We were Panelists at the American Bar Association Criminal Justice Section Fall Institute Conference:
Nov. 17th & 18th, 2022, Washington, DC
Panel: Fri., Nov. 18th
“Prosecuted Lawyers’ Perspectives on White Collar/Nonviolent Prosecution and Reentry”
Details: Lawyers convicted and incarcerated for white collar or nonviolent crimes will share their stories, experiences and difficulties during prosecution and reentering society after prison, and will make recommendations as to how the white collar bar and criminal justice system can be more effective, humane and merciful towards white collar defendants (and their families) while better fulfilling their obligation to enhance rehabilitation through diversion and other alternatives to incarceration. Please join us if you will be in the DC area!
Moderator: Jeffrey D. Grant, Esq.
Panelists: R. Seth Williams, Bill Baroni, Esq., Michele Weinstat, Esq., Jeffrey Wertkin
White Collar Criminal Justice Community Continues to Expand Resources and Reach
Greenwich, CT (March 14, 2022): Progressive Prison Ministries, Inc., the world’s first ministry devoted to serving the white collar justice community, will hold its 300th consecutive White Collar Support Group meeting online on Zoom this Monday, March 14, 2022. Co-founded by Connecticut resident/NYC white collar attorney and ordained minister, Jeff Grant, Esq. (Jeffrey D. Grant), the ministry’s mission is to help individuals prosecuted for white collar crimes to take responsibility for their actions and the wreckage they caused, make amends, and move forward in new way of life centered on hope, care, compassion, tolerance and empathy. The support group was founded online in 2016 online as a way of reaching out to justice-impacted individuals and families suffering in isolation all over the country and providing them solutions in a supportive community.
Progressive Prison Ministries’ goal is to provide spiritual solutions and emotional support to those who are feeling alone, isolated, and hopeless. Its objective is to help them find a path to a healthy, spirit-filled place on the other side of what may seem like insurmountable problems.
“I am so grateful for the opportunity to be of service to this hugely misunderstood and greatly under-supported community,” said Jeff Grant. “When we held our first support group meeting in 2016, we had only 4 participants. Now, 6 years later, we are holding our 300th meeting with over 450 members.”
“For years, Jeff Grant has made it his mission to make sure that no one feels the isolation that can come from being a former inmate,” said Bill Baroni, former ‘Bridgegate’ defendant whose conviction was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court.
In addition to providing resources and community, Grant is the leading advocate for ensuring white collar-related issues are included within the ever-evolving debate around the criminal justice system. “When we started the ministry in 2013, people who had been to prison were pariahs with little opportunity to have a second chance,” said Grant. “A decade later, criminal justice reform is an important national conversation; we are proud of our work to enable white collar justice advocates to have a seat at the table.”
To date, the community has been a featured source surrounding white-collar related issues, including a recent profile of Grant and the White Collar Support Group in the New Yorker. Grant’s work has also been featured in major national media Entrepreneur, Bloomberg, Reuters, Forbes, and Greenwich Magazine as well as major podcasts such as The Rich Roll Podcast. Grant has also been a Main Stage presenter at prestigious conferences such as The Nantucket Project. In addition to being a popular interviewee, Grant has helped thousands of his community members navigate their past and push towards re-establishing themselves as productive contributors to society.
With both Law and Master of Divinity degrees, Grant provides a unique perspective of understanding about what and how his community members are coping with and facing ahead of them. Grant himself spent almost 14 months in a Federal prison for a white collar crime he committed in 2001.
According to former Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams, who served time in a Federal prison, “Jeff created a network of welcoming, non-judgmental, and understanding men and women that share their similar experiences in an open and nurturing environment.”
The weekly Monday meeting is held online on Zoom beginning at 7 pm ET, 4 pm PT and last approximately 75 minutes. During the meeting, members are given the chance to reflect on their healing process as well as embrace those who are new to the group, which continues to grow with each weekly gathering.
Complementing the weekly meetings include an ongoing blog on Grant’s widely regarded site, prisonist.org, where meetings are recapped, dissected and materials are gathered for community members to continue to work on their own. Grant’s White Collar Week podcast has also become a critical source for his community, providing a platform for those that have gone through the journey to tell their story and provide personal insights into their healing. Guests have included current and former politicians, financial executives, white collar criminal defense attorneys, federal agents, judges, Hollywood producers and more.
Established in 2013 in Greenwich, CT, Progressive Prison Ministries is the world’s first ministry devoted to serving the white collar justice community. More information is available on its website at prisonist.org and on its social media channels: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn.
About Progressive Prison Ministries’ Co-Founders:
Co-founders husband and wife Jeff Grant and Lynn Springer were featured in a twelve-page article in Greenwich Magazine: The Redemption of Jeff Grant. After an addiction to prescription opioids and serving almost 14 months in a Federal prison for a white-collar crime he committed when he was a lawyer, Grant began his own reentry – earning a Master of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary in New York City with a focus in Christian Social Ethics. In May 2021, Grant’s law license was reinstated by the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York.
About GrantLaw, PLLC:
Jeffrey D. Grant, Esq., Private General Counsel/White Collar Attorney, 43 West 43rd Street, Suite 108, New York, New York 10036-7424, GrantLaw.com, jgrant@grantlaw.com, (212) 859-3512
This article imagines a cohesive, integrated system that shepherds people through and beyond their criminal justice issues and incentivizes the community to assist them.
A Rising Tide Lifts All Boats: Progressive Diversion & Reentry, “Problem-to-Pardon” Case Management
On an early turn playing the famous board game The Game of Life, you have a choice to make: go to college or start your career. While this decision sets the tone for the kind of game you’ll play, no matter which option you choose, these distinct paths ultimately merge back together allowing you to spearhead your career, start a family, buy a house, and eventually retire.
In our version of The Game of Life, you have two very different options: You go to prison or you don’t. But the penalties for going to prison are tantamount to playing the rest of the game with both arms tied behind your back.
This article explores ways in which all stakeholders in the criminal justice ecosystem can work together on common goals to help justice-impacted individuals navigate their ways through The Game of Life, provide resources for their incremental success, teach them to avoid and/or elegantly deal with obstacles that formerly resulted in recidivation, and provide a path to exit the game with more joyful, productive, and purposeful lives free of the stigma, shame, and barriers associated with having a felony. This reveals that the underlying purpose is to change The Game of Life into a way of life, one in which all stakeholders, and the community at large, will be lifted up, permanently disrupting the intergenerational cycle of incarceration.
Problem-to-Pardon Case Management
When you are admitted to a hospital, a hospital social worker begins to plan your discharge immediately upon your admission, often before a doctor even meets with you. Why? Because leaving better than you were upon entry is the ultimate goal of a hospital. This is the kind of framework in which legal case management must operate. People entering the criminal justice system are not given the tools and information required to reduce their sentence or prepare for reintegration into the community. Aside from a defense attorney’s guidance from trial to sentencing, justice-impacted people are largely on their own. Abandoning our most vulnerable people in their time of need should not be the standard. Case management should not begin and end in a courtroom or prison; reentry preparation should start immediately after a defendant enters the system and end when the client has completed their pardon application. We have coined the term for this process the “Problem-to-Pardon” case management system.
In our current system, punishment goes way beyond incarceration. American culture normatively accepts prison as a solution to violence and civil disobedience rather than a symptom. What we mean by this is that our collective consciousness and discourse in relation to the purpose of prisons have been limited by our tolerance to the cycle of violence. We must ask ourselves, “on an institutional level, what do prisons do to curb the reproduction of violence?” As it stands now, the answer is, unfortunately, “not much.”
Upon release, justice-impacted people are frequently subjected to visits from their parole officer. Without diving into the functional roles of a case manager versus a parole officer, their presences alone paint a stark contrast. Parole officers are able to show up unannounced, wielding a gun on their hip. They remind their client to find housing and/or a job, terms of their parole, seldom offering any assistance on achieving these requirements. What does this say about how we view justice-impacted people post reentry? A threatening, combative figure cannot be the default for all cases.
When someone is locked away for committing a crime, no matter if the crime is violent or nonviolent, that crime did not happen in an isolation chamber. Until attention is drawn to the root causes rather than the crime itself, rehabilitation and reconciliation remain anomalies. Simply displacing society’s “bad actors” does nothing to combat crime itself; we must engage with justice-impacted people and commit to rehabilitation through hands-on, personalized, evidence-based, and community-oriented casework.
Casework Models
There are several different models for conducting casework. In our opinion, the Transition from Jail to Community (TJC) Initiative launched by the National Institute of Corrections (NIC) in partnership with the Urban Institute in 2007 is the closest representation of a Problem-to-Pardon case management system. This model is based on a significant body of prisoner reentry research and evidence-based practices. The key five elements of the TJC Model are as follows:
Leadership, Vision, and Organizational Culture. Leaders from both the jail and the community must be actively engaged, articulate a clear vision, set expectations, identify important issues, and involve other key constituencies.
Collaborative Structure and Joint Ownership. Effective transition strategies rely on collaboration and information-sharing among jail and community-based partners and joint ownership of the problem and solution.
Data-Driven Understanding of Local Reentry. Regular analysis of objective data, including analysis of the jail population characteristics, informs and drives decision-making and policy formation.
Targeted Intervention Strategies The strategy to improve transition at the individual level involves introducing specific interventions at critical points along the jail-to-community continuum.
Self-Evaluation and Sustainability. Self-evaluation involves the use of objective data to guide operations, monitor progress, and inform decision-making. Sustainability involves planning to maintain initiative progress despite changes in leadership, policy, funding, and staffing. See Kevin Warwick, Hannah Dodd & S. Rebecca Neusteter, Case Management Strategies for Successful Jail Reentry, org (Sept. 2012), https://urbn.is/3sdEI4g.
This model draws on four main principles popularized by Canadians Paul Gendreau and Robert Ross: human service, risk, need, and responsivity.
Principles
The human service principle states that punishment alone cannot change an individual’s behavior or prevent the individual from recidivating. See Michael L. Prendergast et al., The Andrews’ Principles of Risk, Need, and Responsivity as Applied in Drug Abuse Treatment Programs: Meta-analysis of Crime and Drug Use Outcomes, 9 J. Experimental Criminology 275 (2013), https://bit.ly/39Bu1jJ. This not only includes incarceration itself, but also parole and additional post-sentence surveillance. Considerable research has supported this principle. In order to reduce recidivism, interventions such as treatment and supportive programming must be accessible. Clients’ improvements are linked more closely to positive reinforcement rather than negative. Interventions should be intensive; every client should be in case management for at least six months.
The risk principle refers to the importance of risk assessment before allocating treatment and additional resources. Seeid. Many studies have shown that high-risk individuals who receive relevant treatment experience lower rates of recidivism. See Warwick, Dodd & Neusteter, supra. Comparatively low-risk individuals may actually increase their chances of recidivism if treated similarly to high-risk individuals. See Christopher Tyson Lowenkamp, Correctional Program Integrity and Treatment Effectiveness: A Multi-Site, Program-Level Analysis (doctoral dissertation) (on file with University of Cincinnati) (2004), https://bit.ly/39f7PLK. It is important to note that this does not mean that low-risk individuals should not receive any assistance during incarceration and reentry; this means that case management’s focus must be on the individuals who are most likely to benefit from this work. A few examples of relevant areas of risk assessment include age, prior convictions, employment at arrest, and drug use history. Risk also included the type of crime committed; the most recent research has shown that “violent prior offenders were reconvicted at a higher rate (41.3%) than nonviolent offenders (23.3%).” See US Sentencing Comm’n, Recidivism Among Federal Violent Offenders, ussc.gov (Jan. 2019), https://bit.ly/3q7NkYm. Risk should be assessed at multiple points along the case management process and be determined by classification instruments as opposed to clinical judgment. Standardized classification methods would combat rater bias and help support future research.
The need principle is fairly self-explanatory. This principle draws attention to the client’s specific traits, history, and, of course, needs. See Prendergast et al., supra. Research has shown that case management is more effective if the focus is solely or primarily on the client’s criminogenic needs (antisocial personality, pro-criminal attitudes, social supports for crime, substance abuse, family and marital relationships, school and/or work, and prosocial recreational activities). See Warwick, Dodd & Neusteter, supra. Focusing solely or primarily on the client’s non-criminogenic needs, such as stress and self-esteem, has been shown to have no effect or actually increase the client’s likelihood of recidivating. Seeid. It can be argued that many non-criminogenic needs are mere symptoms of more overarching needs. Figuratively speaking, focusing on non-criminogenic interventions would be like placing a bandage on an infected wound. By concentrating intervention strategies at the root of the client’s needs (their criminogenic needs), the client is more likely to experience positive change overall.
