Reclaiming their Time

Produced by Daphne Watson | Behind the walls of the notorious Stateville Correctional Facility in Illinois, incarcerated individuals, educators, attorneys, students, activists, and legislators gather several times a month for the DePaul University Behind the Walls Law and Policy Think Tank. This collaborative space empowers its members  — some serving life sentences  —  to draft real legislation aimed at dismantling felony disenfranchisement and restoring full citizenship to returning citizens. It's more than a think tank, it’s a model of participatory democracy, born from within the system it seeks to transform.

Transcript

Think Tank Participants: [00:00:00] I came to prison, I was 21 years old. This was 31 years ago, so 1992. I got life without parole. I got 70 years. I got sentenced to, unfortunately, 56 years. I was sentenced to 50 years. 

Marcos Gray: I did 7 years in the Cook County Jail and 22 at Stateville. It was during the time of them calling individuals like myself, young black guys, uh.

Hillary Clinton: They are often the kinds of kids that are called super predators. 

Marcos Gray: Yes, I was a super predator because I was young and black in the 90s. 

Hillary Clinton: No conscience, no empathy. We can talk about why they ended up that way, but first we have to bring them to heel.

Daphne Watson, Producer: That is Marcos Gray, followed by Hillary Clinton, in a 1996 speech, justifying the eventual imprisonment of tens of thousands of Americans, like Marcos, during the 1990s. In early 2000s, Clinton Administration's 1994 crime Bill and the [00:01:00] lesser known anti-terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 shrank the window and power of habeas corpus, making it nearly impossible for impacted people to challenge their confinement and conviction. 

Marcos Gray: I was locked up at 16 and I spent like three months in the juvenile detention center.

Mm-Hmm... On my 17th birthday, they moved me to the adult Cook County Jail. Uh, they don't even put 17 year olds in the Cook County Jail anymore, you know, but now my 17th birthday, they woke me up six o'clock, "Happy birthday,. You're going to Cook County Jail. Don't drop the soap,” end quote, like the potential rape of a 17 year old boy.

Daphne Watson, Producer: Marcos would eventually spend nearly 30 years in the Illinois Department of Corrections before his release in the spring of 2022. 

Marcos Gray: I grew up there, but half my teens, all of my twenties, all of my thirties and half my forties there. [00:02:00] That is crazy.

Daphne Watson, Producer: This is Daphne Watson with Reclaiming Their Time for Change Agents, the podcast.

Marcos and many like him were locked in a legislative box, declared irredeemable and set aside. Nixon's war on drugs in the early 70s became sweeping federal initiatives to be tough on crime through extreme sentencing in the 80s and 90s, leading us to what we now know as the prison industrial complex.

President Barack Obama: Now right now there are 2. 2 million Americans behind bars. 2.2 million. We incarcerate people at a rate that is unequaled around the world. We account for 5 percent of the world's population, 25 percent of its [00:03:00] inmates. They are disproportionately black and Latino. 

Daphne Watson, Producer: The statistics that former President Obama uses are the direct effect of the Clinton crime bill.

A bill that increased federal funding to state prisons by $10 billion while virtually eliminating prison higher education budgets. A decision that contradicts the Federal Bureau of Prisons mission to provide self-improvement opportunities for incarcerated individuals and better prepare them to reenter society.

I need to pause for a moment. Many of the change agents featured in this story are men convicted of violent crimes in their teens and twenties. The Marshall Project is a nonprofit journalism organization dedicated to criminal justice, and they use a people first approach to reporting that I want to emulate.

Simply put, a person should not be defined by a single aspect of their life. So, throughout this [00:04:00] piece, I avoid using terms like felon, prisoner, convict, inmate, and other language to that dehumanizes or implies guilt. But Marcos explains this better than I can. 

Marcos Gray: They presume that all of us are what the TV shows or movies have shown, and we're told, which is a fallacy because if you're going to believe that about all individuals who are incarcerated, you have to presume that all people who are out here are good and we know that is not the case.

Daphne Watson, Producer: Back to Obama's 2015 speech at the NAACP Annual Convention. 

President Barack Obama: Around 70 million Americans have some sort of criminal record. That's almost one in five of us. Almost one in three Americans of working age. Now a lot of time, that record disqualifies you from being a full participant in our society. Even if you've already paid your debt to society.

