Hardly Working with Brent Orrell

Incarcerated and justice-involved individuals are people with desires, goals, dreams and gifts, just like those of us “on the outside.” Dirk van Velzen, the founder and CEO of the Prison Scholars Fund, knows first-hand what it takes to discover and actualize the potential of people who are involved in our criminal justice system.

In this episode, Dirk dives into the factors that led to his incarceration, and how his education in prison and in re-entry led to starting PSF, a nonprofit that helps other incarcerated and justice-involved individuals to build on their unique educational and vocational interests, skills, and abilities. Through the work of PSF, lives are changed and cycles of incarceration, recidivism, crime and poverty that hamper families and communities are being broken.

Mentioned in the Episode

Prison Scholar Fund

History of the Prison Pell program

Penn State Organizational Leadership

University of Colorado Boulder Psychology

David G. Myers

Phil Zimbardo

Stanford Prison Experiment

Annenberg Foundation

Bannerman Foundation

Bernadette Clavier

Stanford Social Innovation

Jack Keroac- On the Road

Atomic Habits

Prison Scholar Fund Coding Program

Coding Dojo

Bard Prison Initiative

Coding Dojo

Bard Prison Initiative

The passage of the First Step Act in 2018 jolted criminal justice issues into the forefront of the public consciousness, and it has remained there since. As COVID ravaged prisons and unrest shook the country in 2020, the nation grappled with the role of the justice system in securing our society while bettering the lives of those all those affected by the burden of incarceration. Meanwhile, policymakers worked tirelessly to maintain bipartisan consensus around these important issues.

To discuss these issues in context, I am joined Brett Tolman. Prior to his work with Right on Crime, Tolman worked in corporate compliance, white collar and government investigations. As a US Attorney in Utah, Brett worked on a range of apposite cases ranging from adoption fraud to national security issues. He has regularly testified before the US Congress and has been on the leading edge of drafting and advocating for numerous pieces of criminal justice legislation, including the First Step Act.

Desistance, the decision to abandon criminal behavior,

is one of the great puzzles in criminal justice policy. Shawn D. Bushway of the

RAND Corporation argues that desistance depends on achieving a new,

noncriminal, pro-social identity, which is often a long and arduous process

supported by empirical evidence.

This rebroadcast of our December 14 event contains a discussion moderated by Brent on Dr. Bushway’s report “Reentry, desistance, and identity achievement.” The event features remarks from Dr. Bushway, followed by comments from Rashawn Ray of the Brookings Institution, Bret Bucklen of the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, and Julio Medina of Exodus Transitional Community.

Mentioned During the Show

Re-entry, Desistance and Identity Achievement

Shawn Bushway

Rashawn Ray

Bret Bucklen

Julio Medina

Ray Paternoster

Paternoster and Bushway 2009 Paper

Rhodes et al. study

Marcus Bullock-flikshop

Hawaii Hope program

David Farabee: Rethinking Rehabilitation

COMPASS: Correctional Offender Management

Exodus Transitional Community

Risk-Needs-Responsivity Model

Good Life Model

Where do prisoners go when released? How can policy create a better framework and process to prevent a quick return to incarceration? How can policy humanize the incarcerated while upholding standards of justice? Few people are more qualified to answer such questions than Jeremy Travis.

To kick off our Hardly Working March miniseries for Criminal Justice Reform Month, Brent and Travis dive deep into the past, present and future of re-entry and criminal justice reform. Travis’ wealth of experience in legal aid, at NYPD, clerking for future Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and his multiple contributions in criminal justice research brought forth seminal re-entry texts like But They All Come Back: Facing Challenges of Prisoner Re-entry that changed the way we look crime, criminal behavior, and the justice system.

Mentioned During the Show

Rev. William Sloane Coffin

Frederick Douglass

Martin Robison Delany

Vera Institute of Justice

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Commissioner Benjamin Ward

Mayor Ed Koch

Commissioner Lee Brown

National Institute of Justice

1994 Crime Bill

But They All Come Back: Facing the Challenges of Prisoner Reentry

Urban Institute

2004 State of the Union note on reentry

Prisoner Reentry initiative

Nothing works - Martinson article

Fortune Society NYC

Square One Columbia

Shadd Maruna- Making Good

READY Project Chicago

Pat Sharkey

Equal Act

Arnold Ventures

Jeremy Travis- Power of Parsimony

Mentioned in the trailer

U.S. is losing $1 trillion every year due to crime

National Criminal Justice Month

Throughout America’s history, its people formed churches, social and fraternal organizations, and neighborhood groups at an astonishing pace. When we talk about “American exceptionalism” this is what we’re really talking about: the self-organizing community that solves its own problems.

In second half of the 20th century, however, scholars and pundits have pointed to a decline in American neighborliness and propensity for joining civic organizations. Church attendance is down, social organizations are dissolving, and two-parent families are declining. What can the data on American attitudes toward community tell us about why this is happening?

Today, I am pleased to welcome Ryan Streeter and Dan Cox to discuss the state of American communities. Streeter is a Senior Fellow and Director of Domestic Policy Studies at AEI. He studies topics of civil society, community, localism and religion. Dan Cox is the Senior Fellow in Polling and Public Opinion at AEI and the Director of the Survey Center of American Life. He specializes understanding American attitudes toward politics, youth culture, identity, and religion. We discuss highlights from AEI’s fall American Community survey, which can be found on the AEI website. We’ll also discuss their vocational journeys and professional lives and the role of civic engagement in building a happy and fulfilling life. 

