00:00 WJ

All right. So we are now recording. I am Willie Johnson with the UCLA COVID-19 Time Data Project I’m here with Grace Harris. And so if we just want to talk, start the conversation of how your career started and how it changed post COVID-19 pandemic.

00:25 GH

Sure, yeah. So I'm, I'm a very new lawyer, I graduated law school in May of 2020. So I, I have only ever worked in a, during a COVID world. I was specifically hired by the Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project, which is a Pennsylvania statewide legal aid organization that does prisoners rights work, constitutional rights work for incarcerated folks. So I was specifically hired to work on an ongoing class action lawsuit filed against the Philadelphia department of prisons, the Philadelphia County jail system, for COVID based conditions of confinement concerns. So this, the class action was filed, I want to say in May 2020, and then a consent order was entered by a federal judge, in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, with a list of, a list of requirements agreed upon by both the Department of the affiliate department of prisons and by plaintiffs attorneys, of some baseline precautions that the jails need to put into effect to prevent the spread of COVID. And to protect incarcerated folks from, from COVID-19 to you know, to the extent possible, and these were, these are really basic, this consent order is still in place. Now we're in March 2021. So these are really basic requirements, like cleaning supplies twice a week for people to be able to clean their cells and for the common areas to be cleaned a few times a day. And you can, you can even see some of these things were put into place. But at the very beginning of the pandemic, when people were really concerned about like, you know, some things we're not quite as concerned about anymore, I guess generally like touch based transmission and things like that. But other things as well like making sure people incarcerated folks in the Philly jail system have access to masks and to make sure that the staff were wearing their masks, because obviously, at the time, I mean, still all visitation is still shut down. So the only people who are really coming in and out of the facility are, you know, people who are newly arrested, incarcerated and the staff members. So in addition to that, there was a requirement to make sure everyone was given at least 45 minutes out of cell time per day. Most I mean, I don't want to generalize, I guess, but my understanding is that many, many, many jail and prison facilities have responded to the COVID pandemic, by greatly greatly restricting freedom of movement within the facilities, you know, which you can sort of understand logically is like, what would prevent transmission if you prevent interaction between people in the same way that we're preventing it on the outside by not interacting with other people. But obviously, in the jail context, this meant that pretty much every I mean, every single person in the whole systems is living under solitary confinement conditions for months at a time. We have since more recently, after a period of what they call shelter in place where the movement was restricted even further, to about 15 minutes out of cell time per day, which was drastic. We have-- since in January, we got a new order in this case that allows that mandates that people be let out of their cells for at this point at least three hours a day, which might seem like a lot. But you know, that's still 21 hours in the cell per day. So it's gone up and down a little bit. And that was a really long answer to your initial question, which is, what is your work like under COVID? My work has really been all about COVID. For the most part. I've recently expanded my role of institutional law projects. So now I'm covering some other non-COVID related cases. In terms of how COVID affects all of that, a lot of my cases are in the other parts of the state. And normally I would certainly like to be able to travel to visit clients, which I can't do. But for the most part, my focus has been the COVID conditions in the jails here in Philadelphia.

04:56 WJ

And also I'm sorry, I said this before we hit record, and I realized that this needs to be on the record of me saying that I want to explain how we plan to use this conversation where to have that it is not legally privileged, and we will not keep what you say confidential. We plan to make transcripts and recording of our interviews available for use by future researchers and the general public. And portions may be posted online or discussed and posted on our website and other published writing. I want our conversation to flow freely. And I realized that you may discuss a sensitive topic or mention a piece of information that you later realize you would like withheld. If you request it now at the end of the interview, or later on after further reflection, we are happy for you to review the transcript of our conversation before it is made public enter redact any portions you deem necessary from the transcript and the recording. I know we had this conversation previously, but just realize that it needed to be in the recorded portion. So excuse me.

05:52 GH

No, no problem.

05:55 WJ

So yeah, I think what… you have a unique situation and that your entire career has been framed by the pandemic, and I was wondering if you maybe had done work during law school, or if your expectations going into it, how it may have been different. And then also what maybe either impressed you or distressed you surprised you based off your expectations of someone who was living in the pandemic in law school. And then after starting to actually work. If there was anything that you were either surprised by, or something you expected, and it completely fulfilled what you thought you were getting?