Daphne Watson, Producer: What Obama's referring to is a civil or social death. Laws that disenfranchise millions through the creation of a criminal class. [00:05:00] According to a 2020 NPR report, more than 6 million Americans cannot vote because of a past felony conviction. Illinois returns full citizenship to those who have completed their felony sentences.

Most people don't know this. I know I didn't know that before I started this project, despite having several close family members with felony records. A fact that most in the Illinois carceral system didn't know either. But there's a group at Stateville Correctional Center, a maximum-security prison, using their time to raise awareness about the rights of those incarcerated.

The DePaul Policy Think Tank is the brainchild of political science professor Dr. Christina Rivers.

She's taught Inside Out classes on law, politics, and mass incarceration at Stateville since 2017. DePaul undergrads make up the out part of [00:06:00] Inside Out. The inside, I don't think I need to explain.

When Inside Out classes end, those interested are welcomed into the Policy Think Tank. 

Dr. Christina Rivers, IREE, DePaul University: My class ends on legislative projects. Most of our goals are to sort of polish up those projects and get them into hands of people who might be interested. Um, getting the perspective on reforms from some who are most directly impacted.

Daphne Watson, Producer: Until a year and a half ago, Marcos was a member of the think tank. Now he's home. And I met him on an overcast August morning just outside the campus of North Park University in Chicago's Albany Park. This is nice. I've never been back here. 

Marcos Gray: I mean, hell, coming from where I came from, everything. But, uh, I mean, I, I, I, I don't want to think that that place warped me that much that I can't really appreciate beauty.

And just, because I think this is really beautiful. Even if I never went in that space. [00:07:00] 

Daphne Watson, Producer: Marcos is entering his final year of a master's program in Christian Ministry and Restorative Justice. After an impromptu campus tour, Marcos and I found ourselves in the chapel. In this place, the anxious man I'd met moments before on the chaotic corner of Foster and Kedzie disappears.

I asked him about the significance of this space. 

Marcos Gray: I work in the chapel, so I just, I did find, especially in the Cook County Jail, I found Peace there, like, because my spiritual barometer was much better then than it seems to be now, but that's because I'm distracted by so many different things, life. But there was a safety in the chapel because you know, like, man, you know, these people love you.

You know, God loves you and he's here. Not to imply that he's not at your apartment or your home, but there's something like even where we're at right now is just, [00:08:00] you feel something. 

Daphne Watson, Producer: Marcos, and the other think tank participants I've met during this project, take responsibility for the compounding decisions that led to their incarceration.

Marcos Gray: I mean, I know that I was young, and even looking back in hindsight, I know that I should have been taken away from society for a period of time. But if that period of time had been shown consistently that he's no longer a threat to society, do like Article 1, Section 11 of the Illinois Constitution states and restore him back to youthful citizenship.

Taking away someone so young for so long, it's easy to almost forget that they existed. I'm a ghost now. I'm a memory. Like, he was alive at one point, but now he's no longer alive. It's a social death. 

Daphne Watson, Producer: But Illinois hasn't had a pathway to parole for people convicted of violent offenses since 1978. 

Marcos Gray: At that point, 29 years, it was just superfluous.

Like, you're just taking extra years away from an individual because you can. It's just gratuitous cruelty. 

Daphne Watson, Producer: [00:09:00] Here, Dr. Rivers talks about Illinois' practice of Mandatory Supervised Release, or MSR, and how that impacts her think tank students. 

Dr. Christina Rivers, IREE, DePaul University: Many of the people in Stateville were sentenced to life without parole as juveniles, and if you're sentenced as an adult, you really don't have an opportunity to come up for parole in this state.

Some folks refer to MSR as parole, but it really, truly, there's very little opportunity for folks to come up for parole, you know, after their first 10 years or their first 15 years like in other states. That door doesn't even open. And of course, coming up for parole doesn't mean you're going to get it.

And I think there's a lot of misperceptions that if you restore the right to parole that this means you're going to empty everything out. Well, no, because parole boards are, you know, we've all heard about parole boards that just [00:10:00] keep saying no to people, right? It's just even the chance to make the case.

Um, the vast majority of people here don't have it. 

