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This discussion is a LinkedIn LIVE recording of the Data Binge Podcast featuring Chris Redlitz and Jason Jones, of The Last Mile, a non-profit breaking the mass incarceration cycle by combating recidivism through in-person education and post-release mentorship focused on coding and software engineering. (for those pondering what this means, recidivism is the tendency for a convicted criminal to reoffend).
The Last Mile's returned citizen alumni, maintain 0% recidivism.
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Chris Redlitz is a general partner of Transmedia Capital, one of the best performing micro funds in Silicon Valley, and co-founder of The Last Mile. Through The Last Mile, Chris, along with his wife and co-founder Beverly Parenti, launched the first-ever full stack coding program inside US prisons. Previously, Chris co-founded KickLabs, which Forbes ranked as a top technology accelerator and incubated Wish, AngelList and other influential companies. He received Ad Age’s prestigious i20 award for his contributions to the development of interactive marketing and advertising. Earlier in his career, Chris was part of Reebok’s explosive growth where he held positions in sales and marketing and also owned one of the first specialty sports retail chains in Southern California.
Jason Jones is a full-time disruptor, activist, educator, and software engineer. Jason is the Remote Instructor Manager for The Last Mile, and leads a team of educators that remotes into classrooms across the US to deliver virtual lessons in computer coding. On September 25th, 2018, Jason was released after 13 ½ years incarcerated, during which time he graduated from The Last Mile’s inaugural coding class. Three weeks before his release, Jason became the first person from his cohort to sign a work agreement with a tech company as a software engineer. Jason was also the first justice-involved person to be accepted into the Lightspeed fellowship with a team from Stanford, and today he is a participant in the Koch Associate Program.
We talk across a broad range of topics in our time together today, from the very problem that The Last Mile is committed to help solve, to the systemic impact that incarceration creates within different communities, and the importance of solving the challenges facing the formerly incarcerated and system impacted individuals in our country.
If you'd like to find out more about The Last Mile, or you are looking for ways to contribute, you can navigate to thelastmile.org/, or you can send an email to info@thelastmile.org
Thank you for listening, and for being a part of this very important conversation.
***Navigate the episode***
[07:28] The context of The Last Mile (TLM) and why is it created
[09:30] What TLM means and the importance of Jason’s story
[11:31] The gap between hope and transparency for the justice impacted
[13:41] What came into Chris’s mind in creating TLM, and the vision for creating hope and transparency
[17:12] How TLM integrated into the prison system, and the importance of story telling
[19:36] The big problems that The Last Mile is trying to solve
[20:54] The challenge of developing a support system and creating opportunities for the justice impacted
[24:39] How Chris and Jason think providing coding skills disrupts the very lineage of the problem
[30:18] The process of admitting and providing education within the prison system
[34:55] The obstacles that Chris and Jason have to overcome at the student level as part of the process and how this is navigated
[38:46] Perceived challenges at the hiring organization level, when hiring justice impacted graduates
[41:49] What Jason sees as potential challenges in working with companies as a TLM graduate
[44:55] The big vision for TLM
[48:58] What direction Jason seeks from the program, its listeners, and its communities
[51:05] What support TLM needs and ways to get involved
[55:55] What causes would Chris and Jason focus efforts on, if allocated unlimited resources and seven days to execute
***Resources and Links***
The Last Mile – thelastmile.org/
Learning to Code in Prison - https://youtu.be/7P4klAfyiG8
A Look Inside An Oklahoma Prison | Women Learning to Code - https://youtu.be/XjCpEKF_K6o
Prevalence of Imprisonment in the US Population, 1974-2001 - https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/piusp01.pdf
Prison Policy Initiative: Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2020 - https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2020.html
Just Mercy Movie - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4916630/
