Remarkable year for book that have been tackling the uses and especially the abuses of this countrys criminal Justice System. And we at politics and prose have been honored to host authors and poets behind them. The first event we hosted this year at this location was for the investigation of the misdemeanor punishment without crime and were closing with an equally essential look at the way the legal world unfairly treats this countrys disenfranchised and the author target is his own former profession as a public testify. The become called usual crueltity comes from alec karakatsanis. The founder of the civil rising corps, advocating for racial justice. Especially known for come batting the unconstitutionality of money bail, karakatsanis was name the 2016 trial lawyer of the year by public yates and the steven b. B. B wright aired for and as an introduction to his talk tonight im very excited to be welcoming his guest nor program, the poet, based indog, raised in columbus, ohio and every serving an eight year sentence within the Virginia Department of corrections he began using poetry as a method of healing. Among his work he taught various work shop, after School Programs and Panel Discussions dealing with topics like mass incarceration, prison reform, social justice, disenfranchisement and education and join me in welcome pain the poet to kick off the program. [applause] can you hear me . Im pain the poet. As you heard from what he said about me, one of the thing its like to do is i like to artistically be able to articulate experience, so we may come from different backgrounds but i like to find the way to bridge the gap between understanding. From where i have stood to where i stand now, to where you sit to where you have stood in the past. I use my art as a way to kind of like introduce you to a world that maybe some of you havent seen and the effects of said world. So were going to for so long i had been searching for purpose. I remember searching for a reason to be believed and with the ability to grab the attention of millions in the way to be word is remember working ways to be certain, certain there was a ron i exist and the search and i found this. You may not understand. This was supposed to hefner. I was supposed to believe rap base only means of expression, pour my heart into poetry the world would not accept if or my real would come into question and everybody in any background would be unable to establish connection within thundershower heart. Supposed to he scared at the high class poets would consider a convict inkea capable of creating art. Whole pages covered in dried tear and using a pen over opposition what came out is this right here. Im pain the poet, the polar opposite of environmentality product, pure example of years in the making. Never left my past define me, nor let my history claim in the and ive been charged and convicted but never let them sentence and break mow so now ive been paged persistently. This is all ive ever had for a childhood of craziness, mother on two or have todave party binges. No need to find me a baby sirte we were tough kid and we struggled to make enough. Whatever enough is. Now as a man there irno limits to the lies i havent created yet but before you make it, give doubters room to suggest you need a backup plan or safety net or gas station Grocery Store job would butow safest bet those who have never been can tell youll never make it and those who dont have know all the reason to be comp miss sent and accept everything and i youve take away me breath, then how can you expect me to ever live. So now all i do is give. My every joy, my every pain, my every hope, my every fear, put my spire life on then line for his. Im only real the way im real also the moans to openly expose our the inmer deal with being me own opposition mitchell enemyes real and i spill the way i spill as a men others of release, trying to make the inner me. So every poem i put forth as a promise of pure love i am no dirt of different from now. The only difference is my emotiones fill my mind and allow my penmanship like gears which drive mets to believe my purpose upon the earth, this right here. Peace. [applause] we talk about a lot of the effects of incarceration and what it can do to a person. Recidivism. Theres a big issue in this and thats when you leave an institution only to within a certain amount of time return pack to incarceration. A lot has to do with the mental effect of what incarceration does to you so the poem if wrote was me within he throw weeks is a way reese lead after doing eight near the virginia penitentiary system. Called go there. I remember struggling, really struggling, you see dealing with the return to sew vote from incarceration is complicated ill it i remember having difficulty engaging in casual conversation. Used to hard i had reluctance in my eyes eyes and give off a funy vibe of i institutionalization, the enemy, to fight against is exhausting and i was gone before twit fer instagram, when mike was alive and bush was in office. Coming home is like its hard to relate. Hard to keep pace and even harder to find place where simple this wills guess difficult. Imagine trying to date, especially if they feel like youre vulnerable in and your position allows you to easily mold and shaped or the they feel some obligation to replace it. One of them too have been through it and the feel you have an obligation to be andits crazy when you consider that ouch the kind hearted find victim to alwayses they create. I never won any bomb bailed over no charity case some never try to force love and i cant promise to provide the are in a relationship requires if feel like i cant and i have so many demons have to face it and wouldnt be fair. I have so many demons i got to face. I dont think you want to go there. I dont think you want to go there because if we go there we have to go where i was projects and predicted be. He they would els of have to kid, one sister, minute brother, the son of two felons and my father and mother raises by one parent, leaving a woman to her kid off east 22nd, columbus, ohio, one bedroom apartment. A couple of sheaths and a blanket on the mattress and hear. They never say home where is the hart bus but dont say when hose imheartless. The final of this is a kid on then edge who didnt care. A kid in the position where both robber and victim were scared. We not going