Finally, the responsivity principle can be broken down into two subcategories: the learning style of the client and traits that may affect treatment selection and response, such as mental health issues and/or cognitive disabilities. See Prendergast et al., supra. This principle has also proven to be relevant in constructing case management plans for other “special” populations, or populations that are considered a minority in prisons, such as female prisoners, sex offenders, and prisoners convicted of violent crimes. Seeid.
Pardons
According to many experts, the mark of successful reentry is when an individual stays out of prison for three to five years. In our opinion, we feel that five years should be the sole marker of success. After this five-year period, individuals are significantly less likely to recidivate compared to a three- or four-year marker. According to the proposed Problem-to-Pardon case management system, once the individual crosses this five-year threshold, they should have the opportunity to be pardoned for their crime. Adopting this model would actualize the criminal justice system’s original promise to serve justice and foster rehabilitation. (More on this below.) As it stands now, individuals can apply to be pardoned by the state or federal government, but only 17 states “regularly” approve (more than 30%) these applications. See Restoration of Rights Project, 50-State Comparison: Pardon Policy & Practice, ccresourcecenter.org (updated May 2020), https://bit.ly/2MQggWp.
The Problem-to-Pardon case management system looks to make pardons an attainable goal for the justice-impacted community. We believe that by adopting this incentive, individuals would be more likely to cooperate and be more engaged in case management and treatment. Learned helplessness may be an overlooked factor in client responsivity to treatment; if the client perceives their situation as irredeemable, how can we expect them to put in the work to change?
Caseworkers
Beyond shifting policies and framework, the foundation of case management is its caseworkers. Their treatment, pay, work-life balance, and physical and mental health directly influence their impact on their clients. Compared to correctional officers, caseworkers experience higher levels of burnout and, consequently, turnover. See Joseph R. Carlson & George Thomas, Burnout Among Prison Caseworkers and Correctional Officers, 43 J. Offender Rehab. 19 (2006), https://bit.ly/3nBPSfH. The three most common reasons for leaving the profession are inadequate payment, lack of support from management, and stress, also known as burnout. See id. Case managers do not want to be underpaid paper pushers; they want to believe their emotional labor and dedication are not only valuable but viable. Furthermore, these adverse working conditions hinder client progress and make case management, as a whole, unsustainable. Lack of support and stress ultimately obstruct interpersonal connections between clients and case managers. No amount of empirical methodology can substitute for rapport; clients need to trust their caseworkers in order for these methods to be successful.
Caseworkers should be selected with consideration of secondary trauma, interpersonal skills, cooperation, and collaboration. Support should always be available to caseworkers, as this job is highly intensive and emotionally draining. Feelings of isolation and an overwhelming workload can lead caseworkers to experience compassion fatigue, which can negatively impact their clients. Creating a work environment that maintains coworker support and promotes opportunities for personal development will make employment more sustainable. Investing in caseworkers is an investment in reentry success.
One of the ways case managers can receive much-needed support is through community ties. Case management should not solely reside in prisons; it is crucial that community-based organizations that are accessible and familiar with the justice-impacted community cosponsor reentry. Additionally, this unburdens caseworkers and ensures a smooth transition into reentry for the client. Depending on the client’s criminogenic tendencies and needs, caseworkers can connect clients to the relevant support systems. Establishing rapport between clients and the community before release is imperative, especially for high-risk clients who are more likely to recidivate. When community-based organizations collaborate with caseworkers and initiate “in-reach,” the transition from prison to freedom looks less like a leap of faith and more like a continuum of care. See Warwick, Dodd & Neusteter, supra.
Social Determinants of Health
Social and community context, access to quality health care, and neighborhood and built environment are three key areas of social determinants of health that are often overlooked during casework. See Ctrs for Disease Control & Prevention, What Are Social Determinants of Health, cdc.gov, https://bit.ly/2K5eS1f. As defined by the CDC, social determinants of health “are conditions in the places where people live, learn, work, and play that affect a wide range of health risks and outcomes.” See id. One’s “cohesion within a community, civic participation, [experiences of] discrimination, and conditions in the workplace, and incarceration” as well as their “quality of housing, access to transportation, [. . .] and neighborhood crime and violence” should all be assessed and considered when planning reentry. See id. Access to affordable, quality physical and mental health care, including an individual’s health literacy, is also crucial to a successful reentry.
Community Collaboration
Likely community collaborators would include support groups, 12-step programs, housing programs, job assistance, childcare, affordable therapy, psychoeducation programs, as well as many others. It is important to note that people working within these organizations endure similar challenges as caseworkers; these programs are largely underfunded and overworked. Compounded with finding programs that are within an accessible physical proximity to clients, partnering with quality community programs can be an insurmountable task.
While caseworkers and community advocates can develop a relationship of mutual aid, many of the obstacles they face cannot be overcome without adequate funding. The challenges of funding have haunted casework and community interventions since their inception, and by no means will we pretend to have any solution that has not already been proposed. However, we cannot simply ignore this problem. This is where intervention and activism intersect: No systematic change can occur without the backing of a mass movement.
Identity
This year, the Black Lives Matter movement held a spotlight on the institutional racism deeply embedded in our country and, by extension, our justice system. This hyperawareness and newly widespread discourse around systematic change make fertile soil for reevaluating and reshaping our case management system. Historically, the quality of case management heavily depends on the client’s race, socioeconomic status, and gender identity. Of course, no policy reflects this discrepancy. However, through self-reported data, we know that these systems favor white, affluent, cisgender, heterosexual clients. Interestingly, casework looks vastly different between mothers and fathers, especially when comparing white parents to Black parents. While childcare seems like an obvious procedure in case management for clients who are mothers, fathers are largely overlooked when it comes to discussing childcare. This oversight stems from gendered and racist stereotypes, particularly the myth of the “missing Black father.”
American case management has operated from a colorblind, heteronormative, ableist, and classist standpoint for too long. See Rose M. Brewer & Nancy A. Heitzeg, The Racialization of Crime and Punishment, Criminal Justice, Color-Blind Racism, and the Political Economy of the Prison Industrial Complex, 51 Am. Behav. Scientist 625 (2008), https://bit.ly/3seyEbE. According to the Sentencing Project, over 60% of people in prison are people of color. See The Sentencing Project, Racial Disparity, sentencingproject.org, https://bit.ly/2LkCIGI. Black men are six times more likely to be incarcerated compared to white men, while Hispanic men are just over two times as likely. See id. While women only make up seven percent of the prison population, these racial discrepancies manifest similarly, as well. Seeid. It is difficult to estimate the percentage of transgender, genderfluid, nonbinary, and genderqueer people incarcerated given the binary nature of the prison system and its lack of data collection. However, thanks to the 2015 National Transgender Discrimination Survey, we know that Black transgender women were four and a half times more likely to be incarcerated compared to their white counterparts. See Nat’l Ctr. for Transgender Equality, The Report of the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey, transequality.org (2016), https://bit.ly/2Xv99ov. Additionally, Native American transgender women were three times as likely to experience incarceration compared to white transgender women. Seeid.
While it is seemingly intuitive to treat all of your clients the same, this does nothing to combat systemic racism, sexism, transphobia, ableism, and classism within our justice and case management systems. By adopting an intersectional framework that draws on critical race theory, multiple schools of feminist theory, and disability studies, caseworkers can begin to implement truly individualized casework and actively combat institutionalized bias. See Brewer & Heitzeg, supra. Integrating theory into practice once again highlights the importance of establishing rapport: How can a client trust their case manager and the process if the process is designed to actively erase, undermine, or overlook their identity?
Today, more and more Americans are viewing incarceration as a race and class issue rather than the previously accepted black and white, good versus bad narrative. The topic of incarceration has quickly become a dinner table conversation rather than a shameful taboo. Now more than ever, caseworkers and advocates alike have the opportunity to seize and hold the public’s attention. Case management and community interventions are a major component in the larger movement of dismantling unjust practices. The more engaged and educated the public is on these issues, the more likely they are to support and push for policies that will allocate adequate funding to these life-changing services.
Funding social services often elicits pushback from concerned politicians and citizens alike: How do we pay for this? When it comes to funding preventative services versus treatment services, prevention is almost always significantly cheaper and more effective than treatment. For example, when Vice President-elect Kamala Harris launched Back on Track in 2005, not only did recidivism reduce from 53% to less than 10%, but costs reduced, as well. The program costs “approximately $5,000 per participant, compared with $10,000 to adjudicate a case and nearly $50,000 per year to house a low-level offender in prison or jail.” See Jacquelyn L. Rivers & Lenore Anderson, Back on Track: A Problem-Solving Reentry Court, bja.ojp.gov (Sept. 2009), https://bit.ly/3oyBLcg. When surveying 45 states in 2015, the Vera Institute of Justice found that the United States spent over $42 billion on prison expenditures in a single year. See Vera Inst. of Just., Prison Spending in 2015, vera.org, https://bit.ly/3nDUBxf. When questioning costs, we should begin with this figure rather than picking apart programs that will likely decrease this immense spending.
Another way caseworkers can simultaneously lighten their caseload and connect the client with their community is by involving the client’s family, whether that is chosen family or blood relatives. As it stands now, families are overlooked in the case management process. Before the individual is released from prison, caseworkers or parole officers will assess the individual’s future residence, mainly checking for weapons and drugs. While this process is necessary, this method alone fails to see the client’s environment as both physical and interpersonal. A family’s role in reentry can be helpful or harmful depending on their relationship with the client as well as their own criminogenic tendencies and needs. Therefore, risk assessment should go beyond the client and include family members, as well. Autonomy is another integral component. What role does the client want their family to serve? The community at large? What are their goals? Their concerns? How do we address these notions realistically and prosocially? While caseworkers are experts on reentry, clients are experts on themselves. Without taking the client’s perceived social support network into account, caseworkers cannot see the full picture. We cannot stress this enough: A reciprocal relationship between client and caseworker is necessary to achieve advantageous outcomes.
Mental Health Support
Whether or not the caseworker deems the family fit to take a more active role in reentry, psychoeducation is crucial. Reentry is often overwhelming for justice-impacted people, and it may be easiest to turn to antisocial coping strategies such as alcohol use, drug use, and crime. This is especially important for families of individuals suffering from mental illness. As defined by Len and John Sperry, “psychoeducation is a broad treatment strategy of educating and training individuals experiencing psychological disturbance [and their families] to increase their knowledge, coping capacity, and skills required to solve their presenting problems.” See Len Sperry & Jon Sperry, Psychotherapy and Psychopathology: Cognitive-Behavioral and Adlerian Treatment Strategies and Interventions, in 2 Abnormal Psychology Across the Ages: Disorders and Treatments 191 (Thomas Plante ed., 2013).
Let’s imagine an actively involved mother who is participating in psychoeducation with her justice-impacted son struggling with schizophrenia. Let’s call this person Josh. Josh insists that the government is out to get him and wants to send him back to prison. This is a textbook example of a delusion, one of the major symptoms of schizophrenia. Before enrolling in psychoeducation, Josh’s mother would try to comfort Josh by telling him that the government could not find him in their home. Despite her good intentions, Josh’s mother learns that her response only validated Josh’s delusion and ultimately contributed to its persistent reoccurrence. Through psychoeducation, both Josh and his mother can learn strategies that soothe Josh when he is experiencing adverse symptoms, such as delusions, without affirming them.
Psychoeducation has been proven to be an effective tool in mitigating symptoms of most mental disorders, regardless of severity. However, like most individual interventions, psychoeducation works best in conjunction with other forms of therapy. By nature, psychoeducation is short-termed and goal-oriented. Other forms of therapy, such as group therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy, help with maintenance. Therapeutic needs are highly individualized, which requires caseworkers to be well versed in psychiatric interventions as well as frequently risk assessing and consulting with the relevant mental health professionals.
Drug and Alcohol Support
Drug and alcohol addiction are common risk factors that contribute to recidivism. During risk assessment, it is absolutely crucial to accurately evaluate the type, severity, and history of the affected individual. The client’s immediate family and community may play an important role in risk assessment: Is the support system encouraging addictive behaviors? Are they encouraging sobriety? Are they ambivalent? What does that reaction look like? Is there a history of substance abuse in the client’s family or support system? If so, is that person sober or seeking treatment? Like therapy, treatment for substance abuse is highly individualized. If the treatment does not suit the client, the effects may be unsubstantial or, even worse, regressive. A 12-step, nonresidential program may be ineffective if the individual goes home to an alcoholic spouse. In this scenario, a rehabilitation facility may be the most appropriate intervention.
