Interview with Reggie S.

Reggie S. shares his experiences with the criminal justice system and his struggles with mental health and substance abuse. He discusses how his mental health and criminal behavior were interconnected and how he had to learn to address his emotions and trauma. Reggie emphasizes the importance of seeking emotional support and not keeping things bottled up. He also talks about the role of physical wellness in his recovery and how taking care of his physical health helped him improve his mental health. Reggie discusses his spiritual beliefs and how faith and hope played a role in his journey of change and transformation. He concludes by expressing gratitude for the opportunity to live a better life and the importance of being part of the change that allows him to be a better person. All right, welcome to Twin Cities Recovery Project and Newcomer, hosted by me, Jamal Kling. I'm sitting here with Reggie S. Welcome, Reggie. Introduce yourself. Yes, my name is Reggie S. Thank you, Twin Cities, for allowing me to come and be part of this podcast. I truly appreciate it. Maybe I can give some valuable information to those and some insight to what the criminal justice system before, after, and during is like, so we can start the Q&A. The emotional dimension right now on this first segment part of the podcast, tell me a little bit about yourself. Well, I'm 60 years old, been in and out of the criminal justice system for most of my adult life. Been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety disorder. I have issues with trusting others. I can feel it on that trust issues. I had to deal with that myself. You mentioned that you had struggled with mental health as well as the criminal justice system. How do those two things correlate for you? Those two things correlate for me because if I wasn't taking care of my mental health or dealing with my mental health, it allowed me to act out and do things that was not just harmful for myself but harmful for my family and all the people that was involved in my life. For those who was trying to help me, I didn't care nothing about them. It was all about what Reggie wanted, when Reggie wanted, how Reggie wanted, and to hell with anybody else. What feelings or emotions come up when you talk about this process of your emotions before entering the criminal justice system? They say anger is just a secondary emotion because a lot of times that's the first thing we know. As males, black males, brown males, that's what we know, anger, frustration, scare, fear. That was the beginning process. Then when I went into the criminal justice system, got involved in it, it was like, hey, what's next? How will I have to deal with my emotions? And I bottled them all up, buried them, pushed them down, didn't deal with them. I know we've had conversations before and you mentioned something about the fear of unknown, fear of the unknown of the world, self, and others. What does that look like for you? The fear of unknown. That's just like not having control, allowing someone else to have control because I don't know what's going on with myself, not only with myself, but with my mental health or my emotional health, period. So what emotional supports did you have or what emotional supports did you lack around this period before coming into the criminal justice system? I had street emotional support. I had people on the street telling me, hey, men don't cry. We don't show emotions. We don't care. I have a heart of ice. F people, they don't care nothing about you, so why would you care about them? So I didn't have no emotional attachments. My emotional attachments were what I learned from people on the street that they didn't know how to deal with their emotional attachments or just lack of emotions. Would you say that you have had a positive emotional support in that period as well? Not as much because I come from a household, my mother was a single parent. My dad wasn't around. The emotional support that I had, I really, my mother don't have any, I don't have any uncles and aunts or uncles. So therefore, all my emotional support came from the streets or, oh, is this what it's supposed to be like? I see a TV show. Oh, the cars we say, that's how it's supposed to be. But no, it's in reality that was, don't apply at all at all. So let's talk about this, uh, coming into the criminal justice system. When's the first time that you entered into the system? First time I entered the criminal justice system, uh, I was 14 years old. Mama said, if you want to be grown, be grown, you're not going to be grown in this house. So I was out on the street at 14 years old doing what I thought a grown man was supposed to do. But I was a teenage boy, didn't have no direction of what was going on in my life. You know, I ended up in foster care, a group home and hey, that didn't do much good for my emotional support as well. A lot to unpack, especially when you're taken away from the home setting that you're accustomed to and you're going into different systems where people just, they don't want, they ain't got the time or they don't want to put in the time to kind of work on some of the issues that we have when they pop up. Did you feel that you, that was like that for you as you're going in the system? Like no one cared. Nobody cared. I mean, of course I felt like, Hey, I'm on my own. I mean, you're, I'm a naive teenage boy. Don't know nothing about jail. Don't know nothing. Thought I knew about the streets, didn't know nothing about the streets. I always, I got an analogy I always say, you put a rabbit in a snake den, what you think going to happen? So I either had to learn how to be a snake or get ate up by the snake. So eventually I had to learn to adapt. That's all human natures do. We're going to adapt to our situation and I adapted. Was it a good adaption? Sometimes. Some of the things that we hold on to have got us here, right? There's always a silver lining sometimes. Let's talk about that silver lining. Where