My Time

Produced by Dilpreet Raju | Criminal records can sometimes create seemingly insurmountable hurdles to employment, a key factor toward reducing recidivism rates.  Defy Ventures teaches the incarcerated, and returning citizens how to build their own business.  Their program is a game-changer, not just for the system impacted, but for business leaders who are given a chance to shed biases, and discover an invaluable stream of worker talent.   

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Carl Williams: [00:00:00] Being a young kid and to hear a judge tell you that you have natural life plus 60 years, um, there's no feeling that could describe that. For one, it's an impossible time to do, but to think that the rest of your natural born life that this would be the place that they are sentencing you to die, um, it affects everything when it comes to your thinking.

Dilpreet Raju: That's Carl Williams, who was sentenced to life without parole at just 17 years old. Now, 30 years later, Carl runs a custom furniture business, Royal Men's Solutions, and is building up clientele. Carl's path to becoming an entrepreneur was transformed by Defy Ventures, an innovative business incubator Carl says gave him the tools to make a living.

This is Dilpreet Raju [00:01:00] with my time for Change Agents, the podcast.

Carl Williams: This is a solid drawer box, but what they have is a floating bottom. So this allows you to be able to hold at least 80 to 100 pounds. That's all we do is completely custom furniture, and we'll build anything whether it's big or tall. I was incarcerated wrongfully and wrongfully convicted. Um, I spent almost 27 years of my life in prison.

I did 26 years, um, 8 months, 12 hours, and like 45 minutes and 32 seconds in prison. Um, for a crime that I did not commit. 

Dilpreet Raju: In 1994, Chicago police arrested Carl as part of a group double homicide, a crime he says [00:02:00] he did not commit. Carl says he was arrested. and forced to sign a false confession. The confession held up in court, despite the fact that others actually involved in the crime signed affidavits attesting to Carl's innocence.

In 2018, almost 22 years after being convicted, Injustice Watch published an article on Carl detailing how his arresting officer, Stanley Turner, physically coerced multiple people into signing false confessions. After years of believing he would live out his life behind bars, Carl had a ray of hope. In 2012, The United States Supreme Court ruled it is unconstitutional to sentence juveniles to life without the possibility of parole.

Carl Williams: It affects your psyche as well as your well being. And now you're just in the cage with a bunch of people who you've never seen or never met before. And the feeling of that, the [00:03:00] pain of it, the disappointment of it, the anxiety, the stress. 

Dilpreet Raju: Carl remained in prison for eight more years after the ruling that would set him free.

Eight long years of paperwork and red tape delays. In a tragic turn of events. Carl's son was murdered just seven days before he was released in summer 2020 amid COVID. I felt like 

Carl Williams: had they not continued to play those games and drag it out into the night, I would have been released and been there to be able to, um, be in support of my son, but also lead him and steer him a different way to where it possibly never would have even happened.

Dilpreet Raju: When I first sat down with Carl at the Chicago Torture Justice Center, he told me that he Beyond the grief he was processing, his release was stressful. 

Carl Williams: I was still having different struggles from coming into a society that I had been removed from for over [00:04:00] 27 years of my life. To try to just say, hey, you're released, um, there you go, just go be free.

They give you no resources, no opportunity, no connections to jobs, no connections to anything. It's just, hey, here's a bus ticket. Bye. 

Dilpreet Raju: Illinois latest numbers from the Department of Corrections list recidivism rates of nearly 40%. Two out of five people released from prison wind up back within three years.

Unemployment rates for those with criminal records is a major factor that is driving recidivism. The Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority states that employment is vital to meet basic needs and lower recidivism of the formerly incarcerated. When Carl was released, he had friends and family to rely on for housing.

But he was confronted with the same reality that many in his position face. A [00:05:00] job search leading to dead ends. 

Carl Williams: And I can come in and say, hey, you know what, I got 10 years of experience of it. You know, I used to build and do X, Y, and Z when I was here. And they're saying, well, oh, wait, you was incarcerated?

