Refactored in Prison  ## Metadata - Author: [[The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source]] - Full Title: Refactored in Prison - Category: #podcasts - URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/a3f0d173-30eb-4052-8020-c114ad5bc949 ## Document Notes ## Highlights - **Preston's Transformative Journey** - Preston Thorpe's life shifted from drug addiction and incarceration to self-transformation through programming. - He rediscovered his passion for tech while incarcerated and worked to reshape his identity. Transcript: Jerod Santo I'm all right. Preston Thorpe How are you guys? Jerod Santo Did you just dox him, Jared? I don't think so. This is right there on his website. I'm just kidding. You were very specific. I liked it. It was good. Well, I didn't want to just say Preston's in the clink, but that's what I was going to say. Do people still call it that? Is it the clink? I think that sounds cool. I don't know what they call it these days, man. Preston, what do people call where you are? It's certainly not called that here. Preston Thorpe Yeah. Just kind of, yeah, they're locked up or they're put away. I don't know. I think the clink is a little outdated. Jerod Santo Yeah, I think it's from like the 50s probably. It's definitely 80s slang, 90s slang. If you do that, you start a clink. I think it sounds cool. I'm cool with it. Adam Stacoviak I mean, as a term. Jerod Santo Certainly not cool from the inside. Maybe cooler from the outside if you're older. Regardless of what you call it, you're in a unique place. At least first time for us, right, Adam? We've interviewed somebody from inside. Adam Stacoviak Yeah, this is definitely a first. Jerod Santo And maybe even as a prize as possible, you know, like I wouldn't even expect, like you can podcast from inside a correctional facility. How did, how does all come together for you? Like, how are you able to do this from where you are? Preston Thorpe Yeah. So, you know, there are, I think a few podcasts that are like put on from correctional facilities, but they're like the content is obviously a little bit more like niche. And California has an ongoing one, but certainly like nothing like this where like appearing on like a normal podcast, at least none that are like sanctioned anyway. Right. That's like, you might see it, uh, or someone's interviewed from a phone that they're definitely not supposed to have, but right. Yeah. Uh, yeah, it's certainly a unique situation. Uh, there's a definitely all kinds of backstory to that. Uh, yeah. So I am, you know, I have like, like I guess I would want to put a disclaimer there that this is not a common situation, not a common occurrence. There is internet access and laptops at main facilities, but this is like a very special occasion slash circumstance with the access that I've been given in particular. Jerod Santo Yeah, like we had to ask permission, sign paperwork, et cetera. This has been in the works ever since we had a conversation with Glover Costa from Terso, and he told us about you and how you have been contributing from inside on open source. And such a cool story. Tell us a little bit of the story, how you ended up where you are. You're serving 10 years, or you're on your 10th year. Tell us the terms and kind of where you are in your term. Preston Thorpe Yeah, so I'm currently on my 11th year, and definitely my last. I am approximately a couple months roughly away from release to home confinement. So I have to spend some amount of time with a curfew and an ankle monitor and all that. Yeah, so I came about being here in ([Time 0:04:28](https://share.snipd.com/snip/c6f453e7-88f8-48ac-bfaf-cdfaf58ebcc0)) - **Youthful Invincibility Amplifies Risks** - Adolescents' feeling of invincibility combined with drug access worsens poor decisions. - Brain development and altered chemistry hinder their ability to recognize danger early on. Transcript: Adam Stacoviak Think it's wild how much, I think even today, Jared, a lot of drugs flow through the U.S. Postal system because I don't know firsthand. So I can't say that. But I know that I know people who boast about things even to this day. And it might not be a large quantity of what you described, Preston, but it's something similar and smaller or whatever. But like, I've heard of people talk about moving these things just to friends, like that kind of thing in, in, in passing, let's just say, do not interrogate my friend group. Uh, I'm just kidding. I'm not even around these people anymore. I actually, keep my distance. It's so wild because I think that, and you probably can share some of this, Jared, maybe not so much in detail, but I think in adolescence, in that time frame, in our lives, it's already Natural to feel some version of superhuman some version of of invincible immortal like the end and death and suffering and loss will never come this is somebody else's life these you Know i will never get caught because