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Profits and Prisons
105 Plays8 days ago
Sam Heath is joined by Bianca Tylek of Worth Rises and Rev. Dr. Kevin Riggs of Franklin Community Church to discuss mass incarceration and CCDA’s Locked in Solidarity Week. They discuss the profitability of prisons, stories of people behind bars, and ways that we can get involved in this work.
Bianca Tylek is one of the nation’s leading experts on the prison industry, the author of The Prison Industry: How It Works and Who Profits, and the Founder and Executive Director of Worth Rises, a national non-profit dismantling the prison industry and ending the exploitation of those it touches.
Rev. Dr. Kevin Riggs (Pastor Kevin) has been the Senior Pastor of Franklin Community Church for more than thirty years. He is also the founder and Executive Director of Franklin Community Development and the Williamson County Homeless Alliance. All three organizations are located in Franklin, TN.
Sam Heath spent ten years teaching high school history before moving into the organizing and advocacy world with Equal Justice USA, a national nonprofit doing work on death penalty repeal, restorative justice, and community safety. He is the founder and Executive Director of The Commonwealth Justice Coalition. He and his wife Rachel have three energetic kids and still live in Charlottesville, VA.
Learn more about CCDA’s Locked in Solidarity Week and how you can get involved at ccda.org/lis.
References made in the episode:
- PPI’s Follow the Money article: https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/money2026.html
- Read Today! - The Best Day of My Life
- Learn about the End the Exception campaign
Learn more about CCDA and how you can get involved at ccda.org. Connect with CCDA on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Follow CCDA on YouTube.
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Transcript
Introduction to CCDA Podcast
00:00:09
Speaker
Hello friends and welcome to the CCDA podcast. My name is Sam Heath and I'm CCDA's networks developer. I also co-chair the Mass Incarceration Affinity Network and I lead a statewide nonprofit here in Virginia called the Commonwealth Justice Coalition and we reimagine public safety and put it into practice and I'm pleased to be your host for this episode.
Episode Focus: Incarceration and Profit
00:00:30
Speaker
So today we're going to be diving into and discussing mass incarceration, how profits specifically fit into the criminal legal system, and what we can do to care for our neighbors, both behind bars and their families on the outside.
00:00:44
Speaker
So I'm joined today by two very special guests. First, we have Bianca Tilek here, who's the founder and executive director of Worth Rises. She's also the author of The Prison Industry, How It Works and Who Profits.
00:00:56
Speaker
We're also joined by Pastor Kevin Riggs, Dr. Kevin Riggs pastors Franklin Community Church in Franklin, Tennessee. He's the co-author of Today, the Best Day of My Life, along with his friend K.B. Burns, who's on death row, and he's the nation's only pastor on death row to a church on death row, and that's a lot, so we'll definitely talk a good bit about
Guest Introductions: Bianca Tilek & Pastor Kevin Riggs
00:01:17
Speaker
that.
00:01:17
Speaker
But Let's have each of you give a little bit more of an introduction of yourself and your work. And Bianca would love to start with you and who you are and what the work of Worth Rises looks like overall.
00:01:29
Speaker
Sure. Thank you so much. Well, I think you've captured my bio pretty quickly. I'm the executive director at Worth Rises, and we're a national criminal justice organization that works to dismantle the prison industry and end the exploitation of people who are incarcerated and their loved ones.
00:01:47
Speaker
In the end, we're trying to build a world in which no individual or entity depends on human caging or control for their wealth, operation, or livelihood. and We really think we need to move the economy away from its dependence on the carceral infrastructure and help bring sort of that type of relief to our families and our communities.
Mission of Worth Rises
00:02:10
Speaker
Importantly, you know we have an $80 billion dollars industry and that's what we are working to to dismantle.
00:02:17
Speaker
And so we do our work through a number of different mechanisms that include narrative policy and corporate accountability. We're happy to share more about that later. Brian Smith- Bianca, real quick, so much of the work of Worth Rises that that drew me to it, and that I think really brought it into this specific episode as we talk a little later about Locked in Solidarity Week and it and its theme, which is profits in prison.
00:02:40
Speaker
Why did you settle on, years ago when you began Worth Rises, settle on the idea of finances? looking at the criminal legal system and not just targeting and cutting off those finances, but I know there's that work of moving those finances to where you all would say they could go. But why that specific piece?
00:02:58
Speaker
Sure. I mean, I think part of it is because for years, our movement has sort of just folded to the fact that an industry existed, right? We knew that it was the case, but it felt so overwhelming because it's like capitalism, right? Like,
00:03:13
Speaker
How can you do anything about the industry that's been built around prisons and jails? The fact that it is, you know, a billion dollar industry feels so overwhelming. It is shrouded with a ton of like but secrecy and opaqueness, things to kind of our, the the hidden kind of world of private equity and and things of that nature. And it seems so inaccessible.
00:03:36
Speaker
But my particular background is from the financial services industry. And so I spent the first part of my career working on Wall Street and in financial services. And it was through that lens and that experience that I really developed sort of ah a language and knowledge basis and expertise and a skill set.
00:04:00
Speaker
focused on sort of corporations and financial interests and really challenging this idea that there's nothing we can do. And in fact, billion dollar corporations also have pretty large vulnerabilities and there are ways for us to tap into those vulnerabilities to ah create relief communities.
