Huge thanks to Tracy Fox for having me as her guest on her podcast, The Happy Self. This was one of my favorite interviews, definitely worth a listen if you, a friend, family member, colleague or client have a white collar justice issue.
Tracy Fox is regarded as a Top Executive Coach teaching personal and professional success and happiness both at home and in the work place. Tracy is a sought after Speaker, Bestselling Author of Four Books and an NYU Certified Executive Coach specializing in helping people maximize their potential.
Tracy works with men and women individually as a Personal Coach and with Top CEOs, Managers, Elite Athletes and Artists in an Executive Coach capacity. She has spoken at over 100 locations including Corporate Retreats, National Meetings and Retail Locations such as Lord & Taylor and Equinox Luxury. Gyms. Additionally, Tracy was recently hired as the Executive Coach for Jersey Mikes Corporate Office in Manasquan, NJ and was also just awarded the Woman of Distinction by the YWCA.
Jeff Grant, J.D., M.Div. is an ordained minister with over three decades of experience in crisis management, business, law (former), reentry, recovery (clean & sober 18+ years), and executive & religious leadership. He works with people prosecuted for white collar crimes (and their families) who want to come out of isolation and join a supportive community that will help them navigate their journeys through the criminal justice system – to new ethical, productive, joyful lives on the other side of their issues.
As an ordained minister, conversations and communications between Jeff and those he serves fall under state clergy privilege laws. This is one reason that attorneys often allow and encourage their clients to maintain relationships with Jeff while in active prosecution or litigation situations. Not a prison consultant; not a prison coach.
Sometimes referred to in the press as “The Minister to Hedge Funders,” he regularly uses his experience and background to guide people faithfully forward in their lives, relationships, careers and business opportunities, and to help them from making the kinds of decisions that previously resulted in loss, suffering and shame.
After an addiction to prescription opioids and serving almost fourteen months in a Federal prison for a white-collar crime he committed when he was a lawyer, Jeff started his own reentry – earning a Master of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York, with a focus in Christian Social Ethics. After graduating from divinity school, Jeff was called to serve at an inner city church in Bridgeport, CT as Associate Minister and Director of Prison Ministries. He, and his wife and partner-in-ministry Lynn Springer, then co-founded Progressive Prison Ministries, Inc. (Greenwich, CT), the world’s first ministry serving the white collar justice/economy exiled community.
Jeff can be reached on the ministry’s website, prisonist.org.
On Friday, February 19th at 9 am EST, on our Free Prison Phone Calls Show we hosted guests Bianca Tylek, Venezia Michalsen and Jewu Richardson on the Criminal Justice Insider Podcast with Babz Rawls Ivy & Jeff Grant – Live on WNHH 103.5 FM New Haven, rebroadcast at 5 pm. Live-streamed on Facebook Live. On podcast platforms 24/7 everywhere. The Criminal Justice Insider Podcast is sponsored by the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven and Progressive Prison Ministries, Inc.
Bianca is the Founder and Executive Director of Worth Rises, a national criminal justice organization working to dismantle the prison industry and end the exploitation of those it targets, namely Black and Brown people.
Bianca is one of the nation’s leading experts on and advocates against the prison industry. She led the first successful campaign in the country to make jail phone calls free, blocked a major merger in the prison telecom market, and denied prison profiteers millions of investment dollars. Every year, under her leadership, Worth Rises publishes the innovative research about the prison industry, including the nation’s largest dataset of corporate prison profiteers. In just three years, her work has cost the industry and its investors over a billion dollars, and saved communities tormented by incarceration millions.
Bianca is a Draper Richard Kaplan Entrepreneur and has previously been awarded fellowships by TED, Art For Justice, Equal Justice Works, Harvard University, Ford Foundation, Paul & Daisy Soros, and Education Pioneers. Before committing her career to justice, Bianca worked in financial services at Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, and Goldman Sachs. Bianca holds a B.A. from Columbia University and a J.D. from Harvard Law School.
Dr. Venezia Michalsen
Dr. Venezia Michalsen is an American intersectional feminist criminologist whose work focuses on gender and imprisonment and reentry from incarceration.