this is not what happens you know i'm i'm untouchable in some way, shape, or form just because you're in that adolescence spectrum. And you couple that with somehow being able to find access to this stuff. And I imagine we know that drugs alter your chemical state in your brain. We understand that even before this age group that you're in, your frontal lobe isn't fully formed. They say it's fully cooked until 25 roughly. So you don't even have a lot of your frontal lobe rationale kicking in like it would later in life to say, oh, hey, Preston, this is a bad choice or hey, this is a dangerous situation. In those scenarios, it's almost as if your brain can't tell you there's danger or can't tell you these things. Now, that's not the truth for everybody. There's varying degrees of spectrums to, you know, to that, but man, what a situation to be in, to, to be in that era and have that kind of access and then go down the road you've gone. But in the end though, you're in a ([Time 0:14:02](https://share.snipd.com/snip/b69b3535-a09b-4a7e-8675-4110af862031)) - **Unreal Contrast of Past and Present** - Preston felt unreal being a software engineer inside prison compared to his past self. - He reflects on how far he's come from a life shaped by poor decisions and identity loss. Transcript: Adam Stacoviak How does that make you, knowing your story and you live this every day and this is your reality, not ours, how does that make you feel that fact how does it make you feel yeah it's honestly Preston Thorpe It's honestly amazing and it it it i feel like there's a uh this kind of i go back and forth between feeling like this isn't real like this day that, you know, like that I live now and like The, the, the career that I have and the things I'm able to do, the access that I have, uh, I go like half the time, I feel like, like, wow, like this is unreal because compared to two years Ago, uh, you know, let alone five years ago, it a completely different life. It's like never in a million years would I ever have guessed that this would be possible from a medium security facility. And then the other half of the time, I look at my past life and I remember things like the things that we're talking about. And I think that isn't real. That happened to someone else. I was kind of recollecting about some stories with this kid that's been pretty much my best friend for 15 years. And thinking about like like actual like vivid memories like was uh the craziest it doesn't feel like it happened to me because it's so far away from the person i am now and honestly the Person i was raised uh like i grew up in a you know good good household i got brothers and sister i've you know a sister and three brothers and my parents are together still together to this Day great people uh and you know i was i grew up a a good kid and you know so so you know gives me even less like excuse right like i knew what i was doing was wrong so that's like you know, first Of all, yeah, I was like young and stupid, but I also was like super aware that, you know, of the consequences of my actions. Is so far from who I am now that it doesn't, it, there's like no sane reality where I, the person I am today is like, is making it, it's, it's like unbelievable that I just didn't care about Anything. It's just, you just, I ([Time 0:17:17](https://share.snipd.com/snip/4c431162-a77f-4aa3-984a-2725578e551c)) - **Struggles After First Release** - Preston was released from prison but returned within months due to poor decisions and environment. - Lack of identification, unstable housing, and old habits contributed to his quick re-incarceration. Transcript: Preston Thorpe And the people that I was surrounded with in prison were very different from the people that I was, you know, surrounded, surrounded by on the street. And, you know, there's like a certain kind of like novelty to prison, especially when you're like in that lifestyle. Pretty much everyone, you know, has pretty much been to prison. Prison is like a, it's like a rite of passion, rite of passage type thing. And I just like continued making all the wrong decisions and just like seeking out and and surrounding myself with just the wrong kind of people and. Continue to, you know, to do the same, the same stuff. And just in a different, you know, different environment. And right. Jerod Santo I bossed it and went back in. Preston Thorpe Yeah. So even still like in prison and when I was released, I had the opportunity to move to Michigan with my family. So I was, I was released with, I had no like identification. I had no like social security card, birth certificate. I like, I had like nothing, no, no money. And like one of my old friends, like brought, like gave me like an old iPhone. And it was just like, it was just like a rough, rough situation. And I had a two week stay at a rooming house in the city of Manchester. This particular rooming house is notorious to this day. There's like, you