Journey into Prison Ministry
00:04:21
Speaker
Kevin, I'd also love to hear from you. You're a pastor, you're an author, and you're a pastor also in some unique ways and unique spaces. So what does that look like for you in Tennessee?
00:04:32
Speaker
Yeah, well, it's good to be here. Thank you for the invitation. And Bianca, we have crossed paths. I don't know if you remember, but worked with you. But you're Franklin, Tennessee. I was like, I remember. Okay, good. Good, good. Well, at least we halted the the gas chamber for a little while. We'll talk about that.
00:04:52
Speaker
Yeah, not ah not not forever, but at least ah for a little while, we we made a difference there. But yeah, I was born and raised in Nashville, been in Franklin really since 1989 as a pastor.
00:05:04
Speaker
And probably now about 15, 20 years ago, my philosophy of ministry just really started to change and to become more social aware of what's going on. And that led us as a church and then myself as an individual into church.
00:05:17
Speaker
into prison ministry as well as other places. And so we have gone into county county jails, state prisons, more recently death row here in Tennessee, ah which is in Nashville, that River Bend prison.
00:05:30
Speaker
ah But then even overseas, I've done a lot of work in ah some prisons throughout Honduras as well. you know Going into prisons, to me, I've told people the story. I started preaching when I was 15 years old, and one of the first places I would preach was called the Metro Workhouse, which was a low-security prison in Nashville, Tennessee. Now, you know you they're not going to let a 15-year-old in any type of prison, but that's where I started preaching. and and And then, you know, in my mind, I was like, man, when I grow up and pastor and become a ah somebody, I won't have to go back into prisons anymore.
00:06:02
Speaker
But yet God and his sense of humor brought me back to where I started. And there's really no other place I'd rather be and no other a ministry I would rather have than ah to go into prisons because, well, that's where Jesus is. You know, sometimes People tell me they want to go into prisons, and I say, why? They're like, well, we want to bring Jesus inside the prisons. I'm like, no, no, stay out.
00:06:24
Speaker
You're not going to bring Jesus inside. He's already there. He's always been there. He's waiting on you to come, and you're going to meet him in a new way through through people ah who are in there and who have just a tremendous amount of faith and their lives have been changed. and Prison ministry is wonderful. the The profit aspect of prison is not wonderful at all.
00:06:44
Speaker
But building relationships with with people who are incarcerated for a time being or for life or who are facing death is ah is truly life-changing.
Scale and Impact of Mass Incarceration
00:06:55
Speaker
Kevin, I love that frame that you gave of questioning whether or not someone is being a good neighbor. And that's that's, I think of State Farm and my kids love those commercials, but that that's such a biblical frame of what does it look like to be a good neighbor? And that that's not just who you live beside, but it's it's who you encounter. I think that's gonna come up a lot in our conversation today.
00:07:15
Speaker
Bianca, let's start big picture. I've said in other spaces that the term mass incarceration now is less of an argument and more of an indisputable description. So when people talk about mass incarceration in the criminal legal system, what are they talking about? And what is really the size, scope and scale of this thing, the criminal legal system?
00:07:36
Speaker
I 100% agree. I don't think anyone disputes the fact that we are incarcerating people amass at this point. And that is in large part because ooh we incarcerate more people in the United States than any other country does, right? So it is we have today roughly 2 million people who are behind bars in state prison systems, in county jails, in immigration detention facilities, a youth jails, and all of that. And so you know that's what we talk about when we're talking about mass incarceration. We're talking about the incarceration of millions of people.
00:08:12
Speaker
a system that also churns through its jails roughly 10 to 11 million people a year that are admitted into jails and released five times if the actual population is at any given point. But, you know, our system is addicted to incarceration, to the carceral infrastructure. We use prisons and jails as sort of the kitchen sink resolve for all social failures in our society, whether that be sort of gaps in mental health, treatment, substance abuse, poverty, education, job opportunities, sort of you name it, health, physical health, that we really resolve all of that and throw people into prisons and jails rather than caring for our neighbors, which is sort of where we, you know, really started this conversation.
00:09:01
Speaker
and so that is, you know, what we're talking about when we talk about mass incarceration you sort of the massive network, right?
Economic Strain on Families
00:09:10
Speaker
The over 3,000 prisons and jails in our country that have been built, you know, to support this particular policy or paradigm.
00:09:20
Speaker
And, you know, for a period of time, as we talk about it in the book, there was a prisoner in jail being built every eight days through the 19th. Like that is a wild addiction to carceral infrastructure that we have. And not all infrastructure projects are created the same.
00:09:38
Speaker
And it's time we start building a different infrastructure, and infrastructure for liberty, freedom, and abolition. There's so many ways to measure this, the the cost of incarceration. i mean, you talked about some of the numbers. You talked about the roughly 2 million people that are locked up. Of course, that includes about 2,000 people that are on death row. there There are so many ways we can get the numbers of this.
00:10:00
Speaker
We're also really leaning into and thinking about the idea of profits here. And I was really struck by the prison policy initiatives, Follow the Money article that came out recently. And they updated their numbers and showed this broad cost of incarceration. And they tallied numbers up to, I believe it was $475 billion, about half a trillion dollars of the cost of incarceration. not just tax dollars, but they're targeting and looking at also what's the cost burden as it goes to families, even things like phone calls. And I know that's a...