Daphne Watson, Producer: A 2010 study published in the American Political Science Review. reported that one out of 31 adults in America are in the custody of a correctional authority.

That includes parole and probation. Regardless of the length of contact with the carceral system, the report says that disenfranchisement often becomes internalized. Their felony record becomes a part of their societal identity, marking them as members of the criminal class who are less likely to believe they can make demands of the government.

That's not the case with the guys at the DePaul Policy Think Tank at Stateville. 

Think Tank Participants: We are not defined by our circumstances. We're able to not only challenge ourselves in our way of thinking, but we could also challenge someone else, like legislators. Even this think tank helps us to [00:11:00] do that. 

Daphne Watson, Producer: Stateville Correctional Center covers 2, 200 acres and is about 35 miles from Chicago's Loop.

The journey there is tranquil, cutting through forests and cornfields. Every time I come here, I'm awed by the enormity of this place and how it seems to emerge out of nowhere. After parking near the 33-foot-tall concrete wall, I'm met with the crack of gunfire and the rumble of a not so distant freight train.

Small planes and birds circle overhead. It's unsettling, the discordance outside of the walls. It's unsettling, the discordance outside of the walls.

My first in person visit to Stateville had echoes of my first visit with Marcos. An overcast and damp morning, heavy gates, stone walls, seemingly endless walkways. A chapel. This time, a multi guard escort delivered us to a room teeming with energy. A contrast [00:12:00] from the stoic faces we passed on our way from the visitor center.

Dr. Rivers had warned me that her days as state bill rarely go exactly to plan. Hey, I'm going to need your all attention for a minute. We just only have 10…15 minutes and I want to make sure you know that this is a very busy day. On this day, a contingent of legislators were on site. 

Senator Ventura: The best solutions come from those who are directly impacted.

I just want to say thank you because there's absolutely no way that we could do this work as legislators without having that input as well. Thank you.

Daphne Watson, Producer: Several decades of data show the correlation between accessing education and self-improvement opportunities and a sharp reduction in recidivism. 

Marcos Gray: I had to better myself. The more you learn, the more you forget that you knew about the bad. That's why the recidivism rate is so minimal, almost to the point of nonexistence where individuals have degrees and higher authority. There's a shift. Here's a paradigmatic shift within their thought process, so they can't even [00:13:00] see.

They can't even fathom that. 

Daphne Watson, Producer: So, you saw DePaul, North Park and Northeastern knowledge University of Northwestern come in and start to do these programs, right? So, what were your initial reaction to that? 

Marcos Gray: But I've always had a love of knowledge, even prior to them. I would say creative writing classes, anything that I can learn something else.

And if I couldn't take a class, I will learn on my own. I just always soaked up knowledge. Dr. Rivers, she was teaching us, uh, the first time, you know, the first class I took with her, law and politics. 

Dr. Christina Rivers, IREE, DePaul University: The class is on law, politics, and mass incarceration. And so, the bulk of it is on various limitations and challenges related to criminal laws and that are in tension, either with parts of our civil liberties, particularly as it relates to Illinois criminal legal system.

So, we covered that, and then I closed out the class on felony disenfranchisement, the phenomenon of prison [00:14:00] based gerrymandering, and more recently I've included the challenges of voter access for eligible voters who are in jail but just don't have access. 

Marcos Gray: So, it was giving us all of these different things, politically speaking, and how it's intertwined with the law.

Dr. Christina Rivers, IREE, DePaul University: That class, I think two of the four groups, chose projects related to felony disenfranchisement for their proposal. And so, when the think tank started, it was a pretty quick agreement that they wanted to combine those and have that be one of their focuses. And we debated for a while, do we want to write a proposal It's a proposal that's calling to repeal felony disenfranchisement in Illinois, or do we want to go for sort of lower hanging fruit?

Marcos Gray: And at some point, a little after that, we start flirting around with it because the think tank came after the class, you know, so it's like, why don't we write a little, you know what I mean? Why don't we do something? There's nothing to say that we can't. 

Daphne Watson, Producer: The think tank cohort crafted an in [00:15:00] house survey to determine what their bill should focus on.