did this transition of recognizing your emotions start like that, Hey, maybe there's a benefit to look into this emotional regulation and expressing these emotions. Later on in my 10 years, I started to realize that some of my core values, some of my core beliefs and some of my priorities was wrong. Hey, as humans, we're made of just not just our mothers, but our fathers as well. So we are emotional people. So I had to learn how to recognize that, Hey, what I'm feeling is, is fear. It's not anger. What I'm feeling is frustration. What I'm feeling is, Hey, I'm being scared. This is something that I never had to do before in my life to take an inventory of myself to realize that, Hey, the things that you was taught or the things that you have been believing in for so long are a lie. I like that you touching on that core beliefs, core beliefs are most deeply held assumption about ourselves, the world and others. And our core beliefs only get us so far. Sometimes we have to check into them and evaluate and see if they're actually serving us. And if they're not, we have to address and change them. So what core beliefs did you have about yourself that I couldn't be myself? I had to hide. I had to put on multiple masses for multiple people to be multiple things. And I'm only one individual. And by doing those things, I was not being authentic to myself. I wasn't being the real or original Reggie because addiction played a part as well. It's a chameleon. Hey, I'm going to be who I could be to get what I want when I needed to get what I needed. And those things was detrimental to me as well. When did you enter like a major criminal justice system, federal or at that state? State level, I entered at the state level of criminal justice system when I was 18 years old. For property crime, then eventually I get out. I was right back in maybe two months later. So off and on for the last 40 years of my life, I've been in and out of juvenile or adult correctional facilities. How did you regulate your emotions? I know for myself, experiencing that early on, my first two bits, I was like, show my ass. I was an inmate. I wasn't staying in my lane. I was trying to get in everybody else's lanes and I didn't really check in on all this emotional side of me, PTSD, my, you know, the traumas that I had coming up. How did you experience that? For me, I was 18. I was in the street gang or organization as they call them now or whatever. I think they renamed them to groups. Okay. I mean, I go to a lot of groups. I didn't know what gang was. Right. Well, back then it was organization. We had a little structure. So I was forced to stay in my lane to a certain extent, but I never dealt with my emotions. I never dealt with the anxiety. I never dealt with the trauma that I was going through in my life. I never dealt with those things. Hey, Reggie, I want you to do this. I need you to do this. Carry a knife. Okay. Carry a knife. I want you to be a little security. Okay. Whatever. You know? So that was how I was dealing with my emotional state then. Transitioning out into the community. What did that look like? How did you prepare yourself? First and foremost, I had to understand that did nobody do anything to me to get me locked up. I mean, yes, it was mitigating factors. There were many things happening in my life that allowed me to get locked up, but the reality of it is, did nobody point a gun to my head and say, go commit a crime? I done that. So that was the first thing that I had to understand. And the second thing I really had to really deep down dig in and say, you know what, Reggie? If you don't start dealing with your mental and emotional health, you will continue to be incarcerated. You in jail, some people care two Fs about you. If you don't care about yourself, you're not going to change. So I had to, like I said, dig deep and realize, hey, man, my mental and emotional health, the anger, the resentment, the hatred, or the fear that I had, not just for myself or the unknown, but for the people that I thought owed me something, I had to let that shit go. What experience on emotional wellness do you suggest to others? First and foremost, man, understand that you're not dealing with this shit by yourself. Find someone that you're comfortable with to talk to and not going to be judgmental of you. And open up to them and let them know what you're going through, the shit that you're feeling. You know, like for me, it was times that I thought about suicide, but I wouldn't tell nobody about the shit. I'll just let that shit eat at me, eat at me, eat at me. And basically I was committing suicide every day when I used to go buy drugs from somebody that didn't know what the fuck I was getting. So first I could tell people, this is my suggestion. Don't keep that shit closed in. Ask for help because there's a lot of people out here that's willing to help and will go that extra mile. Not just, oh, at 12 in the afternoon, they'll come and sit with you and talk with you at two in the morning. Pain shared is pain lessened. So we're going to switch over to the physical side. So my question is, was physical wellness part of your journey? How did that look like before transitioning and going into criminal justices? I didn't give a fuck about no doctors. Fuck the doctors. Something wouldn't go away, man. It's self-medication, man. What you mean a doctor? I ain't got no money to pay for no doctor. I ain't got time to go to the doctor. I ain't got time to go to the emergency room that's cut into my, the shit that I'm doing. I ain't got time for that shit. So I didn't care nothing about, you know, and people don't understand if your physical health ain't no good, your mental health ain't no good. So I had to learn to take care of my physical health in order to start dealing with my mental health. So you're talking about this self-medicating. So we're talking about the criminal justice system, but we're also here talking also about that recovery. How did your substance use disorder start