00:10:30
Speaker
place where Worth Rises really leans deeply into things. So can you talk a little bit about what are other ways of measuring this cost of incarceration in the way that the cost falls on families, those that are outside?
00:10:43
Speaker
Sure. You know, i think that number that PPI put out, actually the biggest component of it was loss of income and sort of the like economic impact on incarcerated people on their families and on the sort of the generational impact, financial impact and on their communities. Right. And so, yeah, I mean, another way that you can take a look at this is certainly the cost that families are shouldering in, you know, essentially paying for incarceration.
00:11:13
Speaker
There are so many ways that that number terms of how much we spend on incarceration is actually masked. It's not just those you know component pieces. We actually just did a partnership ourselves with PPI, with the Prison Policy Initiative last week, illustrating that even that number that they put out is subsidized by the use of prison labor.
00:11:36
Speaker
We estimate that over that roughly $19 billion dollars is lost in or's stolen in wages from people who are incarcerated and are working in these facilities. And if you consider that, that adds another $19 billion dollars to that figure.
00:11:53
Speaker
Right. So there are and these multitude of ways. You talked about telephone calls. We are talking about people who are incarcerated and their families being charged per minute, you know, sometimes 10 cents, 15 cents or things like that. And these companies that are in this space are fighting to be able to charge more.
00:12:14
Speaker
And there was a series of comments and briefs that were put forward to the Federal Communications Commission just in the last two weeks where these corporations are looking to increase in how much they're allowed to charge for calls.
00:12:31
Speaker
And, you know, up until recently, families were already one in three families are going into debt. over the cost of of staying connected, those families who have a loved one who's inside. So this has a massive impact on these communities, on these families. um And what does that mean? It's not just the going into debt, because what happens after you go into debt, right? You eventually just cut off communication altogether. Now you're saddled with this debt you're holding. You can't bear it anymore. Families are disconnected. And so I really encourage us to also not just think about the financial cost, but the human cost, the relational cost, the community cost, the parent cost, the child development costs, all of that that are impacted by the predatory ways that this industry moves, that mass incarceration operates.
00:13:20
Speaker
And it's not just through sort of the fines and fees that are assessed, but consider, for example, prison health care. Prison health care is in an absolute crisis and disarray.
00:13:31
Speaker
We have, you know, people who are being denied care despite corporations that are given billion-dollar contracts to provide this care. And these corporations, when they deny care, simply take on lawsuits, let those lawsuits for wrongful death or injury mount, and when they
Story of Death Row Inmate KB
00:13:50
Speaker
mount, they file for bankruptcy.
00:13:52
Speaker
And they file for bankruptcy and wipe out all of these claims and leave all these families with nothing to show. And so what we see happening in that case is you see billion-dollar contracts handed out and the costs being borne in the bodies of people who are incarcerated.
00:14:10
Speaker
who either don't come home because their health deteriorates to that level, or they come home in worse health conditions that are detrimental to their economic and emotional and community kind of, you know, future, as well as incredibly expensive for us as taxpayers to then take care of later. And so, you know, that level of extraction that's happening of taxpayer dollars through the physical bodies of people who are incarcerated is yet just another way to evaluate sort of the magnitude and the impact of the harm that this industry and the space has on our our people, our families, our communities and our societies.
00:14:55
Speaker
I'm thinking about this locally. I live in Charlottesville, Virginia, and we have a local jail here, at the Albemarle Charlottesville Regional Jail. It serves one city and two counties. And even between those jurisdictions that it serves are hundreds of thousands of dollars that relate to communications.
00:15:10
Speaker
And you use that language of extraction. And we really have rallied around and asked them to provide a degree of free phone calls, which they have. But before that, it was, we were framing it of these funds being removed from a community.
00:15:23
Speaker
where these funds need to stay, where these funds need to be able to do their work and going towards this industry. So this is the prison industry. This is private prisons as well. This is jails too.
00:15:34
Speaker
You also talked about that that human cost and what this looks like. And Kevin, I would love to hear about some of your unique connections to prison, to especially in particular death row and particularly to KB and who he is and what that looks like and how you've seen and experienced that human cost with him and his family over these years.
00:15:56
Speaker
Yeah, well, you know, KB has has said on multiple occasions, being in prison is enough. and you know And what he means by that is that in of itself is enough punishment.
00:16:08
Speaker
And so all these other things that they do or they tack on to them is really meant to demoralize and to bring them down. And so it does it does affect their health. I can agree with what Bianca has said and and have seen it over and over again.
00:16:21
Speaker
especially on death row where people where they don't get good health care. they don't the dental The dental situation is really, really rough. Basically, the only thing they do if you have a bad tooth is pull it.
00:16:33
Speaker
And you know they don't try to do anything else. There's there's a situation even now where The governor years ago gave permission for this to happen, but it still hasn't happened. Well, one of the guys on death row wanted to donate his kidney to to ah somebody who he found out needed a kidney, and they were a match.
00:16:50
Speaker
And he went through all the testing, and the governor the governor signed off on it, but the warden and the people in charge have not let him do that. you know And so he tried to do something good, ah but yet it didn't it didn't work out that way. When it comes to the expenses, though, as Bianca was talking, i i can share a couple of things.