there. I dont think i can go there. I dont even know if i know how. Society brought harm to my heart and realitien and as a poet i may seem calm and come postal serviced about inside im hollering out. Never known love and now i travel about, bitter and beaten, marked and scarred, sufficient skatinger in the without of me own short coming and now im struggling for air. You see im a victim of a pain but out of love i dont care and been here my whole life and i just pray noneoff yall have to good there they always tell me to look at the bigger picture. Doesnt seem wrong but at the problem with the big are picture its not physically developed and the frame it wasnt built too strong so it couldnt hold and collapsed and folded now that image is fallen. So as far as the future holds, cant call it. I just know i write what i write and i say what i share. I know what files like to wear your heart on youve sleeve and if the whole world doesnt care. Be grateful you dont got to go there peace. [applause] big incarcerated, you talk to a lot of people sometimes, some are better than others, [inaudible] sometimes theres people in places that go beyond what you see people go, and i talked about my childhood, talked about details didnt even think were actual things that may have faked me growing up so this poem please dont jump is speak please dont judge us. Please dont judge us. No, you see a lot of us were the victims of the ones that loved us. Some of us had wayward fathers s and unededucated fathers and dudes wrote husband ill with cousin hustle with cousins and please dont judge. The he only wanted accept appearance so as adolescents we fell to the familiar faults. We used to think drugs would pay us and we knew no other life so we ran the circus for any feeling of fortune and being moved by minor materials because as kideswood use to think its important. I remember feeling the drug dealer supportive. Drove me to school, bought me the jordans, taught me money over everything, that dollars are poor and the older guys got checked for unemployment and no matter what, never trust any member of Law Enforcement. Never had anything for us. Only watched them take family from us. Just a victim of the wins that love him no matter how many times we try to tell them please dont judge them. They dont understand this all started as babies. And bottles and pamper the sonses of fatherless and some followed examples. Shes a daughter of a promiscuous mother. She that little girl might not know what love is. So manies will have kids that kirstined to suffer. And hurts looking into the eyes of the kids death any touches. Watching our youth at the back of a squad car when theyre arrest it fresh out of prying pan into an oven, heat on 400, raid net world where its all of us or nothing. Used be raised by mothers who always wanted marriage but never could trust it. They were always victims of the ones that love them. But plea dont judge them. Dont call our women products of the projects. I swear we try. Just that the reality of the world fed us a lie and the only way we can live is to fight for our lives in this cold cruel word. We sing rap songs, jury springer and morrie maury fathered our girls. The court system is picking a person that picks out a point the finger at people as if theyre was. They patted. The as perfect whip judges and prosecutors are put in place to hurt us. I know they feel were irrelevant. You see one color get a slap on the wrist and a black kid hit with the time they hit mandela with. The to say were treated equally you inassault my intelligence. I spent eight years gone, eight years long and i was wrong. I tried to explain that i succumb to circumstances beyond my knowledge. Back against the wall, suffocating under circumstances and needed money to eat but thinking but now leaves a sour taste any mouth because manging it out may have been more problems than previously perceived but in moments of stress, reflection over contemplation. Hindsight opportunity express what i had momentarily believed. It was back against the wall, suffocating under circumstances, i needed money to breathe. Im just grateful my family still loves me. Im even more grateful they had faith in lord in which is world so ugly and i say, please dont judge me. Thank you, im pain. Peace. [applause] pain has some business cards here, youert hire him for events and pour him. Where can they find you . I have a website, poet pain. Com, and [inaudible] and please come take a photo of one of his business cards before you leave. Thank you to politics and process for hosting us today and for pain for coming up from norfolk to be with us and i always just so inspired when i hear what pains to and one of the themes of the book, if you actually get it and read it, is how are we going to change this narrative that is produced a legal culture and society more generally that has allowed for the massive caging of human beings, and all of the cruelty entailed not bureaucratic process that leads us to inflect so much pain. So i want to talk for a little bit about my spiff perspective oninging ins. Is room here if people in the pack want to filter. In i think the have a couple more chairs for anyone who would be more comfortable in a chair. Is that right, jonathan . We have a couple more chairs for some theres another empty chair right here. I was going to talk for a few minute but my perspective, the background and how we got into the work were doing. I mostly then like to have questions and comments from the audience. I find that these events are much better with someone not talking at people but for a real discussion. The only thing i ask if you ask a question, maybe you can say your name or make a comment and say your name so i or other people can refer back to your comment and your awesome thoughts as we build a discussion together. So, i first started doing this kind of work when itself quit being a public defender in 201. Had get an grant from any law school to dish think i pitch the grand to something to the effect of give me some money so i can take down and dismantle the criminal legal system, and the people i pitched this to, this is a wild idea. Theres no way well give youve this money. They have no hope of accomplishing something to broad and sounds ridiculous. Luckily for me nobody else applied for the money, and so they had to give it to me and the first thing i did was