Oh yeah. Oh, we'll get, we'll, yeah, we'll call you back. And then you get an email saying, um, unfortunately we decided to move forward with somebody because of the volume of people who we had to apply for the job.

Finally. You say, you know what? It has always been my goal and my dream to start my own business. Why not just invest in myself? All the time that I'm spending wanting to invest in someone else and give them my time, my energy, and my effort to make their business scalable. Because of my skill set, how about I just go for it and try to do it for myself.

Dilpreet Raju: Fed up with the job search, Carl decided to try to start his own [00:06:00] business. But it was humble beginnings starting Royal Men's Solutions in the waning months of 2020.

Carl Williams: It 

started as a small business selling cleaning supplies. It went from making like maybe 30 a day, and then it went to 60 a day. And then there was 200 a day that started to scale and grow that, that small business during that pandemic, everybody needed something to keep clean.

So I would go, um, to different stores and say, Hey, well, you know, I have a five gallon bucket of bleach, um, for 20 for 25. Carl 

Dilpreet Raju: knew selling cleaning supplies wasn't something that he could fall in love with for a career. It was around then that Carl learned about a non profit program called Defy Ventures.

It was a discovery that would help transform his small cleaning supply company into a dream career. 

Carl Williams: To be able to take those courses at DeFi, it changed my life. [00:07:00] 

Dilpreet Raju: DeFi Ventures is a non profit that helps currently and formerly incarcerated people. Develop and build their own businesses. 

Melissa O'Dell: There have been promises made to people and not always delivered on.

And so 

Dilpreet Raju: Melissa O'Dell founded the Illinois chapter of Defy Ventures. 

Melissa O'Dell: When I go into the institutions or anybody from Defy goes in, it's about building rapport and relationships and building trust. We need to do that by showing up and really following through on the things that we say are going to happen.

Dilpreet Raju: Defy Illinois started in 2018 and now has programs in Kewanee Life Skills Reentry Center along with Logan and Pontiac Correctional Facilities. For people who have already left prison, Defy has online courses available to take throughout the state. Entrepreneurs in training are paired with mentors who coach them in developing business plans, marketing, and money management.

Melissa O'Dell: We [00:08:00] started building up success and momentum there. We had more people graduating, and it was the people themselves through the program who were saying, Wow, this is really something special. 

Dilpreet Raju: Defy Illinois has nearly 150 graduates from its CEO of Your New Life program. A course held within prisons. As of this recording, their graduates have a 0 percent recidivism rate.

A stark contrast to Illinois average of nearly 40%. The success bears out what numerous studies have shown. When people leaving prison are educated, they are much less likely to return to prison in the future.

On a foggy September day, I made my way two and a half hours outside of Chicago. City streets turn to cornfields. And then into the Stark campus of Kewanny [00:09:00] Prison. That's where I met Marcus Harris, who enrolled in Defy's program shortly after arriving at Kewanny in 2022. 

Marcus Harris: The reason I joined Defy is because, uh, my passion is teaching.

In order for me to teach someone after, learn something and um, I consider myself a lifelong learner. 

Dilpreet Raju: Marcus discovered he had talent for event planning. A talent, he believes, can become a successful business. 

Classmate 1: What's the name of your company? 

Marcus Harris: I was kind of on the fence about it, but I think I want to name it, uh, Has to be Harris Event Planners.

So, I'm like 

Classmate 2: I love it! 

Marcus Harris: So, Has to be Harris. So, man, so who are you going to plan your event? Has to be Harris. You know, I want the name to actually be a real sentence, like a phrase, you know. 

Dilpreet Raju: That's Marcus and some of his classmates discussing the event planning business that will be ready for launch the moment he is paroled in late 2024.

The 32 year old has been [00:10:00] inside Illinois correctional facilities for nearly 10 years. He was convicted of armed robbery in early 2014. 

Marcus Harris: I think we all have done destruction in the community, and we need to learn how to cope with ourselves and cope with the community. So we can give back to the community.

