Episode 8: Prison Writing Part 2
February 28th, 2019
Hosted by Brian Birnbaum
Guests: Caits Meissner & Sergio De La Pava
Produced by Katie Rainey
Transcripts by Jonathan Kay
In this eighth episode of the Animal Riot Podcast, we invite Caits Meissner, Director of PEN America's Prison Writing Program, and Sergio De La Pava, author of three novels, including his latest, Lost Empress, for the second part of our two-part Prison Writing series. Today we'll discuss everything from the state of justice in America to empathy's crucial role in American justice, as well as what we everyday folks can do to help bridge the divide that keeps so many people trapped in the prison industrial complex.
>> Narration: Welcome to the eighth episode of the Animal Riot Podcast, brought to you by Animal Riot Press, a literary press for books that matter. I'm your host Brian Birnbaum. We’re here again today with Caits Meissner, the generous and thoughtful Director of PEN America's Prison Writing Program, and also with Sergio De La Pava, the best maximalist writer alive if you're asking this nice, young, Jewish boy. So how about we do some quick introductions... oh actually no. I'll do the challenge first. We have a huge spread of cheese and bread and hummus. It's very Mediterranean actually. And lox. And Caits has to eat all of it (laughter). Ok, now introduce yourself Caits
>> Caits: I'm Caits. I'm gluten free so I will not be eating all of it so I automatically lose the challenge.
>> Brian: Ok. End it. Turn it off (laughs)
>> Caits: I am a writer, poet, illustrator, program director of the Prison & Justice Writing in America. That's a mouthful. And I'm glad to be hanging with you guys again.
>> Brian: We'll superimpose on the last time you introduced yourself and I'm sure it will be the exact same.
>> Caits: Yeah
>> Brian: Like the cadence is perfect
>> Caits: I'm sure. It's like your elevator pitch, you know?
>> Brian: Uh huh.
>> Sergio: An elevator pitch for a human being (laughter)
>> Caits: That's the world we live in, Sergio. What's your brand?
>> Sergio: I don't know what to say other than I'm glad to be here. Let's talk about whatever you want to talk about. I'm a public defender and a writer
>> Brian: Beautiful
>> Caits: We need to get you branded
>> Brian: That does not live in Brooklyn.
>> Sergio: Right
>> Brian: That's the most important part (laughs)
>> Sergio: And when... this is purely audio right? So there's about 3 pounds of food and Caits said this isn't a challenge at all. This is a typical afternoon for me.
>> Caits: Especially, really, that one block of cheese. Because last time I was here, I think I finished it.
>> Brian: (laughs) Alright cool. While you're engaging in the challenge, let's start talking about some things. Let's start with how you guys met
>> Caits: Sure. We met because I reached out to Sergio, really, and said we're doing all of this work around prison injustice and writing. Well we have been doing it for a long time but now I'm here doing it. And I would love for you to come and stand-in for a writer in prison who won an award with us this year and read an excerpt of his fiction piece. And Sergio said, "Sure, I would love to". And then he came and it was fantastic. And then we got one of the best letters of my entire life, let's be honest...
>> Sergio: Yeah, I agree with that.
>> Caits: From the writer Peter Dunn who was really just astonished and felt really validated which made me feel great. By the way, his work appeared in The World.
>> Brian: This was the incarcerated writer, right?
>> Caits: Right. And he's an excellent writer so it really felt great. It was a wonderful letter, huh?
>> Sergio: It was a remarkable letter. Of course I messed up, I was going to bring it and read from it.
>> Caits: Oh I have it. We could totally do that. It's in my phone
>> Brian: Oh we should do that. I love it.
>> Sergio: Yeah, get it out. But while you're doing that, I'll say that you're underselling this event a little bit because it was truly spectacular. It was in Brooklyn and there was a live performance of a play maybe?
>> Caits: Yes
>> Sergio: There was tremendous music. There was a lot of reading of poetry and the piece that I read kind of centered around an... I'm going to call it a CO-sanctioned assault in a prison.
>> Brian: Woah
>> Sergio: Yeah. Which is unfortunately a common thing, at least in...
>> Brian: Totally fiction? Or was it influenced?
>> Sergio: It was being labeled as fiction certainly
>> Caits: Yeah
>> Sergio: It was powerful. It was moving. And I just thought the entire event was really spectacular. I had a lot of colleagues of mine from the public defender world who you wouldn't think would have been moved by this event as much as the average person because we have kind of lived this world of interacting with incarcerated people and trying to find some way of not be incarcerated or to reduce the time that they are incarcerated. But they all uniformly said to me that this gave them a different perspective on our work, right?
>> Caits: Wow
>> Sergio: I did that night but I commend you again for just a brilliant event. And anything like that in the future, I'm down, without doubt.
>> Caits: Thank you. Thank you so much. That's really encouraging to hear. Especially to hear about your colleagues as well. And Sergio, also, just to give him more props, then came shortly after and spoke with our Writing For Justice fellows. We had a writer's lunch with folks that were writing journalists... novelists... one novelist, Sergio, etc who came and hung out with folks who are embarking on their projects and had some informal dialogue and conversation. And I put Sergio on it to Dig Inn. He never had it and he loved it, I recall
>> Sergio: (laughs) I was about to ask what that was
>> Caits: Dig Inn. Two n's
>> Sergio: Yeah. Dig Inn. Free commercial for Dig Inn.
>> Caits: I have the letter from Peter if you want to read from it.
>> Sergio: I do.
>> Caits: Alright
>> Sergio: So I guess you guys, meaning Pen, sent them what exactly? The bound anthology?
>> Caits: So we did, for the first time ever, a print anthology from the Prison Writing Awards. These awards have been going on for 30 years. The first annual. It's a really beautiful book. Covered / drawn by Molly Crabapple. Blurbs from Piper Kerman, Casey Layman, whose name I never get right. So, sorry about that. Etc, etc. So I am really proud of the book. And we sent the book to every winner whose work appeared in it. But we also sent photos from the night with nice printouts specifically of their piece being read with their name and their piece projected behind the reader. So Peter had a lot of Sergio. As well as photos of some of the other events, we sent images of the slides, we sent feedback that people had written to us about the event. We compiled it into that package and of course I wrote a letter introducing that all. So it's a package of ephemera from the evening that they couldn't participate in where they see their work come alive
>> Brian: That's what I was going to ask. I mean, just because I can imagine that if that was me, I would be... it's funny because Sergio talked about this in his book. About the difference between the physical and metaphysical barriers that keep you incarcerated
>> Caits: Sure
>> Brian: And just having that media and being able to see that would completely change my perspective on my entire life. I mean, because of the fact that I am sitting in this cell or whatever...
>> Caits: Well I think this is exactly what Peter speaks to which is great
>> Brian: The futility I feel when I am trying to get stuff published as a "difficult writer", which obviously Sergio's dealt with too, this is an exponent of that. It's amazing. But anyways...
>> Sergio: I do want to read from the letter. I'm not going to read the entire letter, it's a little long.
>> Caits: Sure. Yeah
>> Sergio: This is what he says about receiving the package that you sent him, Caits. The rest is a quote, "I finally understood what it means to cry tears of joy. I literally stared at everything for hours as if afraid that blinking would cause it to vanish" - I mean this guy's like an artist. You can just hear that in that, right?
