoners have experienced the deep end of the criminal justice system. And so, so bring that full

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shadd: breadth of experience to to this and those who are on Twitter, those who are, are you know I'm tied into those networks, they have been very vocal of through throughout this and have

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shadd: Brought to bear their kind of experiences as people who've gone through that process to say, you know,

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shadd: We could have told you this was going to happen. You know, we we've we've seen this kind of brutality in our prisons where there's not maybe cell phone footage of what's happening but but we, you know, we've

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shadd: You can think of them as a kind of

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shadd: canary in the coal mine, they they've been they've been seeing this coming long before the rest of us did. And to them.

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shadd: It makes perfect sense what what's going on so so so I do think they the last couple of weeks have been a good example of why we need to be engaged with and listening to that kind of movement.

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And

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Tom Baker: What I was thinking about it. I thought about. I thought about it this way. And then I also thought. What about if the so with with

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Tom Baker: assistance from offending the person who is breaching this the the social contract is within themselves finding a way to make the change that's necessary to find peace in the world, in the world.

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Tom Baker: And this comes from within. In this particular case, the people who have breached the social contract or the enforcers. So please. So what about a social movement from within the police and if if that took place, then who would be your

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Tom Baker: Credible healer your

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shadd: Yeah.

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Tom Baker: In that particular case, would it be the person who has offended.

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Tom Baker: Or would it be the person who did it. Well, what do you think

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shadd: Well, as you say, the, the, you know, the roles are reversed. Aren't they the offender is the the enforcer. And in the case of so many cases of police brutality and the like so. So you're absolutely right and and

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shadd: The credible messenger that the lived experience would be the, you know, maybe the officers that are that are kneeling and along with the protesters officers who are able to say, you know, I

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shadd: Apparently, to the Minnesota officers were in their first week on the job, you know, and you just totally

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shadd: sympathize empathize with them. I, I certainly do. And the situation they're in

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shadd: Other officers who say, you know, I was thrown into the field with with no you know no training and was trained by maybe a racist as well. And I remember getting these these messages as as

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shadd: You know, it's part of the training and I saw things. And now I'm going to, to try to go

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shadd: And change and make it different, you know, I think that's the kind of the, the distance narrative at work. I mean, I hadn't thought of it until you made that point. But my, my colleague cons talk

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shadd: I'll have to give him a shout out on this, you know, he's for for 50 years maybe has been banging the drum, then you know police reform. And much like

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shadd: correctional reform can't come from outside, it can't come from on high. You know, police officers are ready in use to, you know, a new chief new mayor, a new

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shadd: Public movement like this, telling them what they're doing wrong and how they should change. And we want you to do this and and you know these kind of things. And that kind of

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shadd: Change from outside will will always bristle the rank and file and they're going to resist. In the same way that the prisoners resist being reformed from from on high. So real reform real change is going to have to come from within.

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shadd: Police ranks themselves and it'll be something that they have to buy into something that they can feel they're doing themselves. And so, you know, working with the unions, working with the rank and file.

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shadd: In getting those you need the role models, but you need those who are willing to say, you know what, there is a race problem and there is

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shadd: Problems in the way we do the work we do with it with citizenry and we need to change and what we need to do it ourselves and come from for that kind of organic leadership from within. I think is, is really essential, definitely.

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Tom Baker: And when I read your piece. But this idea of the credible message.

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Tom Baker: Yeah, if you're I mean as a police officer hearing you know one of your fellow police officers, especially if it's somebody who you've, you know, you've been working with and you know is down for the mission of police work and it just means something different when it

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Tom Baker: Comes from them.

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shadd: Well, and, you know, we see this with with Jim Mattis mad dog, mouse.

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shadd: Is so much better messenger than than me telling the military, you know, you need to stop being so brutal brutalizing our own citizens mad dog has a great deal more credibility than, than I have with with that populations.

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Tom Baker: Right only Nixon could go to China. There, there are certain

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Tom Baker: You know your past performance positions you to speak to

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Tom Baker: Something and be recognized and the prisoners, someone who's been to do see that has lived that experience. If I were a young man and VOC and I wanted to change. I would look to them because they understand

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Tom Baker: Yeah.

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Tom Baker: So I, I really appreciate your time. I've taken up a ton of it already. I just wanted to give you one last minute. Is there anything

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Tom Baker: That is on your mind that you'd like to share or final thoughts for people before we send them on their way.

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shadd: I know I just really appreciate the the opportunity here I'll appreciate to do you link into the paper if people are interested in. If they've listened this far.

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shadd: And want to get in touch. I'm sure this goes for getting in touch with me with either of us, I'd be very happy to, you know, it's

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shadd: It's rare to have such a great conversation is this. And then if people want to keep it going. I'd be very happy to

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Tom Baker: Great. I'll put your contact information down below along with the paper, your book. And if the anything else you want to send it along. And I really, again, just want to thank you for your time. I know that you

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Tom Baker: You're busy everyone's busy. So thank you again.

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shadd: Wonderful. Yeah.