Jail to Jobs: Recent Episodes
Jail to Jobs Podcast
Jail to Jobs explores the barriers to getting work after prison. Each week, host Monica Gray Logothetis connects with a formerly incarcerated individual to learn about their experience. The goal is to help better understand the challenges of getting work thereby improving employment opportunities and reducing recidivism for those who have spent time in prison.
After a difficult childhood that included sexual abuse and deep struggles with self-worth, Brandee Izquierdo traveled a difficult path that led her to unhealthy relationships, addiction, and prison.
But while locked up, she became passionate about supporting her fellow incarcerated women, especially other mothers. Upon release, she put herself on a new path, eventually reuniting with her family and building a career as a behavioral health advocate. Today, she is Executive Director of S.A.F.E Project, a national nonprofit with a goal of ending addiction fatalities in the United States.
Ruben Gaona never planned on getting into drug trafficking. After he was discharged from the Navy though, the El Paso-native had to hustle to support his family, and he went down a road that led to incarceration. After seven years in a federal prison, Ruben was determined to make a change. Now, he’s a successful entrepreneur helping other justice-involved individuals stay out of the prison system.
In this episode, we dive deeper into Ruben’s story.
When Ronald Day was growing up in the 1970s and 80s, drugs were pervasive in the South Bronx. At just 15, he accepted an offer to deal drugs in his neighborhood. Things soon escalated and Ronald ended up in prison, where he was sentenced to 15 to 45 years.
But that's not the end of his story. Ronald went on to get his bachelor's degree, a master’s, and even a PhD while building a successful career. He's now vice president of programs at the Fortune Society, where he helps other formerly incarcerated individuals build a future after release from prison. Listen to more of Ronald's story now.
Josh Pritchett didn’t always have the best role models. Growing up, he started dealing drugs, got into fights, and even stole cars. But after spending time in the juvenile justice system, he decided to turn his life around. He went to business school, developed a network, and climbed the corporate ladder to become the Director of Global Strategy at UPS. Now, as the CFO of Resilience Education, a nonprofit that provides high-quality business education in prisons, Josh is paying it forward to the next generation. Listen now to hear more about Josh's inspiring “Jail to Jobs” story in this episode.
Reverend Vivian D. Nixon is an advocate for education and justice reform who describes herself as a “joyfully Black woman whose release from correctional oversight gave rise to a search for true liberation and guided her academic and career choices.”Currently Nixon is a Writer in Residence at Columbia University’s Square One Project, an organization that’s […]
Reverend Vivian D. Nixon is an advocate for education and justice reform who describes herself as a “joyfully Black woman whose release from correctional oversight gave rise to a search for true liberation and guided her academic and career choices.”
Currently Nixon is a Writer in Residence at Columbia University’s Square One Project, an organization that’s focused on imagining a future for justice and public safety that starts from scratch - from square one - instead of chipping away at the edges of criminal justice reform.
Previously, Vivian served for 20 years as the Executive Director of College & Community Fellowship, an NYC nonprofit dedicated to helping women with criminal convictions earn college degrees — a program from which Nixon herself is a graduate.
In this episode, Nixon describes her personal experience serving time in prison, her inspiring professional rise after release, and her take as a national policy expert on what can be done to more efficiently get returning citizens from jail to jobs.
Stay tuned at the end of the episode for our “Deep Dive” segment where we zoom in on one point our guest made, take a deeper dive into how it all relates to the broader Jail to Jobs policy context, and offer our two cents on the whole thing. In this episode, we explore technical parole violations. Believe it or not, nearly HALF of state prison admissions nationwide occur because of technical, nonviolent parole violations
The Jail to Jobs podcast shines a light on the real people behind the facts and figures of incarceration, reentry, and economic mobility in America. Check out our trailer for a snapshot of what's to come. We'll drop a new episode every Tuesday in March in honor of National Criminal Justice Month.