and what does that look like? My substance use disorder started very young, when I was 11, 12 years old. Everybody said marijuana is the gateway drug. I just feel like I heard me personally have addictive compulsive disorder. I got, I'm going to get addicted to something. Whether it was money, whether it was drugs, it just happened to be drugs. So it started at a young age for me. Went from marijuana to, like people say, my drug of choice is this. My drug of choice was anything that I wanted to use to get high off of. There was no really particular drug of choice. I prefer using opiates, but that's where it started. That's how. So how did that play a major part in your physical health? Played a major part in my physical health because if I felt a pain, I said, oh, I don't even need to go to the doctor. I can just use self-medication. And my body was telling me, hey, man, there's something wrong other than that. And then when I decided to get into recovery and go get a physical, come to find out certain things was going on. Hey, man, you got high blood pressure. You borderline diabetic. You got high cholesterol. Oh, wait a minute, what do I got to do to reverse these things? So I was taught and learned that I had to learn to eat better, exercise, and just do healthier things. What contributed and helped stop this use? Do you think that physical wellness played a big part in you not going back out there? Yes. I would say that, and not just the physical wellness, but it's a saying in the rooms, get sick and tired of being sick and tired. Once you've spent so much time with your adult, that's not your adult life, but your life period, in and out, allowing other people to control you and you not having control of your own self, you just say, fuck it, I'm tired. Let me do something different. Let me live a healthier life. Let me live a better life. Let me live my best life. One would say you were going into the system kind of forced to check into your house. Ain't no question. Ain't no question. Oh, wait, now what's going on with me? Ain't no question. I mean, once you get part of the system, you're going to do two things. You're either going to become a better person or you're going to stay part of the system. And I wanted to become a better person. It allowed me constantly, a lot of times we say stay out of our head, but it allowed me to stay in my head to reevaluate and to inventory some things that I needed to change in my life. How's your health today? Great. Like I said, I'm 60 years old, no borderline diabetic, man. I can outrun a 30-year-old. I can outwork a 30-year-old. I mean, hey, I'm in great health, man. I mean, I got health insurance, so if my body telling me something, I'm going to check it out. So you check in. You check in to learn the importance of your health today. Ain't no question. That's what's up. That's what's up. So, yeah, if y'all don't know, this young gentleman over here is looking pretty sharp and dapper at, what did you say, 60? At 60. At 60. You know, they have that black don't crack. It is out there. It is out there. We need to bottle that. Yeah. So let's talk about that spiritual side. I'm going to start with this. Do you have a higher power? Yes, I do. What does that higher power look like to you? My higher power looked at to me today is every day I get up, first and foremost, I give thanks to my higher power for this day, for this moment, for this opportunity. I got a lot more gratitude today than I did before entering into the justice system. Truthfully, I ain't know nothing about gratitude, empathy, compassion or none of that shit. I used to say, man, I'm going to go out there and get hit by a truck. I wouldn't give a fuck. I'm digging in their pockets to see if they got some money in there to get out of there. But today I'm grateful. I'm grateful that people in my life is willing to help me. They trust me enough to allow me to be on this journey with them. That sounds powerful. Was it always like that? Were you religious? Were you your family cultural or spiritual or religious? Growing up, man, I mean, we was borderline spiritual and religious. I mean, I knew about certain religions. I knew about certain. But for me, it's more about spirituality. It's more about getting in tune with who I am and the people around me. I mean, it's more about. But before I went incarcerated, honestly, to us about high power. I just tell people, hey, man, as bad as it was, I used to do some awful things. You know what I mean? I'm just grateful that I learned to forgive myself and be able to move forward. Who would you say brought you up in your spiritual values? My moms. I mean, things were going on in our lives. You know, black family. Boy, pray. Pray. Just pray, boy. It's going to be okay. Just pray, mama. It ain't that easy. They just pray all the time. We got to put some work in. Boy, it's going to be okay. Just pray. God got you. It'll be all right. Yeah. You know, in itself, it does have power. It does. It does. You just feel like, hey, someone's watching over us. Yes. Right. So, were you rebellious and blameful? All the time. All the time. That's not just sometimes. I was all the time. I had to learn that my higher power was not just, you know, the people outside of me. But I was a higher power. People around me that was allowing me to be part of their life was part of the spiritual battles that I was dealing with. Was I rebellious? Hell, yeah. Ain't no question. Hey, you know you're not supposed to do that. God don't give two F's about me. So, why can't I do it? Quit the blame. Yeah. Blame the higher power. Yeah. No, he can't. You're right. It's okay. You're right. Good. For me, I always looked at it like, I used to say I was victimized. So, it justified that I victimized others. You know, just that wicked concept of like, why God me? Why you do this to me? And really, it's like, thank you. I understand. Like I said. That was my thing. You hurt me, so I'm going to hurt you. If I don't hurt you, I'm going to hurt