06:37 GH

Um sure. So I mean, I guess for me, the pandemic really changed my career trajectory in general, I had, when I was in my final semester of law school, I had a different job, then the organization was not able to follow through on it because of the pandemic budget cutting. So I joined the Pennsylvania institutional Law Project while I was still studying for the bar, and just sort of trying to figure out what was next and they needed immediate help on this COVID lawsuit. So they were hiring legal fellows for that purpose. And I've always been interested in prisoner's rights work and, and, you know, I was originally going to go into more public defense, criminal defense work. So this was a bit of a pivot for me. And I am trying to think how my expectations were different. I mean, I, I guess I had, I went into this work, you know, into this work ready to work within sort of the COVID prison context. I think it's still always a little jarring to become exposed to truly sort of how difficult it is for people in jail right now, having done you know, little bits of prisoners’ rights work during law school and in clinics, and internships and things like that. Base level, obviously, the conditions of prisons and jails, in this country, but I would say generally are very hard, are like are very oppressive. So, I think that it's, I think that it was jarring just to sort of see just how much worse it was under COVID. And, you know, not just because of sort of anything that the facilities were doing or not doing, but just because I think also everyone was learning how to respond to this pandemic, all in real time. And in a place where movement is already restricted, where individual choices already so restricted, people just really didn't have a lot of access to keep themselves safe and really had to, you know, have to rely on these institutions to keep them safe. Which, you know, is a very scary prospect for a lot of people. So, you know, I think there's a certain amount of powerlessness, doing prisoners’ rights work, just generally.

You know, because obviously, litigation happens slowly and you don't have you don't have any control over what your clients are experiencing in the meantime, in the jail. But in this case, you know, it's really just that magnified because, you know, we're all home afraid of everything and trying to figure out how to live in this COVID reality. And, you know, my concern, you know, my concern for my clients while being was, was and still is pretty, you know, pretty dramatic part of my job. As for the part of this lawsuit is staffing a hotline where I speak with people who are incarcerated in the Philly jails, every day, staffing a hotline that people have access to call. So, see, you know, some days, I was just hearing like, I would just be hearing dozens of reports from people in the, in the jails about how afraid they were and, you know, trying to provide them with all the information that I had when even out on the outside, we were still trying to learn about, you know, learn all of the risks of the pandemic, and you know, what precautions are actually really useful and all of that. I'm going to try to relay all the information I have to people who are in this situation where they don't necessarily get the opportunity to act on, on any of that information. So, I feel like that was rambly. But generally, I'd say I mean, it's it that my, it has been different from my expectations, just that I'm not sure that it's really possible, it was really impossible to expect just how bad it would be.

11:01 WJ

Um, so you said that you were staffing a hotline? Could you speak more on your interaction with your clients? And how, whether the challenges and getting in contact and how COVID has impacted communication between advocates and folks?

