0:00:08.375,0:00:11.598
Three, seven, eight,

0:00:12.844,0:00:15.164
two, four,

0:00:15.474,0:00:18.544
zero, three, seven.

0:00:20.114,0:00:21.544
Hodge.

0:00:21.544,0:00:24.195
Three seven eight two four[br]zero three seven.

0:00:25.615,0:00:30.139
I went to prison; that was my federal[br]inmate registration ID.

0:00:31.199,0:00:35.817
The first thing that happens when you go[br]to prison is they take away your name,

0:00:36.377,0:00:40.397
and from that moment forward,[br]you're that number.

0:00:40.817,0:00:44.967
Hodge; three seven eight[br]two four zero three seven.

0:00:45.187,0:00:50.516
It's the beginning of the dehumanizing[br]experience of mass incarceration.

0:00:51.432,0:00:54.641
In 2001, I was a businesswoman.

0:00:55.577,0:00:58.808
My organization and I became investigated.

0:00:59.118,0:01:02.268
I went to trial believing[br]justice would prevail,

0:01:02.268,0:01:07.115
and instead I was originally given[br]an 87 month federal prison sentence,

0:01:07.115,0:01:12.445
as a first time, non-violent,[br]white collar offence.

0:01:13.029,0:01:16.236
In addition to that,[br]I received three years probation.

0:01:17.539,0:01:19.340
Now, like so many of you,

0:01:19.670,0:01:25.265
I wasn't aware of mass incarceration[br]until it visited my doorstep.

0:01:27.383,0:01:33.276
I had family members[br]who went to prison, distant relatives,

0:01:35.196,0:01:39.301
and friends who had gone to prison.

0:01:39.715,0:01:42.526
But prison was something[br]that happened to other people.

0:01:42.956,0:01:46.732
While I was in prison, I wasn't Theresa.

0:01:47.945,0:01:50.395
I wasn't Irma and Charlie's daughter,

0:01:51.245,0:01:53.061
I wasn't Darcelle,

0:01:53.942,0:01:57.732
Charlene, Tammy, or Latanya's sister.

0:01:58.602,0:02:01.074
I wasn't even Lauren's mother.

0:02:01.074,0:02:05.499
I was Hodge; three seven eight[br]two four zero three seven.

0:02:08.508,0:02:11.819
In 2006, was when I was convicted,

0:02:12.493,0:02:15.765
and I had six months to prepare[br]for going to prison.

0:02:16.705,0:02:18.789
It's kind of funny[br]when I think about that,

0:02:18.789,0:02:21.543
because how do you really[br]prepare to go to prison?

0:02:22.083,0:02:25.337
I did it, and I still[br]don't know how I did it.

0:02:26.877,0:02:30.624
My mother, my four sisters,[br]and my daughter and I,

0:02:33.024,0:02:37.479
we got in two cars, we left Maryland,[br]and we headed to West Virginia.

0:02:38.279,0:02:43.167
Alderson Federal Prison Camp;[br]the first federal prison for women.

0:02:43.167,0:02:45.743
It was established in 1927.

0:02:45.743,0:02:50.091
The reality is, everything about a prison[br]was designed for a man.

0:02:50.861,0:02:55.915
While I was in the parking lot,[br]I had three big concerns.

0:02:56.825,0:03:02.286
The first one, I was afraid I would never[br]see the women who took me to prison again.

0:03:03.106,0:03:08.808
I was facing six years inside the prison,[br]and death was a possibility.

0:03:09.658,0:03:11.951
So I was very fearful of that.

0:03:12.621,0:03:17.169
The second thing was, I was concerned,[br]would I be relevant again?

0:03:17.589,0:03:21.524
Would I find meaning in my life,[br]professionally or personally?

0:03:22.914,0:03:25.905
The third fear was for my safety.[br]

0:03:27.515,0:03:28.795
I was afraid.

0:03:28.795,0:03:31.571
Television had informed me[br]up to this point,

0:03:31.571,0:03:33.306
and what I was afraid of

0:03:33.306,0:03:37.146
was that I possibly would have to fight[br]my way through prison,

0:03:37.146,0:03:39.663
or that I could be raped.

0:03:40.903,0:03:44.614
Somewhere on television,[br]that stuck in my mind as a possibility.

0:03:45.144,0:03:48.790
The reality is, "Orange[br]is the New Black" was not out yet,

0:03:49.220,0:03:53.423
and I didn't have anything[br]else to inform me.

0:03:54.706,0:03:58.549
When I arrived in prison,[br]what I discovered was something different.

0:03:58.889,0:04:03.515
I found amazing women[br]who too were in prison.