know, overdoses every day. There was parole officers and cops like around this rooming house. And that was my first... I was released and went there to get my room. You need an address to make parole, right? So just to get out, I had to... One my buddies like got me that room. And yeah, it was just like a major, like it was not a good scene. So I didn't transfer my parole to Michigan. I mean, I told myself it was because it takes like a couple of months for the transfer to go through. And I wanted to get out immediately. Right. Uh, and in reality, I think it was, it was me just so, you know, in the back of my mind, just giving myself an out. Like if I, if, you know, cause going back home would have been, uh, a guarantee that I have to like abide by their rules and, and, and do the right thing and, and, to get a job. And when you're used to the kinds of money that I experienced at a young age, the thought of making minimum wage or $10 an hour or even $50 an hour was just not like... So I was just making excuses for myself and, uh, yeah, very, very easily like justified getting, you know, involved in the same stuff. And, and, uh, yeah, the, the, the time that I spent out in 2016, I was released in March, and by Christmas Eve, I was arrested again. That ([Time 0:21:31](https://share.snipd.com/snip/6bb62fbd-d9d5-4236-9184-1b2c6741e4a1)) - **Hope and Self-worth's Erosion in Prison** - The prison environment destroys hope and self-worth for many, preventing success. - Continuous exposure to abuse and bleak surroundings leads to acceptance of a broken identity. Transcript: Preston Thorpe No it it's uh it's definitely no joke you know i think these things are very commonly uh portrayed in media uh music television as being like uh yeah very different from the reality that I've seen personally. I've seen quite a bit of it. I haven't had a Christmas on the street since 2012. It was the last Christmas that I was free. This life will get you nowhere. I don't think I haven't seen a person succeed. Like there's no one, I haven't met one person that, you know, met a lot of very, very successful people in that life, but none of them got to enjoy any, like you might get a few years here Or there, but it's, it never works out. Uh, ([Time 0:26:21](https://share.snipd.com/snip/7fe8d4b3-21f1-4f79-bfdf-04468a2be20d)) - **New Environment Sparks Epiphany** - After a transfer to Maine's prison system, Preston found a safer, more educational environment. - This change spurred an epiphany leading him to devote himself to self-improvement and programming. Transcript: Preston Thorpe Like I didn't have much hope to begin with. So there wasn't a lot there to lose, but yeah, I pretty much, you know, gave up and had really accepted the identity of who I was at that time. That was like, I really believe that that's like, these are the decisions I made and I'm paying for them now. And this is the person I am. And I'm going to, it's like, it's just something that, you know, I accepted that identity. And that's something that really like bothers me today, uh, being a completely different person, going back and thinking like, man, like why would, you know, what, when was it that I decided that I was okay with being someone that I clearly wasn't and doing things that, you know, and, and that's what ended up happening, uh, in, uh, so I came in in 2017 was in the New Hampshire system for a couple years and the you know the case that I came in on was a very high profile case and I had already been to that prison system before so I knew everyone you know Is a very small system. And like my name was a, a frequently brought up name, you know, in the, in the system and, uh, the things that, the things that I was, uh, you know, involved with it, it, yeah, I was, I was Making some, some poor decisions. I don't want to elaborate too much, but it ended up getting me on the list for an interstate transfer, right? They just want to get you out of the system completely. And one of the luckiest things that have ever happened to me, uh, because I had court dates, uh, remaining on that sentence, uh, you can only get sent within the new England States. So because they were going to have to transport me back, uh, for, um, my sentence review board. And like, so I had some scheduled like court dates, uh, and, uh, I was scheduled to go to Massachusetts. And I was actually like excited about that. I have a lot of friends down in the Massachusetts system. That is what I thought that I wanted. Like that was the one I would have picked if you would have given me the choice. And I actually went out for like a very minor surgery. And when Massachusetts came to pick me up, or they called or whatever, and learned that I was in the infirmary, after this surgery, they actually denied my transfer after previously Accepting it. And I had a bed there and everything. The Hampshire had already accepted the inmate they were going to swap with me. So it was