However, reconnecting with the individual’s immediate community is the ultimate goal of Problem-to-Pardon case management, and any program that requires additional separation must be chosen only out of absolute necessity for the well-being of the client.
A “Culture of Pardons”
Certainly, not every person who applies for a pardon will be granted one. But what if the real goal is not to obtain a pardon for any particular applicant, but for this tide to lift all boats in the entire community? In doing so, it will increase the opportunity to be granted a pardon for all applicants.
“It takes a village to raise a child” is an African proverb that means that an entire community of people must take responsibility for children in order for them to experience and grow in a safe and healthy environment. This phrase and concept were famously used by Hillary Rodham Clinton in writing and titling her book It Takes a Village: And Other Lessons Children Teach Us, in which she addresses the impact individuals and their community have on a child’s well-being and calls for a society that strives to meet all of a child’s needs. See Hillary Rodham Clinton, It Takes a Village: And Other Lessons Children Teach Us (1996).
The point is, if the entire community subscribes to this endeavor, the benefits will not only inure to the child, but also to the village as a whole. This wider community benefit is exactly what we intend by advocating for a “Culture of Pardons.”
As we mentioned earlier, only 17 states regularly (more than 30%) approve pardon applications from previously incarcerated people. See Restoration of Rights Project, supra. This process looks vastly different state-by-state, with varying degrees of roadblocks. The decision to grant an individual’s request can be decided by the state’s governor, high officials such as the attorney general or chief justice, an independent board, a parole board, or a combination of these powers. Of course, the president also has the ability to grant an individual’s request. The fact that the threshold for deeming a state a “frequent” pardoner is only 30% shows how rare pardoning is. While state legislation is crucial to combatting this anomaly, case management must also educate and prepare their clients for applying.
Case managers should be well versed in federal and state requirements for pardon applications. Eligibility varies state by state, but we recommend waiting five years post-reentry to apply. In the meantime, caseworkers should be tracking the client’s progress. This includes monitoring community engagement, employment status, sobriety (if relevant), and program attendance. Keeping track of progress is also paramount for reentry research. This domain of research is relatively new and has lacked alignment with practitioners. Collaboration with reputable researchers can only advance our understanding and success in reintegrating clients.
Case managers should explain how to apply for a pardon while the client is incarcerated so that they are well prepared upon reentry. We recommend presenting this information as a step-by-step roadmap. Putting together a well-organized and comprehensive application will and should take time. Clients should be encouraged to include as much information as possible, going beyond what is required. The more detailed the application, the better. When in doubt, the best response is “see attached.” Including an up-to-date résumé is always a plus if the client’s state does not already require it. Character letters should be written by reputable and trustworthy peers and family members. It is important to note that many states limit the number of blood relatives when asking for character letters. By including caseworkers in the process of applying for a pardon, the individual is less likely to make mistakes on their application and, therefore, reduces their chance of rejection.
At the writing of this article, we are experiencing a worldwide COVID-19 pandemic of historic proportions. While we are hopeful that a vaccine is soon to be approved, we are reminded that it is not the vaccine that saves lives, but the vaccination that saves lives. One suggestion to overcome public resistance to vaccinations is to create an incentive program. That is, to pay people to be vaccinated. The goal is to have enough people vaccinated so that the entire community benefits from herd immunity.
Similarly, creating a Culture of Pardons not only benefits the individual post-reentry but also motivates individuals entering the justice system to immerse themselves in their rehabilitation and reentry. Granting a pardon is a life-changing moment; it opens the doors so that an individual will not be barred from housing or rejected from a job. A Culture of Pardons would set the tone for a new era of criminal justice, one where reintegration prevails over punishment. We know that punishment does not reduce recidivism, so why must we continue to treat the justice-impacted community inhumanly? Our imagination must go beyond intervention and expand upon opportunity. A Culture of Pardons puts healing above all else; it gives people a second chance. It also breaks down the wall between the justice-impacted community and the community at large.
Restoring one’s dignity, autonomy, and sense of belonging should be the ultimate goal of reentry. To put it in one word, the Problem-to-Pardons case management system and a Culture of Pardons strive for reintegration. By adopting these ideas, players in The Game of Life can see the roads merge on the horizon. Our communities and our caseworkers build this intersection, brick by brick. With their help, the justice-impacted community can catch up with those who have never been affected by the justice system. Reintegration isn’t simply leaving prison; it’s walking side by side with the community, weaving a thread between the justice-impacted and the community at large until the two become indistinguishable.
JEFF GRANT, J.D., M.Div. is an ordained minister with over three decades of experience in crisis management, business, law (former), reentry, recovery, and executive and religious leadership. After an addiction to prescription opioids and serving almost 14 months in 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 and co-founding Progressive Prison Ministries, Inc, the world’s first ministry serving the white collar justice community in Connecticut and nationwide. He may be reached at jgrant@prisonist.org.
CHLOE COPPOLA is an advocate at Progressive Prison Ministries, a liaison and navigator on behalf of our group members, organizes the podcasts White Collar Week and Criminal Justice Insider, and is a dedicated researcher and writer on mental illness, as well as criminal, racial, and women’s justice themes. Chloe can be reached at ccoppola@alumni.scu.edu.
Additional Contributors:
Cathryn Lavery, Ph.D., Consultant, Integrated Justice Solutions, Inc.
John Hart, Ph.D., Senior Research Associate, Restoring Promise, Vera Institute of Justice
Seth Williams, J.D., former District Attorney for the City of Philadelphia, PA
This article imagines a cohesive, integrated system that shepherds people through and beyond their criminal justice issues and incentivizes the community to assist them.
A Rising Tide Lifts All Boats: Progressive Diversion & Reentry, “Problem-to-Pardon” Case Management
On an early turn playing the famous board game The Game of Life, you have a choice to make: go to college or start your career. While this decision sets the tone for the kind of game you’ll play, no matter which option you choose, these distinct paths ultimately merge back together allowing you to spearhead your career, start a family, buy a house, and eventually retire.
In our version of The Game of Life, you have two very different options: You go to prison or you don’t. But the penalties for going to prison are tantamount to playing the rest of the game with both arms tied behind your back.
This article explores ways in which all stakeholders in the criminal justice ecosystem can work together on common goals to help justice-impacted individuals navigate their ways through The Game of Life, provide resources for their incremental success, teach them to avoid and/or elegantly deal with obstacles that formerly resulted in recidivation, and provide a path to exit the game with more joyful, productive, and purposeful lives free of the stigma, shame, and barriers associated with having a felony. This reveals that the underlying purpose is to change The Game of Life into a way of life, one in which all stakeholders, and the community at large, will be lifted up, permanently disrupting the intergenerational cycle of incarceration.
Problem-to-Pardon Case Management
When you are admitted to a hospital, a hospital social worker begins to plan your discharge immediately upon your admission, often before a doctor even meets with you. Why? Because leaving better than you were upon entry is the ultimate goal of a hospital. This is the kind of framework in which legal case management must operate. People entering the criminal justice system are not given the tools and information required to reduce their sentence or prepare for reintegration into the community. Aside from a defense attorney’s guidance from trial to sentencing, justice-impacted people are largely on their own. Abandoning our most vulnerable people in their time of need should not be the standard. Case management should not begin and end in a courtroom or prison; reentry preparation should start immediately after a defendant enters the system and end when the client has completed their pardon application. We have coined the term for this process the “Problem-to-Pardon” case management system.
In our current system, punishment goes way beyond incarceration. American culture normatively accepts prison as a solution to violence and civil disobedience rather than a symptom. What we mean by this is that our collective consciousness and discourse in relation to the purpose of prisons have been limited by our tolerance to the cycle of violence. We must ask ourselves, “on an institutional level, what do prisons do to curb the reproduction of violence?” As it stands now, the answer is, unfortunately, “not much.”
Upon release, justice-impacted people are frequently subjected to visits from their parole officer. Without diving into the functional roles of a case manager versus a parole officer, their presences alone paint a stark contrast. Parole officers are able to show up unannounced, wielding a gun on their hip. They remind their client to find housing and/or a job, terms of their parole, seldom offering any assistance on achieving these requirements. What does this say about how we view justice-impacted people post reentry? A threatening, combative figure cannot be the default for all cases.
When someone is locked away for committing a crime, no matter if the crime is violent or nonviolent, that crime did not happen in an isolation chamber. Until attention is drawn to the root causes rather than the crime itself, rehabilitation and reconciliation remain anomalies. Simply displacing society’s “bad actors” does nothing to combat crime itself; we must engage with justice-impacted people and commit to rehabilitation through hands-on, personalized, evidence-based, and community-oriented casework.
Casework Models
There are several different models for conducting casework. In our opinion, the Transition from Jail to Community (TJC) Initiative launched by the National Institute of Corrections (NIC) in partnership with the Urban Institute in 2007 is the closest representation of a Problem-to-Pardon case management system. This model is based on a significant body of prisoner reentry research and evidence-based practices. The key five elements of the TJC Model are as follows:
Leadership, Vision, and Organizational Culture. Leaders from both the jail and the community must be actively engaged, articulate a clear vision, set expectations, identify important issues, and involve other key constituencies.
Collaborative Structure and Joint Ownership. Effective transition strategies rely on collaboration and information-sharing among jail and community-based partners and joint ownership of the problem and solution.
Data-Driven Understanding of Local Reentry. Regular analysis of objective data, including analysis of the jail population characteristics, informs and drives decision-making and policy formation.
Targeted Intervention Strategies The strategy to improve transition at the individual level involves introducing specific interventions at critical points along the jail-to-community continuum.
Self-Evaluation and Sustainability. Self-evaluation involves the use of objective data to guide operations, monitor progress, and inform decision-making. Sustainability involves planning to maintain initiative progress despite changes in leadership, policy, funding, and staffing. See Kevin Warwick, Hannah Dodd & S. Rebecca Neusteter, Case Management Strategies for Successful Jail Reentry, org (Sept. 2012), https://urbn.is/3sdEI4g.
This model draws on four main principles popularized by Canadians Paul Gendreau and Robert Ross: human service, risk, need, and responsivity.
Principles
The human service principle states that punishment alone cannot change an individual’s behavior or prevent the individual from recidivating. See Michael L. Prendergast et al., The Andrews’ Principles of Risk, Need, and Responsivity as Applied in Drug Abuse Treatment Programs: Meta-analysis of Crime and Drug Use Outcomes, 9 J. Experimental Criminology 275 (2013), https://bit.ly/39Bu1jJ. This not only includes incarceration itself, but also parole and additional post-sentence surveillance. Considerable research has supported this principle. In order to reduce recidivism, interventions such as treatment and supportive programming must be accessible. Clients’ improvements are linked more closely to positive reinforcement rather than negative. Interventions should be intensive; every client should be in case management for at least six months.
The risk principle refers to the importance of risk assessment before allocating treatment and additional resources. Seeid. Many studies have shown that high-risk individuals who receive relevant treatment experience lower rates of recidivism. See Warwick, Dodd & Neusteter, supra. Comparatively low-risk individuals may actually increase their chances of recidivism if treated similarly to high-risk individuals. See Christopher Tyson Lowenkamp, Correctional Program Integrity and Treatment Effectiveness: A Multi-Site, Program-Level Analysis (doctoral dissertation) (on file with University of Cincinnati) (2004), https://bit.ly/39f7PLK. It is important to note that this does not mean that low-risk individuals should not receive any assistance during incarceration and reentry; this means that case management’s focus must be on the individuals who are most likely to benefit from this work. A few examples of relevant areas of risk assessment include age, prior convictions, employment at arrest, and drug use history. Risk also included the type of crime committed; the most recent research has shown that “violent prior offenders were reconvicted at a higher rate (41.3%) than nonviolent offenders (23.3%).” See US Sentencing Comm’n, Recidivism Among Federal Violent Offenders, ussc.gov (Jan. 2019), https://bit.ly/3q7NkYm. Risk should be assessed at multiple points along the case management process and be determined by classification instruments as opposed to clinical judgment. Standardized classification methods would combat rater bias and help support future research.
