is lead to punish? that's why recidivism is so high. that's why crime rates are so high. if for example, a drug dealer gets 10 years in prison, does the whole 10 years and gets no training, education, counseling, therapy, or anything else and then his release. what does he go home to do? he goes home to sell drugs because it's the only thing that he knows how to do. it's no wonder the entire system isn't the state of chaos. i'm john curiosity. welcome to the whistle blowers the . 2 2 2 2 2 i write and speak frequently about issues related to prison reform in sentencing reform. i speak also about the human rights aspects of the american prison system, and about how the united nations considers the us practice of using solitary confinement as punishment as a form of torture. in the federal prison system,

which is supposed to be better than the state and local systems, hundreds of prisoners die from active violence every year. others die of heat stroke because most prisons have no air conditioning, unless of course it's in the warden's office or in the guard booth. medical care is worse than it is in the 3rd world. the food is not meant for human consumption. the water is, in many cases, not drinkable of what happens when a prisoner wants to use his time constructively. what if he wants to get an education or a kick, a drug habit, or alcohol addiction, or learn a skill? what happens when he just wants to learn how to live as an independent adult? what happens? literally nothing. there is no budget for these luxuries. you can't get an education. beyond the high school equivalency certificate, you can't learn plumbing or electrical work or mechanical repair or anything else. there's no therapy to help you beat your addiction. nothing. so when you're released, you're given a bus ticket and $50.00,

and the rest is up to you. our guest today has seen the ugliest parts of the american prison system. sean mcdonald has had a very difficult life. his mother committed suicide when he was 4 years old and he was adopted. he grew up in the tough streets of south boston, massachusetts. he began taking heroin at the age of 16, and soon after he was convicted of bank robbery. at the young age of 20, he found himself incarcerated in one of the toughest prisons in america, the us penitentiary at lewisburg. he spent his twenties there. upon his release, he was out of prison for one single day before committing another crime that saw him incarcerated through his thirties in the toughest prison in the state of massachusetts. 4 of those years were spent in solitary confinement. when he was released with that bus ticket in $50.00, the only thing he had to look forward to was homelessness and more drugs,

which on mcdonald did not want to become a statistic, he wanted to become a success. he straightened himself out, he kicked his drug habit. he worked hard and he made a life for himself that life is tough, but he's making it we're very happy to have shown mcdonald with us today. sean, welcome to the show. thank you very much. i sean, i'd like to begin by asking you to give our viewers a short overview of your life. you certainly have not had an easy time of things. the universe has not made life easy for you. tell us about why you've interested in the past. how long you've served in prison and where you serve that time. i grew up in south boston, the ghetto, the irish ghetto in boston is a, a lot of people know where it is. i guess some do some don't, but that's where i grew up. it was a free place to grow up. everyone has sons. i have a trauma going on a life without 16,

i started using drugs i saw using i v. harrowing. i was shooting harrow in my, i'm 16 years old. and it was basically to kill all the pain that i had inside of me from all the trauma that i was dealing with. and unfortunately, that led me to a wrong pass. and i cited for me in crime and i sat around banks. i was 16 years old. by the time i was 20, i was so fed the f b. i didn't even i was 20 years old and i went to louis barry penitentiary. i spent 10 years there. i. and after that, i got off one night, and then i went back and spent 10 years in the states just um, when i was in last period, parents hatchery, it was one of the worst places i've ever been in my life 1st. like when i was going

there, we gave me a lifted out of manchester, new hampshire. so we drove up the, the gods opened the doors, let us all out of the van and get on the airplane. but everyone was asking where they were going. and when i got to me, they're like lewisburg unit, everybody in advance. i oh, oh my god. i was like like asking me if it's a camp or dependent century and i asked them into united states pilots actually, lewisburg. so everyone was telling me this in your young kid that's a very violent joint. you. uh yeah. watch alfie. so you gotta make sure you take a, so don't tell people how much time you have is life is, don't like and see people go home and they would love the mastery of time up and stuff like that. so i got another plane,

i ended up going to oklahoma for glass vacation. uh, 2 weeks later, house phone back to pennsylvania. and i drove up to his prison and that was built like a castle. it still had a 100 foot small towel in the middle from when they use the heat. the prism a call. so as soon as i got off the bus $11.00 of the cobb sale was a go. we just took a body out yesterday. mean somebody got married and i'm thinking with a, how am i the judge recommended that i go to fort devon's, which is it can be a low, medium, or with any type a, the level the on you can go to 4th evans and it's like pretty much a medical joint and you all got to worry about stuff like that, but the feds override it and decided to send me to a penitentiary because i had