00:17:07
Speaker
you know There's a move across the country, and it's really, really strong in Tennessee right now, to to give all the inmates tablets. And they sell the idea of of these tablets of now they can video call their loved ones or they can, you know, they can get movies and games. They can text on the tablets. But but what people don't understand is the millions and millions of dollars that people are making off of that.
00:17:29
Speaker
Where now, you know, every text is so much... you know and the video calls would be the same way, or or they get so many free movies, but then they start buying movies, and they start buying books, and and they're at an elevated cost, and somebody is profiting off all of them. But then also, there's kind of a sinister idea with ah behind it, with all the...
00:17:49
Speaker
Inmates on tablets, it it steps up security because now they got algorithms where they can just keep an eye on everything and not let anything ah get by. i mean, it's a step beyond listening to a phone conversation. Now they can just go in and and pull up anything. And if the if the person's been on their tablets, they can find out all information. And I know that people say, well, they're in prison. They don't deserve all that kind of stuff.
00:18:14
Speaker
and But that's where KB's words come back, that being in prison is punishment enough. Because what will happen is eventually these things, eventually what's happening across the country is when these tablets are introduced, down the road there's a step now where all personal visitations from family members is stopped.
00:18:31
Speaker
And all visitation becomes visual, a tablet. And, of course, you know what that does. When people lose contact with their family, um then, you know, they go, nothing good comes from that.
00:18:43
Speaker
We saw a degree of that in COVID, right? So much of that was shut down in so many places. It's been it's been slow to be walked back, and visitation has been been difficult. And and for KB, and he's been there, it's a matter of of decades, right? matter of decades, and his parents are both in their 80s now. Wow. and And so, you know, he...
00:19:03
Speaker
he's he's hopeful and he's praying he can get out before either one of his parents pass away. But yet I've seen it a bunch where people in the side walls, they have a loved one who dies ah while they're in there. And if they're in maximum security type situation, not just death row, but maximum security situation, they're not going to be able to get out on leave to go to a funeral. Now, they're in a lower security a prison or a county jail, sometimes a there can be permission granted and a deputy will go with them to the funeral year old or to say goodbye to their loved one and and bring them right back.
00:19:35
Speaker
ah But in ah in a state prison, especially maximum security, they're not going to be able to do that. So they don't get that chance to say goodbye. But the other cost, and this works, I think this is across the country, but I know again in Tennessee,
00:19:49
Speaker
There are some things that are free. So like you can get toothpaste or soap or shampoo, toilet paper that are free, but they are below not good.
00:20:00
Speaker
And so, you know, the toothpaste is not good. it's it It's powdery and all that kind of stuff. So if you want just decent toiletries, then you have to purchase them through ah the commissary and all those things.
00:20:12
Speaker
cost money. And I've seen the commissary list and and and I look at it and I'm like, well, these are, these aren't, the prices are not really a whole lot different than what I pay at the grocery store. ah You know, it's not like they get some type of special rate. They're paying, the you know, kind of the same amount we are, but yet you know In KB's situation, he is the chaplain's assistant and on Unit 2 at Riverbend, and he gets paid 50 cents an hour.
00:20:37
Speaker
oh and And that's the highest anybody on death row can get paid. Introduce us to KB and his story, because often when I talk about him, I say he's the only pastor on death row to a church on death row. So what does that mean and look like for him?
00:20:50
Speaker
Yeah. Well, KB, we believe, was wrongfully convicted. He didn't kill anybody. he He was there and he was actually charged with the ah the felony murder where basically if you're the driver in a getaway car in a bank robbery and somebody on the inside dies, you can be charged with a crime. with a felony, even though you didn't kill him, you be charged with felony murder, even though you didn't kill anyone.
00:21:10
Speaker
And that was KB situation. And he was in his twenties when he, when he went through this. and and now he's in his, he's in his fifties. It's about 31, 32 years that he's been incarcerated and,
00:21:23
Speaker
about 28 of those years would be on death row. He was in the Shelby County Jail in Memphis for three years as he was going through the trial. ah But you know he he was brought up in a Christian family. his His dad was a pastor and he felt called to preach at a young age. But in his teenage years, kind of you know like a lot of us do in teenage years, we struggle with things. And so very early when he was arrested, before he was arrested, he recommitted his life to Christ, started leading Bible studies in the Shelby County Jail.
00:21:49
Speaker
and um And then when he got to the death row, he's been a model inmate. And over time, he became a chaplain's assistant. When I met him now about 13 years ago, he and I just bonded really, really quickly. And and he would show me around. mean, I would talk to all the guys on death row. but And the reason they would talk to me is because KB. It's kind of like if you're a friend of KB, and you're my friend as well. And so that's kind of how the relationship developed. But then Over time, you know i heard you know in in my tradition, we just say God spoke to me or the Spirit. know I felt in my spirit that KB needed to be ordained. One day he told me I was the pastor on death row. was like, no, no, you're the pastor on death row. The only reason people talk to me is because of you. Again, I heard in my spirit, God said, you need to ordain him.
00:22:38
Speaker
So we talked to our elders about that and they agreed. He went through the same ordination process that I went through. ah It took a couple years. ah Then the prison bent over backwards actually and allowed us to have an ordination service inside death row where he was able to invite 30 people.
00:22:53
Speaker
And so his family was there. Some other friends were there and And the the first thing he did after he was ordained was serve everyone communion. and and I tell people, you know, that that's a unique experience when you you get communion served from someone who's condemned to die.
