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Speaker 1: It's been 10 years since Michelle Alexander's book, The New Jim Crow became a huge and surprise bestseller. The book identified mass incarceration, not as a good solution to crime, but as part of a larger problem. People concerned about social justice and people concerned about the size of government started to pay attention. We're seeing signs of change, Florida recently restored voting rights to former felons in a referendum.

Donald Trump signed the First Step Act, a bipartisan bill that released some 3,000 people from prison and reduced sentences for many others. One of the people released under the first step Act is a man we're going to call Jonathan. Our producer, KalaLea has been meeting with him since shortly after he got out.

KalaLea: Jonathan was released from a federal prison in Orlando, he caught a bus to New York where his mother is living. Before getting on, Jonathan bought his first smartphone.

Jonathan: When I got on the bus, I went to the back of the bus and I got the phone and I ordered the last Avenger movie.

Speaker 4: As long as there are those that remember what was it will always be those that are unable to accept what can be.

Jonathan: I was watching it and that's how I collapsed my time like I was in the cell. I got in a corner and watch that movie.

Speaker 4: Because now I know what I must do.

KalaLea: A man sat next to him and started talking, but Jonathan wasn't ready to make small talk.

Jonathan: I said, "Look, man, really I just got home, I don't know anything. I don't know what's going on. I'm just trying to figure this phone out. I was really trying to shake off the prison feeling and the prison feeling was hard to shake off. It's still there with me.

KalaLea: This last prison stint was Jonathan's third. The charges weren't violent, but because of previous convictions, he served 17 years for possession of drugs, and an illegal firearm. All told, Jonathan spent 25 years behind bars and now as a middle-aged man, he's starting life all over again. When he got to New York City, he had one day to report to his probation officer. About six weeks after his release, I met him in downtown Brooklyn. How are you doing?

Jonathan: I'm all right, I'm all right. Feeling a little bit--

KalaLea: Sorry to keep you waiting. Were you in the rain? Oh my God.

Jonathan: [unintelligible 00:02:47] This is where I want to be, in the rain.

KalaLea: You were in your phone?

Jonathan: I'm trying to get a bill person.

KalaLea: A bill person?

Jonathan: This is what I would like to be doing right now.

KalaLea: What?

Jonathan: Paying bills.

KalaLea: Really?

Jonathan: Yes.

KalaLea: You like being in the rain, you like paying bills.

Jonathan: When you haven't done any of these things in a while they are a blessing to you. People look at it as mundane or to be able just to make it, pay a bill is-- because where I was I didn't have any bills, I was in prison. The rain issue, it's either you went out in the rain, walked in a circle, so you walked in a circle, or stayed in the unit so now I'm out. Look, there's so much to do in the rain. You can go to a store you can go to Stash, you go anywhere you want and there's something to do.

KalaLea: A couple of days later, I went with Jonathan to a group he attends. They're trying to help formerly incarcerated people like him find work in construction. The session is led by a man named Divine Shabazz, and he starts with a warning.

Divine Shabazz: I can't assist you without full warning you that construction is a hostile environment. A lot of people in it are ex-offenders, a lot of people in construction are from the street. A lot of people college dropouts, addicts, you name it, because in construction they don't discriminate. It's important that we have this class. Y'all know what you're getting into and so that you can have a strategy going in, like, "Okay."

KalaLea: It's mostly about finding jobs, but a lot of the conversation is about building life skills and coping with the world outside of prison.

Jonathan: My question is, what's the difference between aggressive and assertive?

Divine: Aggressive is when-- They both are fueled by the same thing. Assertively is when you're standing up for yourself, identifying the way that they make you feel. They made me feel like I'm not a man-- they made feel like less than a man, they made me feel like a punk, they made me felt like, whatever. Whatever it is, identifying whatever that feeling is, and then being able to communicate that to that person.

Jonathan: When I went in I was about 170, I was slim, I was a small dude. I just had a lot of heart and when it stopped-- My thing was, "I got to catch this guy, I'm going to catch this guy, all right. First chance I see him going in his cell without his celly I'm going right behind him and deal with the circumstances." My thing was more so not to have a conflict resolution, was just more so about a conflict, but get it to my advantage.

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[background conversation]

KalaLea: A few days later, we met at the headquarters of the fire department to get a union construction job. Jonathan needs to get a few certifications.

Jonathan: Small things as far as the numbers like how far something's supposed to be placed, have weight, how much-- if your hose can take 350 psi under that.

KalaLea: This morning, he's going to take a test for something called an S92.

Jonathan: If you are here to take a test, have your application, and employees-- Oh, I got to go and deal with this application and give it to him.

KalaLea: Then they'll get a number probably.

Jonathan: [unintelligible 00:06:31] before I got up there-- I don't want to rush up there.

KalaLea: Let's see what number that-- Jonathan's number is called and he goes off to take the test. Jonathan really wants to get a construction job quickly so he can start saving money to get his own place. His mom says that he can stay as long as he needs, but she's overly protective of him and worries all the time that he'll go back to prison. This makes Jonathan anxious. Jonathan was very little when his mother and stepfather emigrated from Guyana in the late 70s.

Jonathan: My family, when we first came to this country, we were on welfare and public assistance and all that. Eventually, it changed. My family, they started working in Citi Bank and started getting a little bit more money, and then things changed. We went to Delaware. We had a different style of life. We had a middle-class style life.

KalaLea: As he grew older, he started having issues with his stepfather.