The need principle is fairly self-explanatory. This principle draws attention to the client’s specific traits, history, and, of course, needs. See Prendergast et al., supra. Research has shown that case management is more effective if the focus is solely or primarily on the client’s criminogenic needs (antisocial personality, pro-criminal attitudes, social supports for crime, substance abuse, family and marital relationships, school and/or work, and prosocial recreational activities). See Warwick, Dodd & Neusteter, supra. Focusing solely or primarily on the client’s non-criminogenic needs, such as stress and self-esteem, has been shown to have no effect or actually increase the client’s likelihood of recidivating. Seeid. It can be argued that many non-criminogenic needs are mere symptoms of more overarching needs. Figuratively speaking, focusing on non-criminogenic interventions would be like placing a bandage on an infected wound. By concentrating intervention strategies at the root of the client’s needs (their criminogenic needs), the client is more likely to experience positive change overall.
Finally, the responsivity principle can be broken down into two subcategories: the learning style of the client and traits that may affect treatment selection and response, such as mental health issues and/or cognitive disabilities. See Prendergast et al., supra. This principle has also proven to be relevant in constructing case management plans for other “special” populations, or populations that are considered a minority in prisons, such as female prisoners, sex offenders, and prisoners convicted of violent crimes. Seeid.
Pardons
According to many experts, the mark of successful reentry is when an individual stays out of prison for three to five years. In our opinion, we feel that five years should be the sole marker of success. After this five-year period, individuals are significantly less likely to recidivate compared to a three- or four-year marker. According to the proposed Problem-to-Pardon case management system, once the individual crosses this five-year threshold, they should have the opportunity to be pardoned for their crime. Adopting this model would actualize the criminal justice system’s original promise to serve justice and foster rehabilitation. (More on this below.) As it stands now, individuals can apply to be pardoned by the state or federal government, but only 17 states “regularly” approve (more than 30%) these applications. See Restoration of Rights Project, 50-State Comparison: Pardon Policy & Practice, ccresourcecenter.org (updated May 2020), https://bit.ly/2MQggWp.
The Problem-to-Pardon case management system looks to make pardons an attainable goal for the justice-impacted community. We believe that by adopting this incentive, individuals would be more likely to cooperate and be more engaged in case management and treatment. Learned helplessness may be an overlooked factor in client responsivity to treatment; if the client perceives their situation as irredeemable, how can we expect them to put in the work to change?
Caseworkers
Beyond shifting policies and framework, the foundation of case management is its caseworkers. Their treatment, pay, work-life balance, and physical and mental health directly influence their impact on their clients. Compared to correctional officers, caseworkers experience higher levels of burnout and, consequently, turnover. See Joseph R. Carlson & George Thomas, Burnout Among Prison Caseworkers and Correctional Officers, 43 J. Offender Rehab. 19 (2006), https://bit.ly/3nBPSfH. The three most common reasons for leaving the profession are inadequate payment, lack of support from management, and stress, also known as burnout. See id. Case managers do not want to be underpaid paper pushers; they want to believe their emotional labor and dedication are not only valuable but viable. Furthermore, these adverse working conditions hinder client progress and make case management, as a whole, unsustainable. Lack of support and stress ultimately obstruct interpersonal connections between clients and case managers. No amount of empirical methodology can substitute for rapport; clients need to trust their caseworkers in order for these methods to be successful.
Caseworkers should be selected with consideration of secondary trauma, interpersonal skills, cooperation, and collaboration. Support should always be available to caseworkers, as this job is highly intensive and emotionally draining. Feelings of isolation and an overwhelming workload can lead caseworkers to experience compassion fatigue, which can negatively impact their clients. Creating a work environment that maintains coworker support and promotes opportunities for personal development will make employment more sustainable. Investing in caseworkers is an investment in reentry success.
One of the ways case managers can receive much-needed support is through community ties. Case management should not solely reside in prisons; it is crucial that community-based organizations that are accessible and familiar with the justice-impacted community cosponsor reentry. Additionally, this unburdens caseworkers and ensures a smooth transition into reentry for the client. Depending on the client’s criminogenic tendencies and needs, caseworkers can connect clients to the relevant support systems. Establishing rapport between clients and the community before release is imperative, especially for high-risk clients who are more likely to recidivate. When community-based organizations collaborate with caseworkers and initiate “in-reach,” the transition from prison to freedom looks less like a leap of faith and more like a continuum of care. See Warwick, Dodd & Neusteter, supra.
Social Determinants of Health
Social and community context, access to quality health care, and neighborhood and built environment are three key areas of social determinants of health that are often overlooked during casework. See Ctrs for Disease Control & Prevention, What Are Social Determinants of Health, cdc.gov, https://bit.ly/2K5eS1f. As defined by the CDC, social determinants of health “are conditions in the places where people live, learn, work, and play that affect a wide range of health risks and outcomes.” See id. One’s “cohesion within a community, civic participation, [experiences of] discrimination, and conditions in the workplace, and incarceration” as well as their “quality of housing, access to transportation, [. . .] and neighborhood crime and violence” should all be assessed and considered when planning reentry. See id. Access to affordable, quality physical and mental health care, including an individual’s health literacy, is also crucial to a successful reentry.
Community Collaboration
Likely community collaborators would include support groups, 12-step programs, housing programs, job assistance, childcare, affordable therapy, psychoeducation programs, as well as many others. It is important to note that people working within these organizations endure similar challenges as caseworkers; these programs are largely underfunded and overworked. Compounded with finding programs that are within an accessible physical proximity to clients, partnering with quality community programs can be an insurmountable task.
While caseworkers and community advocates can develop a relationship of mutual aid, many of the obstacles they face cannot be overcome without adequate funding. The challenges of funding have haunted casework and community interventions since their inception, and by no means will we pretend to have any solution that has not already been proposed. However, we cannot simply ignore this problem. This is where intervention and activism intersect: No systematic change can occur without the backing of a mass movement.
Identity
This year, the Black Lives Matter movement held a spotlight on the institutional racism deeply embedded in our country and, by extension, our justice system. This hyperawareness and newly widespread discourse around systematic change make fertile soil for reevaluating and reshaping our case management system. Historically, the quality of case management heavily depends on the client’s race, socioeconomic status, and gender identity. Of course, no policy reflects this discrepancy. However, through self-reported data, we know that these systems favor white, affluent, cisgender, heterosexual clients. Interestingly, casework looks vastly different between mothers and fathers, especially when comparing white parents to Black parents. While childcare seems like an obvious procedure in case management for clients who are mothers, fathers are largely overlooked when it comes to discussing childcare. This oversight stems from gendered and racist stereotypes, particularly the myth of the “missing Black father.”
American case management has operated from a colorblind, heteronormative, ableist, and classist standpoint for too long. See Rose M. Brewer & Nancy A. Heitzeg, The Racialization of Crime and Punishment, Criminal Justice, Color-Blind Racism, and the Political Economy of the Prison Industrial Complex, 51 Am. Behav. Scientist 625 (2008), https://bit.ly/3seyEbE. According to the Sentencing Project, over 60% of people in prison are people of color. See The Sentencing Project, Racial Disparity, sentencingproject.org, https://bit.ly/2LkCIGI. Black men are six times more likely to be incarcerated compared to white men, while Hispanic men are just over two times as likely. See id. While women only make up seven percent of the prison population, these racial discrepancies manifest similarly, as well. Seeid. It is difficult to estimate the percentage of transgender, genderfluid, nonbinary, and genderqueer people incarcerated given the binary nature of the prison system and its lack of data collection. However, thanks to the 2015 National Transgender Discrimination Survey, we know that Black transgender women were four and a half times more likely to be incarcerated compared to their white counterparts. See Nat’l Ctr. for Transgender Equality, The Report of the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey, transequality.org (2016), https://bit.ly/2Xv99ov. Additionally, Native American transgender women were three times as likely to experience incarceration compared to white transgender women. Seeid.
While it is seemingly intuitive to treat all of your clients the same, this does nothing to combat systemic racism, sexism, transphobia, ableism, and classism within our justice and case management systems. By adopting an intersectional framework that draws on critical race theory, multiple schools of feminist theory, and disability studies, caseworkers can begin to implement truly individualized casework and actively combat institutionalized bias. See Brewer & Heitzeg, supra. Integrating theory into practice once again highlights the importance of establishing rapport: How can a client trust their case manager and the process if the process is designed to actively erase, undermine, or overlook their identity?
Today, more and more Americans are viewing incarceration as a race and class issue rather than the previously accepted black and white, good versus bad narrative. The topic of incarceration has quickly become a dinner table conversation rather than a shameful taboo. Now more than ever, caseworkers and advocates alike have the opportunity to seize and hold the public’s attention. Case management and community interventions are a major component in the larger movement of dismantling unjust practices. The more engaged and educated the public is on these issues, the more likely they are to support and push for policies that will allocate adequate funding to these life-changing services.
Funding social services often elicits pushback from concerned politicians and citizens alike: How do we pay for this? When it comes to funding preventative services versus treatment services, prevention is almost always significantly cheaper and more effective than treatment. For example, when Vice President-elect Kamala Harris launched Back on Track in 2005, not only did recidivism reduce from 53% to less than 10%, but costs reduced, as well. The program costs “approximately $5,000 per participant, compared with $10,000 to adjudicate a case and nearly $50,000 per year to house a low-level offender in prison or jail.” See Jacquelyn L. Rivers & Lenore Anderson, Back on Track: A Problem-Solving Reentry Court, bja.ojp.gov (Sept. 2009), https://bit.ly/3oyBLcg. When surveying 45 states in 2015, the Vera Institute of Justice found that the United States spent over $42 billion on prison expenditures in a single year. See Vera Inst. of Just., Prison Spending in 2015, vera.org, https://bit.ly/3nDUBxf. When questioning costs, we should begin with this figure rather than picking apart programs that will likely decrease this immense spending.
Another way caseworkers can simultaneously lighten their caseload and connect the client with their community is by involving the client’s family, whether that is chosen family or blood relatives. As it stands now, families are overlooked in the case management process. Before the individual is released from prison, caseworkers or parole officers will assess the individual’s future residence, mainly checking for weapons and drugs. While this process is necessary, this method alone fails to see the client’s environment as both physical and interpersonal. A family’s role in reentry can be helpful or harmful depending on their relationship with the client as well as their own criminogenic tendencies and needs. Therefore, risk assessment should go beyond the client and include family members, as well. Autonomy is another integral component. What role does the client want their family to serve? The community at large? What are their goals? Their concerns? How do we address these notions realistically and prosocially? While caseworkers are experts on reentry, clients are experts on themselves. Without taking the client’s perceived social support network into account, caseworkers cannot see the full picture. We cannot stress this enough: A reciprocal relationship between client and caseworker is necessary to achieve advantageous outcomes.
Mental Health Support
Whether or not the caseworker deems the family fit to take a more active role in reentry, psychoeducation is crucial. Reentry is often overwhelming for justice-impacted people, and it may be easiest to turn to antisocial coping strategies such as alcohol use, drug use, and crime. This is especially important for families of individuals suffering from mental illness. As defined by Len and John Sperry, “psychoeducation is a broad treatment strategy of educating and training individuals experiencing psychological disturbance [and their families] to increase their knowledge, coping capacity, and skills required to solve their presenting problems.” See Len Sperry & Jon Sperry, Psychotherapy and Psychopathology: Cognitive-Behavioral and Adlerian Treatment Strategies and Interventions, in 2 Abnormal Psychology Across the Ages: Disorders and Treatments 191 (Thomas Plante ed., 2013).
Let’s imagine an actively involved mother who is participating in psychoeducation with her justice-impacted son struggling with schizophrenia. Let’s call this person Josh. Josh insists that the government is out to get him and wants to send him back to prison. This is a textbook example of a delusion, one of the major symptoms of schizophrenia. Before enrolling in psychoeducation, Josh’s mother would try to comfort Josh by telling him that the government could not find him in their home. Despite her good intentions, Josh’s mother learns that her response only validated Josh’s delusion and ultimately contributed to its persistent reoccurrence. Through psychoeducation, both Josh and his mother can learn strategies that soothe Josh when he is experiencing adverse symptoms, such as delusions, without affirming them.
Psychoeducation has been proven to be an effective tool in mitigating symptoms of most mental disorders, regardless of severity. However, like most individual interventions, psychoeducation works best in conjunction with other forms of therapy. By nature, psychoeducation is short-termed and goal-oriented. Other forms of therapy, such as group therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy, help with maintenance. Therapeutic needs are highly individualized, which requires caseworkers to be well versed in psychiatric interventions as well as frequently risk assessing and consulting with the relevant mental health professionals.
