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Podcast #4 | Otter.ai

Podcast #4

Zayne Knapp18min

Unknown Speaker

00:00

Welcome back, you guys.

Unknown Speaker

00:02

Yeah. Welcome back, everybody.

Speaker 1

00:05

And thank you for joining us today on our third and final podcast. Thank you to everyone who tuned in to our last two as well. So again, I'm

Unknown Speaker

00:20

Zayne I'm Michaela.

Unknown Speaker

00:21

I'm Anthony.

Unknown Speaker

00:23

I'm Devin.

Speaker 2

00:24

Yeah, I was just saying that today. Gonna be our last one. So yeah, just thanks, everyone for tuning into this first our podcasts.

Speaker 1

00:32

So last week, or last podcast we had discussed, I had interviewed my friend Sam, and it had, you know, she had talked about, you know, when you get incarcerated, it becomes so much harder to find a job and advocate for yourself, you know, it takes them four months to find a job she sent out, you know, 43 applications within that time, and then, you know, she finally got somebody to give her a second chance. So now she's at that job, and she's doing really well, you know, was also discussing how, you know, having your own lawyer will, you know, definitely affect your outcome, you know, Sam, she could have gotten a better deal if she could have afford afforded to hire her own lawyer and attorneys, but that wasn't the case. So, you know, having money definitely will help, you know, your outcome. You know, there are so many people who, who are, you know, who are already on the poor side, once incarcerated, so, you know, they can't afford to hire their own lawyers and attorneys, so they probably won't get the best deal out of it. Yeah, because of that. Now, there are so many people who can't find jobs, because they have a criminal record record, which, you know, well, that most likely, they will become homeless or, and or end up in poverty. So it's just, you know, there are so, so many homeless and impoverished people who, you know, go through incarceration at some point in their lives, and they have to deal with, you know, the consequences of getting bad deals, or not being able to get jobs because of it, which, you know, necessarily isn't necessarily, you know, their fault. You know, they did, yes, they must stop, but it doesn't call for you, I

Speaker 2

02:34

don't think it should be affecting them for like, the rest of their lives or anything like that.

Speaker 1

02:37

Exactly. Yeah. I mean, I feel like life is, you know, about, you know, learning from your mistakes that you make, and, you know, pushing forward and, you know, avoiding making them again, to, you know, better understand the topic, we need to go into more detail of the context.

Speaker 3

03:03

Yeah, so pretty much. I think that the reason why so many people are putting this, like the same position as your friend is because people have, like, I've heard even my own family say it that, like, they'll blame people for their own poverty. Like when we read the Ben Carson article, he said that poverty is a state of mind. And he took because his family was able to rise out of poverty. He thought that everyone could do exactly the same. Which isn't, I feel like with that argument, you can't. You can't, it doesn't take into account things that hold people back. Like you can't just necessarily work hard and like, you know, make a living, and then you just slowly like, feel able to move into a nicer area and have a bigger budget. It's like if you can't get a job in the first place, like your friend who was unemployed for months. Like you're kind of trapped. Yeah, especially because like in Washington areas, specifically because we let's take for example, Seattle, the cost of living is so high that that's part of why like the there's so many homeless, and I found this Yeah. Yeah. And I found this quote, or like statistic from it's from the Seattle government, it was from the mayor themselves. It was a little informational thing about the like, basically the the issue of homelessness in Seattle and it said, affordable housing development, coupled with the rising rents in the private market has not kept pace with the need. As the number of affordable units continue to decrease, the cost of housing continues to skyrocket. Over the past six years rents have increased 50 57%. A recent analysis was found at 47 percent of households that rent in the Seattle metro area, are housing cost burdened, meaning that they spend more than 30% of their income on rent alone. Which that alone like people shouldn't have to worry. Like, you know, if you're young, it's a lot. Yeah. Like, yeah, no doubt my family could like we have a pretty good sized house here. But like, if we moved to Seattle, that would be like getting the same size house, we there's no way we could afford it. Because it's like, yeah,

Speaker 2

05:34

yeah, that's like the same. I have cousins who live and not like in the same state, but like in Tennessee, and their house is like, three times the size of mine for the same price. And I shouldn't have suddenly similar if I moved to Seattle, it'd be like, if I made something the same price would be like a third of the size.

Speaker 3

05:51

And what sucks is because the costs are so high, There's no we have, it leaves people homeless. And now I think most of us have probably been to Seattle and see the homeless population there. And all the homeless laws we have prevent people from like, so they're kind of locked out of housing, because they can't afford it, because it's so expensive. But then, so they're homeless. And then there's, they're targeted by homeless laws, like, you know, sleeping on the sidewalk, or loitering, stuff like that. And then they get criminal records. And it's even harder to find a job, like they'll probably lose their current employment. So then, like people are kind of trapped this way.