Dr. Christina Rivers, IREE, DePaul University: One of the questions in the survey was if the Department of Corrections. a voter or civics education program or workshop, would you take it? And about 85 percent of the respondents said that they would. And so, I think the guys saw that and they were like, ah, this is something we can do that would be difficult for legislators to say no to civic engagement.

They settled on writing a bill. that would mandate voter education as part of the exit process from the Department of Corrections. 

Daphne Watson, Producer: The bill would become House Bill 2541. As a political science professor, Dr. Rivers has cultivated a list of allies and accomplices. The nonpartisan voter advocacy group Chicago Votes partnered with the think tank to co-author the curriculum and mobilize support for the bill in the State House and Senate.

Illinois Governor J. B. Pritzker signed the Re Entering [00:16:00] Citizens Civic Education Act and Voting in Jails bill into law in August of 2019. This educates those approaching release about their voting rights and assures that people held in jails have access to the ballot. 

Alexandria Boutros, Community Organizing Director, Chicago Votes: There is an assumption of losing your voting rights forever if you have a felony, and it's mass misinformation, and it actually translates to, Voter suppression.

Daphne Watson, Producer: That's Alexandria Boutros of Chicago Votes. She's the community organizing director. And a DePaul Inside Out alum. 

Alexandria Boutros, Community Organizing Director, Chicago Votes: So this program was designed with folks inside Stateville prison that are in there for life, many of them, who wanted to ensure that we have mandatory peer taught civics courses for anyone who is about to get out of prison to ensure that they know their voter eligibility, when those voter rights.

Far restored the process to fill out a voter registration form. What does an Illinois ballot actually look [00:17:00] like? When is the next election coming up? What is the history of voting rights in this country? So those are all parts that are explained in the bill language that are learning objectives. 

Dr. Christina Rivers, IREE, DePaul University: I think everybody looked at this and thought, okay, perhaps later there'll be a push to repeal the felony voting restriction that we have in Illinois.

But this was sort of a first step. 

Marcos Gray: And when it came, everybody was gung-ho to be a part of something like that. That's amazing. In jail or out of jail. 

Daphne Watson, Producer: Like Marcos says, what they've done and are doing is amazing and something I and most people in Illinois had no clue about. And I wouldn't have any idea how to even start writing a bill that could become a law.

Joseph Dull, Peer Educator: The first bill we had was a bunch of stuff in there. And only the civic education passed. 

Daphne Watson, Producer: Joseph Dull is one of the Think Tank's peer educators and has spent the [00:18:00] past 25 years in Illinois prison. 

Joseph Dull, Peer Educator: From day one, we were always like, the goal is universal suffrage. 

Daphne Watson, Producer: He's one of many who have been sentenced to natural life.

And because of that sentence, Joe is often one of the first to speak up and take action. 

Joseph Dull, Peer Educator: So, since they don't let us have bags or anything, I got my old school 1920s strip. Oh wow, 

Daphne Watson, Producer: you got your book strap. 

Joseph Dull, Peer Educator: Yeah. Okay. Um, it's just a ton of stuff. 

Daphne Watson, Producer: So, you with your eight learners and thousands of projects and everything, but your sentence of life without parole.

Right. Why do you do this? 

Joseph Dull, Peer Educator: I'm never going to let them just get me to where I'm some of these guys and they just give up and wait to die. So, I'm always going to fight. I have a grandson who's got like a 50 50 chance of coming to prison. Just by his metric, just by his statistically speaking, that's too [00:19:00] great of a chance that he's going to end up in the system.

I got life without parole, if I'm gonna be in here, might as well spend my time working against the system and hopefully for a better system before it snatches, I don't know how many other millions of people that have been snatched into this system over the last 40 years. 

Daphne Watson, Producer: Like Joe, other Think Tank members are part of numerous projects, and although their goals are self-serving, they're not selfish.

A mainstay on the think tank's agenda is bringing back parole in Illinois for people convicted of violent crimes and sentenced to long time. They even wrote a song about it, which debuted this summer on Chicago's WBZ prison cast.[00:20:00] 

Music: If they let us out, they probably thinkin we go apes. But no, we ain't animals, we far from some pagans. The jury found me guilty and the judge gave me 80. I'm still my mama's baby. What about that lady? 

Daphne Watson, Producer: They've collected thousands of hours of education good time, which should reduce their sentences if they're eligible to come before the state parole board.