>> Brian: Mhm
>> Sergio: "The next morning I bolted awake, emptied the content of the envelope onto the bed, and exhaled, relieved that it wasn't a dream. Thank you and Pen. We need more people like you in society. Those who are brave and selfless and committed enough to fight for the changes that this world desperately needs. I'm honored that you were moved enough by my story to include it in the project. Everything looks so perfect. I hope those who attended or live-streamed the event came away thinking prisoners are people too. They have families and friends. Hopes and dreams. They are not the monsters that I once thought they were. Some of them are good people who made bad decisions when they were younger". I mean it goes on but receiving a letter like that... and then he says to my dismay "I have a few questions about the event. Did you choose Sergio de la Pava to read my work? And if so, why? What did he say about it? I'm going to read his book" (laughter). And it goes on in that direction
>> Brian: I like how he said they're not the monsters that I once thought they were. It's almost that self-conscious awareness where he's kind of removed from his own body looking at himself
>> Sergio: I think... it seems like a natural human inclination to want to judge others harshly and probably nobody feels that more than incarcerated people
>> Brian: Oh yeah. I think about that everyday
>> Sergio: But the funny part is that I have interacted with incarcerated people probably more often than the average person. The people doing the incarcerating most directly, like corrections officers and such, are the ones that least feel that way. They must see how permeable the barrier is between somebody being incarcerated or not and probably the least judgy, to use a made up word, towards that community than ever. But I have noted, could just be wanting this to be true maybe, but I have noticed a pretty significant change in society's view towards incarceration, incarcerated people, mass incarceration, whatever you want to call it, from the time that I started working in this area more than 20 years ago. At that time there were like 4 of us doing this work. My wife and I were 50% of them (laughter) and nobody could understand why you would do it and I think a lot of that has melted away.
>> Brian: I mean we had a Democrat who started the Prison Industrial Complex. I mean that just shows how much has changed since then. I can't imagine a liberal standing up there saying that we need more prisons and stuff like that.
>> Sergio: Yeah, the best word to use is probably an awakening in the last 6 years maybe, 5 years, to what had been going on and the importance of finding a way to stem the tide.
>> Caits: Yeah. Absolutely. And thank you for reading that letter from Peter. Peter Dunn is his name. He has other works published online as well if you're interested in looking it up. I hear you read that and I have read that letter many times. It really moved me and I still get choked up hearing it. Just a fun note to share with you all is that I just got, maybe last week, got another letter from Peter that included a line or two of feedback to many of the other writers in the anthology asking us to send it to them. Which also made me feel really great (laughs)
>> Brian: Yeah, I was going to ask for an update. What's his situation? Are we allowed to talk about that right now? How much more time does he have? You know. Blah, blah, blah
>> Caits: I think he says in the letter. I can't remember exactly. I think it's at least 7 years. I'm not positive about that. He's at Eastern Correctional. You can write to him. You can look up anyone in prison and write to them.
>> Brian: Sure. Peter Dunn?
>> Caits: Mhm. And this year for our World Voices Festival Event at our program, we're doing... we commissioned writers actually, that we work with that have won awards or that we know are great writers, to write new pieces on the topic of writing in prison under the public vs private dialogue, our conversation, we have a series of prompts and Peter wrote something really great so I'm sure we'll see his work on stage in May as well.
>> Brian: Yeah, I got to check him out. I'm going to take a little tangent right here. I have a question for both of you guys because you obviously have so much experience in this entire justice complex that we have. Because things have changed so rapidly, as you said Sergio, in the last 20 years or so, are we getting to a point where we're moving towards a post-judgement society where we're realizing that there's obviously a better way to rehabilitate people and the punishment...
>> Sergio: That's sounds probably a little too optimistic
>> Caits: Yeah
>> Sergio: I refer you back to my comment about the pleasure that human beings derive on judging people harshly
>> Brian: Yeah
>> Sergio: It's going to be hard to overcome that. There are people who are abolitionists when it comes to prison. I can probably be convinced to join them but I think the reality is more not as sweeping of a change as that and more just a recognition that there are other options other than incarceration that make a hell of a lot more sense. Especially when you're talking about non-violent offenders whose often conduct is motivated by addiction issues or mental health issues.
>> Brian: Yes, those are my passion projects. I mean, I was a psych major in college and I thought about being a psychiatrist, psychologist, whatever, what have you, clinician of some sort. And addiction is probably... Caits and I spent like half an hour talking about this last week. I went to research labs, I did all of this stuff. I'm obsessed with the subject. I borderline think that drugs should be legal. Just straight up. I think it's ridiculous and I could talk about that at length. But I kind of want to get your perspective. Like you deal with people who come in and there's a whole range of issues that brings you to that point, right? So what is your opinion on drugs in general?
>> Sergio: Alright, how much time do you have? (laughter)
>> Brian: I wanted a more specific question. But, you know...
>> Sergio: It may just be my opinion but I think the majority of people are addicted to something. Maybe a substance. Maybe it's something else
>> Brian: I agree. If I stop drinking coffee, I would pick something else up. Or if I stopped smoking weed then I would just do something else that I would fixate on. I totally believe that, you know?
>> Sergio: I think existence, or life, is probably really difficult. And one of the things that I would marshall as evidence towards that is the average human being needs to engage in a compulsive activity to deal with that fact. Most of the people that I meet that have become addicted to narcotics, let's say, the addiction is more the symptom of something else that is underlying their lives rather than the thing that caused it. And then that in itself causes a whole bunch of other problems like involvement in the criminal justice system.
>> Brian: Well especially because once it's illegal then you have to be violent to protect that business.
>> Sergio: There's also a large incidence of untreated mental health issues that contribute to all of these things. If you view addiction as in that sphere then it kind of all starts to make a lot more sense. A really large percentage of the law firms of the public defender office that I work at clients have some form of mental health issue that they could benefit from a kind of targeted assistance with. Whether you include drug addiction as a part of that or just say that that's a reason that leads to drug addiction often. I'm not a clinician. I also studied psychology as an undergrad and considered that but I didn't go in that direction so a lot of this is anecdotal of 20 years of meeting people who found themselves in the criminal justice system.
>> Brian: But honestly that's a way more broad and informed perspective than I think 99.9% of the public has on drug use and addiction. I think it's extremely binary. For example, you have our Attorney General come up and say if you smoke weed then you're a bad person. It's just incredibly primitive I think. But one thing I want to ask you guys, so if you can replace any drug with compulsion, like we all do, what are your guys' compulsion?
>> Caits: Worrying (laughs)
>> Brian: Worrying, yeah
>> Sergio: What was that?
>> Caits: Worrying. Anxiety
>> Brian: That's like axiomatic. You're not even sublimating it. You're just like...
>> Caits: Just spinning. Ruminating.
>> Brian: Maybe that's the epitome of maturity right there.
>> Caits: I think the phone is also very addictive. And social media is very addictive and I try not to fall into that trap but sometimes I'll find myself like woah I just wasted half an hour doing nothing. And I think there's a hit that comes obviously. Oh I have a message. Oh I have a new hobby. And people have been talking about this, I'm not making this up. But yet we still use them. I don't know. I think that there's something that can be very intense.
>> Sergio: But I'm interested in you don't think worrying gives you pleasure, do you? Or maybe you do. I'm not trying to...
>> Brian: Or resolve something else. I kind of always thought that it was a closed system of chasing compulsions and obsessions.
>> Sergio: I view compulsions as trying to turn something else off. Or trying to overshadow something else
>> Caits: Right, right.
>> Sergio: That's the way I view it
>> Brian: That's like obsession
>> Caits: It's really... well you sink into the opposite. You sink into the anxiety that drug takes... ostensibly takes you away from anxiety.
