Ending Permanent Punishments

Produced by Jane Carlson  |  Marlon Chamberlain couldn’t chaperone his son’s field trip or be the executor of his father’s estate because of a decades-old drug conviction. He’s now leading a group of all formerly incarcerated members working to overturn or amend nearly 1,200 Illinois laws that restrict people with records from being full citizens, from being fully free.

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Jane Carlson, Producer: [00:00:00] It's a sunny Saturday morning in September on a quiet street in the village of Dalton, Illinois, just south of the city limits of Chicago. Marlon Chamberlain is inside his split-level home, playing with his six-month-old baby boy, who has just woken up from a nap. 

Marlon Chamberlain, Executive Director, Illinois Coalition to End Permanent Punishments: You ain't gonna say nothing? 

Jane Carlson, Producer: Marlon is a homeowner and a respected neighbor.

He's a man of God and a family man. He and his wife, Sierra, have a blended family of nine. 

Marlon Chamberlain, Executive Director, Illinois Coalition to End Permanent Punishments: So, Shikairi is six months. Then there's Elijah, who is seven. Uh, little Marlon is nine. Uh, Christian is 13, Crystal is 15. 

Jane Carlson, Producer: Marlon Chamberlain is also a seasoned community organizer and an award-winning leader in [00:01:00] criminal justice reform.

And the seeds of that work were planted while Marlon was incarcerated. He was years into a federal drug sentence when Obama signed the Fair Sentencing Act into law. That was a bipartisan bill that changed the racial sentencing disparities between crack and cocaine. And that didn't just reduce Marlon's 20-year sentence.

It's what motivated him to become a community organizer. This is Ending Permanent Punishments. And I'm Jane Carlson with Change Agents. 

Marlon Chamberlain, Executive Director, Illinois Coalition to End Permanent Punishments: So, I ended up serving 11 and a half years, but what that did for me was it taught me the importance of policy. And then it also taught me the importance of people like myself being in the room as, like, policy is being created, pushed through the legislator, and then also the implementation of that policy.

Jane Carlson, Producer: Marlon was [00:02:00] 35 years old when he came home to Chicago, and he's been amplifying the voices of justice impacted people for more than a decade. With organizations like the Community Renewal Society and the Rocky Coalition, he's pushed through more than a dozen reentry reform bills. But because of that decades old conviction, and long after his punishment in the carceral system has been over, he still can't chaperone his kids field trips or run for local office.

And when his father died, he was barred from serving as executor of the estate, even though that's what his father wanted. 

Marlon Chamberlain, Executive Director, Illinois Coalition to End Permanent Punishments: One of the tellers at the bank asked me, was I the executor over the estate? And of course, I said yes. And then she basically explained to me, she actually showed me a piece of paper that said, if you have a felony conviction, you can't act as the executor over the estate.

Jane Carlson, Producer: That probate law barring people convicted of felonies from serving as executors had been on the books in [00:03:00] Illinois since 1975. It's one of more than 40, 000 laws in the United States that continue to punish people with criminal records. After they've served their sentences in the criminal legal system.

In Illinois, permanent punishment laws hinder or restrict access to employment, education, housing, health care, and civic engagement, and even dictate what kind of pets they can own. Marlon says this work is about changing the narrative. 

Marlon Chamberlain, Executive Director, Illinois Coalition to End Permanent Punishments: Some of the problem is, is that we get lumped into what's happening now in the streets.

And we're saying no, we believe that if you're out committing crimes, there should be consequences. What we're saying is, is that people who have completed that incarceration, whatever it may be, that we have to give people an opportunity to move forward.

An arrest or conviction record shouldn't follow anyone for life. [00:04:00] Like, there has to be a point when we say, “Okay, this person's slate is clean.”

Jane Carlson, Producer: In early 2023, Marlon founded the Illinois Coalition to End Permanent Punishments. Also known as EndPP.org. And it's taking a two-pronged approach to remove these barriers for people with criminal records. One side of that approach is going after permanent punishment laws and pushing legislation to dismantle them, bit by bit, through what's called the Fully Free Campaign.

And the other side is pushing legislation that would automatically clear or seal records for people so that the permanent punishment laws no longer affect them. That's known as Clean Slate Legislation. EndPP.org is run entirely by formerly incarcerated people who bring their lived experience to the work, like Gregory Chambers, the policy manager.

