Danielle Ponder talks about leaving her job as a public defender to pursue music full time at 40. She talks about the clients she worked with as a public defender and how restorative justice and resources were needed instead of jail time. She also breaks down what it takes to make a living in music today. 

“I had a mother whose [four-year-old] daughter was in an apartment hallway. . .  running up and down. The mother went to the corner store. She thought her older daughter was watching her, she wasn’t. The mother was arrested for endangering the welfare of her child. The child wasn’t hurt, but it was the fact that she wasn’t home and the daughter was in the hallway. We all can have our opinions about what the mother should have done and shouldn’t have done, but the reality is she was a single mom trying to provide for her kids, trying to go grocery shopping for her kids and ended up in jail instead of looking at how she could have been supported with things like daycare and things of that nature,” Ponder said.

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