11:18 GH

Yeah, I mean, COVID is, I mean, I think that's probably one of the really, the biggest changes for people who do prison work is that most so many forms of contact were shut down. So in Philly, the, the jails are all located about, you know, a 15 minute drive from from Center City of Philadelphia. So the jails are relatively close. And normally doing any kind of, you know, criminal defense or prisoners rights work with the Philly jail system, you would be able to just go visit your clients. And when you get to visit your clients in person, you get to, you know, see how they are, which seems silly, but like, you know, you could actually like, see how they're doing in person. And you also get to confirm that you're talking to them in a confidential setting, and you get to develop trust in a different way, because they can see you and get to know you a little bit. So also, visitation was completely shut down still is completely shut down, I should say. And it took quite a long time before they implemented any kind of video visiting system. They were doing like some, you can set up zoom calls if you're an attorney early on, but those slots filled up very quickly. So it was, it could be often be very difficult to get a video call with, with your clients. Now they have a newer system that they implemented to allow friends and family visitation is like video visitation as well. So, it's a little bit easier. But you know, there's all all the same tech problems that we've all been having on the outside with the constant zooms and video chats certainly exists there as well. So early on this hotline, I mean, it still is but especially early on, it was one of people's very few sort of lifelines to the outside. So as part of the settlement order in this in the class action suit, the hotline was set up as an unmonitored free number, which means it doesn't have to be on people's call lists, for anyone in the jail to be able to call to report the conditions, which is really how we were keeping track, we still are, again, how we are keeping track of whether the requirements from the consent order are actually being implemented. So I was working with a couple other legal fellows, I've had sort of different levels of, you know, there's been periods during the last eight months where I was staffing the hotline almost entirely by myself. There were other times like now where I have quite a lot of other people who are helping me staff it. But I would say I'm trying to calculate how many hours I have typically done on the hotline. We it's available and open staffed from nine to three Monday through Friday, and has been since June, I guess, since June or July. I started in July. So I've been doing you know, I probably did anywhere from I can't remember the beginning how many hours I was doing like four to probably like 20 hours a week of staffing this hotline. At the peak of it, I was doing quite a lot of it. So it it's you know, it's an interesting experience in some ways, I felt-- I still do feel incredibly, incredibly privileged to have that kind of access to people to people in jail right now. Because, you know, people had such a hard time you know, getting a hold of even their, their close loved ones. The jail did at the beginning implement 15 minutes of free phone calls a day. But that only works for local numbers. So if people's friends and family didn't have a local Philadelphia number, then they weren't able to call them. And there were certainly people, you know, who told me that like, I, you know that this hotline was the only number that was working for them. And this was, you know, this was their sort of one lifeline out. So I felt, you know, I still do feel very privileged to have that kind of access, especially at a time when, you know, so many programs, so many different ways that the public can check on what's going on the jails. So, you know, I absolutely have had the chance to develop relationships with, you know, some of our incarcerated clients through regular contact with the hotline. You know, it can, it's been, there's been moments where it's very frustrating, because, you know, obviously, people are telling you very urgent problems, and then our recourse doesn't always feel like it matches the urgency of the situation. If people really appreciate that, you know, time or things like that, like getting to see, see the implementation of some of those improvements in real time has also been really gratifying. But yeah, I mean, it's it's, there were definitely periods where it's been really emotionally taxing to be just sort of feel like you are bearing witness to such such trauma being inflicted upon people. And, you know, bearing witness to some of the most, at the end of the day, some of the most horrific consequences of this pandemic has been how people who are incarcerated have experienced it. So there have definitely been times where it's been very difficult to sort of feel like I'm carrying a lot of that after a really long day on the hotline.

16:53 WJ

So leading off from that, how are you managing personally, because this is also this, this project wants to collect how advocates and lawyers are dealing with their incarcerated clients, but also how they are managing personally and that this pandemic is encompassing, and impacting those disproportionately, but still impacting everyone? So if you feel comfortable, just kind of personally, how you've been managing to deal with some really heavy work and important work throughout this time?