Gregory is lanky and talkative and wears a thick gold cross on a chain around [00:05:00] his neck. 

Gregory Chambers, Policy Manager, Illinois Coalition to End Permanent Punishments: I'm a former police officer. I'm a former Chicago police officer. I was born into the culture of policing. Some might not characterize it as a good culture. Some might characterize it as a corrupt culture. 

Jane Carlson, Producer: Gregory says even after a series of bad situations and poor choices led him to commit a crime, when he went to prison, he still had a policing mindset, and he served 28 years in the Illinois Department of Corrections.

Gregory Chambers, Policy Manager, Illinois Coalition to End Permanent Punishments: It was sort of me versus them. I'm a former police officer in the Department of Corrections with people that I used to lock up. But what I ended up doing is I didn't let that deter me. I built relationships with the people who were there. And one thing that I learned when I was there is that I was able to humanize the people who were there.

Before they were just objects, objects that we were looking to lock up and throw away the key. I met a guy who now works for the Lieutenant Governor and he and I were law clerks. Side by, we sat side by side for ten [00:06:00] years and we talked about getting into this kind of work when we get out. And he said, when we get out, we're going to do criminal justice reform work because he was from that side, I'm from both sides. And together we can come up with a lot of things that can bring changes. 

Jane Carlson, Producer: Gregory actually wrote a bill while he was still incarcerated called the Restorative Sentencing Act. Now his job is to build relationships with lawmakers to advocate for ending permanent punishment laws that he says restrict full participation in society and put people in impossible situations, like being denied housing because of restrictions and background checks, but then violating parole for not having an address.

Gregory Chambers, Policy Manager, Illinois Coalition to End Permanent Punishments: The same thing about a job. You go out there, you're looking for a job. You're looking for a job. You keep filling out these applications, and you keep getting shut down. You don't want people to be successful, and that's what permanent punishment is about. We want to get rid of those laws that allow people to legally [00:07:00] discriminate against a class of people, formerly incarcerated people.

Jane Carlson, Producer: There are challenges to building these relationships. There's stigma. There are fears and stereotypes perpetuated by mass and social media about people with arrest records and convictions. There's also widespread acceptance of the prison industrial complex, and as Gregory says, plain old politics. 

Gregory Chambers, Policy Manager, Illinois Coalition to End Permanent Punishments: Opponents will pull out mailers against a person saying that this person is soft on crime because they support this, when it's not that you're soft on crime, it's that you're, you've come, you've come to learn that the same old tactics don't work. And you need to change your strategy. And sometimes looking for a new strategy might be something that changes the numbers. 

Jane Carlson, Producer: Speaking of new strategies, Illinois is now the first state in the nation to eliminate cash bail as part of the criminal justice reform bill known as the Safety Act.

This law ensures that the size of a person's [00:08:00] bank account does not determine their freedom. But the implementation of that bill has been stalled by legal challenges and bitter partisan divide. 

News Clip: Get right to some breaking news from the Illinois State Supreme Court. It is ruled the Safety Act is constitutional.

Now that reverses a Kankakee judge's decision after prosecutors in 64 counties filed lawsuits to keep cash bill intact across the state. 

Jane Carlson, Producer: And while Illinois leads in bail reform, the state lags in post-conviction relief. A dozen states, from Oklahoma to California to Michigan, have already passed clean slate legislation.

These laws automatically clear certain arrests and convictions from a person's record after certain periods of time. Pennsylvania was the first state to pass a clean slate law in 2018, and New York was the most recent in 2023. Here's the founder of Clean Slate, whose own criminal record came from writing a bad check for groceries for her kids.

Sheena Meade, CEO, Clean Slate Initiative: My name is Sheena Meade from Clean Slate, [00:09:00] and our audacious idea is to provide second chances for up to 14 million people. Right now, just about all 50 states have laws on the books that allow a person who has a record to get their record clear, but it is so bureaucratic, so full of red tape. It's just hard for a person to navigate, and so we've been passing Clean Slate laws, which actually cuts out all their red tape by just Automate that process.

So, people who are eligible and have met the conditions, please move on with their life. 

Jane Carlson, Producer: And what's the actual impact of expunging records? Well, a 2020 study from the libertarian think tank, the Cato Institute took a look at that empirically in Michigan. They found that less than 7 percent of people eligible actually went through all that red tape.

But those who do go through the process have very low rates of recidivism and they very quickly find better jobs. This study found wages increased an average of 23 percent within a year of expungement.