a violent crime. while i was there, i realize that i was all by myself. it's like john said, and you know, those guys from boston and they claim to like have my back and they all we are. they are all happy that i was there. but i had to show my paperwork for us the prove i was in or at the they give you a week to do that. i was fortunate enough to have a friend that knew we knew that i was good to go. i got my paperwork. i gave it to them by those incidents i ran into like this group that they call a dc black. they're a prison yang and a lot of them know what they call body being. it's now believe in is someone that rates somebody in prison and one of them asked me if i was a boy and he asked me what sexual like. he said it in

a sexual way. and being a boy, somebody that gives himself up and acts as they do for the rest of the a bit. you know, and i decided that wasn't gonna be that i was going to remain a man. and i had to go get a knife and i had unfortunately stabbed this person. it's not something i wanted to do. it's not who i am. i, i've never been a virus like that my life. but i was gonna let the other all happen. and i ended up going to the issue for 18 months on that. and this is just like there's no or form in that prison. there's no, there's no like they have a drug program in the feds. and if you're in a penitentiary,

you can do the drug program. you have to be eligible for a medium to do a drug program. and as a 3 year off, you sentence and you get to get a yeah, a halfway house to go home to. we weren't eligible for that. and because i was in such a violent place, i couldn't keep myself out of trouble to get my point slowly to go to a medium because i always had to keep stand up for myself and defending myself the way i was. so i, i decided to make a change in my own life. and i, i took off from boston and i came up to pittsfield, mass, i got myself and a half way house program that deals with mental health and drug addiction. and i've been out of prison for 5 years now. i'm working on my ged and then i'm going to have to go to drive in school and work on that because i never drove a car in my life because i spent my whole entire life in prison. i spent from 14 to

18 in juvenile from when i 1st started doing drugs and everything. and then i spent 18 to 20 in the county jail. and then i spent 20 to 30 in the fads and the 30 to 40 in state. so out $43.00 is old right now, and i got a good amount of time out of prison going on for me. and i would like to keep it that way. a meant to that. one of the 1st things that i learned on my very 1st day in prison and you touched on this on your own, is nobody cares about you. nobody is looking out for you. you have to think about your own nutrition, exercise medical dental. but is that even really possible? is it possible to be healthy in prison? so tell us about your medical and dental care in prison. well those, the time when i was in lewisburg when, when i was sitting in an issue, i had

a bad stomach problem and i lost 20 pounds and it was really noticeable and i was throwing up. i have all types of like horrible symptoms. and they didn't care, they didn't do nothing for me. they would send me down to the infirmary. they would tell me they don't know what's wrong with you, and they would send me back to my so where i'm logged out 23 hours a day. now at the time i still had people in my life that loved me kid for me, and with the f one me. so it took them to call steven lynch, who at the time was us and it tell him what was going on. he was himself boss and also so he called the prison and he asked and what's going on, you know, taking care of this k, i heard he's very sick, blah blah, blah. and he,

he lost 20 pounds and i guess he needs to be checked out. so immediately after that they started taking me off to the hospital, run to me for das turns, or i had a bacteria infection called h for laurie from dirty trays. the v is what they do with the trays in prison is they'll bring into the kitchen or wash them, but they really don't get washed, but they put them a stack, them all together right next to each other, inside the washing machine. and then the theme clean, but like it at, as lunchtime, if you have gladys with some of the time comes, you could have let it still on each right from lunch. so they were a clean, they were it sanitary and you're right john, i very, it's not possible to stay healthy in there. that is absolutely right. i saw the same kinds of things, not to that scale, of course,

but the same things that you did. okay, so my 1st full day in prison was fish day for lunch, but one of the other prisoners told me not to touch the fish because they called it sewer trout. when i got to the cafeteria, i saw these boxes that had written on them. alaskan cod product of china, not for human consumption, be use only and sure enough, this was animal grayed food and in fact, this is the kind of food that we were fed every single day. it was meant for animals not for people. we were even once fed dog food by accident because it was ms. mark as taco meat and the tragedy there was that we didn't even realize it was done through. that's how bad the normal quality was. what was your experience in prison with food? miles exactly. the same, the did you say give you the box that it comes in? has a style in cross bones on it is palsy causes cancer. and that's the only thing you