17:31 GH

Yeah, I mean, I mean, I feel very lucky, and that the institutional law project where I work is incredibly supportive. Workplace, my supervisors, I never felt like they took have taken for granted like the impact of the hotline work, and I always felt like I could, you know, ask for help or say that I needed to, like, take a little break or do fewer hours, during different periods. Obviously, during like, there, you know, it's gone in waves, I think, in the same way that has out on the outside, sort of how, how scared people are and and you know, how, how close the impact really is. So there have been, you know, in early December 2020, there was a big spike. In cases, there was an outage, I think we could call it an outbreak in the Philly jails. And that was a really hard time, because people were really, really scared. And, and as a result, the facilities, the city responded by sort of shutting everything down and going into this really restrictive shelter in place, which, again, understandable to want to prevent the spread of COVID, but, you know, also has its own very, very dangerous side effects in terms of people being locked in cells for days at a time or being locked out for just 10 minutes a day. And having to choose to take a shower or use the phone to call a loved one. You know, I spoke to people who have loved ones they were worried about on the outside, you know, who are susceptible to COVID, who they were really worried about, and then didn't have access to contact them. And that could be that was really hard for people. So people were going days at a time without, you know, getting to use the phone at all, and really having no access to the outside world except sometimes through me. So, it definitely, you know, went through periods of being very difficult. But I feel very grateful that I always felt very supported at work. And, I mean, I think one of the hardest parts about doing this kind of work during COVID Is that you know, I so I joined this organization in July [2020], still we're now in March [2021], I've only met one of my colleagues in person. On one day for part of this work, I was living in California studying for the bar and working Philly hours, like East Coast hours. So I was like waking up at five in the morning to do this fellowship part time and then in the afternoons I was studying for the bar exam. So I was working like 13 hour days. And it was nuts. So I mean, I think a lot of it was difficult during different points just because of sort of the ups and downs of COVID itself. I, I know, that's not the purpose of this. But I think that the legal profession, like handled the bar exam really poorly during COVID, for example, I hope that you don't have to deal with the consequences of that by the time you get there. But like, I think that the whole world was, you know, responding to COVID in some better in some worse ways. And I think that some of the hardest parts is sort of other facets of my life. Sort of trying, like refusing to make changes to the norm, because of COVID. So having to sort of act like everything was normal, while also having this job where I was being so confronted by, you know, the worst of the worst effects of this pandemic, the most horrible human tools of this pandemic. While, also like studying for the bar exam was very jarring. So I think that I'm coping wise, you know, I think doing all the things that I would normally do to cope with, you know, doing emotionally draining difficult. client facing work, you know, spending time with friends, and being out in the world, like a lot of those were not possible and still are not possible. So I think that's been really difficult to develop sort of new coping mechanisms for this kind of work, that doesn't involve all the things that we cannot do right now. So that has been tricky. I definitely miss having the kind of camaraderie of working in an office with people and being able to just like, hang up a phone call and be like, Wow, that was a tough hotline, call, like, let me grab some coffee. Before I do the next one, it was really just like, sitting at my desk for a long time, which was like in the same room as my bed, like, you know, like, sitting at my desk, and just and just going from hotline, call the hotline call, or, you know, reading, we also get quite a lot of letters. That's the other sort of main way that we communicate with people still. So you know, reading through stacks of 25 letters of just descriptions of just horrible, horrific conditions, horrific situations. And then not having any of those sort of social coping mechanisms has been difficult. But finding ways to replace them with other things, doing more social things, you know, through zoom and through the internet, getting to getting to know my new colleagues, so that I can develop some of those relationships with them, like faster than I normally would. That's all been really important. Trying to think of good examples of other self-care things, and now I'm just like, oh, what do I-- what do I do to take care of myself [laughs]? But yeah, I think it's an ongoing struggle for a lot of us.

23:04 WJ

I know that it is ongoing litigation. But I was wondering if you would feel comfortable, kind of giving examples or explaining the types of conversations that you're having on a daily basis. And whether they have changed. I know, you talk a lot about fear and the unknown. I imagine that would be extremely prevalent in the beginning of the pandemic, pandemic, but kind of how have those conversations, what type of conversations and also how they have shifted throughout the past year?

