Incarceration in the US
The Episode Summary
Let’s talk about incarceration in the US We have a great episode, a combo Wife of a Lifer / DaJuice Show! She gets me really well, and we talk about second chances and the changes that we need to do now to improve the system and actually have results that make sense. There is a lot that can be done to improve the conditions of incarceration in the US. I love that girl, she is very driven and passionate. This is just a small piece of our entire conversation. I support what she is doing and what she stands for. I love that girl, she is very driven and passionate. This is just a small piece of our entire conversation. I support what she is doing and what she stands for. We need more people like her! Please go and subscribe to her channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCi6T… incarceration is indeed a big problem, if you have anything to share please leave a comment. Visit www.designedconviction.com and come back next Wednesday for more! Thank you all
Transcription
[00:00:00] Cecilia: hi, so this week, we got, a featured interview with my friend from the YouTube channel, DaDaJuiceskee, Please sorry if I did not pronounce it correctly anyways, before going into that, I want to show you the featured artwork for this week
A very spoiled man called Taylor Conley who is the founder of Designed Conviction and my husband. Right. So here you have, he made a protrait of himself from a picture. He is like a while ago, like two or three years ago, even more. He said It was one of the first ones that he actually drew something about him.
Okay. And that, the cool detail is that he drew Cecilia. [00:01:00] So he actually added my name into his wrist, which is really cool. So Taylor Conley, Designed Conviction founder. This is a featured artwork for this week. Okay. So anyways, let’s just move on. We’ve got that interview bye
DaJuiceskee: bye.
What’s going on today. We’re going to talk about topics. I’m going to let my girl introduce ourselves so she can introduce her brand. What’s this about? And then we’re going to get into the conference.
Cecilia: Okay. Hello. Thank you for having me here. My name is Celia Conley and I’m the CEO of Designed conviction, which is a social enterprise that it’s about showcasing stories of change. Like we see incarcerated individuals as people and we believe that they should be treated as people and they should be given a chance as people. So that’s what we’re about.
DaJuiceskee: So what made you make the clothes to go with the brand?
[00:02:00] Cecilia: Well, Taylor, well, I met my husband five years ago. He had been already inside for 10 years.
So he got life without parole, at the age of 20. So for him just imagine you’re 20 years old, then you get life without parole and here in Washington State life is life. That means until you die. Kind of there’s some state when life is 20 years, 30 years in Washington, life is life, so
DaJuiceskee: Washington and it probably more States and countries that it’s really life.
If people are really hit with life with no help to get out. Right. Correct.
Cecilia: Yeah. So just imagine he was 20, he felt lost and his trial was very unfair. He got really shitty public defender. So. He was just trying to find a meaning for his life. [00:03:00] So he decided to start doing art because he wants to give out to his family.
So Taylor is just one of many, there are many individuals that are forgotten. The, that trying really hard to get ahold of somebody. To not feel alone because the way that the our prison system is right now is we get somebody in and everybody forgets about it. And it’s as a family. In my case, I didn’t experience that because as I say, I met him after that and before him, and he didn’t know anybody in prison, but as a family I mean, it’s like a taboo.
So sometimes the family kind of distances themselves from them. So there are a lot of folks that are trying to reach out to the family and loved ones. And they do it through art, through programs, through other stuff. So they grow up. So they always want them to take this hard and putting it into something. And that’s how we started.
DaJuiceskee: And I was there before, so I know how that goes in my eyes and was there [00:04:00] for four also. So I know how that goes. What do you think. Makes people forget about the ones that are, that are locked up. What is it that people forget? Cause I know life gets hectic. My brother was locked up for 15 years. He just came out of jail and you know, life gets hectic and shit like that.
So you, what do you think makes people like forget about them?
Cecilia: Is it the system. I think in the system, I’m the they’re not programs in which you could go and visit your loved one and have activities with them besides visitation and when you go to visitation it’s a very not comfortable environment. So it’s a hassle to go up there.
And is it always a reminder that, Hey, you’re in prison visiting your loved one, if you touch him a little bit more than this you’re getting in trouble. So it’s very extreme environment. And there are, they’re basically housed in a box that is closed to the public.
DaJuiceskee: Yes. What do you think? The law that we must change? So [00:05:00] these people can get a second chance because for me, I felt like they have all these programs in jail, but they don’t help you.
Get out, you get what I’m saying? Like you can do all these things in jail. Like he’s, he’s very inspirational for him to get this far and others that are doing this to get this far, but why is it not letting them get out? What do we need to do to help him get out?
Cecilia: We need to look into what other countries are doing.
Like we are not asking for anything radical. There’s people in here that have never been. Affected by incarceration. It is until you To get affected by incarceration like once you’re here, you look around, you get outside America and you see these countries that have maximum 20 years even for serial killers kind of stuff. And it sounds crazy, but it’s like working for them and it’s why it’s working for them because they are doing the right thing. It’s like, they’re, they don’t see incarceration as punishment.
They see incarceration as rehabilitation. And that what we need to start doing any start instead of trying to [00:06:00] reinvent this stuff, we should just look and see what is already working.
DaJuiceskee: I have investigated. I did my investigation on a lot of people that have, kill due to, you know, execution, a lot of families do not feel like they have gotten, you know, rest since the person that killed their loved one when the executor’s their hearts don’t rest. So that’s one key that knows that that’s not right. And another key is that half of the people that have been put to death have been proven innocent after death.