You can't just do that, sit in a cell watching TV. You have to get involved with programs that'll teach you something that'll change your way of thinking. And once you change your way of thinking, you change your behavior. 

Dilpreet Raju: Marcus believes that the business ideas he is learning through Defy will prepare him for success once he is freed.

Marcus Harris: I came from a joint where nothing was celebrated. No cultural, nothing. Like, not even staff appreciation day. Like, more like, morale was low, you know. And I got here. And I saw all these events and stuff, and um, when I got down here, they had a Hispanic Heritage Basketball tournament. I asked someone, I said, okay, well, what do they usually do for Black History Month?

And the guy, his name was Charles, he said, [00:11:00] um, well, whatever you want to do. 

Dilpreet Raju: Marcus told Pierce his plans and heard hesitation. 

Marcus Harris: And they were like, man, you're crazy. I don't think, you know what I'm saying? I don't think they're going to let you do this. But I'm like, we can't just keep living in our heads saying, I don't think they'll feel comfortable.

I don't think they'll like it. You gotta actually try. 

Dilpreet Raju: For Marcus, it was the start of something big. CEO

of Your New Life runs in one women's prison and two men's. Classes meet twice a week for eight months and rely on intentional relationships. 

Kira Kyle: Let's do this. Rich, I'm gonna have you come up here. I'm gonna have two of you from this table. I'm sorry to be mean, because I know sometimes we're going quickly mean. I need the two of you to come up to this table.

Dilpreet Raju: That's Defy's Kira [00:12:00] Kyle, facilitating group feedback on business proposals. 

Kira Kyle: Okay, alright, so these are the same questions. Go ahead and pick whoever's going to go first and start going around and sharing what you've learned. And get other people's ideas. 

Soundbite meeting: Think about it. It's all about marketing. So I'm just trying to, I'm just trying to get it.

Hey, I'm trying to get in where I see a niche at. This is not being tackled. It's just bouncing back and forth. We brainstorm together. Like it's not, it's not It's not to hurt you, it's to help you. So, I just love the way everybody's idea is so different than, like, competition is healthy. But I don't really see people in them lanes that can stop us because it's so beneficial for everybody.

Melissa O'Dell: The more that there are rehabilitative programs, the more that people who are inside want to take them. They want, they're hungry for this information. So it's not just about Defy, it's about all types of educational pursuits. 

Dilpreet Raju: Defy's mentors are [00:13:00] volunteers who run their own businesses in Illinois. For someone not interested in starting a business, they provide resume advice and practice interviewing.

Melissa O'Dell: There's the academic component, but then there's the whole bringing in the volunteers, which is really the secret sauce of the program. And I think that we started to build on that credibility, um, and the legitimacy of our program because people were seeing the outcomes. 

Dilpreet Raju: Mentors are also key to what Defy does for people who have already left prison, like Carl Williams, the furniture maker we met at the top of the episode.

Steve Rogers: This is something I wanted to do to help folks that have been incarcerated or just got out. 

Dilpreet Raju: Steve Rogers began volunteering with Defy in early 2021. 

Steve Rogers: It also fits naturally with entrepreneurship and my love of business, so I thought this would be a great thing to do. 

Dilpreet Raju: Steve's first mentee was Carl. 

Steve Rogers: Carl and I just hit it off immediately.

He was just so willing to absorb, [00:14:00] so willing to just ask questions. A lot of times people are afraid to ask questions because they don't want to look like they don't know. That was not Carl. We'd talk a lot about different marketing strategies or ways to get his business name out there beyond what he was currently doing.

Dilpreet Raju: Carl and Steve had one big goal in mind. The Accelerator ended with a pitch contest that could win Carl as much as 20, 000 in seed money toward his furniture business. 

Steve Rogers: I was really excited to work with Carl to fine tune his pitch to the most important pieces. You've got just a few seconds in the beginning to just make that first impression, and Carl worked.

