Feeling Voiceless

In this first episode of Voices Unlocked, co-hosts Pam Bailey and Shaka Long interview Rob Barton, incarcerated in a high-security federal penitentiary in Florida. "There are walls around the jail, and then gates; actually, we can't even see the gates. I can’t really see the sky from a penitentiary," he says. "It makes me feel like invisible, and like I can't reach out to nobody for help."

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Transcript

COLIE “SHAKA” LONG: Hi, this is Comrade Shaka, co-host of Voices Unlocked. And I'm here to kick off our first episode with Pam Bailey, a storyteller and activist. I remember when I was at the DC jail, we used to have extensive conversations about having our own YouTube channel. I used to idolize Petey Greene – matter of fact, I still idolize Petey Greene -- and I used to have these visions in my head of me being a sort of Snoop Dogg and you being the Martha Stewart of criminal justice reform. And now lo and behold, look: We’re finally famous.

PAM BAILEY: Yeah, and it was really just a joke then. But dreams can come true! That was around the time, I was co-founding More Than Our Crimes, the nonprofit that's producing this podcast, with Rob Barton, who's here with us in the spirit. He's a DC resident who has been incarcerated since just two months past his 16th birthday. He's 44 this year. 

What most people don't know is that DC doesn't have its own prison. It used to, but it doesn't anymore. So, all district residents who are incarcerated are sent into the federal system -- and you know that very well, Shaka -- which means they're all over the country. I had the chance to meet Rob because he had come back to the DC jail for a hearing. But we first met through a sort of pen pal relationship. And I recognized in him a fellow storyteller. We hear stories about people, you know, you hear their label, about their violent crime, that they are a murderer or something else, and you don't know the person behind it. I wanted to get those stories out. Rob's is just one of them. He's introduced me to so many since then. But we also want to really sort of shine a light inside these prisons. So, that's how we first got started. 

I talked to him recently about this, and I'm gonna share some of that interview. But it's important to first clarify: One thing you're going to hear Rob talk about: He uses the word jail. The first time he starts talking about being in the jail and feeling human again, that's when he's in the DC jail. Because it's in the middle of the city, and a lot of people are watching it, it feels very different. But when he talks about what it's like today, he is back in a federal penitentiary. And as you'll hear from the conversation, it is a very different kind of place. So, let's take a listen. 

[RECORDING] PAM: Rob, when I came to visit you a couple of weeks ago, I got in the car to drive to the prison from my hotel. And it's like, as each minute went by, all of a sudden, there weren't any businesses, there weren't any homes, it got more and more rural and desolate feeling with each twist and turn in the road. I actually realized why, when I went into a store the evening before, the cashier didn't even know there was a prison in her town. You know, I began to realize why that was. This is why people are really unaware. They don't even have the opportunity to care about what's happening in prison, because they don't see you. So, I'm wondering, how does that feel for you? How does that manifest for you in the prison?

ROB BARTON: It makes us feel like,,,, I can barely see a tree where I'm at, right? There are walls around the jail, and then gates; actually, we can't even see the gates. I can’t really see the sky from a penitentiary. It makes me feel like invisible, and like I can't reach out to nobody for help. One of the things that I realized while I was at the (D.C.) jail, and why I always say that it rehumanized me, was that, you had government officials coming into jail, you had people coming in where you can shake their hands, or you can talk to them and tell them about what's going on with you. You had a mental health counselor that was really invested in helping you. You had people outside politicking in the parking lot about jail conditions. Here, none of that goes on. Nobody barely comes into the prison. And what it makes it seem like is that you have no recourse for nothing. 

And then whatever an officer does, or whatever happens in here, you don’t have (any way to) fight. And that leads to officers feeling like they have immunity, they can treat us and do whatever the hell they want. [This call is from a federal prison.] But there's no way for us to fight back. I mean, even when we want to grieve [file a complaint], we gotta go to them. If we want to write a letter to an outside official, we got to go to them. And then we get punished for it. So that’s the problem with where we have to be housed at, and all these prisons being in rural areas.