>> Sergio: I would think the anxiety is the thing that I would engage in a compulsion to avoid
>> Caits: Right. That's true
>> Sergio: Like if my compulsion was playing golf... which is an expensive compulsion...
>> Brian: (laughs) That's the last thing that I would expect to hear from your mouth
>> Sergio: I don't play golf. I'm just thinking of an example of something. Then I would be engaging in that because I need to shut down the voice that's always anxious.
>> Caits: Right. That's true
>> Sergio: So for example, as we were talking earlier, marijuana use is very widespread in the teen population that my office deals with. Teens in the criminal justice system. And I've observed, again, not statistically significant, just an observation, that a lot of them have issues that I think causes them to turn marijuana use from something that could be recreational or somehow to be enjoyable, into a compulsion. Into everyday use
>> Caits: Or medicine. Yeah. I mean it's self-medicating essentially
>> Sergio: And I think we see that with opiates? It's something that you're driven to do, I think, often as a way to ignore or sublimate something else
>> Caits: Yeah. Absolutely
>> Sergio: And I feel about that with writing for myself. That when I am writing fiction, it's an attempt to deal with a deep-seated anxiety that I have about not being able to control the world that I live in
>> Caits: Hmm, that makes sense.
>> Sergio: So writing fiction is a great way to control how certain things are going to happen. To invent the world. To invent the people or invent the world
>> Brian: That's the exact same thought I've had. You get to play God.
>> Sergio: Sometimes I've thought that my compulsion to do that is an attempt to deal with a psychological fissure that I have that makes me inordinately upset that the world is about a loss of control
>> Caits: That makes sense. I wish writing would be more of a compulsion for me. I would do more of it
>> Sergio: I wish I did more writing I guess
>> Brian: Do you write everyday?
>> Sergio: No
>> Caits: Your books are enormous. You must do a ton of writing
>> Sergio: If you break it down, the amount of pages that I have published and for how long I have been writing... it's not... you know what I mean?
>> Caits: Fair enough
>> Brian: Well that's because you probably write clean sentences. If you're like me then write 2 million words for 1 book (laughs)
>> Sergio: I don't do that. That's true that I don't write 500 pages and then publish 100. I write 120 and then publish 100.
>> Brian: That's the difference between me and you... talent
>> Sergio: But the difference... I don't know what motivates fiction writing. I can kind of pretend that something motivates it now but it would be different than what motivated it when I first started. Because certainly nobody gets paid to be a fiction... unlike most jobs, you don't get paid to be a fiction writer as you're first writing fiction.
>> Brian: Makes sense
>> Caits: Right
>> Sergio: Nobody says you're hired to be a novelist and a year from now we're going to want that novel that we have been paying for
>> Brian: That should be day 1 in creative writing when you're a sophomore
>> Sergio: In some respects, anyone who wrote a first novel just wrote it, right? They weren't being paid to do it. You'll have an exception where someone was famous beforehand and they somehow wrote a novel which happens occasionally but when you think back to writing that first novel, or that first collection of poetry, or that first collection of short stories, or whatever it is, you are essentially doing it on spec so the motivation couldn't have been the usual worklike obligation. The reason you go to an office, for example, put on a suit. You do that because you're being paid to do it contemporaneously. When you create art, there must be something else that's driving you to do it that is not an economic obligation.
>> Caits: And I think that's right. And actually I think that idea that it's a relieving factor or some kind of mechanism to take you out of pain, or something redirecting pain, or maybe not pain, or lack of control... I mean certainly as a child that was the case. I have been making art and writing as an identity since I was very young. 5?
>> Sergio: So you didn't have a contract?
>> Caits: No I didn't. I was the child starving artist
>> Brian: (laughs) We're still waiting on a manuscript
>> Caits: (laughs) But I think as a child it was very clear. It's very clear looking back that I was bullied as a kid, I was more comfortable with the adults, poor Caits sob story... but really, that's what it was. Going into creating my own worlds and making books and making art.
>> Brian: Yeah, that's almost a getaway. Like that's more of a pure escape...
>> Caits: I think for many young people that create, it starts at a very early age for some folks as well. And I don't think about it in the same terms as an adult but it must be. There must be a comfort there for me too that has been there for a long time
>> Brian: Definitely. It might have merged with some of what Sergio was saying but basically what happened to me was that I was a 3 sport, big time athlete when I was a kid.
>> Caits: Really?
>> Brian: But when I was a teenager and started playing for the high school teams, I started getting panic attacks before my basketball games. And that loss of control was the first thing that drove me to make art. Was because I could create my own world while figuring out why things were happening to me and why things were happening in the world. So I can really relate to that. I also think the other half of it for me is that escape. Not having to deal with the anxiety and the pressure of... I mean for better or worse, capitalism. Especially at this point, it's tough out there (laughs)
>> Caits: And I think most artists would have a similar answer. That would be my guess. Although many people can be a heavy drug user and be artists so it doesn't necessarily replace that. But there is something in the creative process, obviously that we know is satisfying. At most extreme it can be maybe healing, guiding, directing. It can be torturing, sure. It can be all of those things. But I don't know. To your original question, I have never been addicted to drugs so it's hard for me to imagine what I would replace that with because it seems to have such an intense grip on folks when it's happening. I guess I used to smoke cigarettes. So that's the closest I could come to understanding that addiction. But then I got cigarettes with another drug which was Albutrin, which they prescribe under another name, to help quit smoking
>> Brian: Yeah, that's often prescribed to help stop smoking. But you're immediately coming out and saying I have no experience with this personally so I don't know what it's like. And to me it's very ironic that we have public figures and leaders that make legislation and policy that don't have experience with this, don't research this, they have little birds in their ear, the "experts". But I don't understand why people that have no experience with this and haven't studied this are in control of the policy. For example, I'm not sure if you're familiar with this but we discussed this in the first part of the series, there's an herb called kratom that we were drinking together. And it's legal right now. It's an Indonesian plant that has a very very small amount of opioid property in it but the rest is a full battery of neurotransmitters that it affects. It's an herbal antidepressant really. It's pretty amazing. And of course the FDA is trying to ban it now. And their line is the same that it was with weed. It's like well we have to research it but you can't research it unless it's legal and around you go. And they'll probably ban it outright but as soon as that happens then you'll see 1-2 million opioid addicts back out on the streets. It's going to happen like that and I don't understand our policy
>> Caits: Yeah, I think that's a problem across the board. Most people making policies are not experienced in that world. And I have come to think, over the last 2 years probably, is to have a lot of hope around the act of empathy. And I'm cynical in my older age, but I think empathy is a lot harder for humans than we think it is. I think there's an intellectual part of us that can understand other people's experiences that are different from our own. Through observation, I think we can be moved by people's experiences by things that we can see. But I actually think really trying to understand somebody else's experience, especially if it's vastly different from your own, is actually quite hard for humans to make that leap in distance
>> Brian: Well and technically empathy... isn't it actually... it's vicariously experiencing, not just intellectually figuring your way into somebody's shoes. I feel that's the pure form in empathy. I don't know, now I'm just dealing with semantics
>> Caits: I'm not sure what it is or isn't but...
>> Brian: Because that intellectual exercise can be fun and can be very revealing in it's own way. But to actually have that kind of phantom sense is much more rare
>> Caits: Right. I think that's where people rely on books and movies. But I do think about if someone's growing up in a part of a world, or even country that you have never seen or been to... I have seen liberal people who tout empathy, I'm sure I've done this myself many times, who just can't seem to understand that people see through different perspectives. Or you do understand but not quite. It's more that when the microaggressions start to happen that folks talk about...