[00:10:00] EndPP.org is working on a clean slate law for Illinois. Marlon and his team are also working on a bill to remove several laws that are barriers to civic engagement. And they're doing this on the heels of a major win in Springfield in their first year as an organization.

Marlon Chamberlain, Executive Director, Illinois Coalition to End Permanent Punishments: Today we're here to make sure that the Free Act is assigned to a Senate committee. And then we're also here to talk to Senators to move the bill through the Senate and on to the Governor's desk. 

Jane Carlson, Producer: In August, Governor J. B. Pritzker signed the Free Act into law. That stands for the Family's Right to Estate and Equity Act, and it amends that 1975 probate law that stopped Marlon from serving as executor of his father's estate.

Marlon Chamberlain, Executive Director, Illinois Coalition to End Permanent Punishments: It was a strategic choice to say, let's run this one bill, use it to introduce the concept of permanent punishments, and we also use it to show how broadly these laws are impacting [00:11:00] people. 

Jane Carlson, Producer: The success of the Free Act is building momentum. But to understand the work EndPP.org is doing now, we have to go back to 2020.

News Clip: We must enact an immediate stay at home order for the state of Illinois. 

Jane Carlson, Producer: It was already hard for people with criminal records to find good jobs and secure housing in the spring of 2020. After the COVID 19 shutdown, everything got harder. A few months into the pandemic, an important study came out from Heartland Alliance.

The Never Fully Free report, for the first time, tallied up the number of permanent punishments in Illinois and then analyzed the impact, like how the laws disproportionately affect people of color, and that the overwhelming majority of them restrict access to employment. 

Melissa Young, Heartland Alliance: Many of these kinds of statutes, um, were put on the books in the late 1970s through the mid-1980s, particularly as it related to the corresponding war on drugs and continued [00:12:00] criminalization of communities of color.

Jane Carlson, Producer: That's Melissa Young. She was on the team for the report, working alongside people directly impacted by the criminal legal system. She's worked for about 20 years in equity and justice focused social impact initiatives. She says the impetus for the report was hearing from people across the state about the impacts of permanent punishment laws, but not fully knowing the scale.

The research found 1,200 such laws on the books in Illinois. That create an intricate and overlapping web of barriers for people with criminal records. 

Melissa Young, Heartland Alliance: And the ripple effects of lack of access to education and employment opportunities means that, and we know this, that not only individuals who have been impacted by the criminal legal system are impacted negatively via loss of wages, loss of wealth, but their families and their communities are too.

Jane Carlson, Producer: And contrary to the idea that the extent of these laws promote public safety, the [00:13:00] report puts something else out there, that permanent punishment laws are major contributing factors to recidivism. That's why Marlon Chamberlain says the work his organization is doing is a crime prevention strategy. 

Marlon Chamberlain, Executive Director, Illinois Coalition to End Permanent Punishments: When you create opportunities, you remove the excuses.

So now, if we remove all of the barriers and people are able to move forward in life and then you still make the choice to do something, then now there's no excuse. But when you create these, these hundreds and hundreds of barriers on top of communities with limited resources, like you're creating the perfect storm for people to continue in the cycle.

Jane Carlson, Producer: And while Black people make up around 14 percent of Illinois population, they make up 45 percent of people convicted of felonies. So why are there so many of these laws blocking civil liberties of people with felony convictions after they've served their sentences? I asked Melissa, who is white, and Marlon, the same question.

Melissa Young, Heartland Alliance: You can [00:14:00] see a direct correlation between the state of the carceral system, permanent punishments, and this country's deep legacy of slavery and racism. 

Marlon Chamberlain, Executive Director, Illinois Coalition to End Permanent Punishments: I think it's another form of, of racism and slavery. If we look at the time period of when a lot of these laws were created, we're looking at like the, the, the beginning of like mass incarceration.

But if you also look at, there was the civil rights movement. So, there were a lot of rights being restored, but this was another, like, form of, of racism.

Jane Carlson, Producer: Another figure from the Never Fully Free report. There are over three million people in Illinois who have been arrested or convicted of a crime since 1979. 

Music: It's 3.3 million of us, man. 

Jane Carlson, Producer: That's potential that EndPP.org [00:15:00] is working to harness. 

Music: That's power. Ay, till you fully free, just know you ain't free at all.