Unknown Speaker

06:33

Yeah, definitely, definitely

Speaker 3

06:34

are. And so knowing all the context behind like our issue, this is our thesis.

Speaker 4

06:41

Yeah. So our thesis is that they say that people in poverty, including homeless are just violent and dangerous to others, because they're stereotypical habits, which are like drug uses violence and theft. And they, and therefore they should be put in jail for minor offenses and misdemeanors because of what like law enforcement think about these people. Although that people in poverty have high crime rates, there are better options to handle misdemeanors and minor offenses, just in other words, like putting people back in jail for the same offenses doesn't help them I want to think, like, investing them in rehab and stuff and helping them to get better, would play a bigger role in our government and, and these people's lives. And I just feel that laws and law enforcement are just too strict on impoverish people. And it's easy to target them and take them to jail and stuff like that.

Unknown Speaker

07:42

Yeah.

Speaker 4

07:44

One of our main point is that with areas and poverty having higher crime rates and a larger number of different ethnicities, law enforcement handle routine situations more serious than need be. So we've seen this a lot lately with like George Floyd, Brianna Taylor and stuff like that. But from the humans, right watch. Made in 2019. The data said that black people are more subjected to physical force including stun guns, police, dog bites, pepper, spray punches, and Kickstarter rate 2.7 times that of white people. That's kind of crazy to think about. Also, talking about this, this was in Tulsa, which and then our second is people in poverty are less likely less likely to get a job after being let out of prison. Like your friend Sam. This kind of went with her to the prison policy initiative, stated that 5 million formerly incarcerated people living the in the United States show that formerly incarcerated people are unemployed at a rate of over 27%. And like, they said that this is a higher total than the US unemployment during the Great Depression. So I thought that was pretty crazy. Wow,

Speaker 2

09:11

yeah. That is crazy to even be able to compare those two things together and let alone than it was during the crate. Yeah, that's crazy.

Speaker 4

09:21

That's insane. We would learn from our mistakes, but

Unknown Speaker

09:24

you would think.

Speaker 4

09:26

And then, our third is that laws are too strict on minor offenses, especially those in poverty, which we see this a lot in like the poor communities, especially with how they handle the situations down there. So state and federal crime control policies have been based on belief that harsh sentencing laws will deter people from committing crimes. So basically saying that the harsher the punishment, the less likely other people will do it. Which, as of today, I don't know if that's working too good. I think people are just getting really upset with what's like the sentencing honestly. And then, many more blacks and whites are arrested on drug charges. Why? Because they're police, the police find it easier to concentrate their forces on inner city neighborhoods, where drug dealing tends to take place on the streets. Which I definitely see that how we're going and what we talked about in like, the last episode, when are not the last episode The other episode about how and then our last one, instead of throwing people in jail for drug charges, we should try to help them, especially now, because drugs are taking over the world, it seems like, especially in these low income neighborhoods, the National Institute of Drug Abuse, this is this is by far my favorite, quote, a 2019 or 2009 study in Baltimore, Maryland, for example, found that opioid addicts, prisoners who started methadone treatment, along with counseling in prison, and then continued after the release had better outcomes, reduced drug and criminal activity, then those who receive counseling while in prison, or those who started methadone treatment after release, which, I think this is pretty cool, because it just proves that with help these people can get better and make the community a better place to. And just opiate addicts, is just one of many things that we can help people with.

Speaker 2

11:44

Yeah, and I think that the thought that someone who is addicted to some type of drug he's just getting to stop after you just lock them up in some place for whatever amount of years. I mean, it's not like they're, it's not like they're doing the drugs, because they don't know because they really want to or something, it's because they feel like they need to do when they're addicted at that point. So just because you've locked them up for some amount of years doesn't mean they're going to just try to stop or stop doing them. Right.

Speaker 1

12:07

I mean, it does, you know, it can, it does help, you know, some people, you know, just because they're not gonna have access to it, but there are also a ton of people who it doesn't help at all.

Speaker 2

12:19

So, yeah, it just kind of depends on the person. But I feel like for the most part, I'd be a lot more beneficiaries, people, if they're put in some kind of a rehab or something like that, and, you know, benefit those people in and do this the community in general a lot more than just sending them to jail. Yeah. Even though we went over a lot of, like articles we saw, there's some that argue, like, different beliefs in so I remember, one that stood out to me was the like, Michaela said earlier that if you just believe if your mindset changes, that you won't be in poverty, and that you're gonna get in poverty, then it would be that easy for you to get out of poverty. You know, and when I said that I could, like, see this being true to an extent, I mean, like, just because when you're going through your day, you can like, if you have a deal, you can definitely tell that mindset has a big impact on your day to day life. You know, if you're, if you're like doing homework, and you have the mindset that you don't want to be doing it and you're really bored, it's gonna take you a lot longer to get that assignment done. And you know, it won't be as good. If you have the mindset that, you know, I'm going to get this done, I'm going to do a good job. It's, it's done a lot faster. But I think that this mindset only can get you so far. Because while having a good mindset will definitely be beneficial to somebody, it's not just going to change their poverty state. Some of these people already have the mindset that they don't want to be there, and they're trying to get their partners to get out. But yet, they're still stuck in poverty, because it's just not something that's going to change overnight. It's going to take maybe years and years, and they've been trying, but they just can't find a way out.