>> Sergio: Well let's talk about something different... I think you two are speaking about empathy in a different way. I think I know what you're talking about because that's how I feel
>> Caits: Yep
>> Sergio: Let's take this thing and talk about empathy for a moment
>> Caits: Sure
>> Sergio: When you feel empathy towards someone, do you have an intervening step whereby you say imagine if I were that person and that's what's causing me to feel empathy. Because I think what Brian is saying and what I experience is that I don't have that intervening step. I just kind of feel it as if I was that person but without having to engage in any imaginative act of pretending to be that person.
>> Caits: Well I don't think that's... I'm not necessarily talking about myself. I mean I think I have been moved like that plenty of times but I think that a lot of people haven't or don't. Or there are situations where... I mean how do you even make that leap? Is it because you're interacting with somebody right in front of you maybe and seeing some vulnerability. I think vulnerability moves us
>> Sergio: I think what happens is that empathy is like anything else. Different people have different abilities and when we're dealing with someone who is not empathetic, we end up resorting to saying to them "ok you don't know what empathy is like but you know what self interest is like".
>> Caits: Right
>> Sergio: Now we are asking you to do this, you imagine you are this person. We are already at a disadvantage. We're dealing with someone for whom empathy doesn't come naturally to them. So the only way that we can try to make them understand what we feel as empathetic people is asking them to pretend that their self-interest was being activated. What I'm saying is that for me, I don't have that barrier
>> Caits: Yeah
>> Sergio: And I feel not as if it's happening to me. I just feel it without that kind of...
>> Caits: Well you wouldn't do the work that you would do otherwise. Neither would I, so absolutely. I think where I question empathy as something that we talk about needing to activate a lot, well how do we do it for other people? As thinking about racism, sexism. I mean these pervasive, insidious... obviously they're layered when we talk about implicit bias and all of this, people aren't aware of it. But I wonder about empathy in those conversations. It baffles me how folks can feel so removed from another person's experience. So I've lost a little bit of faith in the act of empathy
>> Brian: Yeah. I do think that while it is almost something like addiction where you're predisposed to it, or any other ability that you're predisposed to... I think there can be a cognitive behavioral therapy, sort of learning, through that intermediary step that Sergio was talking about. I think it's required in order to get to that point where you can better immediately feel what that person is feeling instead of say maybe there's a barrier before where someone says "I think this criminal is bad". But once you're exposed to more and more and force yourself to think about it more and more, once you break down some of those barriers which are basically assumptions which are prejudices, then I think you're opening the gateway to feel that thing
>> Caits: That's true
>> Brian: And I don't know. I'm starting to think what fears bely all of that stuff.
>> Sergio: But the letter we read from earlier is an individual telling us that he believes that because of art that he can activate empathy.
>> Caits: Ok, you sold me (laughter)
>> Sergio: Doesn't he say that I hope people see now that prisoners are just like other people?
>> Caits: Right
>> Sergio: What is he hoping that they are reacting to? They're hoping they are reacting to his art. And I don't even say that there are two forms of empathy: one that needs to be activated and one that comes natural to you. I'm not saying it's superior to have one that comes natural to you. It's just like anything else. It's just like a trait that you have. So my wife and I have it at this really high level. And we would do this thing... it's almost embarrassing. If we met someone, for example, we would be looking for an apartment. We would go into someone's home to show us the apartment and we would see what appeared to be heartbreaking circumstances. Maybe it would be a single mother that's dealing with a child with disabilities and clearly not being able to handle it economically. We would look at the apartment, we'd walk out, we'd walk out in such a way that we would literally engage in this activity. And I'm not even kidding. We would say to each other "well obviously she has to move because she has to move because she just won the lotto and she's going to buy this building and she's going to rent it". And we would create this entire invented narrative to allow us... we knew we were doing it and we were joking about it but it would somehow allow us to be able to go about our day.
>> Brian: Mhm. It's just crippling
>> Sergio: It's just like being a radio that's always on and picking up every soundwave when you're flipping the station and nothing is coming through. That's part of the great lessons of my life is to meet someone who is also that way so I don't have to apologize for it. But it's that pronounced where we would laugh as we were doing it. And we still do that to this day in similar circumstances. And I do the job that I do and it becomes very difficult because at some point you have to create a professional distance in order to engage in certain professional activities. Am I going to try to help this person rather than just break and say why is the world so unfair that this person has to overcome these barriers...
>> Brian: Well without that objectivity it's hard to do your job. It's hard to make the hard decisions
>> Sergio: And when my clients... There are instances where our clients turn to us, by us I mean the public defenders, and say "you're not the one going to jail, how come you're taking it so calm?" But if you're going in for an operation do you want the surgeon to come in and look like he's just so stressed and so invested or do you want a certain kind of clinical professional distance. Because there are things that have to be done.
>> Caits: Right
>> Sergio: You know, you have, hopefully, family and friends who can relate on that tragic level and the tragedy of your circumstances. I'm not sure your lawyer should be reacting that way in order to accomplish certain things that need to be accomplished in a courtroom.
>> Caits: Right. And also you can be deeply moved and disturbed... which I relate to everything you're saying at a deep level as well... but ultimately you're not the one going to jail. So if you break down then there's also something that's...
>> Brian: Selfish
>> Caits: Yeah. But I do think that... There's a name for secondary trauma because it does affect people who work really close in difficult scenarios. There's actually a book that I recommend, "Trauma’s Stewardship", which someone recommended to me when I was getting pretty destroyed by my work. It was really affecting my health, everything. And it helped me put some things in perspective. And they have this great wheel that shows the different stages that people go through when they're experiencing secondary trauma. And I said "oh man, I need to read this book". And it's things you already know. It's exactly what you're saying. You need to know how to create some distance. You have to understand your scenario is not that scenario and so you need to fill yourself up so you can help someone else. But it was very comforting for me. So anyone who is listening to this who struggles, it's a good book. It's worth it. It's tough, yeah. I think there's a lot of people who work in these systems who experience it without even realising it. And then what kind of pain does that distribute and cause in the community. When you don't have a name for it necessarily
>> Brian: Yeah. A lack of awareness is one of the biggest reasons for a lot of the problems in our world
>> Caits: Yeah
>> Sergio: To bring it all back, the campaign against mass incarceration can be viewed as a whole giant program trying to get people to engage in this act of empathy
>> Caits: That's true
>> Sergio: And part of the ways we do it is kind of like "hey listen this person got addicted to drugs, are you addicted to wine?" And you're trying to make the person understand how it is that the person behind bars is not a monster
>> Caits: Yeah
>> Sergio: We don't need to target this at the highly empathetic individuals. Those people already don't need that. So a certain kind of person that needs to understand how something like that can happen to them for them to activate any kind of energy towards changing.
>> Caits: I think that's what I struggle with. That event you were at which was, thank you, wonderful, and it was really exciting to put together. Who is in the room? How do you get it out of that room? And that's where I lose faith... I lose faith around humanity all of the time (laughs). It's like a cyclical thing for me. And then I get hope again. So it's just something that I think about. I used to have an answer that came easily - "art creates empathy, that's it's purpose, that's it's use, it's great for that". And I have been challenged in that over the past few years of going "well how well does it do it and how do we get it outside?" But also I know this conversation about prison and particularly mass incarceration... I think we may have been talking about this last podcast, but even folks that are liberally minded, there are still a lot of gaps around this. And it's illustrated by the question that I always get when I'm talking to people who I am automatically on board thinking about reform issues and alternatives to incarceration. "Well what about serial killers?" You know how many serial killers there are? Very few. And honestly I don't know how to answer. But you're right. Because there are crimes and there are people who commit crimes... I was just watching, embarrassingly, that American True Crime about the guy who killed Versace. I'm watching this guy like, oh my God, what? How does someone become that way? But I do think that at a base level these are the most unanswerable questions of being a human being. I don't know, how do you become that?