Venezia received her B.A. in 1998 from Barnard College and her Ph.D. in Criminal Justice (2007) from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). She was the Director of Analysis and Client Information Systems (ACIS) at the Women’s Prison Association until she began her career as an academic in the Justice Studies Department at Montclair State University (MSU) in 2008. She is currently an Associate Professor of Justice Studies at MSU.
Venezia interrogates the use of incarceration as a response to women’s survival strategies in the face of childhood and adult abuse. She also focuses on women’s experiences of re-entry to the community from prison and jail, and in particular on the role of children in women’s desistance from criminal behavior after incarceration. Her first book, Mothering and Desistance in Re-Entry was published in 2019. She is under contract with the University of California Press for her second book.
Always an advocate for women who come in contact with the criminal justice system, Venezia’s more recent work has involved fighting for abolitionist policies in her home state of Connecticut. Venezia is the mother of a nine-year-old autistic boy, and her advocacy work for him and other children in special education has led to the formation of Special Education PTA in her town and she is working to increase police training on interactions with disabled people. In her free time, she loves to ride her bicycle, hike at Sleeping Giant State Park, and lift heavy weights.
The Criminal Justice Insider Podcast with Babz Rawls Ivy and Jeff Grant is broadcast live at 9 am ET on the first and third Friday of each month from the WNHH 103.5 FM studios in New Haven. It is rebroadcast on WNHH at 5 pm ET the same day.
Congratulations to our friend and colleague, Jacqueline Polverari, on her new podcast Criminal Justice Cafe. In this episode, Jacquie has a discussion with Holli Houghton, Executive Director of Pink Lady Prison Consultants, about women feeling isolated and alone while incarcerated as their families and loved ones live their lives on the outside.
Criminal Justice Cafe: Transparent conversations about controversial subjects within the Criminal Justice System… from the inside out.
Watch on YouTube:
Holli Coulman
Holli Coulman a college-educated professional spent the better part of her career carving out a name for herself in highly competitive corporate arenas. While in her well-earned role at a strategic tech company, Holli’s integrity became compromised as she soon would become the target of a federal investigation. Coming under direct fire for financial fraud-related charges, she was forced to accept a guilty plea and subsequently, was convicted of one count of wire fraud. She spent the next 15 months in the Women’s Camp at FCC Victorville, California, 2 months in the Solitary Housing Unit (SHU) at the San Bernardino County Jail, and the final 3 months at a Halfway House.
Though steeped in a whirlwind of life-altering change and hardship, Holli did not spend her time unwisely. She earned her American Bar Association Paralegal Certification and in April of 2017 was given the opportunity to work for a reputable law firm, and is now working at the Dallas County Public Defender’s Office. Finding power in the written word, Holli started a popular blog on big issues such as women’s safety while incarcerated and related subject matter. This act of civil advocacy resulted in a Bureau of Prisons retaliatory- based punishment of two months in solitary confinement. These and other experiences will be chronicled in her much-anticipated book debut, “True Injustice” that will be published in December 2020.
Presently, Holli Coulman is one of the most notable and respected Women’s Prison Consultants. Through various prison consultancy platforms, she navigates families and individuals through the difficulty of incarceration. Her services stretch far beyond education and awareness. Holli’s services include prison pre-and-post release strategies, clemency procedures, appeals, coursework, and compassionate releases. Known for leading the dialogue for women’s prison reform, Holli is often requested to be a speaker at many leading women’s conferences. Holli maintains an active presence in organizations that champion her causes, including the WPA, and also the Voice of Women.
Jacqueline Polverari, MBA, MSW is the founder and Executive Director of Evolution Reentry Services, focusing on the needs of women who have been impacted by the Criminal Justice System.
Jacqueline has over 25 years’ experience as a professional with proven successes in business leadership, mentoring and therapeutic environments. Her experience working with trauma culminated after spending almost a year in Danbury Federal Prison Camp for Women and observing the trauma women experience related to being incarcerated. She has since dedicated herself to Criminal Justice Reform and Reentry services with a special focus on trauma and reentry services for women relating to incarceration. Jacqueline is an active member of the National Association of Social Workers, JustLeadershipUSA and #Cut50 and speaks at conferences and symposiums throughout the country. She most recently designed and hosted the first retreat for women convicted of a white-collar crime in the country in October 2019. Jacqueline is working diligently to continue her education and has returned to school to obtain her Doctoral Degree in Social Work with a concentration in Criminal Justice.