Mentioned During the Episode

Ryan Streeter

Dan Cox

American Community Survey

Stephen Goldsmith

Adam Smith

David Hume

Social network analysis

Pew Research Center

Public Religion Research Institute

Karlyn Bowman

The Moral Sense- James Q. Wilson

Irving Kristol

Michael Novak

To Empower People

Thermostatic Opinion

Sam Abrams on public libraries

In this episode of Hardly Working, Brent’s research staff turn the tables on the host and interview Brent.  In the last 64 episodes, Brent has hosted guests to discuss everything from the welfare system to neuroscience to Waffle House. This episode is a long-awaited (by us!) window into the host behind the scenes. What is the elusive “vocation” that Brent talks about with guests? What is the core of Brent’s theory of workforce development research? How was this theory developed and who influenced it? All these questions and more are finally answered.

You will hear about Brent’s own vocational journey, the people that guided it, his vocational and policy philosophy, and even a few of his favorite books. We also provide a sneak peek at our spring podcast line up. Enjoy getting to know the researcher and the research behind Hardly Working!

-         Jake Easter, Jessie Wall, and Hunter Dixon

Mentioned During the Episode

Brent Orrell AEI

Sam Nunn (GA)

Faith Based and Community Initiatives Bush Administration

Administration for Children and Families (HHS)

Ryan Streeter AEI

93% of parents would encourage their kid to pursue engineering

C.S. Lewis

Adam Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments

Susan Howatch

Range by David Epstein

Iain McGilchrist (AEI page)

The Master and His Emissary

“How our brains make the world” (condensed paper from Iain McGilchrist)

McGilchrist event with John Cleese

Econ Talk Russ Roberts

Divided Brain Documentary

Ep. 29: Iain McGilchrist

The Best Advice I Ever Got by Katie Couric

Housing policy in America is inextricably linked with employment opportunities, small business ventures, education access, and a host of other issues that directly impact economic opportunity. Understanding the history of low income housing in America is key to understanding and reimagining housing policy today. On this episode of Hardly Working, I am joined by Howard Husock to discuss his new book, The Poor Side of Town and Why We Need It. The book lays out a history of American housing policy and a thesis on how low-income housing that allows for private ownership can serve as a gateway to upward mobility, rather than the concentrated and intergenerational poverty that characterizes low-income housing today.

Husock is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute where he focuses on urban housing policy, civil society, and municipal government. He has held positions at the Manhattan Institute, the Harvard Kennedy School, and has worked as Emmy-winning documentary filmmaker. We discuss the history of low income residencies in America, the loss of social capital in low income neighborhoods, how much of this is due to public policy interventions, and solutions to rethink housing policy. You can find Howard’s book on the AEI website. I hope you enjoy the conversation.

Mentioned During the Show

The Poor Side of Town and Why We Need It

Princeton School of Public and International Affairs

Edward Banfield: The Unheavenly City

Jacob Riis: How the Other Half Lives

Market Failure

Catherine Bauser: Modern Housing

Brookline, Mass. Town Meeting

Zoning

Portland Urban Growth Boundary

Jane Jacobs Bio

Jane Jacobs: Death and Life of American Cities

Jane Jacobs: The Economy of Cities

Jane Jacobs: Cities and the Wealth of Nations

Robert Moses (housing projects)

Mutual aid definition

Detroit Urban League

Howard’s Senate Banking Committee Testimony

Raj Chetty Moving to Opportunity Study

Jeff Liebman Moving to Opportunity Study

In this episode of Hardly Working, Brent Orrell is joined by AEI nonresident fellow and cultural critic Thomas Chatterton Williams. Williams’s two books Losing My Cool, published in 2010 and Self Portrait in Black and White, published in 2019, tie together personal memoir and philosophy to provide a fresh perspective on America’s history of racial discrimination and present reckoning with defining race and understanding its impacts. Williams discusses the importance of liberal arts education in shaping his own vocation, his motivation for writing, and importantly, his philosophy on race and identity in America.

Mentioned During the Show

Thomas Chatterton Williams’ AEI Webpage

Self-Portrait in Black and White

Chatterton on Searching for Plato with His Daughter

Bard Prison Initiative Documentary

France’s “Color-Blind” Race Policy

Hillbilly Elegy

The Common Ground of Human Dignity

AEI’s 10th Annual Housing Conference

Brookings’ Study on Housing Appraisals

Amidst today’s labor shortage, employers are learning an important truth: we have no “extra” people. Unfortunately, many qualified workers are “hidden” from real consideration for jobs by ineffective artificial intelligence hiring screens, overly strict credentialing requirements, or a narrowmindedness from companies on how seemingly disparate skills could might serve to strengthen business operations. These barriers contribute to the existence of 27 million “hidden workers” in the US, including mothers returning to the workforce, those with physical disabilities, neurodivergent workers, and veterans.

To discuss this problem, I am joined by AEI non-Resident Fellow and Harvard Business School professor Joe Fuller. In addition to his work at AEI, Joe co-leads the Managing the Future of Work project, and has published reports through HBS as well as numerous popular press outlets.

Mentioned During the Show

Joe Fuller's Harvard Website

Joe Fuller’s AEI Website

Stephen Fuller Remembered

Michael Porter’s Harvard Website

Hidden Workers: Untapped Talent Report

New York Times Article on Automated Hiring

Young People Marry Later than Previous Generations

What Walmart is Doing Right

IBM Commits to Skill 30 Million by 2030

Unilever on Upskilling Its Employees

Managing the Future of Work

The Project on Workforce