So that’s how we know that something’s going on wrong in the system. And what the system pushes is that these people well, and are not human anymore. And they made on human. So if they push it like that and they push it into. Society movies that people start to make an analyzation of people and forget about the person that they are, that everybody’s human.
Everybody makes mistakes.
Cecilia: I agree with you and [00:07:00] is like, you talk about death penalty and then let’s talk about life sentences. So life sentences is basically deth by incarceration
like. I have had, Taylor have told me this and of course, a lot of people would say, I don’t know why he is saying that because he like has all this going on with you and everything. So he’s actually having a life.
DaJuiceskee: Does it matter it’s nothing like seeing the, having your own freedom. You are a slave, you are a slave to the system.
Okay. And if he’s doing all these great things, then he needs to come out because that means he’s a changed person. Jealous wants to be the changer. You, if you did something wrong, if you can be changed, you get what I am saying, you know, and one thing that I found also is that when they execute you are when you die there.
They put it under homicide. I did an investigation and a guy that was executing these people. He was the guy that killed the people that were on prisoners. He didn’t like that his name was being the [00:08:00] executioner. So basically he was homicide. He was killing these people and they were proven innocent after there.
That’s a big key. We have to pay more attention of how we process these people. And when we give them these large amounts of time without any evidence and yeah. But I wouldn’t want to go on that.
Cecilia: Yeah. Yes, exactly. And forget about evidence or whatever is like, you can commit the same crime in two different parts of the country or in two different parts of your same state and get a totally different outcome of it.
DaJuiceskee: Absolutely. Everything should be around the board. The same. You get what I’m saying? That’s I think what’s the problem is because it’s like for certain things, they want to shut everything down for, but then for certain things, they don’t, everybody has their own little nooks and crannies of how they’re going to basically fuck you.
And it’s not fair. It’s not there at all. And then sometimes they wanna fuck you. So you can’t vote or you can’t do other things with your life. So you can’t be a [00:09:00] citizen. And I felt like people that have showed. Change and a changing people through the internet and it’s changing people and he’s in his cell. He deserves to come out because we’re right there,
Cecilia: right?
Yes. And the thing here is Taylor is lucky guy because he got support he’s has a lot of drive. So that made him be there where he’s out right now, but there’s people that are not lucky as him, they’re more shy or more insecure with themselves. It doesn’t mean that they don’t discern also the chance.
But the problem is that the system is set up to make them fail, to be, to basically let them they’re in their cage. And what we’re trying to do is. We are giving them the opportunity to come out and express their voice. That’s what Designed Conviction is about is like, Hey, you have something to, do. You have something going on
DaJuiceskee: like, we can talk all day, but we have to start supporting because if you were in jail and a lot of people were in jail, even if it was a day.
You [00:10:00] know how that feels. So imagine if you, some people couldnt last a day and lock up. So imagine somebody spending the rest of their life in there, you know, without the proper help you get what I’m saying without the proper attorneys. So we need to support each other. Cause they’re still human. They still breathe like us.
They are not forgotten. We shouldn’t forget about them. Anybody that has time to write people, take the time out to write your cousins, your aunts. And your, your brothers, your sisters. Yeah. You might go do something, but you know, maybe once a week, I know life gets hard, but let’s not forget about them because that’s how people, you know, create suicide.
People fall short in jail and that’s how crimes are covered up. So we have to make sure that they know that we are listening so nothing can hurt the people that are supposed to be protected in jail.
Cecilia: I agree.
DaJuiceskee: I agree. We are the people that make things go around, you know, and if we can stay together strong, no matter if you don’t understand it, learn about it because we all are people and we deserve to have a [00:11:00] voice.
Everybody
Cecilia: they want to. Thank you. So I think they would like to close with this. I am against life sentences. Doesn’t matter where the person did, the things I think the proper thing to do is whenever this monsters and they’re going to prison, they should be taking care of, it should be science of professionals the one who decides when they get out, it shouldn’t be a judge or a prosecutor or a crazy victim’s advocate. Because, well, I think we never think about that. We never talk about the victims. If we want prisonreform, we also have to think about the victims, right? Because victims need to be able to heal.
So if we think about the future. We should be thinking about this as a system in which nobody serves life sentences, nobody gets killed and decisions are made based on science. And proven methods. Like, again, we can just look around Norway, Europe, they have lot going on and they have a lot [00:12:00] of proven ways to handle this.
We should be able to do better than this. Right.
DaJuiceskee: Absolutely. And I want to thank you again for doing this combo show. You can find me at, DaDaJuiceskee I never, I don’t even know what to say. Well, I never do this part, but DaDaJuiceskee on the, and then did you show on YouTube? We need to make sure we really do that and share this video.
Leave a comment below. So next time when we do do another interview and a live session, we can answer some questions. That would be very good. Or we can comment on what. People have said good or bad, good or bad. Okay guys. So we’re open for that. And thank you for coming to the DaJuiceskee show. .
Final Words
Thank you for reading, you can find more posts like this one in here . In conclusion, what I want to make clear is that we must change our mindset in regard to incarceration in the US, and I am very passionate about changing lives, one person at the time. Please share and leave me a comment. Thank you