i put applane ticket to alabamay i used to be a public defender. The plan was to go from court to court and city to city and jail to jail and see what i found. Some that trip changed the course of my life and my career. I remember toward the end of the trip i was going to symptom in montgomery and visit colleagues and with went to their Office Monday morning, i stopped into the local courthouse, and that morning there were 67 people in jail garb and chains around their ankles and waists and wrists, all of them were black. I as i watched the Court Hearing it became clear to me that not a single one of them was charged with a crime. There was a property but no public defender. And there was a prosecutor but no public defender and there was a man arguing this person should be jailed and they didnt pay enough money and they should be jailed, and one by one the people whose lives are being discusswood wheat up in front of the judge beg for mercy. Have four children. Two only their disabled. Please depth lock me up. I dont know what to too. Dont take my from my kids. Another man need on the floor of the courtroom and begged for mercy. Ive done bad things ump addicted to drugs, hive stolen things i cant afford these tickets, lope dont put me in jail for each one the judge said unless you pay any a thousand dollars im throwing you in jail. I later learn im a presented sophisticated court observe even the person if thought was the prosecutor was actually the public defender and turned out that the city of montgomerys contract for Public Defense told this man that he wouldnt be paid unless enough money was collected through fees and fines. Explains used i was watching. When i found that out i did what seemed natural to me and i started making objections. In alabama youre not permitted to make objections while youre sitting in the courtroom audience, and especially if youre not barred in alabama. So, i was asked to leave the courtroom, and i had seen five cases by that point and i id written down their names, and i walked up into the local jail, which in montgomery, alabama, is both physically and met metaphorically as it is in so many countries the jail is connect ted he courthouse and i walked in and i called the five names and they product me the five people. Again, after five people they figured out what it was was doing and asked to leave the jail as well. The five people were my first clients as a civil rights lawyer. Very bravely talk about two of them. I think it bears on why i wrote the book the first person i opened the first essay in the book about, share knell mitchell had been sitting on her couch od fouryearold and police raid her home and they arrested her and ripped her away from her kids because she owed traffic tickets from 2010, four years prior. Been in jail for two weeks at the time i met her and had no idea where her babies were. She does spread to get back to them. A jail guard was nice enough to give her a pencil. Court document says paid if a 2,810 or do 5 days in jail. 0 back have at the Court Document she had been writing numbers, 2870 now she od on the top right. On the lefthand come shul writment the days one through 58. She what writing, 50, 75, and then owns she was subdistracting the numbers from 2800 seven. She said in montgomery you get 50 a day toward your debt just for being in jail. But if you agree to be a janitor for the city and to clean the feces and blood and he music discuss and mold off of the jail house floors where you sleep and the walls and if you agree clean the judges trash canles you get an extra 25 a day. So all of the women war competing who would get the 75 that day, and so some of the days she was able to do the extra work and some some she wasnt and it cass clear that montgomery was running a debtors prison system and by the time she was done describing this to me the pencil on the back of the page was smeared with her tears, and i took a photograph of that document. Next person if meant, lorenzo brown, the man note down on his knees in court. He had to pay 2,000 or do 40 days in jail. He wouldnt speak to me. Didnt trust in. Was wag an inside out hooded sweatshirt. Told him i was a lawyer and the last person who told him was his lawyer was the person who told the jump to lock him up. He said ill speak to youve if my pastor gives you permission. I had my phone and we call this pastor and the pastor said, luckily my grant had chest been posted online so the pastor could goggle i was actually a lawyer and said this lawyer is an angel from god sent to help you through this and i actually know thats not true at all. Im not barred here put i would thereof talk to you and see what he welcome do to help. I built a wonderful relationship with lorenzo, relationship of trust and he told me his story and subsequently and lorenzo and three other people became my first clients and within a few weeks we were in a beautiful federal courtroom, full ol marble and wood and lorenzo and share knell told their stories beautifully and the federal judge was so outraged he order all of the city officials to appear in front of him in person to explain hough this could be happening. Instead over appearing in court they just released everybody from the jail in a single day. And i think two things are notable but that hearing. First, we as a culture and legal system have been so desensitized to the brew adult of putting a human being in a cage that entire cities have been people in jail for no reason so little reason on a single day without any care they can release everybody. The second thing was, something that happened that i didnt actually even see myself. Way going up to talk to a judge after the judge issued the recalling recalling and lorenzo was caulk with his cane toward the back of the courtroom and there was a lawyer who came to watch the hearing from the Southern Poverty Law Center and she held the door hope for him and as he exited the courtroom, he whispered to himself, under the breath with his head down, he said, wow. I never enough i had this much power. And so the second thing i learned that day, i think what the power of these narratives. Particularly when theyre developed by people who have been directly impacted by the system if think a lot of people who in whose name our seal system functions every day dont have enough idea the kind of pain and cruelty it is inflicting only people resident