>> Brian: Well there are some indicators for serial killers
>> Caits: Well I do know that. Antisocial personality as a kid and all of this.
>> Brian: And the home life. There are some correlations with relationships
>> Caits: Sure. But what is the... I think that's where sometimes, as much as I am on the forefront of having this political conversation around mass incarceration and it's wrong and you need to humanize people and this and that, there are places that I also get stuck with those really intense crimes and people that don't seem to show remorse.
>> Sergio: Generally though when we are talking about mass incarceration, we're talking about the fact that in 1973 there were 250,000 incarcerated and today there are 2.5 million. So unless you think the average human being took an incredible turn towards violating the laws and becoming serial killers then you're going to have a hard time justifying it.
>> Caits: Right, right, right
>> Sergio: Because all of the statistics available would say that violent crime has dropped precipitously. And anecdotally that is right too.
>> Caits: I guess I'm thinking of prison abolitionists. I guess I get curious about what are we actually talking about on a whole? And not even serial killers. I know a lot of people that have committed really intense crimes. And the people I've known have really changed their lives. But each of those people, I was just writing about this in an essay, have told me that there are people that belong in prison. Don't get too self-righteous there Caits. And I'm like, well you would know better than I. So sometimes I struggle with... and you're right, mass incarceration is the political umbrella. We are looking at the whole picture of course. But some of those questions stop me a little bit in knowing how to...
>> Sergio: Well those who defend mass incarceration have a vested interest in portraying the typical incarcerated person as violent...
>> Brian: Or evil. That they fall into a category
>> Caits: Right
>> Sergio: That's not the case. There are statistics to prove it. It's not either / or. Like I don't think it's either to abolish all prisons or keep the status quo. I think that a lot of reasons that people think that 2.5 million seems like too much given the stats. But yeah, I get the problem. It's just a question about who is being allowed to shape the narrative, who is being allowed to label what the average person incarcerated looks like
>> Brian: I also think that there's an issue of... I don't know if criminal justice can ever be truly... Well I know you inferred maybe never earlier, but until we know with what level of free will we are working with because in order to rehabilitate people we kind of need to know what drives people to do certain things under certain circumstances. Then I think that changes the conversation a lot
>> Sergio: We haven't even mentioned racism which allows people to not be empathetic...
>> Caits: Right, of course
>> Sergio: ...and distance themselves is this really kind of silly, noxious, invented thing that says well that person incarcerated doesn't look like me so you're not activating that part of me that wonders how fair is the system because I could never be a part of it because look like what person looks like. Look what I look like.
>> Caits: Oh yeah
>> Sergio: I think there's that John Rawles thing which is like how would you want society to be if you were about to be born as one of the most vulnerable members of that society? Who are the most vulnerable members of American society in the 21st century is pretty easy to identify. Poor people, and in a lot of cases, people of color. So oftentimes you're arguing for change where power resides and they are able to, either consciously or unconsciously, distance themselves from the people mostly affected because they don't look like them. I know it sounds silly but I think there is ample evidence that it is a thing (laughs)
>> Caits: No, I don't think it sounds silly at all. And I think because I'm in a room with people who have this conversation everyday, skipping over things in our conversation as sort of a baseline. Like, we know this so let's go into the harder question. And thank you for bringing it back because absolutely, it's all about race and class.
>> Sergio: I think somebody in one of my books says "if the average person being arrested looks like Tom Cruise, you don't think someone would have done something by now?" I'm not sure where I wrote that but that's kind of the underlying point which is that when we say how is it that this thing can happen when we know there's this thing called empathy? The short answer is going to be that what it takes to activate empathy seems to be similarity
>> Caits: Absolutely. I think that's where it... Yeah
>> Sergio: You have to bridge that distance, right? If the people to whom it's happening to are difficult for me to distinguish myself from then empathy is activated more easily
>> Brian: You could be one of them more
>> Caits: Well right
>> Sergio: We all do this right? You see someone get in trouble and you say "do I do that also? Could I be the one to get in trouble? No". Or you distance yourself from them.
>> Brian: Which I think those are the important questions that we need to ask
>> Sergio: Or we purposely engage in distancing behavior. "Well that person is a complete moron. He did XYZ which I would never do." Or something like that
>> Caits: Right, right
>> Sergio: Or whatever, it's just a natural human inclination to want to distance yourself from somebody for whom something very negative has happened because we want to feel like that negative thing could not happen to us. So it's difficult... you know, go back to Trayvon Martin. Said "well my son doesn't look like Trayvon Martin". And then the people with sons who do look like Trayvon Martin are like "hold on, what the hell?"
>> Caits: Right
>> Sergio: Right? I'm not saying it's a harsh dividing line. A lot of people who don't have sons who look like Trayvon Martin were also outraged. My point is it's a lot easier to activate it if you're like "oh wait a minute". There's less work to do
>> Caits: Yeah. So what bridges that too? Because of course I also think of the history of our world and that's colonialism in a nutshell. I see a difference, it's wrong, I'm scared of it, I'm going to conquer it, and exploit it.
>> Brian: And I wonder what vestiges leftover from the sheer fact that people would come on to new land and they were sharing diseases that the others weren't immune to. How much of a fear factor is a residual from that? Probably not too much at this point but I don't know. There were these biological factors that weren't rooted in race. They were rooted in the fact that people were separate for so long on different continents and things like that. How far can we be when we haven't really evolved as a species? We've only just become far more connected. We're more available to each other so it's like we're playing catch up. I don't know the answer to that. I think the continued exchange of information, especially through art. I think I said this on the last podcast, I don't think there's anything that we've created that teaches emotions like art
>> Caits: True
>> Brian: Which is incredibly important because we suck at that. Emotions aren't rational. I don't know. I just provided no answer (laughs) and provided a very grim outlook.
>> Caits: No it's ok. I think I was thinking of all of this because this morning I read an article, I think it was in the Washington Post, about Nicholas Cruz, the Parkland shooter. And his brother, who is a little younger than him... they didn't know their parents. I think their mother gave them up for adoption. Never knew their father. Raised by another family. Then those parents died when they were teenagers. And I watched a video and read the article of his brother going to visit him and saying "who are you, this isn't you". And then he starts sobbing and hugs his brother. I think I'm bringing up where I get stuck in the conversation for myself. I can politically frame it, of course, and look at the larger picture of the system and why it's wrong. But sometimes when we get down to the individual level, I'm very challenged. And that really challenged me. Watching and reading that this morning because I did feel empathy for those kids. Even for the one who had killed 17 students and destroyed many people's lives. And then I questioned that. So I think that some of these deep-rooted questions of humanity and violence, in particular, individual violence, not so much systemic violence which I feel much clearer on. I spin in that a little bit. I don't know. Maybe I'm revealing too much about my inner life over here.
>> Sergio: I don't think you ever need to question anytime you feel empathy, which is a variant of love. Anytime you are increasing the world's collection of love, even at the lowest level, either through understanding somebody who has done something horrific or through just feeling, in some sense, that judging can be a difficult fraught activity. I think those are positive developments
>> Caits: Thank you
>> Sergio: You can say "gee I'm supposed to judge this person harshly and I didn't. What is wrong with me?" Maybe we're not supposed to judge too harshly. It may be that no matter how awful the activity engaged in by an individual, by one of our fellow human beings, is that we're still under some kind of obligation to understand that or muster, as difficult as it may be, some lens of empathetic love or forgiveness and that's what you're reacting to.