PAM: So, Shaka, you just heard Rob talking about the dramatic difference between being in the DC jail – although it’s not a very nice place; I don’t want to give the wrong impression here – but there’s a huge difference between the DC jail and a federal penitentiary. And he talked about the really jarring transition he went through after being in the DC jail for about a year and a half. I know you went through a similar transition. You went from a federal penitentiary to the DC jail for a long time -- for about four years, I think, while you went through your hearings, and then before you were freed, they sent you back to the federal penitentiary for a while. Talk a little bit more like Rob did about how the DC jail was different for you compared to the penitentiary.  What was the DC jail like in contrast?

SHAKA: I think the main benefit of the DC jail is proximity. You know, you're back near your home, to what's familiar to you, where you can have a more consistent, meaningful connection with your loved ones, your family. When the DC Council enacted the Incarceration Reduction Amendment Act, what they call IRAA, a lot of guys were able to come back to the DC jail (for their hearings). And the administration of the DC jail -- and for this I give credit to Quincy Booth who was director of the DOC, the Department of Corrections at that time – stressed education. He was there to enact a culture change at the DC jail. So, they had a unit that was no longer predicated on warehousing people, but instead on preparing people to reenter society. You gotta realize, you had, like, 30 guys who did over 20 years in prison come back. And now, they were getting classes teaching them how to do basic things like using a cell phone, business etiquette and civil engagement. Then, you know, DC restored the vote (to people still in prison), so guys are voting now, taking part in community activities and interacting with the youth. You know, that’s beneficial for people re-entering society. So, the DC jail at the time made it more conducive for a person to make that paradigm shift. 

PAM: Yeah, so it sounds like the two main benefits of being back in the jail was 1, being really close to your families, so, you can see them like every week, and two, the programming, like the partnership with Georgetown University. But then, sort of inexplicably, because you didn't really expect this, you were expecting to be freed, you were sent back to a federal penitentiary for a while in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. Talk about what that felt like. 

SHAKA: It was like being in a twilight zone, you know, because for over four years when I was at the DC jail, I was acting as a citizen, instead of an incarcerated person, or worse, being an inmate. I didn’t have any handcuffs on me no more. Even though I was at a secure facility, I didn’t have no handcuffs. But when they told me, Long, you’re gonna have to go back to the feds, pack your things, and you start going through that process, well…When they put those handcuffs back on us, like instantly, you revert to an animal state of existence. I compare it to a dog. People say, hey, how do you know what a dog thinks, but when you put a leash on a dog, you know that dogs don't like that leash. When a dog sees things or he wants to run, you got to hold him back. You know, it’s those restraints. Just having those physical restraints, I felt worse than a dog. 

For over four years, even though I was physically confined, I was more like a free man, and I had an expectation of entering society. I was looking forward to being a citizen, continuing my education, as a Georgetown student and a Georgetown employee. But then when I had these handcuffs on and put back into a prison, a federal penitentiary, where most guys have nothing to lose and nothing to live for, it was torture. 

PAM: There’s another parallel to how we treat dogs. I would make another comparison. You know, when we train a dog to do what we want it to do, we're taught to give them treats, positive reinforcement, not to kick it. Like, no one would tell you to kick the dog, and then it will do what you want it to do. And yet, actually, from all the stories I've heard from Rob and you and other people, the federal prisons kick the dog. They kick the prisoners. They use negative reinforcement in the belief, I think, that this will get the prisoners to do what they want -- which of course, doesn't work. 

SHAKA: No because the whole foundation of those institutions is the erasure of your humanity. You're no longer Shaka Colie Levar Long. You’re inmate 090-041-007, and you're treated according to whatever is in your inmate file, whatever your custody level is. They don't see your humanity. They only pay mind to what the protocol says, the instructions on the paper. And that's who you are. 