Really hard at it. 

Carl Williams: Oh, Steve was an intricate part. Steve is the one who was like, Hey, you know what, this needs to be on the website in order to be able to expand. 

Dilpreet Raju: If you remember from the beginning of the episode, Carl was trying to parlay his small [00:15:00] business selling cleaning supplies into one much grander, a woodworking shop, specializing in custom furniture.

Now, Defy was giving him that chance. 

Steve Rogers: What Defy is doing is. Absolutely incredible to impact the lives of individuals that oftentimes society just wants to kind of cast to the side and forget about. They aren't doing that. They're there to help people have confidence in who they are and know that they can go out and make it in this world.

Carl Williams: My concern, um, during that pitch was Obtaining all of the information and making sure that I get all of the information out. You know, you never want to go into those competitions and then you say, Oh man, I missed one thing. What is it else that I wanted them to know?

Dilpreet Raju: Marcus Harris is also working to refine his [00:16:00] strategy for starting an event planning company. Defy's CEO, of your new life program is helping him turn that passion into a business model while he is still incarcerated. He'll be able to hit the ground running as soon as he's released. 

Marcus Harris: Everyone knows, you know, what I want to do, um, because I'm doing it now, which is event planning.

I've done several events throughout this whole year at Kiwani. 

Dilpreet Raju: Marcus planned and hosted dozens of events over the past year, from a Father's Day block party. To Black History Month quizzes, he aims to make his events different from others he's seen. 

Marcus Harris: A lot of my events are culture based. Anybody can throw a party, but, you know, I want people to actually enjoy themselves and leave the event thinking like, okay, yeah, I had fun and I learned something new.

William Jenkins: When I met Marcus, I was impressed. Like, thoroughly impressed. 

Dilpreet Raju: William Jenkins, a classmate and Marcus's CEO of Your New Life Course, [00:17:00] says the influence of Marcus's planned events actually shaped the culture of Kiwani. 

William Jenkins: At other joints, the main thing we try to do is just come together and try to fight the oppression.

But when I came down here, it's like, it's a different, it's a different culture in Kiwani. Guys have freedom to, like I said, do sh I've never played charades. I've never played charades. Until I got down here, it was fun.

Dilpreet Raju: Jeff Korzenich is a banking economist and author of Untapped Talent. A book looking at the value of hiring people with criminal records as a way to support the economy. 

Jeff Korzenich: The last decade I've been researching the business case and sharing the best practices for hiring people with criminal records. And I argue that this is the single most [00:18:00] best solution for our structural labor shortage.

Dilpreet Raju: Jeff argues that when business leaders volunteer with Defy, their views of hiring employees with criminal records change. 

Jeff Korzenich: They get to witness the intelligence and the drive of many people who do reside behind bars. And I think it helps bridge that cultural gap in very, very constructive ways. 

Dilpreet Raju: Marcos Gonzalez, program director for the Corporate Coalition of Chicago, And a DeFy volunteer says visiting an Illinois state prison for the first time helped him realize the harsh reality of being moved far away from your home and family.

Marcos Gonzalez: It was a dark, dreary day driving, you know, hours from the city. Uh, passing the near suburbs and you start to pass more fields and we can remove ourselves or distance ourselves. And quite literally, our prisons are moved hours away. I think that was one of the biggest [00:19:00] things. You drive two hours, you recognize how removed someone is from their community.

Dilpreet Raju: Marcos says oftentimes employers will have HR policies to not hire those with criminal records out of fear that there will be a legal risk of negligent hiring. 

Marcos Gonzalez: What we have found is that. Oftentimes, there's a difference between actual risk and perception of risk, because there's a perception of risk that if we hire someone who might have had involvement with the criminal justice system, they're going to be a more risky hire.

Dilpreet Raju: The Legal Action Center and the National Work Rights Institute published a report in 2023 looking at decades of legal proceedings, which concluded that hiring folks with criminal is actually low risk. 

