Prisoner Re-entry: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

this year this year we've covered many depressing aspects of our criminal justice system from how mandatory minimum sentencing is crowded our prisons to how Bale punishes the poor to how overstretched public defenders threaten your right to a fair trial to how small municipal violations can wind up putting you in the barrel and fun fact if you binge watch those episodes in order you are entitled to an ice cream cone at Dairy Queen so congratulations enjoy it you have earned it just to be clear it's not free and Dairy Queen is not involved in any capacity the point is though after learning about our shattered justice system you frankly earned the right to eat your feelings with a peanut Buster parfait the only frozen Treat in America with nut buster as part of its name anyone tonight instead of talking about how people wind up in prison I thought we talked about how they leave a process known as prison re-entry it's particularly relevant this week in light of what happened just last weekend the largest one-time release of federal prisoners in history is getting underway today the move is in response to a loosening of mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug offenders about 6,000 prisoners are being set free today yes 6,000 mostly low-level drug offenders were released last week and if you are one of them let me bring you up to speed on what you may have missed since you've been inside um Uber's replace cabs everyone pretends to like kale now Matthew McConaughey has an Oscar and in four states pot is legal which for some of you must seem like a cruel cruel irony now unsurprisingly this news was not exactly welcomed by everyone when you release people like that you're going to have an increase in crime okay no doubt my mind some believe the prisoner release is a racial deal that will put Americans in jeopardy it's part of an effort to reduce prison overcrowding but who exactly are these prisoners are they dangerous yes are they dangerous is this the purge is it happening is this the Pope what what do I need to buy a mask or will one be provided for me I don't know how the purge works now now to be clear by and large these prisoners were going to be released in a couple of years anyway so people are essentially freaking out about something that had it happened two years later they wouldn't even have noticed and it's also worth noting that more than 600,000 people get released from state and federal prisons every year so 6,000 more would represent an increase of less than 1% and the only time anyone actually notices a change that small is your dad with the thermostat and hey when you have your own place you can heat it like the tropics but not what he's paying the bills and fought you're burning money unfortunately we have a lot of misconceptions about what leaving prison is actually like perhaps because it's often presented in movies and TV as a happy moment when former inmates rejoin families and friends and put their life back together real wort I never thought I'd get out there's a good young good hug it was important that we cut a deal and Kenny was finally free oh that's so nice although the last thing was slightly undercut when Patrick the starfish realized spongebob had joined the Aryan Brotherhood 1 inside hey hey he did what he had to do he did what he had to do but but the sad truth is for a surprisingly high number of prisoners their time on the outside may be brief the national average of recidivism is 50% so we're spending 80 billion dollars and failing half the time right that doesn't make any sense no it doesn't make any sense the only thing we're allowed to throw billions out just to fail half the time is this man vandalized urban outfitters mannequin Johnny Depp the fact that around half of people who leave prison end up going back is horrifying but when you look at the challenges they face it gets a little less surprising in fact let me walk you through what it's like when you get out of prison and let's just start with minute one because when inmates exit that gate to start a new life they could find themselves in the middle of nowhere with little to nothing in their pockets and the lucky ones might get enough for a bus ticket and a meal but even exonerated prisoners like Glen Ford can walk out with little to build a life on Glen Ford was given a $20 gift card the day he left Angola prison gave me a card for $20 and said wish you luck how long did that last year one meal had some fried chicken tea and the French fries came with it I had four dollars and change left a twenty dollar gift card if you're exonerated you should probably believe in prison with more than you take home after a disappointing office Secret Santa and hey don't don't act surprised that that gift was terrible your name got picked by Janice from accounting and you know she don't give up she don't give up how about you and look once your money runs out you can find yourself hungry and desperate because in many states anyone with felony drug convictions can be banned from government food benefits and if your family lives in public housing you may not be able to return home because some places require tenants to sign papers banning relatives with convictions from entering their homes and while those rules may have been written to reduce crime in public housing they're administered so broadly it can lead to situations like this Geraldine Miller signed the ban after her son robbed a bodega at 16 had I didn't know what I know today I would have never signed that paper Miller herself now faces eviction after her son was caught helping her with groceries after she became ill she has to go to her brother's apartment to see her son my true want me to throw my son away I can't I can't look we all want people who've committed crimes to learn their lesson but never help your sick mother with groceries sounds more like the kind of lesson you'd learn from a shitty Boy Scout leader their kids never help your sick mother with groceries always know where the exits are in a dogfight and never pay a stripper upfront scouts dismissed and restricted access to food and shelter could be just the beginning of your problems depending on where you live a felony conviction can cut you off from everything from voting to a driver's license - and this is true one Florida County's home weatherization program so I guess Florida is perfectly happy to put people behind bars but they draw the line at putting them behind storm windows and insulation and while you could pay for food shelter and weatherization with a job your opportunities to get one of those might be severely limited there are state and local bands preventing ex-felons from working as everything from a nurse to a septic tank cleaner - in Mississippi an alligator rancher as if breaking into the alligator ranching business wasn't already hard enough as it is you know I taught it's all who you know who's been eaten by an alligator in that guy and a criminal record can even make getting an interview for a job difficult nearly every job application will ask a potential employee if he or she has ever been convicted of a felony a question that in some cases will automatically disqualify you from getting hired and makes you a little uncomfortable you get that anxiety when you get to that box slave Wow how they gonna judge me you know know that I committed this crime how they're gonna feel about this and it's understandable that an employer might want to know if an applicant has a criminal history but to have that question on a form before you've even met the person seems a little unfair they may have changed significantly since then and you shouldn't judge someone and what they may be most ashamed of imagine if you had once a watermelon maybe it happened 14 years ago you're not proud of it and you've changed since then if every job application you filled out had this question on it with no opportunity to give context about drunky were or the fact you haven't even looked at a watermelon for over a decade you'd begin to feel like the deck was stacked against you and some states seem to even acknowledge how hard this process can be Ohio actually has a list of job tips for ex-offenders with do's and don'ts such as do be honest but if you're asked why you left your last job don't use negative words like went to jail instead do use terms like relocated or contract ended both of these are true and they are and before you judge that is not a lie everyone tries to present the most flattering image of themselves you do it when you use a filter on an Instagram photo of yourself even the Queen does it because this is her official portrait but this is who she