>> Caits: Thank you. Thank you for saying that. In this callout culture that we live in is something I struggle with too
>> Brian: Oh yeah. That's a great example.
>> Caits: There's a lot of "let's condemn", "let's throw them to jail". It doesn't resonate with me but it's tough to talk about
>> Sergio: But you can still hate the thing that the person did. You can still hate that this describes the world that we live in. You can still hate that this is a feature
>> Caits: Sure
>> Sergio: But it's rarely productive to just say, about another human being, throw them away and they are not entitled to any consideration.
>> Caits: Which is really what our culture does. And it does it on every level too is what I've noticed.
>> Sergio: I think the reason why I was so happy that you brought that letter with you because I think that's what people who are incarcerated must feel.
>> Caits: They must
>> Sergio: They feel anybody who is not in here has essentially thrown us away and said "we're not worthy of human dignity". And yeah, those who would battle against me or yourself, who are activists in favor of criminal justice reform, will always have at their ready "oh you're in favor of this guy? He chopped up his whole family and turned them into tomato soup."
>> Caits: Right
>> Sergio: And yeah, it's a rhetorically powerful device.
>> Caits: It is
>> Sergio: It's been affected forever and will continue to be effective because it's a rhetorically powerful device. But that doesn't mean that they're right and you're wrong. It just happens to be a very powerful device.
>> Caits: Sergio, that's so helpful for me. Thank you. It really is. Rhetorical devices too. Great phrase to think about
>> Sergio: Listen, it's a rhetorical device that many think decided an election in 1988, right? I guess in... it was famous so I don't need to delineate it... while he was governor, the Democratic candidate had to approve some kind of prison furlough program. And the Republicans said "here's that prison furlough program Willie Horton"
>> Caits: Willie Horton, of course.
>> Sergio: It's a powerful device because we are repulsed by the act and that repulsion leads to judging harshly, but also you want revenge
>> Caits: Yeah
>> Sergio: You're hurt in some sense. Some conception of your humanity has been injured and whenever a human being is injured, one of their early responses is I want to injure them back. In whatever form that takes. I may not even understand that that's what's happening but it's happening. Now right back after these messages (laughter)
>> Caits: Thank you. There's a lot of framework there. I think I needed to hear that from someone else. So often I feel like I'm the one saying these things so it's affirming for me to hear that in your extremely articulate way
>> Sergio: I'll let you guys into some inside baseball. We represent some people that have done some really crazy things
>> Brian: Yeah, I assume so.
>> Sergio: I'll come back and be like "you got that queso?" That guys a sweetheart. I love that guy. And another guy, I can't stand that guy. He didn't do anything that bad. (laughter) The truth is it is very easy to hate and judge at a distance but when you're sitting across from someone, it gets really difficult, you'll find. It gets really difficult when you're having a conversation with someone to then maintain that monster narrative and so what you're reacting to is "oh there's that monster who did that, I don't need to expend any thought on him. I don't have to expend any empathy. I don't have to do anything with regard to him. He's safely classified as a monster. Shit, here's this interview with him or whatever it is. Here's this story" and then all of a sudden it's like "oh really, they were laughing at him when he was in 2nd grade?" (laughter) You're making it so I can't just... and sometimes it builds up and sometimes it doesn't. But people have been put to death by our criminal justice system who you can kind of go back to some of things that happened to them at an early age or even later on and you can build up, pretty easily, a strong empathy for people who have been executed for the things that they committed.
>> Caits: Absolutely
>> Sergio: I hate to be referring to things that I wrote and I don't even know where I wrote it but at some point somebody visits somebody on death row and then they have a reaction similar to what you're describing. But then the CO says "oh here's a picture of what he did, now you'll see and once you review this, once you see pictures of what he did, it will decomplicate what just happened. The interaction you just had where you saw him as a human being where you felt all of these awful emotions of empathy and caring about this person, I can help you with that. Here's a picture of what he did." And there's a truth to that. Which is, yeah they can always snap you back into "this is what he did. Now what do you think of him?" It's complicated. Life turns out to be really complicated
>> Caits: Sure
>> Sergio: Moral judgements turn out to be really fraught with all sorts of difficulties.
>> Caits: Yeah. That's right
>> Brian: Was that any of your motivation to write "A Naked Singularity"? To investigate that? Because a lot of it is just a heist book, you know? But there's that guy on death row... it's been like 6 years since I read the book or something...
>> Sergio: I think a lot about that novel is myself interrogating these things to myself about some of the things that you pointed out. Some of the weird reactions we have to other human beings are centered around moral decisions and acts of violence and etc. So yeah, it's a large part of, back to compulsion, what causes the compulsion for me to write. A large part of it is a motivation to understand. Not necessarily to understand myself. I don't think I'm a highly interesting topic, even for myself. But understand everything: existence, our lives, the way we interact with each other, what society is, etc. A lot of my motivations to... I would call that a compulsion to write in this manner is an attempt for myself to figure these things out. At least, at a minimum, strive towards a deeper understanding of them as possible when you're distracted by everything that comes at you in everyday life.
>> Caits: Yeah, I relate to that for sure.
>> Brian: Mhm. Yeah, I'm trying to think of something right now. There's someone who was talking about the difference between... their operational terms were different, but like a literary mindset and a daily mindset. And they are so different and I'm not good at the daily mindset. That's why I like writing. I like sitting there and thinking things through because when those things start flying at you, I feel like I'm not at the pithe of existence and maybe that's a solipsistic feeling. I don't know. But when I write, it is really trying to just figure out what's going on and trying to control it in some small way because we don't have much control
>> Caits: Sure
>> Sergio: The pop culture myth is inspiration hits you and you have to drop everything and create.
>> Brian: Uh huh. And you write it in 3 nights
>> Sergio: And it does happen sometimes. I'm not going to say it never happens
>> Caits: It's actually wonderful when it happens but it's so rare for me
>> Brian: Bret Easton Ellis did meth for 3 weeks and wrote a novel once but I don't know if I would recommend that (laughs)
>> Sergio: It's wonderful when it happens if you can immediately feed it
>> Caits: True, true
>> Sergio: But more often what happens, I think where you're getting at, is that you have to enter a certain kind of headspace or view receptive, you have to be very receptive, kind of view before the art creating can happen. And I'm frustrated when people often say to me "how did you write when you were doing all of that work?" Sometimes you just... you're not necessarily sure it's going to result in anything that looks like a novel, or looks like fiction, or looks like art, or whatever. But you do need to create the openness to it first before you can experience it and have it actually emerging into something.
>> Brian: I had a professor at Sarah Lawrence, Garth Risk Hallberg... yeah, Sergio, did he interview you?