Drug and Alcohol Support
Drug and alcohol addiction are common risk factors that contribute to recidivism. During risk assessment, it is absolutely crucial to accurately evaluate the type, severity, and history of the affected individual. The client’s immediate family and community may play an important role in risk assessment: Is the support system encouraging addictive behaviors? Are they encouraging sobriety? Are they ambivalent? What does that reaction look like? Is there a history of substance abuse in the client’s family or support system? If so, is that person sober or seeking treatment? Like therapy, treatment for substance abuse is highly individualized. If the treatment does not suit the client, the effects may be unsubstantial or, even worse, regressive. A 12-step, nonresidential program may be ineffective if the individual goes home to an alcoholic spouse. In this scenario, a rehabilitation facility may be the most appropriate intervention.
However, reconnecting with the individual’s immediate community is the ultimate goal of Problem-to-Pardon case management, and any program that requires additional separation must be chosen only out of absolute necessity for the well-being of the client.
A “Culture of Pardons”
Certainly, not every person who applies for a pardon will be granted one. But what if the real goal is not to obtain a pardon for any particular applicant, but for this tide to lift all boats in the entire community? In doing so, it will increase the opportunity to be granted a pardon for all applicants.
“It takes a village to raise a child” is an African proverb that means that an entire community of people must take responsibility for children in order for them to experience and grow in a safe and healthy environment. This phrase and concept were famously used by Hillary Rodham Clinton in writing and titling her book It Takes a Village: And Other Lessons Children Teach Us, in which she addresses the impact individuals and their community have on a child’s well-being and calls for a society that strives to meet all of a child’s needs. See Hillary Rodham Clinton, It Takes a Village: And Other Lessons Children Teach Us (1996).
The point is, if the entire community subscribes to this endeavor, the benefits will not only inure to the child, but also to the village as a whole. This wider community benefit is exactly what we intend by advocating for a “Culture of Pardons.”
As we mentioned earlier, only 17 states regularly (more than 30%) approve pardon applications from previously incarcerated people. See Restoration of Rights Project, supra. This process looks vastly different state-by-state, with varying degrees of roadblocks. The decision to grant an individual’s request can be decided by the state’s governor, high officials such as the attorney general or chief justice, an independent board, a parole board, or a combination of these powers. Of course, the president also has the ability to grant an individual’s request. The fact that the threshold for deeming a state a “frequent” pardoner is only 30% shows how rare pardoning is. While state legislation is crucial to combatting this anomaly, case management must also educate and prepare their clients for applying.
Case managers should be well versed in federal and state requirements for pardon applications. Eligibility varies state by state, but we recommend waiting five years post-reentry to apply. In the meantime, caseworkers should be tracking the client’s progress. This includes monitoring community engagement, employment status, sobriety (if relevant), and program attendance. Keeping track of progress is also paramount for reentry research. This domain of research is relatively new and has lacked alignment with practitioners. Collaboration with reputable researchers can only advance our understanding and success in reintegrating clients.
Case managers should explain how to apply for a pardon while the client is incarcerated so that they are well prepared upon reentry. We recommend presenting this information as a step-by-step roadmap. Putting together a well-organized and comprehensive application will and should take time. Clients should be encouraged to include as much information as possible, going beyond what is required. The more detailed the application, the better. When in doubt, the best response is “see attached.” Including an up-to-date résumé is always a plus if the client’s state does not already require it. Character letters should be written by reputable and trustworthy peers and family members. It is important to note that many states limit the number of blood relatives when asking for character letters. By including caseworkers in the process of applying for a pardon, the individual is less likely to make mistakes on their application and, therefore, reduces their chance of rejection.
At the writing of this article, we are experiencing a worldwide COVID-19 pandemic of historic proportions. While we are hopeful that a vaccine is soon to be approved, we are reminded that it is not the vaccine that saves lives, but the vaccination that saves lives. One suggestion to overcome public resistance to vaccinations is to create an incentive program. That is, to pay people to be vaccinated. The goal is to have enough people vaccinated so that the entire community benefits from herd immunity.
Similarly, creating a Culture of Pardons not only benefits the individual post-reentry but also motivates individuals entering the justice system to immerse themselves in their rehabilitation and reentry. Granting a pardon is a life-changing moment; it opens the doors so that an individual will not be barred from housing or rejected from a job. A Culture of Pardons would set the tone for a new era of criminal justice, one where reintegration prevails over punishment. We know that punishment does not reduce recidivism, so why must we continue to treat the justice-impacted community inhumanly? Our imagination must go beyond intervention and expand upon opportunity. A Culture of Pardons puts healing above all else; it gives people a second chance. It also breaks down the wall between the justice-impacted community and the community at large.
Restoring one’s dignity, autonomy, and sense of belonging should be the ultimate goal of reentry. To put it in one word, the Problem-to-Pardons case management system and a Culture of Pardons strive for reintegration. By adopting these ideas, players in The Game of Life can see the roads merge on the horizon. Our communities and our caseworkers build this intersection, brick by brick. With their help, the justice-impacted community can catch up with those who have never been affected by the justice system. Reintegration isn’t simply leaving prison; it’s walking side by side with the community, weaving a thread between the justice-impacted and the community at large until the two become indistinguishable.
JEFF GRANT, J.D., M.Div. is an ordained minister with over three decades of experience in crisis management, business, law (former), reentry, recovery, and executive and religious leadership. After an addiction to prescription opioids and serving almost 14 months in 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 and co-founding Progressive Prison Ministries, Inc, the world’s first ministry serving the white collar justice community in Connecticut and nationwide. He may be reached at jgrant@prisonist.org.
CHLOE COPPOLA is an advocate at Progressive Prison Ministries, a liaison and navigator on behalf of our group members, organizes the podcasts White Collar Week and Criminal Justice Insider, and is a dedicated researcher and writer on mental illness, as well as criminal, racial, and women’s justice themes. Chloe can be reached at ccoppola@alumni.scu.edu.
Additional Contributors:
Cathryn Lavery, Ph.D., Consultant, Integrated Justice Solutions, Inc.
John Hart, Ph.D., Senior Research Associate, Restoring Promise, Vera Institute of Justice
Seth Williams, J.D., former District Attorney for the City of Philadelphia, PA
Seth Williams is a member of our online White Collar Support Group that meets on Monday evenings. We will hold our 253rd weekly meeting on Mon., April 19th, 7 pm ET, 4 pm PT.
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Watch our friend and Fellow Traveler Seth Williams, ex-District Attorney of Philadelphia, PA, testify and play the saxophone at the First African Baptist Church. Philadelphia. Video recorded Sunday, April 18, 2021. After Seth’s sentencing, he was cuffed, remanded directly to jail and spent the first five months of his sentence in solitary confinement.
Seth Williams is a member of our White Collar Support Group that meets online on Zoom on Monday evenings. We will celebrate our 250th weekly meeting on Monday, March 29, 2021, 7 pm ET, 4 pm PT; all Fellow Travelers are invited.
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Congratulations Jeff on your 250th Support Group Meeting. I felt alone, and thought there was no one that could relate to what I was going through. You have been the big brother, I never had and you have created a network of welcoming, non-judgmental, and understanding men and women that share their similar experiences in an open and nurturing environment. You are absolutely correct, “It’s the isolation that destroys us. The solution is community.” and we have you to thank for creating one for us.
I was the elected DIstrict Attorney of Philadelphia, I had spent the majority of my professional career working to prevent crime, and hold those accountable that harmed society. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think I would be the target of a criminal investigation, indicted by a federal grand jury or serve time in prison. All of those things eventually happened and I wasn’t ready. I wish I had known then, of Rev. Jeff Grant, his Progressive Prison Ministry and White Collar Support Group. Jeff and his group are now a significant part of my life and I am eternally grateful.
As the D.A., I was responsible for the criminal prosecution of over 70,000 cases a year in a city of 1.5 million people. I supervised a staff of 600 men and women with an annual budget of over $54 million.
I had two Blackberries, one alerted me constantly of every murder, shooting, rape, suicide, missing child and stabbing. I was routinely rushed to crime scenes, trauma centers, and asked to speak at funerals and memorial services for crime victims. These daily traumas were compounded by the reality of being a political figure in a city known for politics being a dirty full contact sport.
Lunch meetings were power lunches with cocktails and every evening included multiple events where alcohol was free and flowing like a Bacchanalian feast. I increasingly began to numb myself with alcohol and the need for affection. Both made me feel guilt, and instead of dealing with the emotions in healthy ways, I drank more. A self-destructive cycle.
After my divorce, I lived beyond my means. I wanted to keep my daughters in their private school and to keep my house. I accepted gifts from my friends. I should have reported all of them and others I should not have accepted, but I was too ashamed to admit my friends helped me. Right or wrong, as the District Attorney, the mere appearance of impropriety is detrimental to the entire justice system and I failed to live up to the highest standard.
Despite having been an attorney for 25 years, with experience as an Assistant District Attorney, as an Army JAG lawyer, and as a criminal defense attorney, nothing prepared me for having the criminal justice system turn my own life upside down. The majority of questions that I had, the ones that kept me up at night or made me feel that I couldn’t hold my food down, could not be answered by my attorneys. They knew legal procedure, they didn’t know how it felt to be indicted. They understood how to file motions, they could not understand or help me process all of the unknowns. What would I be charged with? How would the public react? How will all of this affect my children, family and loved ones? I was afraid, angry, ashamed, embarrassed, anxious, could not sleep and began to drink even more. I wish I had known of the White Collar Support Group.
I recognized I was wrong to have accepted and not reported all of the gifts and I had negotiated with the city’s ethics board to pay $65,000 in fines for not reporting all of the gifts. I was still indicted with 29 felonies and faced approximately 145 years in prison. The night before the indictment was to be made public, I met with my ex-wife and daughters to explain to them what was about to happen. How do you look into your little girls’ eyes and tell them all of these things. Where do you begin? Should you be strong for them or let them see you cry? I wish I had known Jeff. I wish I could have spoken with men and women that knew my struggle.
I never thought I would be the defendant in a criminal trial. Yet every morning I went to court as the elected local D.A. and sat in the defendant’s chair in a federal courtroom.. My attorneys were friends of mine since we met on our very first day as assistant district attorneys in 1992. They fought the good fight and we had a very good first week and a half of trial. We had one very bad day and the prosecutors offered us to plead guilty to one count. I wanted to continue fighting, but my attorneys made it clear that pleading guilty to one count with a maximum exposure of 5 years was better than risking going to the jury and not knowing what could happen. We were told if I pled, I would be allowed to remain on bail until my sentencing and possibly even until my expected self-surrender to a prison camp 4 or 5 months in the future. Once again, I had a heartfelt conversation with my family. I wish I had known of Progressive Prison Ministries.
I told my daughters and girlfriend I would be back around lunch time. That I would enter the plea and come home and have the rest of the summer to be with them, sell our home, and get “my affairs in order” prior to going away. The judge had a different plan. I entered my plea, and he immediately withdrew my bail. I did not go home for lunch on June 29, 2017. Instead, I was handcuffed in court and taken underground from the courthouse to the Philadelphia Federal Detention Center. I was stripped searched, given orange underwear and an orange jumpsuit and locked in solitary confinement for 152 days. 5 months all alone.
While I was in solitary, I could speak to inmates in adjacent cells through the grating of the plumbing access panels that separated our cells It was from those men that I learned how to prepare for my pre-sentence investigation, prison programs that could reduce my sentence, how the federal bureau of prisons would determine which prison I would serve my sentence, how I could continue my relationship with my family while I would be away, and most of the questions that I had for my attorneys. Frequently the very topics that we discuss during our White Collar Support group meetings.
I had visited prisons as a law student, as a prosecutor, and criminal defense attorney. Yet, the majority of my understanding of prison life was irrationally shaped by Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, Angels with Dirty Face, and other fictional accounts. My fears were based on my ignorance.
I was sentenced to 60 months. As a result of an inmate telling me about RDAP (the residential drug abuse program) I was honest with the presentence investigator and shared with her my history of alcohol abuse. If not for that inmate, I would have thought sharing that truth would have hurt me even more at sentencing. If I had known of the White Collar Support Group, I would have been aware of RDAP and that completing it would reduce my sentence by 12 months. I would have learned of “Earned Good Time”, “Residential Reentry Centers”, home confinement and a myriad of
I served 5 months in solitary confinement before being transferred to the Oklahoma Transportation Center via “ConAir”, and ultimately served an additional 29 months in FCI-Morgantown. I lost my reputation, my elected office, my military career, my pensions, my law license, my home and most tragically time with my loved ones.
After my release from prison, I spent 6 months on home confinement and am now on supervised release. While there may be no one way to prepare for any of these things. I am fortunate that once I returned home I found Rev. Jeff Grant through social media, and he has greatly assisted my reentry.