0:04:06.186,0:04:09.246
Prison is kind of a microcosm[br]of the rest of the United States.

0:04:09.246,0:04:12.771
It's a combination of everybody,[br]with one exception:

0:04:12.771,0:04:16.389
we have more black and brown men[br]who are incarcerated.

0:04:16.739,0:04:21.254
There's 2.3 million people[br]in American prisons today.

0:04:22.759,0:04:25.885
America has 5% of the world's population[br]

0:04:25.885,0:04:29.194
and 25% of the world's prisoners.

0:04:29.995,0:04:36.248
The number of women imprisoned[br]from 1980 to 2011 has increased by 586%.

0:04:38.743,0:04:42.915
Today, there are 200 000 women[br]who are in prison,

0:04:42.915,0:04:47.286
and another one million who are under[br]some form of correctional supervision.

0:04:48.036,0:04:52.012
There are three million children[br]who have a mother,

0:04:52.582,0:04:55.581
or maybe a mother[br]and father, who's in prison.

0:04:55.581,0:05:01.195
The reality is, we are incarcerating[br]too many people for too long.

0:05:01.425,0:05:05.470
Two years into my prison sentence,[br]I received a sentence reduction,

0:05:06.093,0:05:08.545
and my prison sentence [br]as reduced to 70 months.

0:05:08.545,0:05:10.631
That's five years and ten months.

0:05:10.941,0:05:14.991
The good news for me at the time[br]was I had already served over two years,

0:05:14.991,0:05:18.778
and whereas when I first walked in,[br]I wasn't sure if I could do the time,

0:05:19.268,0:05:22.871
at this moment, I actually knew[br]I could go the distance.

0:05:22.871,0:05:24.299
And so I was really excited,

0:05:24.299,0:05:27.617
because I had about two and a half years[br]to go when this happened.

0:05:29.477,0:05:33.727
When it was time to leave prison,[br]I was really excited.

0:05:34.507,0:05:38.468
But, to be honest, I was afraid again.

0:05:39.005,0:05:40.847
This time I wasn't afraid[br]

0:05:42.457,0:05:45.587
when it comes[br]to the women who I met.

0:05:45.587,0:05:50.236
I was afraid when I was leaving[br]what would happen to many of them.

0:05:50.676,0:05:54.490
A lot of them didn't have[br]the support system I had;

0:05:55.320,0:06:01.105
I was concerned that they were going back[br]to under-resourced communities,

0:06:02.745,0:06:04.975
not a support system like mine,

0:06:05.525,0:06:06.577
and I was concerned

0:06:06.577,0:06:11.463
that many wouldn't be able to reconnect[br]back to society in a meaningful way.

0:06:12.023,0:06:15.178
I never met a woman who was lying[br]on her bunk saying,

0:06:15.178,0:06:17.770
"I can't wait to go back to prison."

0:06:18.180,0:06:20.812
It's absolutely no way of life.

0:06:20.812,0:06:26.000
And yet, 70% of people who go to prison,[br]within three years return.

0:06:26.000,0:06:28.806
That's not just an indictment[br]of our government,

0:06:28.806,0:06:30.896
it's an indictment of all of us.

0:06:30.896,0:06:35.325
Because at the end of the day,[br]we've made coming home entirely too hard.

0:06:36.725,0:06:39.303
I'm going to tell you a story.

0:06:39.823,0:06:43.694
It's actually one of the worst things[br]that happened to me since I came home,

0:06:43.694,0:06:47.241
but it is the one thing[br]that motivates me the most.

0:06:49.381,0:06:52.826
As I was preparing to start[br]this business with my daughter,

0:06:54.616,0:06:59.645
I needed to get a job[br]to just pay a few of the bills.

0:07:00.021,0:07:03.479
I had managed to keep[br]my overhead extremely low,

0:07:03.479,0:07:06.576
because I was determined[br]I wouldn't allow prison to ruin my life.

0:07:06.576,0:07:09.289
I was going to be an entrepreneur again.

0:07:10.439,0:07:12.648
A girlfriend of mine[br]called me, and she said,

0:07:12.648,0:07:17.271
"I think I've found a job that you can do[br]while trying to start this business."

0:07:17.691,0:07:19.631
I said "Okay", and she sent me a link,

0:07:19.631,0:07:24.988
I took a look at it, and I agreed;[br]it looked like a job I actually could do.

0:07:25.828,0:07:30.836
I would be working from my home,[br]using my computer, and my internet,

0:07:30.836,0:07:34.719
to do some back office work[br]for an organization.