Truth in sentencing demands at least 85 percent of a sentence be served before people with violent offenses are considered for MSR or parole. 

Dr. Christina Rivers, IREE, DePaul University: So the parole bill didn't pass, which I'm not surprised because we told them from Jump Street it's a really ambitious bill, this is going to take several tries.

Daphne Watson, Producer: They're still working on it. Their data driven and experiential approach to crafting legislation has already proven effective with the reentering citizens civic education and voting in jails bills. The Think Tank embodies civic engagement. Carvasier Smith, he's a new member of the Think Tank, and [00:21:00] says this about their work.

Carvasier Smith, Think Tank Member: Coming together to be able to have a central focus on helping someone else other than just ourselves, it was amazing for me. 

Daphne Watson, Producer: Marcos voted for the first time at 46 years old. It's a unique position to be in. He helped craft the law that now guides returning citizens to the polls. Here, he tells me about his experience.

Marcos Gray: I was nervous because it was my first time, but I was eager, a good nervous, like, man, I get to vote. The gift that voting is, that is a gift. It's a gift because we are given an opportunity. It was my time in the think tank that made me eager about voting because I personally, a part of me was like, they all the same, so it doesn't matter.

But that shifted after dealing with and learning some of the things that the doc told us or was teaching us. My voice matters, not to sound cliché like everything else that people say matter, but I was given an opportunity and I will for the rest of my days utilize it because people died for us to get that right as a people and some states don't even let individuals like me do it.

So, I have to enjoy it. I [00:22:00] have to be eager and I have to take advantage of it. I will not be that disrespectful to my freedom. I would be a disrespect to my freedom to not vote. 

Daphne Watson, Producer: My time with the guys at the think tank was limited. But I'm leaving this experience changed. When the legislators were on site during my first visit, Senator Ventura commented about visitors not being okay when they left.

I'm not okay. And that's a good thing.

Senator Ventura: I think we just had a conversation today and, and somebody said, you know, I want to make sure that you live here not being okay. And I think that many of us are leaving not being okay and that's a good thing. Um, because it leads us into action. 

Daphne Watson, Producer: So, what's next for the DePaul Policy Think Tank? Restoring parole and restoring voting rights for those incarcerated for felony convictions. 

Alexandria Boutros, Community Organizing Director, Chicago Votes: Voting in prison bill would actually make Illinois the first state in the country to restore the right to vote for people who are currently serving a sentence [00:23:00] in a correctional facility. 

Think Tank Participants: You know, the goal is everybody votes, no matter what, where you're at and just educating people enough to where they're not fearful.

I'm always blown away, like, why are you so scared of 29, 000 people having the right to vote? We're not trying to destroy the world. We're trying to get the right to vote for better policies, for better people in public office. 

Daphne Watson, Producer: Illinois Senator Robert Peters says this about restoring voting rights to those serving time for felony convictions.

Illinois Senator Robert Peters: It's not the process of feeling good. It's a process of feeling right. At the end of the day, we need to restore democracy to those incarcerated because this is about power. This is about who gets to decide your life, what you vote for. Politicians like us who vote a straight dealer cannot do this in the empty, frictionless vacuum that divorces itself from the pain and struggle of people. 

Daphne Watson, Producer: The Think Tank doesn't have a mission statement posted anywhere around the prison. [00:24:00] But Robert Curry shares the universal sentiment of all present and former Think Tank members. 

Robert Curry, Think Tank Member: We, the work we're doing is to give us a chance at life. To give people a chance in life

Music: Morse or if jurors got it wrong or that my judge was a racist person, would I heart a stone? You don't care if I'm a Christian. 

Daphne Watson, Producer: Thank you to Nana, Maya, Tyrone, great. Robert, Joe, Raul, Ellie, Charles, Mr. William, Rodney, Vernon, Bernard, JD Mari, Benny, Zan, Dr. Rivers. Carl, Michael, to Cedric, Vega, Eric, Beto, and so many others at Stateville for welcoming me into the think tank and trusting me with their voices.[00:25:00] 

Follow Chicago Votes on social media to get connected with local and nationwide organizations dedicated to criminal justice reform.

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 Abdullah. 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, [00:26:00] Twitter, and the website changeagentsthepodcast.com.