pretty set in stone. So by just a sheer miracle, they ended up denying me. And I thought I was going to sit. I had been sitting in solitary confinement this whole time. So it had been over a year at this point that I've been in solitary confinement. No, nothing, just to sell books, if you're lucky, for like 13 or 14 months by this time. And then one day, they came and told me to pack up. And I was expecting it, but I thought it was going to take a bit longer. We ended up coming up to Maine. And it was certainly not, I didn't even think it was an option. I thought it was going to be Rhode Island or Connecticut. Those are the three, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, are generally the three you would go to. I didn't know Maine was an option, and it was quite literally the best thing that's ever happened to me. Absolutely changed my life. The Maine system is very different from just about any other system. It's probably tied with Vermont for being the safest prison in the country. And it doesn't have a lot of the prison. It doesn't have as much of the mentality and the subculture and the gangs. It's not as prevalent, not nearly as prevalent. The New Hampshire system is certainly not San Quentin, but there are units where that's very much how things work. And you're going to be exposed to that for sure. And Maine is very different and not being around any of those people that I had been, you know, by this point I'd done like, you know, six years or more. And so not being around the people that I had been influenced by and the people I felt like I had some, some kind of a, like, you know, reputation to like, uphold myself to like, and just Kind of being in a new place. And, you know, with a, you know, large sentence, and, and just, you know, kind of, you're kind of focused, you have no choice, but to just focus on yourself because there's nothing, nothing Else to do. You know, I didn't, I didn't owe anyone there anything, right. I didn't owe anyone back home anything either, but it was just a feeling of like, like I was, you know, this person that I had to, I was like entitled to, to, to act this way and, and, you know, And be this person in the, in the other system. So Maine has a lot of like educational opportunities and a lot of, you know, they just, it's just a much nicer system. Uh, and I, after a couple of years kind of had like, just had an epiphany of like, when, when, at what point did I just decide that I was okay with this? Like, at what point did I decide that I was all right with being the person that I was like, when did I decide that I was okay that I just am like in prison and I live in a cell and this is normal Like why is this normal right like why am I not spending my time trying to better myself and and work on being the person that I'm gonna be when I get out because I can't go back ([Time 0:28:22](https://share.snipd.com/snip/eb8cb71c-a9b8-4586-a2ea-77392b1f9682)) - **Intense Self-Education in Prison** - Preston seized prison educational resources and spent 12-14 hours daily learning programming. - He resolved to become highly skilled to build a future career after release. Transcript: Jerod Santo And you just decided, I'm going to pick up programming or I had you in programming all along? Tell us the technical side of your journey. Preston Thorpe Yeah. So I had enrolled in college or had already enrolled in college by this point. And this was pre-laptops. So the college, essentially you could apply for a Pell Grant. And there was some funding through, like, Doris Buffett. And there was, you know, I think the professors would come in and have, like, in-person classes. Or they do, like, maybe they do Zoom calls. But there was no, like, laptops, like, the cell with internet. So I had applied for college already. And while waiting is kind of when this all kind of occurred. The first semester that I end up in college just so happened to be the first semester that laptops existed somewhat as they do today. And I had gone through like a couple different, you know, avenues in my head about like what I'm going to do. And, you know, I've always loved learning. Like I have spent thousands of hours, I read, I mean, like hundreds and hundreds of books, obviously I've done a lot of time and segregation. So that's like the main kind of thing you do. But I had studied like organic chemistry. I had studied finance was the big one right before I ended up enrolling in school. Uh, from getting books sent in to, uh, watching CNBC all day. And I was like, kind of obsessively learning about the markets and like options trading. Um, cause I, you know, figured that I could, you know, day trade when I got out and that was like a potential kind of career path. Um, and then when college started, I get computer and that was kind of like epiphany number two. And I was like, kind of realized like, wow, I have like four years left. Else does someone get 24 hours a day, right? Well, you