Jeff Korzenich: When you take people who are determined to prove that they are more than their worst mistakes, give them those opportunities and support them in those opportunities.

They tend to be highly engaged and loyal employees. That's a recipe for Chicago businesses. That's a recipe for [00:20:00] profitability.

Dilpreet Raju: Carl Williams was determined not to be defined by his time behind bars. The pitch competition presented him an opportunity like no other. Despite never having pitched a business idea before, Let alone in front of potential financiers, Carl was feeling confident. 

Carl Williams: Oddly enough, I wasn't nervous. I did have to put together slides.

So with each slide, um, I would talk about a business plan, um, business idea, the future of the business. Also, I established a graph to talk about, uh, the growth of the business where I seen it in five years. So yeah, you, you definitely had to, uh, um, take the time to expand and expound upon that, uh, when you was doing your pitch.

Dilpreet Raju: Carl's confidence was warranted. His pitch was a winner and landed him 5, 000 in seed money for his [00:21:00] furniture making business, Royal Men's Solutions. 

Carl Williams: Winning that, that extra, um, um, prize money, it, it, it felt great. It allowed me to, to, to purchase, um, machinery as well as. Uh, more reliable vehicle, so, uh, it was a huge, um, asset for me, as well as for, for the business.

Dilpreet Raju: I visited Carl and his business partner, John Micks, at their workspace in Lansing, Illinois, a suburb just a few miles south of Chicago. Carl and John spoke about what makes their craftsmanship stand out from the pack. 

John Micks: We're allowing our clients to get any color they want, knowing that, you know, wherever you buy a kitchen, they're pushing white and gray because that's what's being shipped into the company. 

Carl Williams: And then just also adding and building custom furniture. It's a unique piece that can be passed down for generations. 

Dilpreet Raju: Carl and John spend their free [00:22:00] time training Chicago's South and West Sides youth in woodworking. The youth earn a stipend, and skills beyond carpentry. 

Carl Williams: It's come full circle in terms of the responsibility. And then now we're passing that along and paying that forward when it comes to other young youth, teaching them about entrepreneurship and how building a business in your community also helps to establish a strong community.

Dilpreet Raju: Defy is limited in its scale of operations, but hopes to be in more carceral institutions. Chris Harrison Defy's entrepreneurship manager, and someone who is in Illinois prisons for almost two decades, says that Defy's future in Illinois is brimming with potential. 

Chris Harrison: I think we're one of the best kept secrets here in Illinois.

The goal is to try to be in more institutions. There are a whole bunch of other institutions that need those resources, adult transition centers, juvenile centers, and we have content and curriculum. To [00:23:00] fit those. 

Dilpreet Raju: Chris says, people reentering society often lack proper support. The community defy builds can uplift one another with job leads, mental health support, and hopefully one day employment.

Chris Harrison: Even if a person does not build a business, that's okay. That's fine. There's no way that you can go through bootcamp and not be equipped with more tools personally and professionally. 

Dilpreet Raju: Today, more than three years after his release, Carl Williams serves on Defy Illinois advisory board. while continuing to grow his business, Royal Men Solutions.

Carl Williams: I'm looking to develop now a storefront, so as I build things, I would like to have a place to where, um, the beautiful designs that I make in terms of custom furniture can be on display to where a person can just come and pick them up. 

Dilpreet Raju: Carl says his progress is not just about his success, [00:24:00] but the success of others near him.

Carl Williams: My life is not just my life, it's a shared life. So, if I pass that down to me, I pass it down to someone else. It's an important element of a person who is an entrepreneur giving back. Just as someone has helped you grow in your strength of being an entrepreneur, pass it along to someone else giving them the very same opportunity and make a bold statement that, Your life is not just your life, it's a shared life.

Executive Producer - Maurice Bisaillon: 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 Sara Abdelaal. Funding support provided by the Chicago Community Trust, the Field Foundation, and the Wayfarer Foundation.

Additional support provided [00:25:00] 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.