0:07:34.719,0:07:38.006
It paid probably slightly[br]above minimum wage.

0:07:38.456,0:07:41.683
So I went online[br]and I applied for the job.

0:07:45.553,0:07:50.414
I put in my name, my address,[br]my phone number,

0:07:50.414,0:07:52.464
and very basic information.

0:07:54.314,0:07:57.265
Then, the question appeared;

0:07:58.579,0:08:05.049
the dreaded question that those of us[br]with an arrest or conviction fear.

0:08:06.365,0:08:09.273
"Have you ever been convicted of a crime?"

0:08:11.203,0:08:16.151
I took a deep breath,[br]and I checked "Yes", and I hit "enter".

0:08:17.561,0:08:19.433
The screen went black.

0:08:24.273,0:08:25.829
Then a message appeared.

0:08:25.829,0:08:27.154
It said,

0:08:28.544,0:08:33.054
"Something you answered[br]disqualified you for this job."

0:08:33.974,0:08:36.123
Well, I knew it wasn't my name.[br]

0:08:36.123,0:08:37.123
(Laughter)

0:08:37.123,0:08:39.222
I knew it wasn't my address,

0:08:40.093,0:08:42.163
so it was pretty obvious.

0:08:44.293,0:08:47.746
There's so much going on[br]in the news around "Ban the Box";

0:08:47.746,0:08:50.899
that is a real life example[br]of ban the box.

0:08:51.349,0:08:54.922
It's the reason why the box needs to go.

0:08:55.532,0:08:59.035
It's not even the right conversation[br]we should be having.

0:08:59.638,0:09:01.966
We shouldn't be allowing employers

0:09:01.966,0:09:05.606
to discriminate[br]against millions of Americans,

0:09:05.606,0:09:08.085
keeping them locked into sentences[br]

0:09:08.926,0:09:13.605
and mistakes they [made] five, ten,[br]fifteen, thirty years ago.

0:09:14.745,0:09:18.759
We can't even have the right conversations[br]around the right to work

0:09:18.759,0:09:21.341
until we ban the box.

0:09:21.791,0:09:26.162
So as you hear all of this going on,[br]pay attention to it.

0:09:27.608,0:09:30.160
Because we need people[br]who are coming home from prison

0:09:30.160,0:09:32.081
to have their human capital restored,

0:09:32.081,0:09:35.701
so that they can be good mothers[br]and fathers, good community members.

0:09:35.701,0:09:37.970
and take care of their families.

0:09:40.900,0:09:42.573
So what can we all do?

0:09:42.573,0:09:44.666
We all have a role to play.

0:09:44.666,0:09:46.308
Three things.

0:09:46.308,0:09:47.738
First:

0:09:49.968,0:09:51.830
language matters.

0:09:54.628,0:10:00.357
Stop using the word "ex-offender",[br]"ex-felon", "convict".

0:10:00.827,0:10:03.242
When you are referring to someone,

0:10:04.302,0:10:08.008
if you're not sure what[br]to say, say their name.

0:10:09.768,0:10:14.305
Second thing: on Wednesdays,[br]take five minutes,

0:10:15.365,0:10:19.634
read an article, learn about this topic,[br]share it on social media,

0:10:20.584,0:10:22.574
talk to someone about it.

0:10:23.174,0:10:24.439
And the third thing:[br]

0:10:25.339,0:10:28.579
if you're an employer, employ someone;

0:10:28.579,0:10:30.261
give them a second chance.

0:10:30.891,0:10:34.086
If you're a legislator,[br]humanize this topic.

0:10:34.086,0:10:37.465
Bring people in, talk to them,[br]get to know them.

0:10:38.375,0:10:41.270
I can assure you[br]that if you get to know people,

0:10:41.270,0:10:45.161
you won't feel like you need[br]to discriminate against them.

0:10:46.931,0:10:52.595
Last: for me, I stand firmly in my shoes,

0:10:53.114,0:10:56.232
I embrace the 14 years[br]

0:10:56.232,0:10:59.142
that I was in conflict[br]with the criminal justice system.

0:11:02.132,0:11:05.789
I have incorporated[br]that experience into who I am,

0:11:05.969,0:11:08.352
and today it's neatly tucked into me.

0:11:08.902,0:11:10.803
It's a part of my past.

0:11:14.309,0:11:18.614
I am not three, seven, eight,

0:11:21.027,0:11:24.502
two, four, zero,

0:11:25.487,0:11:27.439
three, seven.

0:11:30.817,0:11:33.079
I am Theresa Hodge.

0:11:34.508,0:11:35.986
Thank you.

0:11:35.986,0:11:38.381
(Applause)