got to sleep. So like, you know, 14 hours a day, uh, to learn something like, uh, you know, I had programmed in high school kind of before high school, uh, nothing, nothing super crazy, like, you know, Lamp kind of, you know php like you know i've had a i've had a ubuntu linux tattoo since 2009 right so i was uh i was definitely i mentioned before I was definitely a computer nerd. So I kind of had just enough context to, to understand and, and remember, like, if you're really, really good at programming, that's kind of all they care about, right? Like, if, you know what I mean? Like the, the, I, and I, I definitely did some research and kind of found out that like criminal records or like college degrees or like any of that stuff is, is negotiable. Like, you know, I think, I don't know what year it was, but like Google and Microsoft like did away with their, they don't even care if you have a degree, right. Because there's just self-taught people out there that are, you know, spectacular. So that, that was epiphany number two, when I was like, wow, if I were to spend 12 to 14 hours a day, every single day, for the remainder of my time, I could theoretically be pretty good at This. And hopefully by the time I get out, might be looking at the possibility of having a promising career. And that was probably a thousand days ago. And I have spent 12 to 14 hours a day every single day since that day that is that was pretty much exactly roughly a thousand days ago that's ([Time 0:38:34](https://share.snipd.com/snip/82dadd35-578b-44b0-afce-02975da4da5a)) - **Commit Deeply and Minimize Distractions** - People outside prison can emulate Preston's focus by eliminating distractions like social media. - Making a firm life choice and daily commitment dramatically improves skills and outcomes. Transcript: Adam Stacoviak A that's a wild thing to be told i think what's what's wild even potentially more wild to that is that we all literally have a choice you made a choice that changed your life And those folks Who envy you or are jealous of your scenario can also make a choice. They can turn out and tune out different things in their lives. The place they're in is a series of choices that got them to where they are. And we know that because you just shared your story and it's a series of choices. And so while they have jealousy for you, they can do the same thing, not in the exact same scenario, but they can make the choice to tune out the rest of the world if they so choose. But wow, it is just so hard. ([Time 0:47:45](https://share.snipd.com/snip/c09fbc32-5f12-4b1b-895a-f59c1b650adb)) - **Open Source Contribution from Prison** - Preston overcame prison restrictions to contribute to open source projects like eza and micro. - He sought and obtained permission to maintain educational and networking roles inside prison. Transcript: Preston Thorpe So i guess i could you know i could kind of start into like just like i guess programming um in in general uh in here and how that started. So at the very beginning, there was no, there was internet access on the laptops, but it was only in the recreation building, like where the education department was. That's like where the Wi-Fi was. So you could, you know, you could browse the internet in the rec building, in the education hallways and stuff. But when you go back to the pod, you go back to your cell, there's no internet access. So it was like I would save Python documentation. And especially back then, it's like Windows Active Directory network. And you don't have any execution policy privilege. I don't know if you guys are familiar with the old AD Windows networks, but yeah, your execution policy is turned off. So you cannot install anything. You can run bundled, kind of like where all the libraries and stuff are bundled in the one application, the portable ones. But yeah, it was pretty painful. I had to like get a particular like kind of like terminal indulator, uh, that would, you know, it was all kinds of, I had to use like a, a pip like proxy that was like at a, from a dot dot edu Domain to be able to get like Python libraries and stuff. And, uh, yeah, so, so after kind of jumping through these, uh, these hoops and at the same time, kind of constantly bugging staff to install things and like asking for like, Hey, like I need to, you know, I need get, and I need, you know, and like, and, and, uh, and also like volunteering to, to help out with like, you know, there don't exactly have a bunch of like full Time like IT staff. And this was a new thing at the time. So I ended up like volunteering and eventually working for the education department at the prison I was at and ended up helping out quite a bit, just like running the network. And eventually, I think they just got like sick of me asking to install things or, you know, for like certain like privileges. I eventually ended up getting that job and being able to at least have some level of root