somebody else. You know, like I said, one of my, when we was talking earlier, we was talking about core beliefs. One of my core beliefs, some of y'all are old enough that's going to listen to this, was Beretta. You know, they say, hey, you can't do the time, don't do the crime. That was my theme song. So, until I had to realize that I was giving myself permission to hurt people, go to jail, and continue to hurt people, and go to jail, and continue to hurt myself, I had to change that. So, you would say you had faith and hope to change. Ain't no question. So, what does that faith and hope look like? How did that change go? Because earlier you had said that I just had to adapt. But now we're talking about change. For myself, I used to say, oh, I can always revert back. I can adapt to my situations. I can't change. But really, what's that change look like? I had to have a little bit of faith and hope that, you know what, I can actually push through and do these things and be a productive member of society, as they say. But for me, coming out of that criminal justice system, my last bit, coming out, I was sitting there praying to God, like, please, God, just let me get this together. I've taken care of all these drug addictions. I've taken care of all this anger. I'm checking in on my mental state, my physical. But I went back out and got married right away after two months of being out. So, I didn't check into my relationships. So, these relations that I had, and when I left this lifestyle, I had to say, hey, it's everything. And I have to have faith and hope that I can change. I need that patience. So, I pray on that patience. And I have it this day. You know, I have a lot of patience to deal with, Jamal. So, what is that faith and hope? You know, it's kind of crazy when you say that. People say, man, be careful what you pray for because you just might get it. Just might. I mean, and I know one thing for sure for me. God gave me everything that I asked for when I prayed for it. My higher power did. He didn't give it to me when I wanted it, but he gave it to me. And what that looked like for me was putting in the work, digging deep, understanding that, hey, man, everybody ain't out to hurt me. That people are out here to help me. The world is not always a dog-eat-dog, selfish-ass world. Just because I was a selfish individual, I had to let go of some of that bullshit. I just told somebody the other day, you're going to change one way or another because change is going to happen. So, why not be part of the change that's going to allow me to be a better person? I tell people I ain't changed for nobody but me, but I'm glad the world's going to reap the benefits of my change. So, you would say that you're grateful for the good and bad in your journey? Oh, ain't no question. I mean, without the bad, I would not appreciate the good. I mean, without those struggles, I would not appreciate the fucking good times that I'm having. Somebody used to tell me this, man. I used to look at them like, okay, whatever. They'd say, man, just because I smell like smoke, that don't mean I ain't been through the fire. I just cleaned up pretty well, that's all. You know, like I say, man, you see people walking around with T-shirts that say, be patient with me because God ain't through with me yet. And I say the same thing, be patient with me. God's not through with me yet. My higher power's not through with me. I'm still being refined. There's still things in my life that I have to do. There's still things that I have to say, man. Man, you're going back to old habits. Shake yourself ready. You know what that's going to lead to. It's more about me recognizing myself so I do not have to adapt and revert back to old habits. Leading into that, going into the social piece, this connection with the people that we associate with from the beginning to the end here, right? So how did your social group influence you entering the criminal justice system? My social group was, hey, I wanted to fit in. I was a people pleaser. I wanted to do everything to make everyone else happy. And, hell, I didn't care about the consequences if it was going to lead me to jail. Hey, man, they was going to be my buddies. They liked Reggie. They cared about Reggie. They wanted to be Reggie's homies, but the reality was they gave two fucks about Reggie. They was using Reggie. They had some positive influences on you, right? Yes, they did. What are some of these positive influences that brought you into these social groups? I mean, what positive influence I had, they gave me the sister bologna. They made sure that regardless of how it is now, but then they made sure I went to school. I had fucked up shoes on. They made sure, hey, man, you ain't got to be like this. They did give me positive things. They did show me that, hey, man, there's people out there that care about me. Hey, man, when I needed food or needed something for my little brothers and sisters, they was there to help me because I am the oldest brother. I had two brothers and two sisters younger than me, so it was not all negative. I mean, like people say, oh, it's all negative games, these games. No, all of it is not negative, man. There was importance in these groups, these people, the social settings at that time. They validated you. Yes. Did they also help reinforce some of that criminal thinking? 