- The challenges of reintegration after imprisonment
Kim Malek is the CEO and Co-Founder, along with her cousin Tyler Malek, of Salt & Straw ice cream. Prior to launching Salt & Straw, Kim held positions at Starbucks Coffee, Yahoo!, Adidas and Gardenburger, specializing in marketing, community outreach, and product management and global innovation. Kim has been featured in Entrepreneur and Forbes, among many others. She has been recognized by Basic Rights Oregon as an Equality Advocate Honoree and has received the Portland Business Journal’s 2023 Executives of the Year award. Kim has also been named to Inc Magazine’s 100 Female Founders list of entrepreneurs, the Cherry Bombe 100 list featuring female leaders in the culinary space, and Nation’s Restaurant News’ Power List.
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Dr. Baz Dreisinger is the Founding Executive Director of Incarceration Nations Network, a global network that promotes prison reform and justice reimagining worldwide; a Professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York; the founder of John Jay’s groundbreaking Prison-to-College Pipeline program; the author of the critically acclaimed book Incarceration Nations: A Journey to Justice in Prisons Around the World, named a notable book for 2016 by the Washington Post; and the director of Incarceration Nations: A Global Docuseries. A 2018 Global Fulbright Scholar and current Fulbright Scholar Specialist, Dr. Baz speaks regularly about justice issues on international media and has also worked as a journalist, writing for The New York Times and National Public Radio (NPR).
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00:00 – Intro: Why does the U.S. lock up more people than any other nation
00:52 – Ice-cream & incarceration: A conversation on mass incarceration
04:04 – Human stories behind U.S. incarceration
06:15 – Meet Dr. Baz Dreisinger: Incarceration Nations Network
08:11 – “Why do we lock up our most precious resource?” Salt & Straw CEO questions prison system
08:38 – Mass incarceration explained
09:46 – 5% of the world’s population, 25% of the world’s prisoners: U.S. incarceration statistics
12:04 – Challenging the “hardened criminals” narrative
17:43 – Bipartisan potential: reforming criminal justice across political divides
18:48 – The American dream myth vs. the prison reality
19:28 – International reform models: Argentina, Norway, and the open-prison paradigm
22:35 – California’s college-in-prison programs
24:45 – Why lived experience matters in re-introduction
27:10 – Community integration vs. warehousing: open prisons & reintegration
28:24 – From sleeping in a doorway to leading at work: a story of fair-chance hiring
29:15 – Fair chance hiring in action: dismantling barriers for formerly incarcerated
30:07 – Trauma, discrimination & rebuilding lives, re-entry after incarceration
34:44 – Privilege, race & community: who gets to ignore mass incarceration?
36:24 – “Do you want a smart justice system or a stupid one?” redefining justice outcomes
38:48 – What survivors of harm really need
40:12 – “Tough on crime is soft on crime” and the case for humane reform
42:11 – Survivors’ voices & the healing power of community
46:22 – Ice-cream flavor and prison reform? Creative collaborations
On Smart People Get Curious, hosted by Tania Zaparaniuk, high-profile guests get to nerd out with real experts in fields they’re fascinated by—but know nothing about. They ask their “dumb” questions, and listeners learn alongside them. It’s unscripted and refreshingly human.