access to my laptop. And that certainly made it a lot easier. And I was just writing Python and C and wrote my own C standard library type deal. I, you know, I knew enough to know that I wanted to like, start from like the bottom and, and not like, you know, just like learn, like react or whatever. Like, I, I think like the, the usual kind point today will be considered that pathway. I knew enough to know that that's not what I wanted to do, that I wanted to start from fundamentals. After some time, I'm in school and I am working for the education department, maintaining the network, helping fix things and like get laptops ready and re-imaging and kind of like Doing like the daily maintenance. They started a, I can't even say they started, but people that were enrolled in college that had graduated and got their bachelor's. There was a couple that were either in the process of getting their master's or they were going for their PhDs. And they had gotten this special permission to work usually with the university that they were attending. One person was a fellow. He would teach, essentially, like a substitute teacher. He was teaching over Zoom for the school. And people were talking about, oh, they might start allowing remote work. They were like playing around with that idea of like, hey, like if people can get jobs remotely, we might just like sanction it. So I actually was the only, I was the only one was not a master's student. And I put in a request to seek remote work after I'd probably been learning to program at that point for probably six months or so, seven, maybe seven, eight months, uh, really kind of Completely out of touch with what I actually like needed to, to, to know. And like what was going to be expected of like a, you know, uh, someone, but like, I just, I just knew I wanted to, to, you know, to look for, Like, I'm spending 12 hours a day. And I thought, you know, why not? And they actually granted my application to, you know, I put in like a special request or whatever to seek remote work and it got granted. And in another brilliant stroke of luck, I ended up kind of cold messaging my like CEO now on LinkedIn. I had heard about the company from someone else that was on my pod that does work in like prison reform. Like he's like big into the, that kind of community criminal justice reform, prison reform stuff. Um, and yeah, I just kind of got like a random like tip and ended up getting on a call zoom call with my ceo uh co co-director now and uh they honestly had no like probably ([Time 0:51:25](https://share.snipd.com/snip/07302c7b-35c3-45ba-85f1-6bc38de187bc)) - **Building Prison Tools with Tech** - Preston built internal tools for the prison like inventory systems and an RFID-based position tracker. - These projects honed his skills and allowed him to serve the prison community meaningfully. Transcript: Preston Thorpe Um, I was at the main state prison. I'm at uh as you mentioned uh mountain view correctional facility uh not mountain view california no that all the way on the other side of the country but yeah uh when i came here they have Believe it or not actually the state of maine and and from what i hear uh most, it's probably something that viewers will be interested to learn, have quite a bit of internally written Software by presidents. That's actually a fairly common thing. And I definitely was not aware of this prior. But the mainstay prison had a resident there that wrote pretty much all the software that it runs on to this day. So all the count sheets, the inventory for the wood shop and the like a system where you have, you scan like a barcode in the back of your ID and use that to like access your account to purchase Things from like the commissary. So there was like a, quite a bit of this like hand rolled like infrastructure at the other facility. And the administration here was aware that that existed. And when I came here, they had been made aware that I was someone that could replicate this and definitely someone that could maintain some of this stuff here. So the system, the point of sale system that they use for the Annex is written in, it's like VB.net. Let's say it's VBA. Yeah, it's definitely VBA because it runs on whatchamacallit access um and windows 8 so to this day still maintain a point of sale written in vba uh on windows 8 which is the absolute bane Of my existence um the, the, the, the staff here had like asked me to build a like real time, like, uh, something to keep track of like what everyone's like position in the facility is. So when you come back to the unit, you like scan, um, your ID and it will check you in to, to the units. Right. Cause I currently have to like out and there's people whose jobs it is pretty much to maintain these clipboards with everyone's current location so that if something happens, they Have to count everyone, they have record of where everyone is. So they wanted that built. So yeah, I built that