>> Sergio: Yeah, I know him
>> Brian: Yeah. He always said that he likes to write after he had a change of consciousness. And I think that allows you to get into that receptive mindspace. Because once you have an abrupt shift, I feel like you're more readily unhinged from those obsessions and compulsions that drive you everyday. Those grooves. You come out of those grooves and you can kind of see things more broadly. I don't know if he still does this but he woke up at 4:30, at the ass crack of dawn, and he wrote half drunk on sleep
>> Caits: I'm so envious of that
>> Brian: I don't know how he did that (laughs)
>> Sergio: The problem is that I need experience because experience is what I am going to transmute into work. But then I also need to create the conditions for this openness. In a lot of ways can be defined as not experiencing something. (laughs) So there's that tension between... I think the best work comes from experience. Comes from living out in the world and then transmuting that into art which is why I'm not often tempted by the idea of being a fulltime writer who wakes up everyday and stares at the wall until something... it's not very appealing to me for a variety of reasons
>> Caits: Me either
>> Sergio: But I think I could get, as you're referring to, a little bit of that socialism of like people-gazing type stuff that I definitely am not down with or in favor of. I'm willing to discuss anything. I know Caits is very adamant that we discuss this cheese platter (laughter)
>> Brian: Yeah, let's talk about that
>> Caits: I'm feeling a little ill actually. You gave me too much permission.
>> Sergio: Do you need medical attention?
>> Caits: Yes. This might be my addiction actually
>> Brian: What's better, this boar-skinned cheese or Steph Curry's three point shot?
>> Caits: I mean, I don't watch basketball but I do think Steph Curry is pretty impressive. That's one name I know
>> Brian: Yeah. There you go
>> Sergio: Yeah, he's become more than a basketball player. Should we say? Someone I think most people know?
>> Caits: I was teaching a class and a co-teacher showed him his like... we were doing a class and like "reaching towards the impossible" which sounds really cheesy but was actually really cool the way we framed it... it was a long time ago and I don't really remember it that deeply, it was for high school students... and that was one of the videos that we showed. And I got into it. I'm not saying I'm not into basketball. I've just never been put on. I wasn't in a sports family. But I would love to go to a game. I think it's very exciting when you're in it. Sorry, Brian. But also a toss up because that cheese is really good.
>> Brian: That was like an empathy exam right there (laughter)
>> Sergio: The mayor's... it's being seen as a decent shorthand here in New York City to encompass a lot of criminal justice reform issues that were active... I guess I should have said at some point that I am the legal director of a place called New York County Defender Services. It's a public defender office in Manhattan. So I do a lot of work centered around legal reform with respect to New York City and the way its criminal justice operates. So one of the things that the mayor has declared as a goal is the closing of Rikers Island. I believe most people know what Rikers Island is
>> Caits: Yeah
>> Sergio: Have you been Caits?
>> Caits: Yeah, I used to teach there. I have been there many times
>> Brian: What would that alleviate?
>> Caits: Well you also have to talk about what the plan looks like because I would be curious about your thoughts about the...
>> Brian: Yeah, I don't know anything about this
>> Sergio: The plan is to keep incarcerating people but to decrease them in sufficient numbers that you can move them to more humane facilities that aren't as toxic
>> Caits: Right, so the community jails, right? That they are talking about opening
>> Sergio: So before you can... the idea being, before you can do that you have to drastically reduce the number of incarcerated New Yorkers. So to do that you would have to encompass all of these other reforms. Like bail reforms, discovery reform. So a good way to view it is, hey the mayor announces as a goal that we are going to close Rikers Island. Ok, in order to do that you have to do XYZ. And so that leads to other criminal justice reforms that were active in pushing for.
>> Brian: Oh, it's funny we were just talking about basketball... There's a little celebrity coalition going on. I don't know if you have heard about it.
>> Caits: Oh, with Jay-Z. Meek Mill.
>> Brian: Jay-Z. Meek Mill. Robert Kraft, the Patriots owner. The dude who owns the 76ers
>> Caits: I don't know the sports people. I just know the celebrities
>> Brian: Have you heard about this Sergio?
>> Sergio: Yes. It's about 2 weeks old but it seems legit.
>> Brian: It is? Ok
>> Sergio: And there's also the NFL players union which has taken a pretty laudable role in advocating criminal justice reform. I guess as an offshoot of the Colin Kaepernick
>> Caits: I think totally
>> Brian: I think so. I mean, Jay-Z has been a huge supporter of Colin Kaepernick and his deal so...
>> Sergio: And we in the New York County Defender Services have partnered with the NFL players union on certain issues and I believe we are going to meet with this coalition that you are referring too also. Yeah, this is part of the... I think we started close to the start, I said that there's a big change in society in the sense of being aware of these issues and being motivated that simply wasn't there 6-7 years ago. At all. So that's heartening and that's great and that's the activation of empathy maybe of a social empathy that I think is an example of what can happen if you beat the drum long enough
>> Caits: There was a video that activated me around this issue when I was 14. I saw the "Books Not Bars" video out of Elle Baker Center. I think you can still find it on Youtube and it was about youth incarceration. And sadly many of the stats haven't changed at all. From the film, I watched it fairly recently, a couple years ago, again. And it totally moved me deeply. I couldn't believe what was happening. And I wouldn't have had any idea unless I had seen this video that was shown to me in a youth group that I was in
>> Brian: Wow
>> Sergio: Stuff can work. I think that the criminal justice activist work is an example of that where it has worked. I think Michelle Alexander's book, maybe 2012, has been a real catalyst. She's not alone. I mean, other people have been beating this drum for a long time. But it finally feels like society is recognizing that the status quo cannot continue. And that's heartening. I'm generally an impatient person and it just makes me want to see even more progress made. But when I'm being reasonable, I view it as a positive development.
>> Brian: Has it sustained since Trump's gotten into office? The momentum?
>> Sergio: Yeah. I mean, mass incarceration is generally not a federal phenomenon. I say generally. The federal system contributes, don't get me wrong. But it's generally, in the last 2 years, there hasn't been any diminution of anything and the progress has continued. One of the only bright spots of the past 2 years.
>> Brian: That's surprising actually.
>> Caits: And 2 wins that I was excited about in that last election was the Voters' Enfranchisement in Florida being overturned. People with felony convictions being able to vote, although non-violent. I would love to see everyone with a felony conviction able to vote. And also in Louisiana, the 1012 Lobby overturned where non-unanimous juries were convicting people. And it was Jim Crow era mainstay and often manipulated in racist ways
>> Brian: I didn't hear about that actually
>> Caits: Yeah. I was able to spend some time, through a conference, Arts for Justice Conference, with a guy named Norris Henderson who spent many years at Angola Prison and was very instrumental in changing the culture there from the inside. And now that he's out, he has an organization called Vote: Voices of the Experienced. He works very closely with the administration as he says he kind of has a key to the place. So we got to see a lot of stuff most people don't get to see when they go there. Including death row, which was very intense, obviously. And he's incredible. I just urge everyone to look him up because he's just a major civil rights leader of our time but largely unknown, obviously outside of the small sphere. And he was instrumental in pushing that forward and getting the voter turnout for it. And we were there right on the heels of that. Like maybe 2 weeks or less after so it was very fresh. So a lot of folks in prison were talking to us about that. So those things give me hope but a lot, a lot, alot has to be undone and I don't think I'm going to see what I would like to see in my lifetime. But it is heartening to see changes
>> Brian: I mean, I want immortality (laughter) but I'm prepared to be let down
>> Sergio: I mean I think there's been progress in terms of society's spirit of the age with respect to these issues. But the truth is in New York I get a skewed view because we have a highly effective well-funded, well I shouldn't say well-funded since I would always take more, but funded public defender offices. But throughout the country you see a pronounced lack of will to properly fund the right to counsel and indigent defense offices across the country. It's a crisis. And so while I'm glad that society is deciding that the status quo is unacceptable when it comes to criminal justice reform, there's a lot that needs to be done before you can say that we have a fair criminal justice system
>> Caits: Oh, of course
>> Sergio: That lives up the ideals. Because now I'm talking about a national view. I'm not talking about my work in New York City and dealing with that administration. Nationally there's huge gaps and tremendous injustice flourishing everywhere. So in that sense, what you said about not being satisfied in your lifetime, I certainly don't expect to be satisfied in my lifetime with the way that we organize our society around criminal justice issues. But I was trying to strike an optimistic note as per the producer's request
>> Caits: (laughs) Oh sorry, I brought us down to the ditch again
>> Sergio: You brought us down again
>> Brian: If we can't satisfy ourselves then we will satisfy our producers
>> Caits: I think the bright spots in the conversation always come from individual stories and from the humanity that prevails despite, for me anyway, that's what keeps me able to be in this world. But I don't feel many bright spots in criminal justice on the whole. And that's just true. It's hard to spin that
>> Brian: It's a dark area.