Jonathan: I don't know if it's because I was the older or not his or whatever the circumstances, I never got to find out. It was always my fault. Beatings were part of normal way of life for family to deal with discipline, who's to say what's right and wrong. We do know when it becomes more of abuse than actual discipline.

KalaLea: His family solution to the tension and his acting out was to send them to Brooklyn to live with his aunt and her family. On the day after Christmas, we went to see his aunt Elizabeth in East Flatbush. It wasn't even 10 o'clock in the morning, but she insisted I try some stew.

Elizabeth: Get a folk.

KalaLea: This is like really the butt of an Ox.

Elizabeth: The tail of an Ox.

Jonathan: What do you think.

KalaLea: Like short ribs.

[laughter]

Elizabeth: I do have short ribs in the pot. [laughs] We add that together with our spices.

KalaLea: Do you remember when you first heard that he was coming out?

Elizabeth: I was in Barbados on vacation. When I came back, I got a phone call saying, "Hi, Auntie Elizabeth." I was like, "Who's this." The voice and he said, "It's me. It's me you forget I lived in your home?" Then I said, "My nephew?" I was so excited. I started to cry.

KalaLea: What was it like when he first heard that he was going to prison and then he was doing things in the streets?

Elizabeth: I was shocked, surprised because I didn't see that coming because he wasn't that type of person. Things happen. God is good. He survived whatever it is that he went through and he's out now and I'm happy for him.

KalaLea: Jonathan's aunt says she didn't know he had been in trouble as a kid, but it was her ex-husband who got him into it.

Jonathan: Well, my uncle, he was a hustler, a gambler, drug dealer, and he was known around. These guys got these cars,

they got the money, they got the girls, they got everything. Everybody's falling over him.

KalaLea: For his 12th birthday, his uncle gave him a gold rope necklace, the kind of chains that many dealers wore.

Jonathan: I had the chain and I just felt so like, "This is what I want to do." Guy might be saying, "Hey man, I need you to go Coney Island and drop off a package," because they trust you and you want them to trust you. They give you opportunities and then it grows into different things, more responsibilities. That's when I really was caught up into the rap show of street life.

KalaLea: I keep thinking about something Jonathan told me, when he stopped going to school, no one bothered to call looking for him, at least as far as he knows. The authority figures either ignored him, or like his uncle led him towards trouble. It seems only the police paid attention. Now, at 46, he's applying for jobs for the very first time.

Jonathan: I was going to fax the letter of recommendation to the FDNY and I will be getting the card in a few.

KalaLea: Back at the fire department, Jonathan has some good news.

Jonathan: This is the certificate of passing.

KalaLea: That's great. Congratulations. How do you feel?

Jonathan: I felt like I won a $1 million. I've never really done anything like this in my entire life. Now I have something of value that I actually did on my own without having a shortcut or try to do something illegal to obtain means and methods.

KalaLea: While waiting for his new certification to come through, Jonathan shows me his new phone. You have way more apps than I have.

Jonathan: I had more, I just took off a bunch of them. They were dating sites actually.

KalaLea: Dating site apps?

Jonathan: Yes. I was trying to find a high-standard woman.

KalaLea: [chuckles] Good luck with that.

Jonathan: I'm gonna take this off too because--

KalaLea: Tinder.

Jonathan: Yes. I didn't get no hit. I get some matches--

KalaLea: Let me see your profile. You don't even have a photo.

Jonathan: I got a profile up there. Can you see it?

KalaLea: Can you read it to me?

Jonathan: Just come home from a long stretch in prison and is looking for any woman interested in whatever, wherever, whenever.

KalaLea: No, you don't put that. I would skip over you too if I read just came home full of love.

Jonathan: I just put that there.

KalaLea: You can't write that.

Jonathan: I'm being honest. I'm keeping things upfront with people. If they choose to, they choose to, if they don't, they don't.

KalaLea: Why do you have 26?

Jonathan: 26 to 45.

KalaLea: That's too young. You need an older woman.

Jonathan: I want to have kids.

KalaLea: Okay. It's in 30.

Jonathan: Okay.

KalaLea: I would go because 26 is too young.

Jonathan: I have to home find a particular woman that can understand my situation because I don't want to get into a situation where it becomes so complex that she possibly can send me back to jail by an argument. Oh, she calls the police. I have to think about nine times before I do things. It's hard to approach people because I'm so guarded because I don't want to go back.

KalaLea: Dating feels dangerous to Jonathan now, so does going to a job site. Even his family feel like strangers to him.

Jonathan: I don't know them. They're my family, but how do a person that hasn't been in your life 25 years? Right now we're building a bond. We're getting to know each other in our habits. I don't know my family. I don't know my mother. I don't know my sister. I don't know my brother. I don't know their kids. I don't know anybody. I walked around the neighborhood today, I didn't see one person I knew.

KalaLea: The world is a scary place for someone in his position, but for New Year's Eve, he's determined to enjoy life to the fullest. He makes the long trip on his own to Times Square to see the ball drop for the first time in his life. There was no way that I was going out in the cold around all of those people, so I showed Jonathan how to record on his smartphone and I wished him a wonderful night.

[background conversation]

Jonathan: Just a few minutes and here it goes. I'm here getting ready. One minute left.

[cheers]

Selfie time. No more recording. Goodbye. Good night. Happy New Year.

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Speaker 1: On January 6th Jonathan started working on a construction site in New Jersey and he spoke with Kalia, a producer for the New Yorker Radio Hour.

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