90% of the time. 90% of the time. 90% of the time. It's okay to do this. They give me reasons to rationalize and continue into my criminal activities, into my criminal thinking today. Before I move forward, just because I've changed and doing things different with my life, hell, isn't it? I'm not saying I don't walk down the street and say, man, there go $10,000. Man, that might be a lick for me. I still have those thoughts, but the problem is I do not act on those thoughts because I know the consequences of those thoughts today. That's what it is. We have 60,000 thoughts today, 90% of them are negative. Right. If we have a substance use disorder, probably 90% of those are wrong. How am I going to get out there and back out there? We've got to combat a lot of that. I like that you said that. Would you say that social groups that you were involved in helped fuel that substance use disorder? They helped fuel the criminal, the substance, the mental, and the emotional dysfunction. Yeah. A whole lot of that. Dysfunction, you know what I mean? And not just on the outside. When I got incarcerated into the criminal justice system, they helped fuel that as well. After, man, fuck you, you know? So there, again, I had to sit back and say, man, was these social groups a hindrance to my growth or beneficial to my growth? So what did you realize? I realized most of the time it was a hindrance to my growth. It was some people was more about themselves, their selfish beliefs, their selfish priorities, their selfish getting what they want when they want it. And I had to understand that as an individual that, hey, in reality, who's doing this time? You or them? Yeah. So what did it look like inside the criminal justice system? And I want to focus on this last bit that you did. You know, what did that transition of the social piece and transitioning out here into the social piece? Come the 19th of June, I'll be out one year. Yes. Yes, congratulations. Yes, I'll be out a year. So I was incarcerated for three years during all the uprising of the George Floyd and all the Black Lives Matter situation. I was incarcerated. So there was no social gatherings in jail. It was pandemic. Oh, stay in your room. I'm in my room 23 hours. So that gave me more than enough time to do self-admission. What I didn't want to do self-admission. So you were forced again to now not only the physical but the social piece. Yes, definitely, because there was no social. You know what I mean? I had to realize that, hey, Reggie, you're doing this time by yourself. I mean, hey, you can only watch so much TV. You can only read so many books. And you're not getting a chance to get out there to get on the phone and talk to nobody if they want to talk to you. So, yeah, I was forced to really take some serious inventory about the things that was going on in my life at the time. Definitely, you know, that leads to, you know, meeting up with some positive, influential organizations that you became part of. So what does that look like today? My social set is in social groupings now. I am a person in long-term recovery. I'm not saying that I do not associate with people that still use, because I do. Facts. I do. Most of us do. But that don't mean I have to stay with that, stay in that group of people. I just lead by example now, man. Twin Cities Recovery, other organizations, I go to NA meetings. I mean, I just get involved in my recovery more. I get involved more in my spiritual part and my mental and emotional part. I deal with people. I'm not afraid now to ask someone for help when I'm going through whatever I'm going through. Or I don't give them the same answer. Hey, Reggie, how you doing today? I'm fine. No, I'm fucked up. I'm not in the mood right now. Don't talk to me, because it'll give me like an hour. It's got my back on me right now. Give them some real facts. All the fluff. Yeah. You know what I mean? Hey, man, I ain't with this shit today. I'm not with it today. I mean, hey, how you feel today, man? I'm irritated as hell. Shit ain't going the way I want it to go. But, hey, one thing I know, that's life, and I'm going to be all right, and I'm dealing with life on lifetimes. This recovery. So what do you do for your recovery? I went through treatment, graduated. I currently still go see my therapist once a week. I still come up to Twin Cities and pop in on the people up there, ask them if there's anything. And not only that, I run a recovery home. Oh, okay. That's it. You're working for the meat and potatoes. You've been carting around. Yeah, I'm sort of kind of modest in some of my things, man, but, yeah, I run a recovery home. I currently host seven beds for agri-houses on the north side of Minneapolis, man. It's a great house. Y'all come and visit. Y'all want any information, hook up with Jamal or me, and we'll get you out of there. We'll get you there. And you can see if he's really 60. He looks like 60. What? You're lying. Yeah, no, you see me right. I mean, for real. That's what's up. That's what's up. You know, that transition in community and things you're doing now, and especially in your recovery, it kind of helps you avoid that criminal thinking. Boy, no question. No question. Hey, like they say, man, recovery, one thing you do when you start using, you get an instant pay increase. It's okay now to go cycling in the car knowing I ain't using somebody else's stuff. It's fine. You know what I mean? It's fine. I ain't got to worry about that nowadays. I ain't got to worry about looking over my shoulder. Oh, man, the police. No. Fuck that. I got IDs, man. When they drive down on me, you got IDs, sir? Here you go. What's the problem? Yeah, it's like, here you go, sir. No, I ain't got to worry. You're right. I ain't got to worry. Don't mind me. I'm still driving. Like, is that me? No. That's not right. And if it is me, here you go. That's right. I'm legit now. Legit. All right. All right. So the occupational, you're doing some things. You worked on another job, I believe. Yes, I do. I work for a non-profit organization called We Push for Peace. It's called community engagement. You know, a lot of times, man, we get unruly people that store owners don't know how to deal with. And the first thing they want to do is call the police. I'm the mediator between them and the police. It's harm reduction. Community involvement, man. I mean, a lot of times we see things in the community and we just turn our head for it. And we wonder, man, I don't want to live over in the south side of Minneapolis. That's the hood. But who the fuck made it the hood? I don't want to live on the north side of Minneapolis because it's the hood. But