Jane Carlson, Producer: And the team of all formerly incarcerated people that Marlon put together is leading the charge. 

Marlon Chamberlain, Executive Director, Illinois Coalition to End Permanent Punishments: Like, we all have, like, a different skill set that, that sort of matches. It's like, we're almost like a pot of gumbo. Like, each one of us has, like, our niche that, that we bring to this work. And then I would just say, too, like, what I love about our team is that we all have, like, this, like, this sort of, like, attitude or grit, like, that this can happen.

EndPP.org Town Hall Meeting: Good evening. Good evening. Good evening, Bloomington. Good evening, Bloomington.

Jane Carlson, Producer: In the fall of their first year, and just weeks after their free act was signed into law, the Illinois Coalition to End Permanent Punishments took the show on the road, diving into downstate towns to begin building a coalition and a voting bloc of justice impacted people and their families.

Paul Rothschild, Operations Manager, Illinois Coalition to End Permanent Punishments: It's [00:16:00] important that we can turn out constituents from the area who are their voters and who understand the local version of the problem. 

Jane Carlson, Producer: That's Paul Rothschild. He came home to Chicago in 2020 after a decade in federal prison. 

Paul Rothschild, Operations Manager, Illinois Coalition to End Permanent Punishments: And so, getting out across the state and reaching into these other areas is really important for that reason. And the locations we've chosen for the town halls are based on data. 

Jane Carlson, Producer: While Paul was incarcerated, he turned to meditation. His voice got softer. He developed a deeper understanding of how the criminal legal system disproportionately affects people people of color and under release, he was able to get his foot back in the door of the corporate world, he says, because of his privilege as a white man. 

Paul Rothschild, Operations Manager, Illinois Coalition to End Permanent Punishments: My pay advanced, my responsibilities advanced, and I found myself, you know, starting to get back onto that treadmill that had kind of led me to dark places in the [00:17:00] past of focusing on money and title and material objects as a path to happiness.

Jane Carlson, Producer: But while working by day in the corporate space, Paul volunteered in the criminal justice reform space. He showed up at meetings, and he listened to other justice impacted people. He met Marlon Chamberlain. Now Paul has gotten off that corporate treadmill entirely and is the operations manager for EndPP.org. Paul has decades of finance, HR, and IT experience that he's bringing to the organization, and he's digging into nonprofit compliance, fundraising, and organizing. 

Paul Rothschild, Operations Manager, Illinois Coalition to End Permanent Punishments: You know, I have this growth mindset now of never wanting to sit still, always wanting to be learning new things. And this gave me the opportunity to really make the most of my operations background.

I've been involved with public companies. I've been involved with small startups and, uh, I could bring all of that knowledge to help this small startup really execute on Marlon's strategic vision and position it [00:18:00] for growth. 

Jane Carlson, Producer: Paul says the first town halls were planned in Bloomington, Carbondale, East St.

Louis, and Peoria based on zip codes of impacted people provided by the Department of Corrections. And then they are layering legislative data on top of that to build the coalition. 

Paul Rothschild, Operations Manager, Illinois Coalition to End Permanent Punishments: And what we produce then are sort of uh, heat maps that show these are the areas that are most important for us to be able to move.

Legislators that need to be moved for us to win votes. 

Jane Carlson, Producer: So, EndPP.org's strategy is to build relationships with lawmakers, while also building a coalition of impacted people across the state. Marlon says one way they are measuring the impact of this work is the level of engagement. 

Marlon Chamberlain, Executive Director, Illinois Coalition to End Permanent Punishments: So for us, when we can pack buses from all across the state and take folks to the Capitol and folks know who their elected officials are, they're beginning to educate their families around, Hey, I'm not voting for this person, or are you registered to vote [00:19:00] For us, that shows like impact. 

Jane Carlson, Producer: After the town hall in Bloomington, it was East St. Louis and then down to Carbondale. 

Quianya Enge, Research and Development Manager, Illinois Coalition to End Permanent Punishments: I appreciate everyone for coming out and joining us this evening. My name is Quianya Enge. 

Jane Carlson, Producer: Carbondale is where Quianya Enge is completing her doctoral degree in higher education administration at Southern Illinois University.

Quianya will defend her thesis nine years and one month after completing her sentence in the Illinois Department of Corrections. And she's the Research and Development Manager for EndPP.org. 