00:23:11
Speaker
And it sounds a whole lot of what happened with Jesus. And so ah a month or so after he was ordained again in my spirit, I felt God saying, now you need to help him start a church. And so we talked about that and I told him specifically, you know, this we want a church service, not another Bible study, not another, you know, AA meeting or discussion group. Because it really wasn't a just a church service in death row. And the tagline was basically a church for the men on death row led by the men on death row.
00:23:40
Speaker
And we found out later that went against prison prison policies. And so we've had different times when it's been a struggle to keep it going. But but there there's some type of policy where an inmate cannot be in any position of ah of authority.
00:23:52
Speaker
And I was like, well, if you know anything about pastoring, you're not supposed to be in a position of authority anyway. It's service, not not authority. but But, you know, it's still going on. It's called the Church of Life is what we named it. So the Church of Life on death row. And and then, you know, doors have opened up for him.
00:24:10
Speaker
he has corresponded with a guy in a prison in Honduras who is also similar story, became ordained and started pastoring a church while he was in prison. And when I would go to Honduras, I would take letters to him and then he would write letters back to KB and he's corresponded with other prisons that way. And then through CCDA has really ah taken on a national and somewhat international role where people all over the you know all over the country really know. when When I go to CCDA conferences, a lot of people don't know me, but those will say, oh yeah, you're KB's pastor. That's kind of how they do that's kind of how they they know me. And so, you know, it's again, it's been life-changing for me.
00:24:49
Speaker
To date, KB has not received a date of execution. we're so We're hoping and we're hopeful ah that the governor will give him clemency. He's gotten some new lawyers. that are that some people are actually paying for. So it's not the public defender's office. It's some is new lawyers looking at things and helping with all of that. And and and so we're hopeful. Tennessee has started executions again. Already scheduled four executions for next year. One will be a woman.
00:25:16
Speaker
which as far as we know will only be the second woman in Tennessee history that have that will be executed. And ah KB is not on that list, but 2027, 2028, it get a little a' a little dicey.
00:25:29
Speaker
and And the way things work, usually a governor doesn't even entertain clemency on someone until that person gets a death date. and So it's just really, that in and of itself is just really horrible that you can't even you know you you're you're sitting there you're innocent and no one's even going to listen to you again until you get that death date. And then that kicks up all kinds of um ah possible appeals and and clemency. and so But he's optimistic.
00:25:55
Speaker
He's always positive. Hence the title of the book, right? And I want to flag that again, Today the Best Day of My Life. we'll We'll put a link to it and in the show notes. But that title is his phrase. Yeah, if you were to meet him and he say, Hey, KB, how you doing? He'd say, Oh, today's the best day of my life.
00:26:11
Speaker
and And he really means that. It's not a denial kind of thing. He really means that. And there's a story in the book of where that came from. And he was he was pattering himself after a pastor he had when he was very young who would say that.
00:26:24
Speaker
And he decided that that was going to be his his phrase. and and And he really does. it He believes that when he was found guilty and sentenced to death, he had a vision.
00:26:35
Speaker
And we're basically God. told him, again, in the way that he would tell it, I'm sending you into death row for a purpose and for a reason. And when I'm done with you,
00:26:47
Speaker
I'll get you out. And he believes getting out means physically, not, you know, you won't die and go to heaven. But when he has finished the work God had for him to do on death row, that he will ah he will walk out
13th Amendment and Prison Labor
00:26:59
Speaker
of there. so So that' that's his faith. And so in a sense, he sees himself as a missionary that was sent behind walls.
00:27:06
Speaker
And it's it's the very definition of what we call and in the church world of incarnational ministry, that you become one of them so that you can minister to them. Wow.
00:27:17
Speaker
Thanks, Kevin. there's There's so much that's shocking and moving in that story and in that book. Bianca, I thought of you and Worth Rises recently because my daughter came home and they're learning about the Civil War and they're doing one of those wax museum presentations. And she had a couple of people that that she could be. And she said, Dad, I want to be Abraham Lincoln.
00:27:35
Speaker
Like, okay, let's talk about him and his role and what happened with the 13th Amendment. And I was really deep trying to dig into her into some of those nuances and would love to hear more about with Worth Rises, the specific in the exception campaign.
00:27:50
Speaker
What is that? Why is that important? Because so much of that, I think, relates to what Kevin is sharing about KB and his story. Absolutely. so you know, I think what you were probably talking to your daughter about, but to make sure that everyone understands, is that the 13th Amendment is the amendment that, you know, is celebrated for having abolished slavery. But what many people don't know is that within the 13th Amendment is an exception clause. In fact, we did and some research and found that 88% of Americans, like we do not know, that the 13th Amendment includes an exception clause that reads, accept as punishment for a crime.
00:28:25
Speaker
which means that in our country in 2026, 250 years since our sort of founding, slavery is very much still legal. So long as you have been convicted of a crime, you can be enslaved. And that is a wild, I think, sort of fact that many people don't know, don't understand and need and need to.
00:28:48
Speaker
Because anytime we create such an opening for the violation of people's basic human rights, it is not before long that we will expect it to hit all of us, right? In fact, in Supreme Court, made a decision on a case brought by GeoGroup, one of the nation's largest private prisons, in which the company had been sued for essentially taking advantage of immigrant detainees and paying them nothing or just a dollar a day and forcing them to work.