who the fuck made it the hood? And the only way to stop and change it is to get in there. And get involved. And get your feedback. It's got to. It's got to go from the ground up. We did it. It was easy to go out there and fuck it up. It's hard to change it, but it's easy. It's an easier life for us. Especially us that have been through it. Yeah. Ain't no question. What about before the criminal justice system? How was your occupational time spent? Trust me, man. I didn't care nothing about doing shit. My job was nonexistent in my life. My job was to hurt people, steal from people, take from people, fuck people's credit up, or whatever it was, to get what I wanted to get when I wanted to get it. I didn't get my first income tax check, fuck, until I was 54 years old. That's only six years of opioid. True. So, you know, and that's the reality in most cases. It's like, who's got time for a job when, you know, my job is to get the next one. Right. You know, or get the next lick, or help someone. To victimize the next person. Let's keep the shit for what it is, man. Facts. You know, we sit back and sit there, oh man, I'm not hurting nobody. Yeah, you is. You're hurting your community. Like people say, drop a pebble in the water and see the ripple effects. And these are the ripple effects. What about in the systems? When you were in there, were you working, or were you still doing the same type, or similar type of work that got you in there? Uh, in the system I did both. I had to hustle in the system. Shit, who gonna work for 25 cents an hour? I can't survive when you gotta buy deodorant, soap, deodorant, and all that other shit that comes along. You want to eat oodles and doodles. And you gotta make phone calls. If you don't know what a store is, it's usually two for once. Oh, we long sharking here. Let's keep it what it is. We long sharking. You want one noodle, we want two back. If we gotta wait two weeks, we want three back. So let's keep the shit what it is. And if you're smoking, I got a bag for you. Right, so that's what it is. But, again, I was forced to budget. Did you learn how to budget while you were in the criminal justice system? I had no choice. Had no choice. I learned how to budget. I learned that, hey, somebody send me X amount of dollars, I know these X amount of dollars gotta last me X amount of days or X amount of weeks, cause if they don't, I'm back into criminal thinking. Or you're going to get a bag. There ain't no question. You're not getting a two for one. There ain't no question. Alright, how did this affect your living situation in there? You know, that occupational, like, did you need to get a job? Oh, no question. I had to get a job. Or did you struggle to get a job? I mean, the most popular job you're going to get in the criminal justice system, and anybody can tell you, oh, you're going to jail, you're going to get this, you're going to do, they lying to you. Food's filled up. Treatment's filled up. Mental health providers is filled up. The only thing you're going to do, you're going to work in their kitchen. You're definitely going to work in their kitchen. I call it people, oh, man, that's modern day slavery. You're going, like they say, man, you want to eat? You're going to go work. Did you establish a strong work ethic inside the criminal justice system? If I wanted some finance, I had to. If I wanted to get some of the things not only that I needed but wanted, I had to. I had to get up. I had to be on time. I had to do the job. And then in turn, like, everybody always want to say, hey, man, jail is bad. Hell, jail saved my life. Jail gave me an education. Jail allowed me to do some things that in my addiction I would have never done or I would have been dead. So how did you prepare yourself for the workforce when transitioning from the criminal justice system into the community? What things did you have to do for your reentry? First and foremost, you got to get an ID. Without an ID, you can't get free food. You can't get free food without an ID. So my suggestion to anybody that's an incarcerated man, make sure you work on getting you some IDs, man, certificates, Social Security cards, and Minnesota State ID. Man, they just passed a law come July 1st, man. We can even sign up to vote now. Yes, yes. Get out here on probation. Yeah, you can still vote on parole and all that, man. Parole, probation. Yep, you can still vote. So first and foremost, get you some IDs, man. Find your skill sets. Write a resume for some of the things that you know you're good at doing, whether you can work with your hands or you're good at talking to people. Hey, man, some of us is professional salesmen. So if you want to work in the salesman, say, I'm a professional salesman. Hey, if you know how to fix things, well, first and foremost, learn your skill sets, man. You can apply those skill sets when you do get into the world. What barriers did you come across? What challenges did you face? A lot of rejection. I mean, a lot of doors are going to be closed in your face. A lot of times people, oh, man, we can't do this. We can't do that. Well, first and foremost, man, understand, man, just because you're a felon, they can't hold that against you. They got so many programs out here. That's for felons. They got tax credits. They got you can get bonded. I mean, people will hire you just for that fact that you is a felon because they know they're going to get a tax break from the federal government. Yeah, I heard that they actually have something on the federal side for individuals coming out to get a grant for starting up their own business and helping them transition into that. Yes. So, you know, there's things out there that we can do to tailor our life to be successful, especially when it comes to occupational. So what are some of the milestones that you've hit in your occupation itself? You touched on a few jobs that you had. I'm sure they didn't just come. You had to work towards. No, I had to work towards. I mean, first, I mean, I