actually is but deep down she knows you can't put that face on money and all of this is before we get to the difficulty of ex-prisoners navigating parole 2/3 of parolees who go back to prison do so not due to a new crime but because of parole violations sometimes for reasons as simple as missing appointments or failing a drug test and for some it may be because they're dealing with untreated substance abuse or mental illness but for others who are trying their hardest satisfying the conditions of parole can be maddeningly difficult look at Bilal Chatman he spent a decade in prison for a nonviolent drug offense but despite the odds he managed to get his life back on track and find a job that he loved things were going well until he hit a problem regarding scheduling meetings with his probation officer so he got off I think every day about 4:00 and so my job didn't I think it off till 4:30 I said okay what can I come in early said no you can't come in early I said what cable can I come a little later can I get through at like 5 if you leave at 4:30 I don't stay and wait for you I'm not gonna wait for you so I don't want to lose my job this is the things that I'm supposed to be doing this is what I'm out here for so I'm working to be a productive member of society I felt it I felt set up I felt like I was set up to fail I thought most people in that situation or set are set up to fail and you know what it is hard to argue with that because the only way Bilal could make an appointment at 4:00 if he left at 4:30 would be if he somehow owned a DeLorean a TARDIS or whatever the John Claude Van Damme used in Timecop I can't remem I think he travelled through time by doing the splits it's been a while but I think it was a split based system also depending on where you live you might not just struggle to meet your to meet your parole officer you might struggle to pay him because in many states you actually have to pay for probation and parole service and in Pennsylvania they charged us $60 fee just to enter the program and if you don't have the money for all the fees they charge as one Pennsylvania parolee explains you can be forced to make a truly ridiculous choice you also see your parole officer you don't have money it will hold you job or no job and if you don't pay you come out to Joe yeah I know one thing I found myself southern drug to pay back to civilian oh god so in order to pay for the program to keep him away from dealing drugs he has to earn money drug dealing at this point the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections might as well change its motto to y'all come back now you're here by now you may be wondering who is responsible for a system this broken well interestingly the answer is pretty much everybody many of the obstacles you've seen originated in the tough-on-crime 90s with surprisingly little debate remember the ban on ex prisoners from entering public housing which forced Geraldine Miller to kick out her son well here's where that started from now on the rule for residents who commit crime and peddle drugs should be one strike and you're out that is a state of the union standing ovations from both sides almost nothing gets a full room standing ovations during those speeches with the exception of veterans God and the speech being over in many cases these laws were passed with barely a second thought the 1996 law letting States restrict food stamps for extra gallons was debated in the Senate for all of three minutes I've been talking about this subject for nearly five times longer than they did and I'm leaving a lot of stuff out mainly because I had to make time for Timecop references and frankly as well no one batted an eye when bart gordon a Democrat from Tennessee justified cutting off federal student aid for prisoners with this logic just because one bland hog may occasionally find an acorn doesn't mean many other blind hogs will the same principle applies to giving federal pell grants to prisoners first of all pigs find nuts by smell so a blind one is at no significant disadvantage in an acorn hunt and second of all people aren't pigs you and look I know I know it is not it's not always easy to care about the welfare of ex-prisoners and some are going to re offend no matter what you do but the fact remains over 95% of all prisoners will eventually be released so it's in everyone's interest that we try to give them a better chance at success because under the current system if they do manage to overcome all the obstacles we've set it's a minor miracle and one of the people who have managed to beat those odds is Bilal Chapman I'm happy to say that he is still in his job and he's still doing well and I'm even happy to say he's actually with us this evening so please welcome Bill Chappell please sit down fill out fill out oh thank you so much for coming tonight I know that you were not sure about doing this so I want to thank you for being here yes now you managed to keep the job that you were talking about in that clip and we saw the state of Ohio giving advice to prisoners about how to present their truth and when you when you apply for jobs you listed your previous employer as what did you list state of California the state of California that's right that is yeah that's technically true lettuce that's true that's true yeah um now I know how is the job going absolutely fantastic I couldn't I couldn't script it another way in any way better than what's going on I'm very excited I'm very fortunate and blessed they've given me this opportunity yes I am dedicated to them you know absolutely one of and I know I know that you one of the reasons you're nervous is that because not everyone you work for or with knows about the fact that you were once in prison now you're going to work tomorrow morning they may know by then yes so I guess guess what I want to know is what what particularly are you most worried about I got some more worried about being judged for what it used to be I'm not that same person you know I've dedicated myself up I changed myself I'm no longer that person you know as time goes on you become you know I become a better person I've worked hardly the things that that I've taken from society and so yeah so what what are the concerns that they'll what they will think or how they might behave what does this spectrum of circumstances that you concerned I guess some more people are judgmental people that don't know you know I don't want anybody look at me as the ex-con I want them to look at me as a person I am now I'm a supervisor you know I'm a good employee I'm an employer I even hire and I fire right so I think they want I want them to look at me as that continue live that they were about to both cheer and boo you when you okay I guess that was interesting you say that right that you don't want to be defined by something that you did so long ago because we're probably guilty of giving you a reductive term in that way because we're having you on tonight as Bilal the ex-prisoner right which is clearly not who you've been for a long time right now everyone has at least three other things about them that are interesting what what three things about you not related to that would you like people to know well I don't like people to know you know well you know I'm grow tomatoes you like wait wait I'm gonna stop you yeah I'm going to stop you at number one fair Bilal cos that's a lot more interesting than I think you think it is no I'm hoping that tomorrow you're in your fellow workers may choose really mainly to focus on the fact you grow tomatoes right as being a more interesting part of your life I know that one of the things that's interesting is that I know how hesitant you were to do this we talked to you through the week yes as we even talked to you today and tonight I guess a question would be why why did you end up talking to us what why are you here I'm here because it affected um you know I may never do this again I've done other interviews I mean I would do this again because this takes me back to being that prisoner again I'm not that prisoner today I'm a taxpayer you know I work I'm a citizen I'm a voter that's who I want to be those are the things that have defined me today it's not what I did before I did things years ago then I'm ashamed of you know that I don't like but I don't want to relive that at the same time I want this opportunity to be for someone who says oh man I can never get a chance I'll never have a chance there's always a chance we just keep going but I want the person also that looks at down at us that maybe there's a chance for other people too that's right I thought fill out I can't thank you enough for taking the time to be here Bilal Chatman later the tomato grower you