can drink. we males is this juice that everyone is saying causes cancer. and so in the state system it is, you don't have somebody sending you money so you can get commissary yoga like die of starvation. you're going to lose weight. there's no way you're going to be able to be healthy and work out because they don't. first off, they don't give you enough. they give you a little half scoop of gone a little half a scoop. uh um. let's say, i don't know a cake, a lot of small cake to come with it and something to these call call time, which is a square piece of me that nobody knew what it was. and they served that most of the time. you're exactly right about the fish. now every friday was fish,

it was called fish friday. i didn't need it. and it's just not for human consumption, but they don't care. the trays come free packed. they give them to blocks, they pass them out like faces and didn't have a cafeteria job like feds did. they make it easy itself, so you use come all get a tray and then you go in you so. so you get half these tomato sauce. maybe a small cake and some call time thing and it's gross. you can eat it. and the people, they get commissary, they give all of their extra trays. they don't ever eat that. you know, they don't wanna do it because they don't. so they don't want to catch nothing, you know, and i don't know. i always thought like my parents when they were alive. these is dated. the prism provides everything for you. so like i didn't send the money, is

a prison told them we feed him, we give him smooth his. we give him hygiene when they don't giving out of that, you get a pair of bobbles fall apart in a week and they don't feed you, you lose weight, dice ivy's, and every now you all i have not home geez, i wish every night you go to bed wait, stomach touch, any of that. and the quality of the food is just horrible. shawn, that's heart breaking. thank you. we're going to take a short break, and when we come back, we're going to speak with strong mcdonalds about the broader problems that american prisoners faced in every prison in america. the system is broken. and it seems that nobody in a position of authority has any idea how to fix it state to the . 2 2 2 2 2 the. 2 the

at the end of the 18th century, great britain began to conquer and colonize australia. from the very beginning of the british penetration to the continent, natives were subjected to severe violence and deliberate extra patient. according to modern historians, in the 1st 140 years, there were at least 270 massacres of local b. both any resistance to the british was answered with double cruelty. hundreds of natives were killed for the murder of one settler. indigenous australians were not considered complete people. no wild beast of the forest was ever hunted down with such unsparing perseverance as they are. men, women, and children are shot when ever they can be met with squatter. henry myrick wrote in a letter to his family in england, in $1846.00 plus strategy as fast. these rightly described as blood soaked in races

. if at the beginning of colonization, there were one and a half 1000000 indigenous people living on the continent, then by the beginning of the 20th century, their number had degrees till 100000 people. despite the indisputable historical facts, the problem of full recognition of the crimes of white australians against aborigines has not been resolved so far the, the. 2 2 2 2 welcome back to the whistle blowers. i'm john kerry. uncle. we're speaking with shawn mcdonald about his experience in the american prison system. john, thanks again for being with us. thank you very much. i sean, you are in 2 of the most dangerous and most high security prisons in america. tell

us about security in places like those. what was life like on a daily basis and did you trust present authorities to keep you safe? when i was in prison, i had no access to nothing to help me better myself. like there was no program and there was no work. there was no way to earn money. there is no way to do anything. um if you had mental health issues, they were again dealt with because they didn't have the problem, mental health staff. they didn't care about you, everybody works. the ceo's ceo's don't care about the complex. so the nurses are with ceo's, if there is um, mental health providers there with the ceo's. so they don't probably medicaid people, they don't probably help people like i told you people commit suicide all the time . these you can tell on the suicidal. you do the torture,

you and i went from 4 years due to the street. i didn't know what to do. it myself. i couldn't be around people. i went and got a head cold as soon as i got out and i was so nervous and associates looking around a people bumping in to me. i'm not used to that. i couldn't even get through a haircut. and i went to my sister's house and she lives in the project. so she had a little poor child side. and i used to always go out there to get away from everybody and sit there and it changes smoke cigarettes all day. and i wondered why that was so comfortable for me in one day it hit me. it's like, this is like your old presence out. you know what i mean? you're all by itself in your own prison. and so, and that's where, you know, and that's what makes you comfortable. so that's why you keep running in the air,