had to understand what I enjoy doing and I enjoy helping people. I mean, once you get to learn who you are as an individual, I learned myself as an individual. I'm a caretaker. I'm a person that wants to see people succeed. I'm a person. I'm a very optimistic person. I believe the best in any and everybody. You can change. You just got to put the work into changing. Ain't shit going to come to you out here for nothing. I just heard the other day, man, people with a lot of money took a long time to get a lot of money. Long time. That shit just didn't drop in their lap. They had to work at it. So if there's anything in your life that you want, you got to work at it. You got to put the work in. You have to sacrifice. You have to understand, hey, man, sometimes you got to cut some of the motherfucking people off that you think is your friends and realize they're not your friends to get a better life for yourself. In order to have a better life for your friends. So that environmental piece, you know, that's our friends, where we were, where we found ourselves, the surroundings in the system, out here now doing things. So I got a few questions on this. Just a few. We kind of summed up a lot of this environmental stuff going on. So the question here is how did your environment influence you entering the criminal justice system? My environment influenced me entering into the criminal justice system by I wanted shit. My mom was a single parent, five kids. Shit, she couldn't give me them Jordans. She couldn't give me them Converses. She couldn't get this shit. I mean, she got bills she got to pay care. I got other brothers and sisters that need things as well. So, hey, I mean, yeah, shoveling snow, cutting grass, delivering the newspapers ain't going to buy no motherfucking drawers neither. Too much. Too hard, right? It was too hard at the time. I wanted what I wanted and I wanted not. I mean, I worked, yeah, but shit. You got to save three checks to get it. No. So my environment played a big part of me entering into the criminal justice system. So the second part of this is how did your environment influence you while in the criminal justice system? My environment influenced me while in the criminal justice system. Go to bed. Man, when I first got in, like I said, I was 18 years old. As I got older, I started to realize when I first got in, fuck everybody. Fuck everything. I'm doing what the fuck Reggie wanted to do. Yeah, it was a little structured, but reality is I'm still doing what Reggie wanted to do. As I got older and started realizing, the criminal justice system forced me to say, stop the shit that you're doing or you're going to be in here for the rest of your life. Stop the shit that you're doing. Because there's some people that's in the criminal justice system, been in that motherfucker for 40 years. You give them a cell phone, they don't know what the fuck going on. They don't know how to text. They don't know how to do none of that shit. They only see that shit on the news. So when I was going out and coming back in, Reggie, what's going on? What's happening? Daily report. They fascinated about the shit that's going on. So the criminal justice system forced me to change. Not just adapt, the criminal justice system forced me to change. That's what's up. So how does your environment influence you today while you're on here? My environment influenced me today, man. Like I said, I changed for myself. I do community outreach, man. I do community pantry, man, on the north side of Minneapolis. Man, I pass out food, man. I pass out Narcan kits, man. I get involved with the youth, man, to let them know, man, hey, you ain't got to do this. We got resources out here for you, especially in the state of Minnesota, man. Yes, definitely. Man, you want to change, put forth the effort to change, man. Stop thinking that. Hey, I tell them, you're outside of McDonald's begging for change all day. Why don't you just go inside of McDonald's and work for the $15 an hour? Hell, that's better than working for $25 an hour. So I try to surround myself. Well, I ain't going to say I try. I do. I do surround myself with people that's going to uplift me, that's going to call me on my bullshit when I'm on my bullshit. And at the same time, man, encourage me as well. Let me know, hey, man, you're doing a great job, man. Because regardless of how old we get, we always want somebody to say, hey, man, good job. That sweet, sweet validation. Yes, we do. Yes. We always want that. Search for it in yourself. Take it. Take those kudos when they come. When they come. When they come. How did you earn a living? We obviously don't. We earned a living in different areas in our life compared to the past to the now. So what did that look like in the past? In the past, man, earning a living was taking from somebody else, hurting somebody else. Earning a living in the criminal justice system was working because I had to work to get what I wanted and what I needed. Or run a store, small shop or whatever. After that release back into the community, man, I'm earning a living faithfully, religiously. A little backstory about myself. My thing was credit card fraud. I usually work in grocery stores or Whole Foods or whatever the situation may be. Somebody lost their wallet maybe two days ago. No, they don't. But today, I do the right thing because it's the right thing to do. I turned the wallet in, turned everything that was in it. Hey, I didn't even. I looked in the wallet already. You know, we have those nostalgic moments. You know, me and my cousin were rolling through on the south side somewhere and we seen a truck just idling in the middle of the road. Right. And nobody in it. And we both looked and thought, like, no, no. He's right. What the thought is always there. We still have these thoughts. Right. These criminal thinking still comes into play for some of us. But it's our actions. It's how we respond. Yeah. Like I say, remember this here, too. A thought only lasts eight seconds. It's