>> Caits: Of course
>> Brian: You have people that are put in unfortunate scenarios and commit unfortunate acts and then we have to figure out a way to get the whole thing to work better. And honestly the rehabilitation element is what we are fighting for and I think we are so far from thinking about that rather than the punishment.
>> Caits: Well also the systems are just so rooted and connected with past historical atrocities. It's like you have to upend our whole society to get criminal justice to be something that's not so far...
>> Brian: Yeah. You have to reverse engineer something that's been in place for so long.
>> Caits: So it's daunting, right? Of course it happens in steps unless you want anarchy which is also terrifying to think about. But on the question of what can people do to get involved - I'm actually curious to ask Sergio because people ask me this all of the time and I actually don't ever quite know what to say. Because I happen to have volunteered in this field for a very long time, I did a lot of teaching. Although it's not very easy to teach in prisons. Especially in New York City they're very saturated with volunteers, blessedly. In other places in the country, they are definitely not. And from my particular work with writers, we can't even handle the amount of people that want to work with us. So I'm curious, what do you say to people that ask you that? I'd like to have a better answer.
>> Sergio: Again, New York City has a ton of great organizations like Veer Institute or Vocal New York. A lot of them came up and you mentioned earlier in the meeting that we had the 2nd time that we met where there are a lot of great organizations doing really powerful work. I think nowadays if you happen to be in these communities that I am referring to, maybe don't have a public defender office, where they rely on civil attorneys to kind of get assigned cases and stuff... start a political movement to say that your public defender office needs to be properly funded. Because to me, the primary methodology by which true reform is going to happen is through the attorney of the accused. And maybe I'm biased because that's what I have been doing for 20 years, but I feel like if you properly fund public defender offices and you make it so that the average public defender doesn't have 300 clients but has 40... if you can do that, if you can accomplish that, which has been a lot of my work to accomplish that in New York City... if you can accomplish that then I think you'll see a lot of the abuses being addressed and then you will see more of the higher level activism taking place. But first it's an emergency situation. It's people not receiving the proper... their constitutional right to an attorney is being violated everyday.
>> Brian: Yeah, I was going to ask whether the language was at all ambiguous because what's the difference between a public defender and a civil attorney, you said?
>> Sergio: Well when I say civil, I mean attorneys who allow their names to be put on a list to be assigned a criminal case where the criminal defense may not be their primary focus. May not be their area of expertise
>> Brian: Because they do civil stuff, yeah
>> Sergio: And even if it were their area of expertise, they're one individual not functioning outside an office with the resources, with the investigators, the social workers, administrative staff that helps us do our job at the highest level. So throughout the country you either see really poorly funded public defender offices or this even worse system being used to the detriment of mostly indignant people of color whose rights are being violated. So I would say that the new activism or the activism that we have identified to evolve has to center around this issue of properly funding public defenders. And properly meeting the constitutional right to the accused because that's the only methodology by which we can get widespread national change.
>> Brian: Yeah, the parallels between that and education are scary. I mean, just the lack of funding on both of those areas... the public sphere feels like it's dropping the ball. That's not a positive... positive guys (laughs)
>> Caits: There's also a couple of organizations, well maybe more than a couple... but a movement around prosecutors as well. And really changing the way that prosecutors are doing their work. Can you speak to that?
>> Sergio: Computers have a lot of power and that's why I think the indigent defense bar is a check against that power. And that's why I think the next evolutionary step in this movement against mass incarceration has to center around public defenders. I'm fortunate everyday to go to an office and be surrounded by public defenders. People who've basically devoted their careers to battling on behalf of the forgotten, the lost. And not for money, not for prestige, because nobody says "oh that's impressive that you're a public defender". So I'm one of the... one of my joys in life is being surrounded by these people that have a common goal and common mindset about what this all means and so it's great and it's exciting but I would love society to recognize the special role of these people and if you don't give them the resources then you're not truly creating a fair, equal system
>> Caits: Yeah. Absolutely
>> Sergio: So that's how I would tell people to get involved. Either through political activism towards making sure where you are that the public defender office is being properly supported or directly volunteering in a public defender office in some of these jurisdictions that could really use it.
>> Brian: So yeah, if I wanted to do that then what do I do? Would I just be filing? Would I be doing anything... yeah what can I do? (laughs)
>> Sergio: I mean I guess it would depend on what you can do
>> Brian: Yeah, like what skills I have
>> Sergio: Right. But as I said, a lot of these public defender entities, whether there are government offices or not, are under siege. They cannot deal with the volume. They need manpower, right? And so part of that is lobbying for more money because more money allows you to hire more lawyers, to hire more investigative social workers
>> Brian: Is it also somewhat of a problem of incentive? Like salary-wise? Are there not enough public defenders because of that or is more of just an issue that we do not have the resources to hold that many public defenders in this office?
>> Sergio: A lot of leaders of public defenders have basically said that to comply with the ABA standards and to meaningfully represent all of the clients that you're giving me, I would need 20 more lawyers. To get 20 more lawyers, I would have to hire them, I would have to pay them. I don't have the money to pay them
>> Brian: Right
>> Sergio: So it's really not that complicated. It really is that jurisdiction not prizing what public defenders do
>> Brian: Right. I guess convincing people to defend criminals is, in the public's eyes...
>> Sergio: There's no shortage of talented people who are willing to do this work but you still have to get paid, you have to live, you have to be hired to do it. I don't think there's any shortage, especially nowadays, I don't think there is any shortage of attorneys who would gladly sign up to do this really critical, important, intellectually thrilling work. There's just a failure to properly fund these offices in many places
>> Caits: And I think as we talked today, as far I know, in DC and Brooklyn was without heat. There have been a lot of calls for protesting that. Getting that heat back on. Obviously it's been freezing in New York in the last few days. Getting extra blankets. People aren't getting access to commissary, to even buy an extra sweatshirt, or seeing their families. So often it's also very urgent too. So as we are sitting here with our cheese platter, there are folks just right across the river that are suffering right now. Sorry we were supposed to end on positive note
>> Brian: Okay that’s it for today’s episode. If you like what you heard, please subscribe and review on whichever platform you’re listening on. You can get in touch with us on Twitter at @AnimalRiotPress, Facebook & Instagram at Animal Riot Press, or through our website animalriotpress.com. This has been the eighth episode of the Animal Riot podcast, brought to you by Animal Riot Press, with me your host, Brian Birnbaum, featuring Sergio De La Pava - author of A Naked Singularity and the newly released Lost Empress - and Caits Meissner - author of Let It Die Hungry and Director of PEN America's Prison Writing Program. And this podcast is produced by Katie Rainey, without whom we would be merely three of Shakespeare’s thousand monkeys banging on the typewriter.