23:34 GH

Sure, yeah, there's some things I can talk about, because we do… so as part of this litigation, we file public declarations, like we filed declarations on the public docket from folks who are incarcerated. I work with, with our clients to draft many of those declarations that we've submitted. So I can speak a little bit to some things people have told me that are part of that record. So I'd say the most frequent and sort of really debilitating issue is periods of not being let out of the cell for very long. You know, there's a lot of literature, there's a lot of data and literature now about the psychological impact of solitary confinement. And, like, even very short periods of solitary confinement can be really disastrous. And we also, you know, we know that people with mental health issues are disproportionately incarcerated and jailed. Just based on the way we prosecute crime, the way we promise to prosecute crimes of poverty. You know, it's just which all that to say just that, you know, we incarcerate particularly vulnerable population in this country. And the effects of solitary and that that type of of isolation can just be really, really traumatic. So talking to people who have not, who hadn't left their cell in five days, or hadn't spoken to their families and along, you know, in days, hadn't showered in days, those kinds of conversations are very difficult. Especially because, you know, obviously, what I, what I can tell people is that, you know, we're working to enforce these requirements. And you know, when you say that to someone several times, and they say, “okay, so that happened to me last week, and nothing has changed,” that can be really hard. And things I would say... certainly we're at a, we're at a much better point right now, I would say, I think the hardest part was probably the hardest period was probably really early on when everything was very new. And then, like before, the city really had chance to implement a lot of the precautions. And then during the Shelter in Place period, which is about for most the month of December, and I'd say I'd say about six weeks from beginning December to mid January, during the spike in cases and the more restrictive measures that the city put into effect to, to reduce transmission. So we're gonna, we're at a better point. Now, like I said, there was a more recent court order that allowed greater out of cell time that people were getting reports these days that people are getting out of their cells more, there's always some, you know, some issues, we had a big snowstorm the other day, which like affects staffing, which then affects you know, people's ability to come out. So, I would say there's definitely been a lot of up and down kind of depending on where we're at in the pandemic, in terms of fear, like in terms of what people, I would say that people tend to know more about COVID. Now, obviously, the beginning, there are some people I speak to been incarcerated the entire time. That's hard. That's really the side of this is that courts have shut down for most of this time, or at least have been operating on less… like, much slower at much reduced capacity, which again, understandable for the safety of everybody to not have public courts open, but at the same time there was a, there was a pretty large reduction in the jail population early on, and it has come-- it has gone back up to pre-COVID levels now. So, there are people who who've just been there the entire time waiting for, you know, who are like-- sorry to back it up. This is a county jail system. So, the majority of people that are pretrial incarcerated, like detainees who have not been convicted of their underlying crime. So people there are a lot of people who are just like waiting on procedures that normally would take much, much, much less time than this. So I would say that that's been decreasing. The content that I talk to people about, unfortunately, is that people are very frustrated that their court dates have been pushed, or that they you know, they don't understand why they haven't... Like maybe they've experienced the criminal legal system before and they don't, and they're very frustrated that it's going so much slower this time, or that they are incarcerated pretrial for so long. Obviously, the jail has no control over that. So that's not that's not the subject of our litigation. And that's not something I can provide advice or help with, for the most part, but it certainly is, it's a large concern of the people who I'm talking to. So I would say there's, there's unfortunately, you know, like quite a lot of misinformation in prisons in the same way that I guess there's misinformation about COVID on the outside as well, you talk to 10 Different people on the street, and you probably get 10 different answers as to how careful or not careful they are about COVID. So there's, you know, the same just kind of differences in personalities and temperament inside the prisons, as well as just not as much access to independent research and things like that people don't necessarily have access to look up the same things that we do out here. So I think there still is certain amount of like fear and misinformation. And then there's also sort of just. The same way, there's a little bit of COVID fatigue out here where people just sort of like don't want to do the take the precautions anymore, because they've been taking the precautions for so long. I think some people in the jails feel the same way like either they've gotten COVID and they've recovered from it. They don't really see why it's that big of a deal or or they all they see is the restrictions and they don't really see what exactly it is they're being like “being protected from” [gestures quotation marks]. I say that with air quotes because, you know, obviously a lot of people in the jail system have gotten COVID They have not been protected from it.

29:50 WJ

No, no, it definitely does and how do you feel? Do you feel that your role as an advocate is also to help educate those who are currently in the county jail system in, in what's going on just because of lack of information? And like you were saying independent research? Or is that a part of your role at all?

30:13 GH

Yeah, I mean, I, I'm very, very clear that I am not a doctor and I'm not a scientist. And there's a lot that I don't know about the virus, or sometimes I will say just that I'm not a doctor. [video distorts around here]

31:17 WJ

Hi Grace, we seem to have lost audio, I turned off my video in hopes that it would resolve. But I cannot hear you. Can you give me a thumbs up? If you can hear me? [Grace gives thumbs up] Okay. So, wait,I think I may have just heard you.

31:29 GH

Can you hear me now?