Jeff listens. I look forward to our weekly White Collar Support Group meetings. I now have a network of friends that I can share my concerns with that have experienced the very same things that I am going through. I listen to people that I have lived it. I hear the good, the bad and the miraculous. These new friends are not just faces on a zoom screen. Frequently, we connect via phone or email to follow up and support each other.
“It’s the isolation that destroys us. The solution is community.” and I now have the White Collar Support Group to thank for creating one for me. Hopefully, I can give to others as much as I have gratefully received.
_________________________
Link here to Podcast Ep. 25, Ex-Philadelphia D.A., Seth Williams, Part Two
Link here to Podcast Ep. 24, Ex-Philadelphia D.A., Seth Williams, Part One
White Collar Week Podcast: An Evening with Our White Collar Support Group. The support group meeting on this podcast is different than most, because all of the 16 group members appearing have agreed to share their names, faces and very personal stories in an effort to reach out to individuals and families suffering in silence. All on the podcast are post-sentencing or back from prison. Watch on YouTube, Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and SoundCloud,link here.
It’s the Isolation that Destroys Us. The Solution is in Community.
_______________________
Podcast Ep. 25, Guest: Seth Williams, Former Philadelphia D.A., Part Two
Today on the podcast we have Seth Williams. In a two-part interview, Seth describes his fall from grace from being elected the first African-American District Attorney of Philadelphia, America’s 5th largest city, to being tried for corruption charges, to becoming a Federal inmate serving 5 months of his 60-month sentence in solitary confinement, to his new life of faith and service.
A member of our White Collar Support Group that meets on Monday evenings, Seth goes into stunning detail about his poor choices, prosecution, prison experience and his lessons learned.
So, coming up. Seth Williams. Former Philadelphia D.A. On White Collar Week. I hope you will join us. – Jeff
Click here to watch/listen to Part One of this interview!!
Listen on Apple Podcasts:
Listen on Spotify:
Listen on SoundCloud:
Watch on YouTube:
______________________________
If you have a friend, family member, colleague or client with a white collar justice issue, please forward this post; they can reach us anytime – day or night! Our contact info:http://prisonist.org/contact-us.
______________________________
Guests on this Episode:
Seth Williams
Seth Williams is looking for new opportunities in criminal justice reform, crime prevention, recidivism reduction, reentry, teaching, and workforce readiness.
An accomplished leader and strategic visionary who identifies opportunities for program, productivity, performance, training, and educational improvement. Excellent interpersonal, research, analytic, planning, and implementation skills. Strong ability to relate to a wide variety of people and to develop effective strategic plans that produce results. Proud father, Army Vet, gym rat, avid saxophonist, recently re-committed Christian. With a singularly unique perspective of the criminal justice system as a former District Attorney, criminal defense attorney, and federal inmate. Finally living a life of authenticity!
You can find all episodes of our podcast “White Collar Week with Jeff Grant” on our websiteprisonist.org,our Facebook page, Podbean, YouTube (video), SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter.
Entrepreneur’s #4 Most Viewed Article of 2020: I Went to Prison for SBA Loan Fraud – 7 Things to Know When Taking COVID-19 Relief Money: by Jeff Grant, J.D., M.Div.. Link to article here.
The Philadelphia Inquirer: Steal Money from the Feds? First, Meet Jeff Grant, an Ex-Con who Committed Loan Fraud, by Erin Arvedlund: Link to article here.
Hannah Smolinski YouTube: Thinking About PPP Fraud?: Hannah Interviews Jeff Grant About Going to Prison for SBA Loan Fraud. Link to article and YouTube video here.
CFO Dive: After Serving Time, Fraudster Cautions Against PPP, Other Emergency Loans, by Robert Freedman. Link to article here.
Fraud Stories Podcast with Mark Lurie: SBA/PPP Loan Fraud with Guest: Jeff Grant. Link to podcast here.
Forbes: As Law Enforcement Pursues SBA Loan Fraud, Jeff Grant Talks Redemption, by Kelly Phillips Erb. Link to article here.
Taxgirl Podcast: Jeff Grant talks Desperation and Loans in a Time of Crisis with Kelly Phillips Erb on Her Podcast. Link to article and podcast here.
Business Talk with Jim Campbell: Jeff Grant Talks with Jim About Going to Prison for SBA Loan Fraud and What to Know When Taking Coronavirus Relief Money, Biz Talk Radio Network, Broadcast from 1490 AM WGCH Greenwich, CT. Listen on YouTube here.
Babz Rawls Ivy Show: Babz Rawls Ivy & Jeff Grant Talk SBA / PPP Loan Fraud and 7 Things to Know Before You Take Coronavirus Relief Money, WNHH 103.5 FM New Haven. Watch on YouTube here.
White Collar Week with Jeff Grant, Podcast Ep. 21: All Things SBA, PPP & EIDL, with Guest: Hannah Smolinski, CPA, Virtual CFO: Link here.
White Collar Week with Jeff Grant, Podcast Episode 09: Small Business Edition, with Guest Kelly Phillips Erb. Link here.
______________________________
Louis Reed/Babz Rawls Ivy PSA:
Some very kind words from my dear friends Louis L. Reed and Babz Rawls Ivy in this brief PSA. Thank you Louis and Babz! – Jeff
______________________________
All Episodes:
Link here to Podcast Ep. 24, Ex-Philadelphia D.A., Seth Williams, Part One
Link here to Podcast Ep. 23, The Vanishing Trial, Robert Katzberg
Link here to Podcast Ep. 22: The Goddess, with Guest: Babz Rawls Ivy
Link here to Podcast Ep. 21: All Things SBA, PPP & EIDL, with Guest: Hannah Smolinski, CPA, Virtual CFO
Link here to Podcast Ep. 20: Reinventing Yourself After Prison, with Guests: Glenn E. Martin & Richard Bronson
Link here to Podcast Ep. 19: Insider Trading Charges Dismissed, with Guest: Richard Lee
Link here to Podcast Ep. 18: Is Your Life a Movie? The Producers, with Guests: Lydia B. Smith, Bethany Jones & Will Nix
Link here to Podcast Ep. 17: #TruthHeals, Systemic Abuse & Institutional Reform with Guest: Vanessa Osage, feat. Guest Co-Host Chloe Coppola
Link here to Podcast Ep. 16: Politicians, Prison & Penitence, with Guest: Bridgeport, CT Mayor Joseph Ganim
Link here to Podcast Ep. 15: A Brave Talk About Suicide, with Guests Bob Flanagan, Elizabeth Kelley, & Meredith Atwood
Link here to Podcast Ep. 14: Recovery & Neighborhood, with Guest: TNP’s Tom Scott
Linkhereto Podcast Ep. 13: Everything but Bridgegate, with Guest: Bill Baroni
Linkhereto Podcast Ep. 12: The Truth Tellers, with Guests: Holli Coulman & Larry Levine
Linkhereto Podcast Ep. 11: Blank Canvas, with Guest: Craig Stanland
Linkhereto Podcast Ep. 10: The Ministers, with Guests: Father Joe Ciccone & Father Rix Thorsell
Linkhereto Podcast Ep. 09: Small Business Edition, with Guest: Taxgirl Kelly Phillips Erb
Linkhereto Podcast Ep. 08: The Academics, with Guests: Cathryn Lavery, Jessica Henry, Jay Kennedy & Erin Harbinson
Linkhereto Podcast Ep. 07: White Collar Wives. with Guests: Lynn Springer, Cassie Monaco & Julie Bennett. Special Guest: Skylar Cluett
Linkhereto Podcast Ep. 06: Madoff Talks, with Guest: Jim Campbell
Linkhereto Podcast Ep. 05: Trauma and Healing when Mom goes to Prison, with Guests: Jacqueline Polverari and Her Daughters, Alexa & Maria
Link here to Podcast Ep. 04: One-on-One with Tipper X, with Guest: Tom Hardin
Linkhereto Podcast Ep. 03: Compassionate Lawyering, with Guests: Chris Poulos, Corey Brinson, Bob Herbst & George Hritz
Linkhereto Podcast Ep. 02: Substance Abuse & Recovery During COVID-19, with Guests: Trevor Shevin & Joshua Cagney
Linkhereto Podcast Ep. 01: An Evening with Our White Collar Support Group, with Guests: 16 Members of Our White Collar Support Group
Linkhereto Podcast Ep. 00: White Collar Week with Jeff Grant: What is White Collar Week?
______________________________
Jeff Grant
What is the White Collar Justice Community?
Welcome to White Collar Week with Jeff Grant, a podcast serving the white collar justice community. It’s the isolation that destroys us. The solution is in community.
If you are interested in this podcast, then you are probably already a member of the white collar justice community – even if you don’t quite know it yet. Our community is certainly made up of people being prosecuted, or who have already been prosecuted, for white collar crimes. But it is also made up of the spouses, children and families of those prosecuted for white collar crimes – these are the first victims of white collar crime. And the community also consists of the other victims, both direct and indirect, and those in the wider white collar ecosystem like friends, colleagues, prosecutors, defense attorneys, judges, law enforcement, academics, researchers. Investigators, mitigation experts, corrections officers, parole & probation officers, reentry professionals, mental health care professionals, drug and alcohol counselors – and ministers, chaplains and advocates for criminal and social justice reform. The list goes on and on…
Our mission is to introduce you to other members of the white collar justice community, to hear their very personal stories, and hopefully gain a broader perspective of what this is really all about. Maybe this will inspire some deeper thoughts and introspection? Maybe it will inspire some empathy and compassion for people you might otherwise resent or dismiss? And maybe it will help lift us all out of our own isolation and into community, so we can learn to live again in the sunshine of the spirit.
Along the way, I’ll share with you some of the things I’ve learned in my own journey from successful lawyer, to prescription opioid addict, white collar crime, suicide attempt, disbarment, destruction of my marriage, and the almost 14 months I served in a Federal prison. And also my recovery, love story I share with my wife Lynn Springer, after prison earning a Master of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary in NYC, pastoring in an inner city church in Bridgeport CT, and then co-founding with Lynn in Greenwich CT, Progressive Prison Ministries, the world’s first ministry serving the white collar justice community. It’s been quite a ride, but I firmly believe that the best is yet to come.
So I invite you to come along with me as we experience something new, and bold, and different – a podcast that serves the entire white collar justice community. I hope you will join me.
It’s the Isolation that Destroys Us. The Solution is in Community.
Progressive Prison Ministries, Inc. is the world’s first ministry supporting the white collar justice community. Founded by husband and wife,Jeff Grantand Lynn Springerin Greenwich CT in 2012, we incorporated as a nonprofit in Connecticut in 2014, and received 501(c)(3) status in 2015. Jeff has over three decades of experience in crisis management, business, law (former), reentry, recovery (clean & sober 17+ years), and executive and religious leadership. As Jeff was incarcerated for a white-collar crime he committed in 2001, he and Lynn have a first-hand perspective on the trials and tribulations that white-collar families have to endure as they navigate the criminal justice system and life beyond.
Progressive Prison Ministries, Inc. is nonsectarian, serving those of all faiths, or no faith whatsoever. To date we have helped over three hundred fifty (350) individuals, and their families, to accept responsibility for their actions and to acknowledge the pain they have caused to others. In accordance with our commitment to restorative justice, we counsel our members to make amends as a first step in changing their lives and moving towards a new spiritual way of living centered on hope, care, compassion, tolerance, empathy and service to others. Our team has grown to over ten people, most with advanced degrees, all of whom are currently volunteering their time and resources.
Progressive Prison Ministries’ goal is to provide spiritual solutions and emotional support to those who are feeling alone, isolated, and hopeless. We have found that these individuals are suffering from a void but are stuck, and don’t know what to do about it. Our objective is to help them find a path to a healthy, spirit-filled place on the other side of what may seem like insurmountable problems. Many of those we counsel are in a place where their previous lives have come to an end due to their transgressions. In many cases their legal problems have led to divorce, estrangement from their children, families, friends and support communities, and loss of a career. The toll this takes on individuals and families is emotionally devastating. White-collar crimes are often precipitated by other issues in the offenders’ lives such as alcohol or drug abuse, and/or a physical or mental illness that lead to financial issues that overwhelms their ability to be present for themselves and their families and cause poor decision making. We recognize that life often presents us with such circumstances, sometimes which lead us to make mistakes in violation of the law.
All conversations and communications between our ordained ministry, and licensed clinical relationships, and those we serve fall under state privilege laws. This is one reason that attorneys often allow and encourage their clients to maintain relationships with us while in active prosecution or litigation situations.