RFID-based like like system made that like pretty much like production ready um and that they they pretty much abandoned like wanting to actually get it set up um Because uh i think they were just the guy who wrote all the previous software at the other facility ended up getting out. And now they're in a position where they don't have anyone to maintain it. And I think they're just trying to avoid that happening here. Grateful that they had asked me to do that because, uh, writing a like full production front, you know, full stack, like application definitely, I think is being on the list of, of, of Projects that, uh, that I completed like, you know, by myself, like I definitely credit quite a bit of my uh you know ability today uh to that is it a web app or what kind of an app is it uh yep It is a uh web app uh it was a actix uh back end um and solid js front end just uses these uh actually these right here of course this is going to keep alerting me but yeah it's like rf id like Hid reader and uh yeah they spent spent quite a quite a few uh i would say probably at least a couple hundred hours on that. ([Time 1:08:18](https://share.snipd.com/snip/22d0d206-0bb8-4d8e-b61b-840abc2d9779)) - **Education as a Path from Recidivism** - Providing education and networking to inmates lowers recidivism and opens career opportunities. - Incarceration often worsens job prospects without rehabilitative programs, reinforcing cycles of crime. Transcript: Adam Stacoviak Is an example of an inmate or somebody who's incarcerated changing. Preston Thorpe What does the world not know about your thoughts or advocacy of that that we should know uh yeah i think my my main point there was there's a lot of people with similar mindsets uh to myself In different facilities that don't have any of the opportunities that they have here. That if given the chance, like would flourish and would pursue these things and give themselves a way out. Um, because without this skill and without the network, right. I like, I guess like the, like the skill is, is, is one thing. Um, but without the, uh, the ability to network and the ability to like make other people aware of your story, like it, to be in a place with no ability to better yourself. And if all you're given is there's like four phones on the wall and like 200, you know, gang members surrounding you, like you could be like even me right now, who's so far from any, uh, From having that mindset and being involved in that lifestyle. You know, it's like, if you don't have the means to improve yourself, it's like, it's really difficult to expect at like different behavior. Um, you know, that, that's, that's like, I think what I want people to consider is like, you know, if your expectations are that, uh, incarcerating people, um, you know, it's a department Of corrections, right. It's like, it's expected that you're going to learn your lesson and you're not going to do it again. And, uh, you know, but the oftentimes the reality is you take, uh, has far less exposure to some of the things they're going to be exposed to in prison and they spend a few years there and Just end up absorbing the criminal mindset and the negativity. They have absolutely no resources to improve themselves there's no access to meaningful education or any way to to to find a way out of like the hole that they dug for themselves um it's Uh you know to to then expect someone to get out and now have a criminal record and no work history for 10 years. Like, it's now just orders of magnitude more difficult to actually improve your situation than it was before this punishment. So when people, you know, when the recidivism rate is like 70% of people return to prison after, I think, like three years, like, you know, that the reason for that shouldn't be like a Big surprise, right? Like, I think making people aware that like, investing in education and investing in giving people opportunities to, you know, improve themselves and in ways to find like a career Path and meaning like that, that pays off significantly more. There's all kinds of statistics. I wish I was, you know, good at kind of reciting these things. Like one of my co-workers is, shout out Jess, can tell you all the statistics about how every dollar spent on education, like, you know, saves, you know, end dollars in recidivism costs And all that. Horrible at remembering those things. But yeah, I that that's the that's the general idea i think people need to be given away to you know a way out did ([Time 1:25:36](https://share.snipd.com/snip/6477f4be-e1c5-4674-a8a0-4f6230c89f78)) - **Dehumanization Damages Inmate Psyche** - Prisoners often internalize dehumanizing treatment, causing psychological damage and loss of hope. - Language and humane treatment can alleviate some of the negative effects on inmates’ psyche. Transcript: Adam Stacoviak On a real study conducted in 1971. It was like a stark realization of normal people going into these