31:33 WJ

There you are, you're back. If you wouldn't mind, I'm going to keep my audio off to make sure that we can record you because that's what's important right here. But know that I'm actively listening. So if you if you'd feel comfortable kind of repeating, what would the last 30 seconds, I'm really sorry [could not discern this next sentence]

31:51 GH

Yeah, I mean, I've been very careful not to blur my role and provide for, you know, provide advice or information about, about things that I have no business providing advice or information about. So sometimes I will provide sort of just what I think of is sort of commonplace information about COVID that, you know, people on the outside sort of generally know, with all the caveats, that I'm not a doctor, and that I you know, that I'm not an expert in this area at all. But, you know, sometimes people will be concerned about, you know, things like, like, the example I gave, that I don't know, if I was cut off for is that, you know, someone might be quarantined for two weeks, because they've tested positive for COVID, and then transferred back to their previous housing unit. And they might, I've had situations where someone is, you know, very worried that they might still have like a call for like a sudden, you know, some symptoms of COVID. And they'd be really worried that they could transmit it to someone on their housing unit. And so I would maybe talk to explain that, from my understanding, as just a person living in this COVID world that that it's possible to, it's possible to be symptomatic longer than you are contagious, for example. So I might say something like that, to allay people's fears. I will say now, right now, the, the city of Philadelphia is in the process of administering the COVID vaccine to people in the in the jails, they only get a certain amount. So they're doing it, you know, slowly as they as they can. But we are, you know, we are wanting to make sure that people have enough information about the vaccine to make an informed decision about whether they want to receive it. And so sometimes, you know, we will supplement-- the library will provide information that we have about the vaccine. You know, we've used very various informational sheets put together by advocates, for folks in jail. So sometimes I will provide that kind of information.

33:54 WJ

I, as we know, there are already a multitude of problems when it comes to the American system of incarceration. How do you feel obviously COVID has aggravated a lot of these? Were they any-- has COVID exposed any new issues with the Philadelphia County jail system that you weren't aware of, or something that was really aggravated? We obviously, as you mentioned before, days in a cell without, like, the solitary confinement and issues with that, but is there anything else you'd like to speak on?

34:34 GH

Um, I mean, I think COVID has, at the end the day I think COVID exposed a lot of probably, you know, a lot of our societal problems and put them in more sharp relief. In terms of the jails, obviously, I mean, COVID has really increased the level of isolation because of the lack of, you know, I think a lot of incarcerated people, I think you can't underestimate the effect of being able to see your loved one's in person. So I think have, you know, visitation being suspended, which again, make makes sense as a precaution to restrict the spread of COVID. But obviously has had a huge effect on the people who are or currently housing those facilities. In terms of other issues that were already in existence, that COVID may be exacerbated? I mean, again, I mean, obviously, the Philly jail system? Not sure I'm gonna speak on that. I think I might just leave it there.

35:48 WJ

And also, I, again, I want to be sympathetic to ongoing litigation. I think I, I was also just being curious, I'm wanting to know more, what has your opinion of prison law changed in, I say, prison law, of course, to encompass jail systems as well, had changed during this time?

36:11 GH

I will say that I have been told by all of my supervisors several times that this litigation that we're working on is very unlike typical prison litigation, I mean, it's a very collaborative process between us and the city. Obviously, there's certain parts that are still adversarial, like, you know, they will say, this is happening, and we will then you know, provide our own evidence that, that that's not happening like that, that a lot of the public status reports end up being is, you know, sort of their version of what's happening in the jails, and then our version based on our conversations with our clients. But to a certain degree, there's also a lot of it that is very collaborative of us coming together to try to figure out, you know, solutions within the prison context, to, uh, to address the pandemic. Trying to figure out like, what's, what's possible and what will have the greatest effect. So I'm not sure I can really speak to how it's changed my experience or opinion of prison litigation, because really, it's just been it's been the vast majority of my experience of prison litigation is this very sort of unorthodox class action case.

37:20 WJ

We've touched on this throughout our conversation, but what personally as your biggest concern about incarceration for incarcerated folks right now in the Philly jail system through your work?