00:29:21
Speaker
And you know their claim to the court was there shouldn't even be a civic trial because we are a government contractor and such we should have immunity as just as the government would.
00:29:35
Speaker
um And thankfully, unanimously, the Supreme Court struck that down and sent it back to the trial court. But we see this you know sort of exception to the 13th Amendment, the race of protection from slavery. It's so fragile, right? Like if all it takes is the, you know, small sort of breaking of some criminal law, even though, you know, we have seen criminal law change dramatically suddenly now in states, ah not suddenly, I would say with the work of so many, you know, it's the case that we have like marijuana legalization, but for so many decades, you know, that was criminalized and and folks could be ah enslaved because of it. And in fact, that's what we saw after during the reconstruction era,
00:30:22
Speaker
after the passage of the 13th is the passage of black codes, which were laws that were designed solely to criminalize free black people so that they could be re-entrenched into a system of enslavement in just a different format, right?
00:30:39
Speaker
And that is why we saw such a massive shift from, you know, the prison population and being predominantly white before the, before the emancipation proclamation to the prison population being primarily black.
00:30:52
Speaker
in those years that immediately followed the the proclamation. So, you know, what we are working on now is within the exception campaign is a fight to end that exception as it states, right? And to say, and know in fact, it's a basic human right that all people have to be protected from slavery. at no time should you lose that right.
00:31:15
Speaker
I really encourage people to like, who, you know, are struggling with this concept to finish the sentence Slavery is okay when? And if that is like a sentence that you struggle to finish, then get on board. Like slavery is just never okay.
00:31:31
Speaker
Right. It also doesn't lend itself to any positive or productive outcomes for our society. When we take away those kind of basic human rights, we are trying to strip people of their human dignity, right? And their self value. And if you do that to people and you break people, then you cannot expect people to come back to society with the mental sort of fortitude or you know, self-worth and all of that to really be productive and operating in our society in a way that we all want each other to be. And so, you know, all of this is is problematic. And I should also say that the fight to
00:32:14
Speaker
end prison slavery as we are with the End the Exception campaign. And what that means is, you should say, it's just a new amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would bar slavery in all cases. It is not just about wages, right? Wages is, I think, what often becomes the big piece of the puzzle. But as we said, it's like,
00:32:33
Speaker
when you know During chattel or anti-ballum slavery, it was this concept of you know being three-fifths of a person, of like not being recognized for your humanity if someone can do that to you. And that same thing remains true when we talk to people who are currently incarcerated. It's not that people don't want to work. It's that people don't want to be enslaved because of what that treatment signifies.
00:32:56
Speaker
Right. And how it makes one feel, which means that it's not just about wages, but it's about basic labor of protection, like working conditions. People who are incarcerated are far more likely to be injured or even die on the job than others because they don't have OSHA protections to workplace safety.
00:33:15
Speaker
right They don't have EEOC c for protections, which protects against discrimination, which means we see a lot of the highest paying jobs going to folks who are incarcerated who are white, as opposed to some of the lowest paying jobs or the field work that are still is still being actually given to people who are black and brown in our system.
00:33:34
Speaker
And so it is a wide range of things. But even when we do consider wages, I do want to put this thought in people's minds. When we take wages from people who are incarcerated, we are not just taking wages from them.
00:33:48
Speaker
We are also taking child support from their children. We are taking sort of medical and parental support from their their parents, from their spouse's support, and perhaps you know one that if none of that feels convincing, we're also taking away people's ability to pay restitution to victims.
00:34:07
Speaker
right If you have a $10,000 restitution that you're supposed to pay to your victim, but you make $0.08 an hour, your victim is not going to get what they're due right In fact, I talked to one person who said it would take them 189 years based on their wages to pay their victim back for what they owe under restitution.
00:34:31
Speaker
And so the question is, like to what end? like You don't owe me a debt. You didn't cause me harm. But if you cause that person harm and you can't even pay them back because we as the state, as the taxpayers or whatever, are extracting your labor in these ways,
00:34:46
Speaker
I mean, the the system just doesn't make sense in any way. the last thing I'll sort of say circles back to what I mentioned at the top, which is that when we allow these types of violations to happen to sort of the least of us, they will eventually make their way back to us.
00:35:02
Speaker
and And the best example of that in this current, in this situation, is that this matter has actually been raised as part of the NCAA's legal case around amateur or college athletes.
00:35:17
Speaker
In fact, the NCAA argued that if there is an exception for people who are incarcerated, perhaps there should be other exceptions. And we are talking about college students and college athletes. And the fact that that even came up, thankfully, the court admonished the NCAA nc w a and you know the lawyers for even you know trying to go there.
00:35:43
Speaker
But it really does go to show you know that... That all of our basic human rights, let alone civil rights and civil liberties are so frail and so fragile that we must protect them for all people at all times.
00:35:58
Speaker
Otherwise, we are opening the door to so much more.
Locked in Solidarity Week and Justice
00:36:02
Speaker
Kevin, you and I have co-chaired the Mass Incarceration Affinity Network for a few years, you you many more years than I have. I feel we toggle between two different names of it, the other being the Locked in Solidarity Network.