PAM: So, that's one of the goals of this podcast. People don't get to see inside prisons unless you happen to work there or you have a family member or friend, a loved one, there. There's all this tough talk when people hear about spiking crime, carjackings, etc. People want to send the people to prison, but there's no realization or understanding of what we're sending people to. That's why, in part, we've been blogging, and now podcasting, which brings another dimension to our stories. I asked Rob in that same conversation about what he thought about this, what going past just words on a screen, being able to hear a voice, will do, both for the public and for the people inside. Let's hear a little bit more:

[RECORDED] PAM: Well, you know, that's why we decided to call this podcast Voices Unlocked. The key word there is being voices. We've been publishing stories now for a couple of years on our blog and on our website. But that's still sort of filtered for people. With the podcast, people can hear your voice. And I'm just sort of wondering, what difference do you see in that, now that people can hear you and not just read the words that I report?

ROB: Well, it's almost like knocking down the walls, the prison that we just talked about, that makes us feel invisible. And I think that what it does is humanize the people behind the numbers you hear about. So, to most people we’re just a prisoner, but when you hear the person’s voice, when you hear what the person is struggling with, and things of that nature, when you hear their stories, some people can identify with me. And when you identify, it humanizes the person, it makes us real. And it helps others be able to understand what we're going through and maybe want to do something about it. 

PAM: So, you just heard Rob, and what he thinks about the power of people actually hearing them talk. You were the one who came up with the name for this podcast, Voices Unlocked. What was your thought process? What did you hope this name would do, or communicate? 

SHAKA: Yeah, I came up with Voices Unlocked. You know, the fundamental reason why I think it resonated with me is that the voice is one of the most powerful things that God gives you. And for the incarcerated population, there’s an anonymity that the Bureau of Prisons forces on them. You know, it takes away the accountability. If you don't know there's a problem, then you have nothing to look for. You don't even know there's a problem in the first place. And I think, you know, with Voices Unlocked, we’re creating a portal of relevancy for those guys who are unheard. You know, along with the erasure of identity, the byproduct of incarceration is the feeling of being irrelevant in mainstream society. So, I think we create awareness by letting people hear the stories. Stories are a medium of connection. Learning how to empathize with a person is to hear their story. 

PAM: That's right. As you heard Rob say, he's hoping that people will be able to identify with them, and with being in prison. It's not something people can imagine, because [incarcerated people are] so far away behind these really tall walls. It's very opaque. How can we somehow make the person inside seem real? 

When I first met Rob, it was a really different time, leading up to a different presidential election. We were feeling optimistic, because there was real talk of reforming the criminal legal system during the presidential elections and during the debates. It seemed like we were heading toward change. The only thing that was missing in the talk of reform was including people in prison for violent crimes, recognizing that they can also change and that they do change in most cases, and can contribute to the community again. That's reason why we conceived this storytelling project. 

But now, when I was talking to him recently, we reminisced about this. It's a really different time now. It's like the pendulum has completely swung back. There was all this energy and optimism after George Floyd was killed; we thought that finally this was going to force change and something permanent is going to happen. But now we're seemingly right back to people to having a knee jerk-response to the spike in crime and relying on prison and using throw-away-the-key rhetoric. So, I asked Rob how that felt. I figured it must be really discouraging, when reform is the only hope for a lot of these guys. I asked Rob, how it felt to him to see the pendulum swing again. This is this is what he said:

[RECORDED] PAM: When I first met you, and we started the blog, it was early 2020. I’ve been thinking about how different the time was then, because we saw an opening. There were actually politicians running for president who were talking about criminal legal reform. And it seemed like that could actually happen. The only thing that was missing is that they weren't talking about people in prison for violent crimes and releasing them. What's crazy is now, it's a couple of years later, and it seems like that moment is gone very quickly. We're now right back to the way it used to be way before George Floyd, etc. It's all tough on crime again. You read the papers every day, you're a big consumer of news, what's your take on this?

ROB: Well, you’re right. That’s what I feel. I feel as though the climate is back to the ‘90s when Clinton and Joe Biden, who is now our president, passed a bill in 1994, a crime bill that has locked up more African American people than any other president or bill ever did. 