Speaker 1

13:52

Right? Well, I feel like there are a lot of people too, who have the mindset of like, oh, man, I don't want to be in poverty anymore. But also don't do anything about it, you know, don't go out and get a job or, you know, do anything. Yeah,

Speaker 2

14:07

that's true. But um, another thing that, that we saw when we were looking at those counter arguments were people saying kind of like Devin said earlier that there needs to be a lot stricter law enforcement over these people in poverty and over these drug users. And that would solve the issue of poverty, impoverished areas and over drugged areas. But I think that when we saw this, to some Yeah, I agree that some of these laws that are put in place are definitely helping the impoverished areas. Like obviously, the laws that are making drugs, illegal are have the right mindset, you know, they're trying to make it so it's harder for these people to obtain the drugs, therefore, they're not going to be as likely to do them. But laws like that aren't too, like working well, because people can still get access to these drugs just as easily as if they were legal, but it's making it a lot more dangerous for them to get. And but then some of these laws, I don't think that are necessary, I don't think that these stricter and more laws are gonna have any impact on these people, because all that's going to do is that's going to find these people more money or send these people to jail more often and make it even more difficult for them to get out of poverty and get back to living their actual lives. Because we know there's those laws in place that, like put people in jail for not being able to pay fines, or put people in jail for sleeping in the wrong areas when they're homeless. And this is just going to set them back like a long time, rather than helping them progress forward into being out of poverty. And the final thing that I saw will be looked back on was that people in poverty should just get a job out of poverty. And it's just that easy. You know, if you just want to, if you're in poverty want, you just get a job, and then you start making money and getting an income. Well, this is true for some people, some people who are homeless or living in poverty, just don't even take time out of their day to get a job or anything like that. They just are, I guess, not content with what they're doing. But they just don't, they don't try to get out and get a job and change their lives, you know, right. But I think that for a vast majority of the people who are living in poverty, they're trying their best to get jobs in some of them are even working multiple jobs, but it's so just not enough. Like, they need some extra help to get that one extra step to get out of those impoverished areas. Right.

Speaker 1

16:26

Well, I mean, yeah, like, like going back to Seattle to I mean, finding places are not cheap. So I mean, it would be so hard for them, you know, and I couldn't imagine it.

Speaker 2

16:38

Yeah. But I think that, over this quarter, we've been able to learn a lot of interesting and like useful things for both sides of the argument. You know, whether you support one side or the other, it doesn't, doesn't really matter. But as long as we've gone over information that might have helped people or helped us learn something, I think it's really useful. Definitely. And I think that it was very helpful in that last podcast that we got to even talk to your friend, Sam, and just her experience with after getting out of jail, trying to get jobs and all that. I think it's just all that stuff has been very helpful to have us learn more about this issue.

Speaker 1

17:13

Yeah, definitely. I mean, I was really glad that she was, you know, able and willing to, you know, sit down and talk with me about it. Because, you know, a lot of people Yeah, probably, you know, on their wrist or, you know, one want to talk about it.

Unknown Speaker

17:28

Yeah, that was that was good to talk to.

Unknown Speaker

17:30

Yeah,

Speaker 2

17:30

I think that this is also it's good omega information, cuz this is a very important topic. You know, if if the way we are treating these impoverished populations doesn't change, then their situation is it's only going to get worse or stay the same. I don't see it getting any better, because it'll be a lot more difficult for these people got a poverty, and I don't think that's what any of us wants. I don't think any of us want people to be living in poverty and have to deal with the situation. Well, I can't imagine I think that that's Yeah, I think that's definitely why we need to have some sort of a change so we can get these people going in the right track. Definitely.

Speaker 1

18:06

Yes. Well, thank you guys so much for tuning in to our last podcast and I hope that you know, we gave you new insight or you know, taught you something new over the past few episodes, whether you go on one side or the other, I hope I hope you know, it helped you be informed on you know, topic. So thank you guys so much for listening.

Unknown Speaker

18:31

Thank you. Thank you for tuning in, guys.

Unknown Speaker

18:33

All right. Well, thank you guys so much.

Unknown Speaker

18:36

Alright, yeah, I'll see ya.

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