If you, a friend, family member, colleague or client are suffering from a white collar criminal justice issue or are experiencing some other traumatic or life-altering event, and would like to find a path to a healthy, spirit-filled place on the other side of what seems like insurmountable problems, please contact us to schedule an initial call or appointment.
Copyright 2021, All Rights Reserved, Progressive Prison Ministries, Inc.
It’s the Isolation that Destroys Us. The Solution is in Community.
_______________________
Podcast Ep. 24, Guest: Seth Williams, Former Philadelphia D.A., Part One
Today on the podcast we have Seth Williams. In a two-part interview, Seth describes his fall from grace from being elected the first African-American District Attorney of Philadelphia, America’s 5th largest city, to being tried for corruption charges, to becoming a Federal inmate serving 5 months of his 60-month sentence in solitary confinement, to his new life of faith and service.
A member of our White Collar Support Group that meets on Monday evenings, Seth goes into stunning detail about his poor choices, prosecution, prison experience and his lessons learned.
So, coming up. Seth Williams. Former Philadelphia D.A. On White Collar Week. I hope you will join us. – Jeff
Click here to watch/listen to Part Two of this interview!!
Listen on Apple Podcasts:
Listen on Spotify:
Listen on SoundCloud:
Watch on YouTube:
______________________________
If you have a friend, family member, colleague or client with a white collar justice issue, please forward this post; they can reach us anytime – day or night! Our contact info:http://prisonist.org/contact-us.
______________________________
Guests on this Episode:
Seth Williams
Seth Williams is looking for new opportunities in criminal justice reform, crime prevention, recidivism reduction, reentry, teaching, and workforce readiness.
An accomplished leader and strategic visionary who identifies opportunities for program, productivity, performance, training, and educational improvement. Excellent interpersonal, research, analytic, planning, and implementation skills. Strong ability to relate to a wide variety of people and to develop effective strategic plans that produce results. Proud father, Army Vet, gym rat, avid saxophonist, recently re-committed Christian. With a singularly unique perspective of the criminal justice system as a former District Attorney, criminal defense attorney, and federal inmate. Finally living a life of authenticity!
You can find all episodes of our podcast “White Collar Week with Jeff Grant” on our websiteprisonist.org,our Facebook page, Podbean, YouTube (video), SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter.
Entrepreneur’s #4 Most Viewed Article of 2020: I Went to Prison for SBA Loan Fraud – 7 Things to Know When Taking COVID-19 Relief Money: by Jeff Grant, J.D., M.Div.. Link to article here.
The Philadelphia Inquirer: Steal Money from the Feds? First, Meet Jeff Grant, an Ex-Con who Committed Loan Fraud, by Erin Arvedlund: Link to article here.
Hannah Smolinski YouTube: Thinking About PPP Fraud?: Hannah Interviews Jeff Grant About Going to Prison for SBA Loan Fraud. Link to article and YouTube video here.
CFO Dive: After Serving Time, Fraudster Cautions Against PPP, Other Emergency Loans, by Robert Freedman. Link to article here.
Fraud Stories Podcast with Mark Lurie: SBA/PPP Loan Fraud with Guest: Jeff Grant. Link to podcast here.
Forbes: As Law Enforcement Pursues SBA Loan Fraud, Jeff Grant Talks Redemption, by Kelly Phillips Erb. Link to article here.
Taxgirl Podcast: Jeff Grant talks Desperation and Loans in a Time of Crisis with Kelly Phillips Erb on Her Podcast. Link to article and podcast here.
Business Talk with Jim Campbell: Jeff Grant Talks with Jim About Going to Prison for SBA Loan Fraud and What to Know When Taking Coronavirus Relief Money, Biz Talk Radio Network, Broadcast from 1490 AM WGCH Greenwich, CT. Listen on YouTube here.
Babz Rawls Ivy Show: Babz Rawls Ivy & Jeff Grant Talk SBA / PPP Loan Fraud and 7 Things to Know Before You Take Coronavirus Relief Money, WNHH 103.5 FM New Haven. Watch on YouTube here.
White Collar Week with Jeff Grant, Podcast Ep. 21: All Things SBA, PPP & EIDL, with Guest: Hannah Smolinski, CPA, Virtual CFO: Link here.
White Collar Week with Jeff Grant, Podcast Episode 09: Small Business Edition, with Guest Kelly Phillips Erb. Link here.
______________________________
Louis Reed/Babz Rawls Ivy PSA:
Some very kind words from my dear friends Louis L. Reed and Babz Rawls Ivy in this brief PSA. Thank you Louis and Babz! – Jeff
______________________________
All Episodes:
Link here to Podcast Ep. 23, The Vanishing Trial, Robert Katzberg
Link here to Podcast Ep. 22: The Goddess, with Guest: Babz Rawls Ivy
Link here to Podcast Ep. 21: All Things SBA, PPP & EIDL, with Guest: Hannah Smolinski, CPA, Virtual CFO
Link here to Podcast Ep. 20: Reinventing Yourself After Prison, with Guests: Glenn E. Martin & Richard Bronson
Link here to Podcast Ep. 19: Insider Trading Charges Dismissed, with Guest: Richard Lee
Link here to Podcast Ep. 18: Is Your Life a Movie? The Producers, with Guests: Lydia B. Smith, Bethany Jones & Will Nix
Link here to Podcast Ep. 17: #TruthHeals, Systemic Abuse & Institutional Reform with Guest: Vanessa Osage, feat. Guest Co-Host Chloe Coppola
Link here to Podcast Ep. 16: Politicians, Prison & Penitence, with Guest: Bridgeport, CT Mayor Joseph Ganim
Link here to Podcast Ep. 15: A Brave Talk About Suicide, with Guests Bob Flanagan, Elizabeth Kelley, & Meredith Atwood
Link here to Podcast Ep. 14: Recovery & Neighborhood, with Guest: TNP’s Tom Scott
Linkhereto Podcast Ep. 13: Everything but Bridgegate, with Guest: Bill Baroni
Linkhereto Podcast Ep. 12: The Truth Tellers, with Guests: Holli Coulman & Larry Levine
Linkhereto Podcast Ep. 11: Blank Canvas, with Guest: Craig Stanland
Linkhereto Podcast Ep. 10: The Ministers, with Guests: Father Joe Ciccone & Father Rix Thorsell
Linkhereto Podcast Ep. 09: Small Business Edition, with Guest: Taxgirl Kelly Phillips Erb
Linkhereto Podcast Ep. 08: The Academics, with Guests: Cathryn Lavery, Jessica Henry, Jay Kennedy & Erin Harbinson
Linkhereto Podcast Ep. 07: White Collar Wives. with Guests: Lynn Springer, Cassie Monaco & Julie Bennett. Special Guest: Skylar Cluett
Linkhereto Podcast Ep. 06: Madoff Talks, with Guest: Jim Campbell
Linkhereto Podcast Ep. 05: Trauma and Healing when Mom goes to Prison, with Guests: Jacqueline Polverari and Her Daughters, Alexa & Maria
Link here to Podcast Ep. 04: One-on-One with Tipper X, with Guest: Tom Hardin
Linkhereto Podcast Ep. 03: Compassionate Lawyering, with Guests: Chris Poulos, Corey Brinson, Bob Herbst & George Hritz
Linkhereto Podcast Ep. 02: Substance Abuse & Recovery During COVID-19, with Guests: Trevor Shevin & Joshua Cagney
Linkhereto Podcast Ep. 01: An Evening with Our White Collar Support Group, with Guests: 16 Members of Our White Collar Support Group
Linkhereto Podcast Ep. 00: White Collar Week with Jeff Grant: What is White Collar Week?
______________________________
Jeff Grant
What is the White Collar Justice Community?
Welcome to White Collar Week with Jeff Grant, a podcast serving the white collar justice community. It’s the isolation that destroys us. The solution is in community.
If you are interested in this podcast, then you are probably already a member of the white collar justice community – even if you don’t quite know it yet. Our community is certainly made up of people being prosecuted, or who have already been prosecuted, for white collar crimes. But it is also made up of the spouses, children and families of those prosecuted for white collar crimes – these are the first victims of white collar crime. And the community also consists of the other victims, both direct and indirect, and those in the wider white collar ecosystem like friends, colleagues, prosecutors, defense attorneys, judges, law enforcement, academics, researchers. Investigators, mitigation experts, corrections officers, parole & probation officers, reentry professionals, mental health care professionals, drug and alcohol counselors – and ministers, chaplains and advocates for criminal and social justice reform. The list goes on and on…
Our mission is to introduce you to other members of the white collar justice community, to hear their very personal stories, and hopefully gain a broader perspective of what this is really all about. Maybe this will inspire some deeper thoughts and introspection? Maybe it will inspire some empathy and compassion for people you might otherwise resent or dismiss? And maybe it will help lift us all out of our own isolation and into community, so we can learn to live again in the sunshine of the spirit.
Along the way, I’ll share with you some of the things I’ve learned in my own journey from successful lawyer, to prescription opioid addict, white collar crime, suicide attempt, disbarment, destruction of my marriage, and the almost 14 months I served in a Federal prison. And also my recovery, love story I share with my wife Lynn Springer, after prison earning a Master of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary in NYC, pastoring in an inner city church in Bridgeport CT, and then co-founding with Lynn in Greenwich CT, Progressive Prison Ministries, the world’s first ministry serving the white collar justice community. It’s been quite a ride, but I firmly believe that the best is yet to come.
So I invite you to come along with me as we experience something new, and bold, and different – a podcast that serves the entire white collar justice community. I hope you will join me.
It’s the Isolation that Destroys Us. The Solution is in Community.
Progressive Prison Ministries, Inc. is the world’s first ministry supporting the white collar justice community. Founded by husband and wife,Jeff Grantand Lynn Springerin Greenwich CT in 2012, we incorporated as a nonprofit in Connecticut in 2014, and received 501(c)(3) status in 2015. Jeff has over three decades of experience in crisis management, business, law (former), reentry, recovery (clean & sober 17+ years), and executive and religious leadership. As Jeff was incarcerated for a white-collar crime he committed in 2001, he and Lynn have a first-hand perspective on the trials and tribulations that white-collar families have to endure as they navigate the criminal justice system and life beyond.
Progressive Prison Ministries, Inc. is nonsectarian, serving those of all faiths, or no faith whatsoever. To date we have helped over three hundred fifty (350) individuals, and their families, to accept responsibility for their actions and to acknowledge the pain they have caused to others. In accordance with our commitment to restorative justice, we counsel our members to make amends as a first step in changing their lives and moving towards a new spiritual way of living centered on hope, care, compassion, tolerance, empathy and service to others. Our team has grown to over ten people, most with advanced degrees, all of whom are currently volunteering their time and resources.
Progressive Prison Ministries’ goal is to provide spiritual solutions and emotional support to those who are feeling alone, isolated, and hopeless. We have found that these individuals are suffering from a void but are stuck, and don’t know what to do about it. Our objective is to help them find a path to a healthy, spirit-filled place on the other side of what may seem like insurmountable problems. Many of those we counsel are in a place where their previous lives have come to an end due to their transgressions. In many cases their legal problems have led to divorce, estrangement from their children, families, friends and support communities, and loss of a career. The toll this takes on individuals and families is emotionally devastating. White-collar crimes are often precipitated by other issues in the offenders’ lives such as alcohol or drug abuse, and/or a physical or mental illness that lead to financial issues that overwhelms their ability to be present for themselves and their families and cause poor decision making. We recognize that life often presents us with such circumstances, sometimes which lead us to make mistakes in violation of the law.
All conversations and communications between our ordained ministry, and licensed clinical relationships, and those we serve fall under state privilege laws. This is one reason that attorneys often allow and encourage their clients to maintain relationships with us while in active prosecution or litigation situations.
If you, a friend, family member, colleague or client are suffering from a white collar criminal justice issue or are experiencing some other traumatic or life-altering event, and would like to find a path to a healthy, spirit-filled place on the other side of what seems like insurmountable problems, please contact us to schedule an initial call or appointment.
Copyright 2021, All Rights Reserved, Progressive Prison Ministries, Inc.
Thinking about stealing the government loan money you received in pandemic help?
Before you do, listen to Jeff Grant’s story.
After his opioid addiction, his theft of U.S. loan funds, and a federal prison sentence, Grant’s life as a lawyer and business professional was over.
But according to him, his new life was just beginning. And for small business owners feeling desperate — enough to steal — he’s created a safe place to talk anonymously and seek guidance.
Now clean and sober, remarried and out of prison, Jeff Grant, 64, co-foundedProgressive Prison Ministries,what could be America’s first support group serving the white collar community —- in particular, those who committed white collar crimes and may have served prison time.