It was all this tough-on-crime rhetoric, with me as a child called a super predator, and I was allowed to be housed with adults in jail and nobody cared. We were treated as adults and locked in our cells and stuff like that. It was just like a horrible time. And I feel as though the reason we're going back to that is because of the progress we made with George Floyd, and the messaging or the rhetoric around it. Like about what some of our protests were like. We have this great divide in the country where one side was able to protest, but the right would say it was a riot, that it was lawlessness, with people breaking into stores and things of that nature. So, we need to be tough on crime and hold these people accountable. right.  It’s fear-mongering scare tactics being used all over again that say that people need to be locked up and held accountable for a long time and stuff like that.

PAM: So you just heard Rob feeling a little discouraged, because it actually almost feels like back in the ‘90s again. I'm just wondering, do you feel like you just got out in time? I mean, it almost sounds like some of these politicians would like to take back some of the laws they passed that helped you get out.

SHAKA: Actually, you know, it didn’t start with the ‘90s. You can go back to the 70s, when Nixon started this war-on-crime campaign. I feel like we're just like…I'm not even going to put a color on it. People of poverty are on a hamster wheel. We feel like oh, it's “tough on crime” and they started locking people up. And then we think we’re seeing progress, because they’re coming in with these criminal justice reforms and they’re starting to let people go. But actually, it was scary to me, because I thought about this. Yes, a lot of guys were released due to the Incarceration Reduction Amendment Act, IRAA bill, and the second look act and things. But you know, the guys, we were talking about that. And we’re not sure these bills were done as conscientious acts of trying to seek reform of the draconian laws they have in DC. I think they may have been designed to make room for these younger guys to come in (to prison). You know, they already got 20 and 30 years out of us. And now you’ve got 16-, 17- and 18-year-olds. George Floyd passed away. And now it’s, “Oh, yes, it's overcrowded. We need to let these older people go.” 

So, they let a few thousand people go, but now they’re saying, “Oh, we’re up in crime. We made a mistake. We got to reallocate. We need more law enforcement. We need to get more harsh on crime. At 20 years old, I was sentenced to life without parole. That's the harshest penalty that a person can get, aside from the death penalty. Actually, it is a death penalty; it’s the death-and-prison penalty. And yet still, you have 18-year-olds committing these offenses. They always focus on what these young people are doing; they don’t focus on why. 

So, these happenings are still going on from the 70s to the 80s, to the 90s to the 2000s to the 2020s. And then we say, yes, there's mass incarceration; we made a mistake. But now we're going right back to the same thing. Even (DC) Mayor Bowser is doing it. She had the opportunity to truly show that she is invested in correcting some of these wrongs that happened. But it didn't happen. So I understand what Rob was going through. 

PAM: What would you say… I think one of the toughest things is when a crime happens, somebody is killed or carjacked or some other grievous harm is done. In the moment, there's this natural reaction. Look, it's terrible, right? Anytime anybody is killed or wounded or property is significantly damaged, it's obviously traumatic for somebody. The hard part is getting people to say, “Yes there needs to be accountability, but also look down the road. Somebody like you can emerge. That person can change. Whatever dysfunctionality they have in their life, etc, can be overcome If given the right support.” That's a whole other conversation we'll have later on. But what would you say to somebody now, like maybe who is watching what seems like a horrible crime occur? And their natural instinct is to say, ”Throw away the key”? What might you say about yourself and your story that could get them to consider leaving that door open for a second chance? 

SHAKA: I would tell them, don't focus on what they did. Focus on why they did it and then place yourself there. Imagine that it was your son that did the crime. You know, hurt people hurt people the most. Listen, I'm not an abolitionist. I will stand before Congress and say that my 18-year-old self needed to be incapacitated at that time. But at the same time, while I needed to be separated from society, I shouldn’t have been excluded from society. It's totally different. 

PAM: You needed that hope that if you worked on it, you could return back to society. 