how you respond to that thought, man. I can't control what nobody else do. I can only control how I respond to what they do. And nowadays, I'm responding a lot better. I'm learning to slow down instead of being so impulsive about the shit that I do. And my finances today, hey, shit, I'm okay. I got a couple of credit cards, a couple of bank accounts. I do it well for myself. Were you financially responsible for people before entering the system? Yes. And, I mean, it's a yes or no question because we can sit there. Was I financially responsible? Yeah, I had a son. Well, I didn't get too fucked about getting them shit. Hey, man, I cared about my habit. We sit there and say, oh, man, they call the baby need pounds, the baby need milk, the baby need this. Most of the time, people ain't coming off them. If you're in your addiction, you ain't got time to be getting $35 up for no can of milk. And no $50 up for a box of Pampers. You're going to try to find somebody to steal it for you, or you're going to steal it your goddamn self. That's facts. And you're back in the criminal system. So, therefore, me being financially responsible for anybody was non-existent. I was being financially responsible for myself, my addiction. So you didn't value your finances, we would say. Hell no. Hell, I ain't value nobody else's finances. Let alone my own. But, you know, entering in the criminal justice system, obviously that changed. Oh, no question. Because we already talked on that. Oh, no question. That was a big part of it. No question. Once I entered into the criminal justice system, I knew if someone sent me $200 or someone sent me anything, that was a blessing. Blessing. That was truly a blessing. I didn't have no shoebox full of money before my state vacation, so I became another bill. They had to take money from whatever areas in their life to make sure I had what I wanted. But I learned to become financially responsible. So you had a prior trial as your needs and wants. There's no question, did you struggle with that? Oh, no question. I need this. You don't need no cookies and cheese. I need soap, deodorant, toothpaste. That's what I need. Oh, I got enough soap. Oh, they're going to give me soap. Oh, no, that soap ain't no. Of course it's soap. Yeah. So I had to learn. I had to learn what was important. I had to learn what was priority. Just as today, as I'm back into the community, I had to learn what was a priority, what was a need and a want. Oh, I need these new Jordans that cost $260. My phone bill can wait. Oh, no, I need my phone. I definitely need that phone. I'm not going to have money for shoes. Right. I need this phone. So I had to understand those things. All right. So we're about to wrap up here. This is the segment I like to call the raw thoughts, right? This is your view, your intellect, your philosophy. What we're going to look for in this segment, in this session, is this is what you feel the criminal justice system needs for change. For me, like I always tell people, man, I said a lot, man. I went through the criminal justice system. I started young, 14. Didn't stop until I was 59 years old, off and on. I spent a lot of years in and out. It was a lot of bad times, a lot of good times, man. And people sit there and say, how are you going to have good times in prison or in jail? You're away from your family, away from your loved ones. Sometimes that's best for you to understand what was going on in your life. I seen something on YouTube maybe a couple of days ago, a couple of weeks, whatever it was. Somebody asked Mike Tyson something. Mike Tyson said, man, the best years of my life was when I spent three years in prison. I had peace. Fuck the money. Fuck anything. Once you start realizing and being grateful for what you have, you start understanding that, hey, man, I got a lot to give. I got a lot to offer, man. I got a lot. Hey, shit is not going to be easy. My belief is, hell, if I could tear all the motherfucking jails down, I would. But I can't. I can't rewield bad behavior. That's not what I'm going to do neither. If you want to change, put the work in to change. But if you're in the criminal justice system and you've got to go through that shit, sit back and think about how you're going to stay out of that shit when it comes time to stay out of that shit. They always say people, places, and things. That shit is really true. That shit is really true. I mean, oh, I've been disintrigured. I've been tempted by this. Hell, we're going to be tempted every day. I'm tempted every day. I'm still tempted to do fucked up shit. But the reality of it is I'm not going to do no fucked up shit. I enjoy my life a lot better now than before I went to the criminal justice system because I was trapped. I was in prison in my own mind and I was free. I was on the streets. So when I got incarcerated, that allowed me to break down some of them motherfucking barriers, break down some of them walls, break down some of them stigmas, break down some of that stereotype. That allowed me to grow as an individual to become a better person. My views is, man, it takes a village to raise one child. And if we want change, not just for ourselves but for our community, we've got to do it as a whole. We have to do it from the ground up. We have to do it from the local level. We just cannot allow people to continue to do shit and we turn, oh, man, that's not my business. It is your business. If it ain't your business this day, it's going to be your kid's business 10 years from now. So if we want to change, we have to do it together. And once again, I just want to thank you all, Twin Cities, for allowing me this opportunity to speak, man. And y'all will be hearing a lot more from me. Thank you again. Yes, and we will have you back on sometime next month for the second installment of this. We're going to talk about some more things. Looking forward. Looking forward to it. See where you're at next month and what you're working on. So thank you for coming. We're out.