Based online, the group attracts many business owners and white-collar workers from Philadelphia.
“Philadelphia has the second largest concentration of our support group members,” Grant said, including Seth Williams, former Philadelphia district attorney, who Grant says attends regularly. Williams was released from prison earlier this year after serving time for his 2017 bribery conviction.
Grant was convicted after fraudulently obtaining $247,000 in federal aid soon the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, falsely claiming to have had a law office in lower Manhattan that had been shuttered by the disaster. He used the money to pay down personal credit cards. Meanwhile, his pain medication addiction ramped up, as did his marital problems.
“In 2002, I resigned my law license and started on the road to recovery. But it all caught up with me about two years later, when I was arrested” for misrepresenting information on his loan application. He served almost 14 months at a federal prison for wire fraud and money laundering.
“So much of my story is tied to my wife, Lynn Springer,” he said. They met in drug addiction recovery in Greenwich, Conn., and have been married for 11 years.
“I was a very bad bet, but she stayed with me through prison and the rough years after,” said Grant, based in Woodbury, Conn. He celebrated 18 years clean and sober on Aug. 10.
Basing it on a 12-step program, Grant created his support group for white collar criminals and their families after earning a divinity degree from Union Theological Seminary in New York. He now hosts an onlineWhite Collar Support Group every Monday.
“Here’s what business owners should consider when they take out disaster loans. Certainly, the majority of people requesting these loans are honest and upstanding entrepreneurs who have immense need for the aid, and will use the funds properly,” he said. “That said, history has shown us again and again that when people are in dire need, they’re more prone to make impulsive, ill-advised decisions.”
“My hope is that sharing my experience will help others avoid the consequences I faced.”
Sometimes referred to in the business press as a “minister to hedge funders,” he uses his experience to guide families and professionals in their relationships, careers and businesses, and to help them to stop making the bad decisions that resulted in loss, suffering and shame.
Rampant SBA loan fraud todaygives Grant’s story new relevance.Wells Fargo this week said it fired at least 100 bank employees for improperly receiving coronavirus relief funds, and JPMorgan Chase & Co. also found more than 500 employees tapped the SBA’s disaster-loan program.
“What’s happening now is almost indescribable,” he said. “Nineteen years after committing my crime of SBA loan fraud, I’m now sought out both because of my cautionary tale and as a SBA loan fraud expert. Believe me, nobody was interested in the nuances of how bad things could happen in taking out disaster loans until COVID presented us with another huge disaster.”
Most recently, he hosted a podcast and interview with New Jersey politician Bill Baroni, who was imprisoned after the “Bridgegate” scandal with New Jersey governor Chris Christie, and had his felony conviction for corruption overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Grant’s white collar support group includes mostly executives, lawyers, and other professionals, and — yes, they are mostly white.
Weekly meetings require registration ahead of time for privacy, and only first names are used. On Grant’s podcasts, all guests are post-sentencing or back from prison.
“How’d my life get there?” Baroni told Grant on a recent podcast. “I’d been a practicing lawyer, teaching constitutional law and voting rights, I ran for the legislature in 2003.”
“People have to make those tough decisions,” he said. “I wanted to get [his prison sentence] over with. When you go through this, all’s changed, changed utterly,” Baroni said.
When Christie was elected governor in 2009. Baroni ran the Port Authority overseeing all six airports in the New York-New Jersey area, the bridges and tunnels, the PATH train system, two bus terminals and the entire World Trade Center complex. Baroni served just under three months of an 18-month sentence, but was released after the Supreme Court agreed to hear his case.
Other guests aren’t as famous, but just as human.
For the episode “When Mom Goes to Prison,” Grant hosted a woman prosecuted for white-collar crimes.
Jacqueline Polverari, convicted in 2014 of mortgage fraud, and her two daughters Maria and Alexa contributed an intimate look inside how crime and prison ravage families, and the steps needed to heal and put families back together.
“I used mortgage funds to supplement my business,” Polverari told listeners. “My kids were in middle and high school. I knew I was being investigated by the FBI and I hadn’t told the kids. I was guilty, knew I was going to jail, so I sat the kids down and told them the truth.”
Her children didn’t comprehend the extent of her crimes. Jacqueline wasn’t sentenced for several years and her temper flared regularly.
“It was a long, drawn-out process. It started when i was a freshman in high school and didn’t end until she came home from jail my senior year of college,” Alexa said on the podcast. “She didn’t keep us in the dark. She told us the honest truth. That made it a little bit easier.”
More on SBA PPP & EIDL Loan Fraud:
Entrepreneur: I Went to Prison for SBA Loan Fraud: 7 Things You Should Know when Taking Covid-19 Disaster Relief Money, by Jeff Grant, Link to article here.
The Philadelphia Inquirer: Steal Money from the Feds? First, Meet Jeff Grant, an Ex-Con who Committed Loan Fraud, by Erin Arvedlund: Link to article here.
Fraud Stories Podcast with Mark Lurie: SBA/PPP Loan Fraud with Guest: Jeff Grant. Link to podcast here.
Forbes: As Law Enforcement Pursues SBA Loan Fraud, Jeff Grant Talks Redemption, by Kelly Phillips Erb. Link to article here.
Taxgirl Podcast: Jeff Grant talks Desperation and Loans in a Time of Crisis with Kelly Phillips Erb on Her Podcast. Link to article and podcast here.
Business Talk with Jim Campbell: Jeff Grant Talks with Jim About Going to Prison for SBA Loan Fraud and What to Know When Taking Coronavirus Relief Money, Biz Talk Radio Network, Broadcast from 1490 AM WGCH Greenwich, CT. Listen on YouTube here.
Babz Rawls Ivy Show: Babz Rawls Ivy & Jeff Grant Talk SBA / PPP Loan Fraud and 7 Things to Know Before You Take Coronavirus Relief Money, WNHH 103.5 FM New Haven. Watch on YouTube here.
Also: White Collar Week with Jeff Grant, Podcast Episode 09: Small Business Edition, with Guest Kelly Phillips Erb. Link here.
Thinking about stealing the government loan money you received in pandemic help?
Before you do, listen to Jeff Grant’s story.
After his opioid addiction, his theft of U.S. loan funds, and a federal prison sentence, Grant’s life as a lawyer and business professional was over.
But according to him, his new life was just beginning. And for small business owners feeling desperate — enough to steal — he’s created a safe place to talk anonymously and seek guidance.
Now clean and sober, remarried and out of prison, Jeff Grant, 64, co-foundedProgressive Prison Ministries,what could be America’s first support group serving the white collar community —- in particular, those who committed white collar crimes and may have served prison time.
Based online, the group attracts many business owners and white-collar workers from Philadelphia.
“Philadelphia has the second largest concentration of our support group members,” Grant said, including Seth Williams, former Philadelphia district attorney, who Grant says attends regularly. Williams was released from prison earlier this year after serving time for his 2017 bribery conviction.
Grant was convicted after fraudulently obtaining $247,000 in federal aid soon the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, falsely claiming to have had a law office in lower Manhattan that had been shuttered by the disaster. He used the money to pay down personal credit cards. Meanwhile, his pain medication addiction ramped up, as did his marital problems.
“In 2002, I resigned my law license and started on the road to recovery. But it all caught up with me about two years later, when I was arrested” for misrepresenting information on his loan application. He served almost 14 months at a federal prison for wire fraud and money laundering.
“So much of my story is tied to my wife, Lynn Springer,” he said. They met in drug addiction recovery in Greenwich, Conn., and have been married for 11 years.
“I was a very bad bet, but she stayed with me through prison and the rough years after,” said Grant, based in Woodbury, Conn. He celebrated 18 years clean and sober on Aug. 10.
Basing it on a 12-step program, Grant created his support group for white collar criminals and their families after earning a divinity degree from Union Theological Seminary in New York. He now hosts an onlineWhite Collar Support Group every Monday.
“Here’s what business owners should consider when they take out disaster loans. Certainly, the majority of people requesting these loans are honest and upstanding entrepreneurs who have immense need for the aid, and will use the funds properly,” he said. “That said, history has shown us again and again that when people are in dire need, they’re more prone to make impulsive, ill-advised decisions.”
“My hope is that sharing my experience will help others avoid the consequences I faced.”
Sometimes referred to in the business press as a “minister to hedge funders,” he uses his experience to guide families and professionals in their relationships, careers and businesses, and to help them to stop making the bad decisions that resulted in loss, suffering and shame.
Rampant SBA loan fraud todaygives Grant’s story new relevance.Wells Fargo this week said it fired at least 100 bank employees for improperly receiving coronavirus relief funds, and JPMorgan Chase & Co. also found more than 500 employees tapped the SBA’s disaster-loan program.
“What’s happening now is almost indescribable,” he said. “Nineteen years after committing my crime of SBA loan fraud, I’m now sought out both because of my cautionary tale and as a SBA loan fraud expert. Believe me, nobody was interested in the nuances of how bad things could happen in taking out disaster loans until COVID presented us with another huge disaster.”
Most recently, he hosted a podcast and interview with New Jersey politician Bill Baroni, who was imprisoned after the “Bridgegate” scandal with New Jersey governor Chris Christie, and had his felony conviction for corruption overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Grant’s white collar support group includes mostly executives, lawyers, and other professionals, and — yes, they are mostly white.
Weekly meetings require registration ahead of time for privacy, and only first names are used. On Grant’s podcasts, all guests are post-sentencing or back from prison.
“How’d my life get there?” Baroni told Grant on a recent podcast. “I’d been a practicing lawyer, teaching constitutional law and voting rights, I ran for the legislature in 2003.”
“People have to make those tough decisions,” he said. “I wanted to get [his prison sentence] over with. When you go through this, all’s changed, changed utterly,” Baroni said.
When Christie was elected governor in 2009. Baroni ran the Port Authority overseeing all six airports in the New York-New Jersey area, the bridges and tunnels, the PATH train system, two bus terminals and the entire World Trade Center complex. Baroni served just under three months of an 18-month sentence, but was released after the Supreme Court agreed to hear his case.
Other guests aren’t as famous, but just as human.
For the episode “When Mom Goes to Prison,” Grant hosted a woman prosecuted for white-collar crimes.
Jacqueline Polverari, convicted in 2014 of mortgage fraud, and her two daughters Maria and Alexa contributed an intimate look inside how crime and prison ravage families, and the steps needed to heal and put families back together.
“I used mortgage funds to supplement my business,” Polverari told listeners. “My kids were in middle and high school. I knew I was being investigated by the FBI and I hadn’t told the kids. I was guilty, knew I was going to jail, so I sat the kids down and told them the truth.”
Her children didn’t comprehend the extent of her crimes. Jacqueline wasn’t sentenced for several years and her temper flared regularly.
“It was a long, drawn-out process. It started when i was a freshman in high school and didn’t end until she came home from jail my senior year of college,” Alexa said on the podcast. “She didn’t keep us in the dark. She told us the honest truth. That made it a little bit easier.”
More on SBA PPP & EIDL Loan Fraud:
Entrepreneur: I Went to Prison for SBA Loan Fraud: 7 Things You Should Know when Taking Covid-19 Disaster Relief Money, by Jeff Grant, Link to article here.
The Philadelphia Inquirer: Steal Money from the Feds? First, Meet Jeff Grant, an Ex-Con who Committed Loan Fraud, by Erin Arvedlund: Link to article here.
Fraud Stories Podcast with Mark Lurie: SBA/PPP Loan Fraud with Guest: Jeff Grant. Link to podcast here.
Forbes: As Law Enforcement Pursues SBA Loan Fraud, Jeff Grant Talks Redemption, by Kelly Phillips Erb. Link to article here.
Taxgirl Podcast: Jeff Grant talks Desperation and Loans in a Time of Crisis with Kelly Phillips Erb on Her Podcast. Link to article and podcast here.
Business Talk with Jim Campbell: Jeff Grant Talks with Jim About Going to Prison for SBA Loan Fraud and What to Know When Taking Coronavirus Relief Money, Biz Talk Radio Network, Broadcast from 1490 AM WGCH Greenwich, CT. Listen on YouTube here.
Babz Rawls Ivy Show: Babz Rawls Ivy & Jeff Grant Talk SBA / PPP Loan Fraud and 7 Things to Know Before You Take Coronavirus Relief Money, WNHH 103.5 FM New Haven. Watch on YouTube here.
Also: White Collar Week with Jeff Grant, Podcast Episode 09: Small Business Edition, with Guest Kelly Phillips Erb. Link here.