SHAKA: That's what I would tell people. We need to go into the communities, because these are crimes of poverty – and not just in terms of money, but also mental. Our homes are fractured. They are splintered. These kids are 12 and 13 and have no ambitions in life, no values. There is this saying that, when purpose is unknown, abuse is inevitable. When you don't understand your purpose in life, you're going to abuse everything in life.

PAM: Or you think you have no purpose. And you're treated like you have no purpose. There's a recent post that we just published from Rob that included that line you used: “Hurt people hurt people.” He used some parts of his own story and some of the things he witnessed growing up to try to say that, yes, he understands the desire for revenge, because you're really hurt. It's human; I think probably any of us would react that way if somebody close to us was murdered or hurt in some way. But then he shared his own story; I mean, if you were to meet Rob today, or if anybody could meet you, I don't think anybody could deny that it would multiply the loss to deprive you of the ability to come back and show society and your family that you can contribute again. 

I asked Rob, if he really thinks that telling stories like that, showing what makes crime for instance, really make a difference. Let's listen to that. 

[RECORDED] PAM: So, what do you think that telling stories can do? I mean, very often, people ask me what difference we’re making. I think they expect to hear oh, we've got lawyers on staff, you know, and we're getting people out. But what we do is tell stories. What do you think stories can do?

ROB: I always go back to this, and it may sound cliche, but stories can humanize the person, right? So when you are from two different upbringings, or two different lifestyles, you know nothing about the other, and you are less apt to agree with them or see their point of view. But when you hear their stories, you may not have the same lifestyle, but you may identify with one important thing. [this call is from a federal prison]. And then through that, you can make a human connection to sympathize with what's going on with the person. 

I heard Kim Kardashian when she came over to the DC jail, and she was like, you know, what got me involved in this fight for criminal justice reform is that I was one of the young girls who sold drugs for my boyfriend, and I could have very well got locked up and got sentence to all that time. Maybe the same thing wouldn’t have happened to me because my father was this big lawyer. But I identified with that, right? And that pushed me to fight for people that didn't have the same means that I had. So, I think it’s through these kinds of stories that people realize that “I could have been this person.”

SHAKA: I think that's a good note to end on right there. I mean, Rob, kind of encapsulated everything in terms of feeling invisible and the need of being heard. And the power of stories of being a medium for connection. You know, I think the power of stories is so overlooked; we kind of take it for granted. Being incarcerated for over 26 years myself, I understand that the Federal Bureau of Prisons and any state prison have become the master of “no-touch torture,” like a colleague of mine, Michael Woody, used the term. And that no-touch torture takes the form of isolating people and making them feel silent.

By nature, we're social creatures. And I understand that I was in prison for a crime that I wish I could go back in time and re-do it, but I can't. That one event altered not only my life, but the lives of the victim's family and my family. And even though I'm free, I still pay a debt to society by telling my story to other youths, so they won't make the same mistake that I made when I was 16 or 17 or 18. That's why a lot of people who I did time with, they were released and they flourished in their communities by giving back.

I remember when I was in solitary confinement, one of the books that helped me with my paradigm shift was Dr. Viktor Frankl’s “Man's Search for Meaning.” He talks about how people waste their life. In the preface to the book, he says people waste their life in pursuit of happiness and success. But happiness and success is not something meant to be pursued. Instead, it’s something that ensues, follows you, when you give yourself to a cause that is greater than yourself. And now you got people like Rob, who when they were 16, 17, made horrendous mistakes in their life. Now, all they ask for as men, responsible men, is for that one opportunity to give their selves to a cause that’s greater than themselves. 

It's easy to see the monster when they act, without knowing the making of that monster before the act happened. 

PAM: And now we want to help people get to know the humans they are today. And that's what this podcast and our whole project is dedicated to. I hope all of our listeners and viewers will follow us on their podcast platform. Subscribe to us on YouTube. Go to our website, tune in for more episodes and read the stories. Think about them and talk about them over dinner with your family and friends. That changes minds.