37:39 GH

Um, I guess I would say that my biggest concern always is sort of these periods, my biggest concern is periods of extreme isolation and confinement situations that I have, that in my conversations with our clients, I find, I seem to be the have the greatest negative effects on people's mental health. I'd say also,

generally, the lack of decarceration efforts. Again, this is not the subject of the litigation we're working on. And it's not really in the purview of the jail. But I do think that, you know, there was a brief period of the beginning of the pandemic where they had had stopped arresting on, stopped arresting people for really like, low low level crimes in order to lower the jail population. And then at some point, they went back to doing that, to, you know, they go back to arresting everyone they would normally arrest and jailing them. I think that there is no need to do that, too. I mean, I think that there are so many people who are arrested and incarcerated, who absolutely do not, you know, that there's absolutely no societal benefit of incarcerating those people. I guess that's not a good answer. I guess incarceration is a good answer. So what part of incarceration is the most like most concerned about?

39:25 WJ

It's completely-- a completely valid, and again, this conversation is really about, about you and about not only your clients that you're advocating for, but how you are feeling and I think frustration with incarcerated, incarceration system, in general being aggravated by COVID is valid. I'm wondering if there's anything else that you'd like to share about your experience? A prompt could be if someone asks you, you know, what's worrying you right now? What your response would be?

39:58 GH

I guess one thing I'd like to share is that like, you know, I, I think that it is really important to understand that, you know, I guess just how bad things have been, I've talked to so many people who have said, some variation on a lot on the on, you know, I, I know I'm in jail, or I know I've made mistakes, or, you know, I know, like, I've been in jail before, BUT like, this is like, nobody deserves to live like this. Or like, they're like, we're being treated like animals, or this is no, like, I've been in jail before, but this is the worst experience, the worst thing I've ever experienced. And, you know, again, I, I do think that it is our gargantuan task to respond to COVID in any context, including the jail context for people who are used to just running a jail. But at the same time, to take jail and make it that much worse. I just I don't think we can (underestimate) that. And from what I've heard from our clients, you know, it's been a truly torturous experience at different points. (.)

I will also say I guess for for advocates, I think that-- so before I went to law school, I had a background and doing like phone based, active listening support, we're in a different in a non-prison context. And I think doing this work right now, has really, for, for me, I think what I already believed, which is so much of this work is so much of like client facing work is how you talk to people and what you can provide.

In that moment, even when you don't have legal solutions for people. But how important it is to like to know how to active listen, and to know how to provide support, in addition to providing legal help, especially when, you know, in this context, when like I was maybe the only person that our client that our clients were able to talk to all day all week, potentially. So being able to take the time and do the work of, of humanizing someone who's being so utterly dehumanized in every other facet of their life at that moment. I think that is important as legal advocates not to underestimate the [cuts out] work that we do.

42:48 WJ

No, I, I think that's very true. And I also want to thank you for the work that you're doing. [Grace laughs] No, because it is it is both difficult and hard work. And I see just in this conversation that it is does take an emotional toll. And so I appreciate both all that work you do and also you willing to have a conversation, to discuss it. As we close things out, because I understand that your time is valuable, [is there] anything else that you would like to be preserved on the record? This is something that will be saved in the UCLA archives as well for research and continuous learning purposes, anything that you want to be known from the point of view of an advocate, or just something that during COVID that you think should be shared for historical purposes?

43:44 GH

I don't know, I guess just the idea that I think COVID showed us a lot about the society that we live in. And I really wish that…I think especially early on, there was more of a push for this and more conversation about the fact that like, this should be a moment where we reevaluate the way we respond to harm in our society. And our, this country's efforts to incarcerate our way out of harm and behavior that we don't like, does not work. And we've seen for all, you know, the decades of mass incarceration, that it does not work it does not reduce harm in our society. And in fact, creates a lot of different harm. And so I, I guess I wish that COVID-- because it really intensified the harm of incarceration so deeply. I hope we don't lose this opportunity to really, to really reevaluate what we're what we're doing when we're incarcerating people.

44:55 WJ

Thank you so much for your time and for your answers and this conversation. I really appreciate it.

44:59 GH

No problem thanks for doing this this is a very cool project and I hope people can learn from it.

45:15 WJ

Thank you so much I'm going to end the recording right now.