00:36:16
Speaker
And each year we have a Locked in Solidarity Week. So can you talk about what that is and what the focus is for that this year? Because each year we have a theme. Yeah. Locked in Solidarity is a week where There's ah just an emphasis emphasis put on mass incarceration throughout our network where we deal with a lot of different topics. i mean, you know, it lasts a week long with different seminars or and webinars and just discussions and videos.
00:36:42
Speaker
It was moved to April this year. And right now the dates are slipping my mind. That's all right. April 12th through the 19th. Yeah, April 12th through 19th. ah This year's theme is profit profit in prison or the prison industrial network and prison.
00:36:57
Speaker
um And so we're going to be talking about these things about, you know, at least I think from our perspective that in no way should prisons be a profit making machine where people can, you know can go to um basically in the stock market, you know, exchange and make profits from people incarcerated and what that leads to.
00:37:16
Speaker
um It's just another form of of taking humanity away from people where people are profiting off of of the my oppression, be it that I'm guilty or not guilty. they're profiting off of ah of a system And then there's that just opens up doors to mistreat people, you know, so let's let's the foods get too expensive. So let's find a way to cut back on food or cut back on medicine so that our the people who invest in our company will make a profit. The Bible has a lot to say about ah making profit by oppressing people.
00:37:49
Speaker
And so we're going to look at that. Part of that is a ah sermon study teaching guide ah that can be used in churches that I've put together now for several years. The last few years, KB has helped help put that together with me. We worked together on that.
00:38:04
Speaker
And we're thinking about maybe for the sermon, obviously talking about the the profit margin in prisons, but also a play on words of and talk about profits, p o p h e t s ah P-R-O-P-H-E-T-S, profits inside prison. Those like KB and others who are who are serving God and doing incredible things while while they are incarcerated. So kind of a play on words.
00:38:28
Speaker
And you know the Bible says a whole lot about prisons. I mean, I've got to a talk that I give when I go to prisons and they want me just to speak on something. We're just starting with the Old Testament and where where you know the book of Psalms says that God hears the prayers of prisoners, especially those condemned to die.
00:38:46
Speaker
know I mean, there's all kinds of passages ah in the Old Testament about people who are incarcerated. You think of the towns that were set up in the law for people who committed crimes they were to go to, and the purpose of that was redemption and reconciliation, and not punitive at all.
00:39:01
Speaker
And then you know Jesus ended up being a felon. you know so ah And so Jesus was a felon. He was condemned. He was executed by the state. And so you have that. And then i don't understand all of this, but...
00:39:16
Speaker
Sometime between death and resurrection, the Bible says he went to ah the spirits in prison and preached to them. And so what you see is you know that God has a special place in his heart for people who are incarcerated.
00:39:31
Speaker
You see that from beginning to middle to end of the Old Testament. You see that from beginning to middle to end of of Jesus' life. i mean, the last person Jesus talked to before he died was another person condemned to die.
00:39:42
Speaker
yeah um and And then, of course, you know there's all all kinds of stories in the Bible of people who who were incarcerated. And read Hebrews 13. At the end of in end of that chapter, you see all kinds of horrible things that happened by people who who were ah killed and tortured by the state for for crimes they they did not commit. Or even if they did, they were still they mercy is still to be shown. This whole idea, we've talked about it for years, about trying to do something around prophets
00:40:14
Speaker
and in the prison
Financial Exploitation Post-Incarceration
00:40:15
Speaker
industry. And now, of course, with this administration and, you know, wanting to build all these new detention centers to house immigrants, that you're talking hundreds of billions of dollars, these these ah private prison companies stand yeah stand to make. And it comes back to this the to the counties as well. Like my county jail here has contracts with the state that So people who are state prisoners, if they need to be placed somewhere, they can be placed at the county level.
00:40:43
Speaker
yeah um and And usually the contracts mean that the that the state has so many beds reserved for that for you know a state prisoner to come to a county jail.
00:40:54
Speaker
and And the county makes money, so much money per bed, regardless if there's anybody in that bed or not. you know And this is not private prison. This is just kind of the way it kind of works even within that, okay, now this the state prison was going to contract with the county jail that they can house so many state prisoners in that jail if necessary. And that contract is basically you're paying so much money in bed, even if nobody's in that bed.
00:41:20
Speaker
So the county starts to make money. And course, that's that's one way the the most the contracts with the private prisons are set up that way with with the government as well. That that you know they they'll guarantee 97% bed rate. And so they're going to get paid that money without anybody's. And one thing we haven't even talked about yet is how the profits continue after a person is released through through um being on probation.
00:41:46
Speaker
And they have to pay for that. And any any person incarcerated will tell you the most dangerous time to be in prison is the months and weeks leading up to your release.
00:41:58
Speaker
And then the most dangerous time to be on probation is the closer you get to flattening out what they say or or not being on papers anymore. And so the closer you get to the end of your probation, the odds of them finding something to get you to violate your probation so they can put you back in prison or keep you in the probation system where people, again, are making money is, you know, it's just kind of the way the system works. Now, if you ask people, they're going to deny all that, but that's to weigh the system yeah it's the way the system works. yeah And so it's to keep people. And then, you well because I can't remember now the stats about
00:42:37
Speaker
Not just how many people are in prison, but how many, especially African-American males, are in the system at some point or another, be it juvenile detention, incarceration, pretrial release, probation. It's wild. for For men, it's about one in three. For black men, for those that are in prison, it's about 40% are people who are black. So yeah ah yeah obviously disproportionate statistics. It's a money-making machine.