scenarios and role playing, but becoming very real and very abusive and psychologically jacked up. I would just say to paraphrase it. Are you familiar with that, that experiment? Preston Thorpe I am actually familiar with it. I'm curious if the movie, like, shines any light on some of the details that have come out since then, where I, like, read that a lot of the participants, like, weren't really aware that, Like, I think they were, like, encouraged to kind of, like, go farther than, like uh i don't know like i i know this is like out there because if you like do any amount of research like you'll See that um i know people will come out and say like yeah like it was a part of that but i like didn't know it was like you know they kind of thought it was like a you know more of like a game like The the i don't know but that that is something that i that i saw and i'm just curious did the is did the movie play on that at all or was it kind of still discussed like it was like a very serious Adam Stacoviak Thing the uh i i'm not deeply familiar with it uh i did watch the film and i know it's based on real scientific studies i sorry. I got my child just busted in here. Get out of here, Micah. Trying to bother me. It was a study done. And it was a psychology professor who had done this. And I think he, like, canceled it after six days. It was serious. So to paraphrase the scenario, the film is based on this experiment. And the experiment was real. And the fact that they set up a mock prison. They took normal people in the world with their normal freedoms, probably in college is my assumption, or university. And they put them in the scenario where there was guards and prisoners basically and uh the prisoners were not truly in prison they weren't truly prisoners not that prisoners should Be treated that way no no offense to you preston but you know the the scenario of like power this struggle of power where you're in a position of power and then you're in a position of lack Of freedom and lack of power. And the utter role reversal, these people leaned into their roles. They leaned into all these things. And the prisoners were literally had become prisoners and the guards had literally become guards. And it got so real and abusive that even the professor was becoming abusive. And it's just such a stark reality. And the reason why I even bring this up is just to say that you'd mentioned before how you're advocating for more education access because this is a way to reform mass incarceration. I think it's not the answer, but it may be one of the answers to some folks who are in prison, not so much all of them. I can be wrong on that front. But it was just this realization that, wow, how in this scenario you are likely abused. You're obviously accessible to people with power and they can abuse that power. And that what happens when you lose that freedom and how it psychologically changes you because these people that were, like I said, non-prisoners, term prisoners in this experiment Had meltdowns, breakdowns, because they were being treated like people with no value, people with no hope, with people that have been in scenarios you've been in. And it was not good. It was, you know, the efficacy of the experiment was true. And it's evident that in scenarios where you are treated like you're worthless and hopeless, you become worthless and hopeless. And you do not act like normal you. You act like somebody who's been abused. And it's just such a, if you haven't seen the film or looked at the study, I'd recommend just doing it after this podcast to sort of just have one more layer of understanding of Preston's Life, or I'm sure a version of it. ([Time 1:29:59](https://share.snipd.com/snip/651c75f8-9eee-498a-a9ba-1da308aea47d)) - **Value Freedom and Create** - Listeners should appreciate their freedom and support loved ones frequently. - Taking stock of life’s blessings and engaging in creative work fosters gratitude and growth. Transcript: Jerod Santo Of freedom until you, uh, get your real freedom back, hopefully less than a year from now. But when you say a year in the worst case, yeah, you're in the worst case. Preston Thorpe So May 5th of 26th would be the worst case. Jerod Santo It would be the worst case. So less than a year. Get that out of house next to your parents. Adam Stacoviak Make up for lost time. Do some fixer upper. Make sure you video and put on the internet. Cause you'll be famous when you do that. And all those good things, man. Jerod Santo Good luck to you. When you sell the rights to your movie, make sure you get good money. That's right. Come back to me for the title. Preston Thorpe That's right. Appreciate you guys having me. You bet. Adam Stacoviak Well, let me just say that this conversation with Preston has opened my eyes to some different perspectives when it comes to reform with the prison. ([Time 1:39:50](https://share.snipd.com/snip/88cb29cb-5e0c-4e50-a32f-4a4b8128acc1))