Quianya Enge, Research and Development Manager, Illinois Coalition to End Permanent Punishments: So, it's a ripple effect method, right? You drop a petal in the middle of a pond, and you see how far it can expand.

That's exactly what we're doing. As a team of individuals that are directly impacted, that moved the Free Act, and that got it signed, that one action, Affected the entire state of individuals that are [00:20:00] directly impacted flowers that just came down. We got some more tomatoes. 

Jane Carlson, Producer: Quianya is starting a restorative justice garden in downtown Carbondale.

Quianya Enge, Research and Development Manager, Illinois Coalition to End Permanent Punishments: We just picked okra. 

Jane Carlson, Producer: She's learning to grow burdock root and elderberries… 

Quianya Enge, Research and Development Manager, Illinois Coalition to End Permanent Punishments: I don't eat okra. It's slimy 

Jane Carlson, Producer: …bee balm and lemon balm and mint and a variety of vegetables healing foods as she battles an autoimmune disease. And continues to grow spaces for people impacted by trauma and the criminal justice system.

How Quianya's hands got to this Southern Illinois soil is a story that dates back to 1999, when she was a full-time college student and her child died at the hands of someone else. Quianya was sentenced to 13 years in prison on an accountability charge. 

Quianya Enge, Research and Development Manager, Illinois Coalition to End Permanent Punishments: When you are sentenced in the state of Illinois, you go before the judge and they say, you are being sentenced by the state of Illinois to serve.

Serve this X amount of time as your debt to society, not my words, [00:21:00] theirs. I can very much so remember the judge saying this, not really sure why I have a debt and, and in all aspects of it, I was a victim as well. I lost my child. I was charged for someone else's actions, and I'm being taken away from my two living children.

I don't see how that debt kind of works, but okay. Didn't say that I was going to be on parole for three years. So, I started a 16 year sentence and didn't say that after that for the next 20 years, 20 plus years, every move that I made was going to be a part of that debt. 

Jane Carlson, Producer: Quianya struggled to find housing when she came home.

And while the federal financial aid application no longer has a box to check for criminal records, most college [00:22:00] applications do. That means when she applied to SIU, her admission was immediately denied. Quianya appealed and got in, but even as a doctoral candidate, her admission has been under provisions like not working in housing or being around anyone under the age of 18.

And even as Quianya Enge becomes Dr. Quianya Enge, attaining the highest degree in her field, she won't be able to run for school board or go on school field trips with her grandchildren.

Marlon Chamberlain, Executive Director, Illinois Coalition to End Permanent Punishments: Shikairi! Shikairi. Hey, Shikairi. 

Scene Tape: Moo. 

Marlon Chamberlain, Executive Director, Illinois Coalition to End Permanent Punishments: What does the cow say? Say moo. What does the cow say? 

Jane Carlson, Producer: Back on that quiet street in Dalton, Illinois, Marlon Chamberlain sits at his dining room table with baby boy [00:23:00] Shikairi. Marlon says he doesn't want to be doing this work forever. But EndPP. org will keep building a coalition, keep working with lawmakers, and keep changing narratives about formerly incarcerated people for as long as it takes.

Marlon Chamberlain, Executive Director, Illinois Coalition to End Permanent Punishments: For the next 5, 7, 10 years, but the long-term goal of even that work is to be a leader. a table that 10 years from now can protect the winds like we need to have something in place. So, when somebody says, well, I want to eliminate the Free Act that we've, we've organized and built a table that can protect the winds from today.

Jane Carlson, Producer: And for Marlon, all that the Illinois coalition to end permanent punishments is working to build from Chicago to Springfield to Carbondale. It's about giving people agency. 

Marlon Chamberlain, Executive Director, Illinois Coalition to End Permanent Punishments: Cause even when you create these barriers, you take away the agency of people, whether it's providing for their families, whether it's being able to bury their families, whether it's being able [00:24:00] to move their families in certain neighborhoods, you take away people's agency when you take away certain rights.

Maurice Bisaillon, Executive Producer: Thank you for joining change agents, the podcast series, looking at grassroots actions and solutions through stories told from the inside out. Produced by Juneteenth Productions. The music composed by Sarah Abdelal. Funding support provided by the Chicago Community Trust, the Field Foundation, and the Wayfarer Foundation.

Additional support provided by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and DePaul University's College of Communication. Subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, and wherever you find podcasts. Follow Change Agents on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and the website changeagentsthepodcast.com[00:25:00]