Aligning with CCDA Principles
00:43:01
Speaker
yeah and yeah And it' you know it's hard it's hard to stop, but we have to try. Yeah. I'll say again for our friends listening, Locked in Solidarity Week, April 12th through 19th, that week-long focus on mass incarceration and what people can do. And as we start to wrap up, Kevin, Bianca, one one brief question for each of you as we head to the end. So Bianca, CCDA, the Christian Community Development Association, has eight different principles that are really at the core of its work. And one that stood out to me as it relates to your work is this idea of redistribution, especially as we think about funds and money. So what how is the idea of redistribution baked into the work of Worth Rises?
00:43:40
Speaker
A lot of our work is based on protecting the limited resources of people who are impacted by the system, and to the extent possible, also returning those resources, right? So meaning things that were taken unjustly or unlawfully, that were exploited, it were predatory.
00:44:01
Speaker
And it's just, you know, it's critical that families get that back. I mean, for me, that, you know, that concept sort of also marries into like reparations, right? And thinking about what it means for all of that stolen labor, we've been talking about all of those like excessive and unjust fees, all of that abuse that people's bodies have suffered through this system,
00:44:25
Speaker
all should be, you know, repaired as just a baseline of what the social contract right is that we have to each other is that we must repair before we can sort of move forward. And so it's it's ah awareness, it's acknowledgement of ah that care and concern of wrongdoing that puts us in the right direction, such that we can avoid making you know, causing the same harm in the future. but We don't acknowledge we will undoubtedly reinvent all of these ways in which we harm people. And so, you know, our our hope is to in many ways, and what we've been able to do, right is protect some of those limited resources
00:45:09
Speaker
redistribute some of those resources from folks. And know I'm proud to say that our work on making communication free in prisons and jails has now saved families over $600 million dollars um in you know just the last eight years or so. So that's really incredible for those who need it most, really, because the people who are incarcerated, you were talking about the disproportionate impact on certain communities,
00:45:36
Speaker
But, you know, undoubtedly the largest community of people who are incarcerated are people in poverty, right? People who are low incomes. no matter what sort of other demographics are represented, it is overwhelmingly people who have little, right? And that is, that should be a huge sign to us of what we are doing, that it is, you know, blatantly unethical, immoral to subject people who, you know, have little in our society to such gross harm.
00:46:07
Speaker
And we're just trying to to write that the bit that we can. Kevin, briefly let me turn to you. In your work in ministry, how do you see Christian community development philosophy playing a role? Yeah, well, one of the other principles of CCDA is church-focused or church-based.
00:46:28
Speaker
and And so for me, it it begins it does begin with the church to do that. And Jesus, and you know in his parable the sheep and the goats, specifically said to go and and visit those in prison.
00:46:40
Speaker
and And again, when Jesus announced his ministry at his hometown synagogue and quoting from Isaiah, you know I've come to set the captive free. and And so it it begins it begins with the church and church.
00:46:53
Speaker
and A positive note of that is there are so many churches and and church organizations who are in prisons already. That's a positive of that. isn you know The negative of that is is ah could be there always could be more. Or there's a there's and there's a missing link there where people, their churches will go inside to minister or to just to meet and to be with and build relationships with with people who are incarcerated.
00:47:21
Speaker
But when those people get out of of prison, those same people aren't really there to help. can yeah I'll help while you're inside, but outside, you know we we don't want that person around our kids, or we don't want that person in our church because of whatever their background may be. And so I think churches have got to think through that. But But the churches and um and all all and our religious groups, not just Christian churches, but the churches and religious groups really are the ones who need to be in prison. They're the ones who can build the relationships and they're the ones who can help.
00:47:53
Speaker
and know on all kinds of ways that that the prison itself cannot help or refuse used to do. And so it's it's our responsibility as followers of Jesus to go inside prisons because, again, that's where Jesus is.
00:48:09
Speaker
you know So, you again, you're not taking Jesus in there with you. You're going there to meet Jesus because He's there. He's always been there and He's waiting he's waiting to meet you there. and And that might shock some people, but that's You know, that's really what it is. I mean, know, we have a saying at our church that the way you love the way you love a God you cannot see is by loving those you can see.
00:48:30
Speaker
The way you serve a God you cannot see is by serving those you can see. And so it's an act of worship, ah then to go in and to serve the people who are incarcerated.
00:48:42
Speaker
Jesus said, if you do it to the least of these, you've done it to me. yeah And so you see Jesus in the incarcerated. Probably more than the incarcerated see Jesus in you.
00:48:55
Speaker
and yeah you You see Jesus in the incarcerated, and so you are serving Jesus by um by going in there.
Conclusion and Engagement
00:49:02
Speaker
Well, friends who are listening, again, Bianca Tylek, Kevin Riggs, who are here, thank you both, both not just for coming, but for this work on the ground and what it looks like on a hyper-local, but also on a national scale. And thanks to everybody for listening to the CCDA Podcast.
00:49:17
Speaker
ah We're grateful that you joined us today. if you want to learn more about CCDA and how you can get involved, you can check out the show notes of this episode. Don't forget to subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. This podcast is produced by Sarah Callant in association with Christina Fore. And we'll be back with another episode featuring CCD practitioners who are committed to seeing people and communities experience God's shalom. And we'll see you then. Thank you.