Channel: LastWeekTonight

Views: 8,825,905

Keywords: HBO (TV Network), Last Week Tonight With John Oliver (TV Program), John Oliver (TV Writer)

Id: gJtYRxH5G2k

Length: 18min 44sec (1124 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 08 2015

Reddit Comments

[u/matrix8894]

The Tomato Grower Everyone!

[u/Stigmacher]

I can't imagine having been in a jail in the middle of nowhere for 30 years, and then get thrown out with no ride and a $20 gift card in hand. Yes shows portrait the re-entry as a positive turnaround, but there are also characters like Brooks in Shawshank Redemption who went nowhere after being released and ended up hanging himself. (And who knows if Red would have done the same after 50 years if it hadn't been Andy)

It might be silly to suggest it, but there should be a government or a nonprofit organization that hooks these ex-con up and manages their lives, being the liaison between them and the criminal system. Otherwise it's no surprise that 60% of the ex-cons get rearrested in 3 years.

[u/[deleted]]

Ah man this show is back on track! No "I TOLD YOU SUZY, BUT YA KEEP DOING IT! YOU'RE THE WORST, SUZY!" jokes and little "It's like when..." jokes. Plus an interview, which I hope becomes a regular thing.

[u/Thetonn]

I am not smart and technologically limited. If someone wouldn't mind providing a mirror for non-Americans, I would be very grateful.

[u/mashington14]

My grandpa grows tomatoes. I think I have some questions about his past.

[u/Beselod]

Loved that ending. Glad he went through with the interview, gave it a very good finish. What a great person, and tomato grower.

[u/gizmo1411]

I agree with most everything Oliver said in his segment and on a basic level believe that after a person has done there time in jail that should be the end of it. However, as someone who has been on the employer side of a job, maybe I can shed some light on their plight in this debate as well. Two major areas are probably the most important.

First, parole. It is insanely easy to violate parole. And it's hard to justify taking a chance on someone that you may have to replace again in a week. Though I think that says more about our parole laws then employers, it something that has to be taken into account.

Second is liability. Thankfully, I never had to deal with this one, but I have seen business sued and lose in court because they hired a felon who then committed a crime against one of their clients. i don't say this as a blanket "all criminals will keep committing crimes" statement, but it does highlight another increased area of risk that has to be considered. As an employer you basically have to ask yourself how much you trust this person you barely know anything about other than a few basic things and the fact they have a criminal record to not commit another crime and screw you over.

There are no easy answers to either of these questions.

[u/pottyglot]

Disqualifying someone for a felony conviction before they've demonstrated their competence directly effects recidivism rates ... and it's also absurd & makes no sense

[u/TotesMessenger]

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