Episode 28: How Technology Can Play a Key Role in Criminal Justice Reform | Michelle Mbekeani

The Nick Halaris Show

This week on The Nick Halaris Show we are featuring another inspiring civic entrepreneur, Michelle Mbekeani. Michelle is a prosecutor, criminal justice advocate, and the founder and CEO of Period, a subscription based digital platform that gives incarcerated people access to free legal service and advocacy for innocence and post-conviction relief. I wanted to have her on the show to learn more about the justice reform movement and to highlight her mission with Period.

With 2.3M people in prison, the US has the largest incarcerated population in the world, larger even than China, which has 1.65M prisoners and 4 times the population. We also have a massive systemic racism problem and it’s made our justice system far from fair for minorities and the economically disadvantaged. In the wake of George Floyd, there has been a resurgence in criminal justice reforms across the country and experiments with many new laws and policies, like bail reform, are already underway in the more progressive states. Today, these reforms are under increasing scrutiny as reports of brazen criminal activity have surged around the country. Michelle is someone who has dedicated her life to justice reform and, as you might imagine, has a lot of interesting perspectives on all this.

In this fascinating episode, we cover:
· The long evolution of the prison industrial complex dating back to the end of slavery in the post-Civil War Era

· The ways that money and race distort outcomes in a justice system meant to be unbiased

· How rehabilitation-focused policies (rather than punishment) are producing interesting results in Germany

· Why the architects of bail reform failed the movement by not having a well thought out implementation plan and failing on the communications front

· Michelle’s thoughts on how to improve our system

&

· Much, much more

Stay tuned to the end for an inspiring conversation about Michelle’s fascinating new venture, Period. I was floored to learn that based upon what we know right now, at least 1 in every 20 people in prison are likely innocent (this is based on the rate of incarcerated individuals who are currently being released after being proven innocent). With an average sentence of 14 years, that means there’s already been something like 25,000 years served by innocent people. Staggering. Michelle’s company seeks to solve a huge problem in the legal landscape by replacing the antiquated systems currently in use that rely exclusively on physical mail with a digital alternative. Seems like a no-brainer to me.
I hope you all enjoy this episode. Thanks for tuning-in!
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