cuz you don't like being around people or running out it is outside. so if it's, if there's really no way to prepare someone who's going to prison on how to get themselves taken care of while they're in there, the best, the best advice i can give is try to stay as healthy as you can. and i know that i know you can't control that, but try and take care. you see the best you can because they're not gonna fix them . they gonna pull them. so i don't know, let, at have your family members call the prison, add your family members putting grievances because they're not doing the right things. they should be for people. i don't know what the answer is. i mean, it shouldn't be the way it is. i say that like i shouldn't as off for years and do

you the summer, which is what they found me guilty of institutionalize right. i've seen the last 4 years of my life, solitary confinement something i had absolutely nothing to do with. and i had no control over the situation, even though i was never arrested for it. they couldn't even get probable cause. i also want to ask you about the absence of opportunities. you had no access to education, to counseling, to therapy, or to literally anything else to prepare you for life on the outside. in fact, you went directly from solitary confinement to freedom. how common was that? and what should prisons do to prepare prisoners for life? well, like i said, i had, i had h florey while i was sitting in the show in the fads, which is the whole, they called issue. it's 23. i'll walk down, you get an hour,

they indicates dog panel. it does basically what they feel like a dog. you get one hour and a cage and all you can do is walk back and forth. if you even get that, if you're not up, if for in the morning and catch the size, you go on by his door and tell him, you are a rack and you've got no alarm clocks, no, nothing. you're not getting right. right. but i had h florey, my stomach was so bad, i was throwing up. i had diarrhea, everything was a mass i last for 20 pounds. i was putting in all types of medical slips as the medical slip as the medical. so i was asking the nurses when they came down, can you please tell me what's going on? am i gonna be going out for any test? does anybody know what's happened and nobody knew anything? it wasn't until stephen lynch called the prison system and told them that he was

concerned about my out that they started taking me the hospitals and they found out the problem. and they medicaid me, right. but i was lucky. everyone else in there. they didn't have that, like people lucky if they have anybody, they don't have people calling sanity is they google get free admittedly, like you should be able to get free and medically regardless like they. that's what medical she'd be for, but they have for nothing they, they just collect debate jack, and they go home and they, and they cause people the allies. and with me, it was the age flory that i had something else going on with me. i forget the name is a condition, but it was in my low of body and it took months for that to get taken care of. and i had a hernia, so it took probably 3 years to get the operation. and i was like you,

they even did it and i was sick all the time. these i wasn't even right. i was and i didn't have the fortune of somebody sending me money, so i get a commissary. so i had the drake. and if you don't follow it, you get and i, you can bump into someone in the hallway and say, hey, excuse me, i'm sorry, i apologize if you don't say that, you can be walk in the hallway. the next thing. and nathan, you back is a perfectly good feel like you just back to them. a well backed medical, there was no medical. it was absolutely no medical. i was fortunate enough and i was in stages them. i didn't catch anything wrong with me. like the 2 things that happened to me in the beds, nothing like that happened to me. i actually one time i caught cellulite as in my legs, and i showed the nurse, and he gave me that by optics, which were,

i was shocked. i really never happens, but he was a good nurse and he ended up getting fired and walked off to compound a. i don't know what he must have did something in regards to mad, maybe use up and out too many convicts. maybe he wasn't doing what they want him to do, which is nothing, you know. so you would think in a prison system that they would have problem medical and like things for you to do in order to get your life better. so you don't come back as while to say, this is the rate so low in massachusetts because people get out and they have no clue. it's do it themselves. and they go back to drugs, you know, and then a in a bag in prison. i was fortunate enough to just call a call in and like i,

i couldn't do it no more. it was tor jeremy. crazy time. no more. i couldn't use drugs on the i was just tired. you know? so i ran away and i'm over here fighting for my life every day. a well, god bless, i wish you the very, very best. bernard carrick is the former police commissioner of new york city. he found himself serving a prison term after a conviction for corruption. and when he got out of prison, he said this and forgives me. it's a little bit long quotes, don't promote yourself as a country of constitutionality and compassion. if you honestly believe that putting people in prison and treating them like animals is justified, stop all the heights that we live in a free and democratic society are used to ramble on about the same stuff. but now, are we really a country that believes in fairness and compassion? i've met goodman yes. good man in prison who made mistakes out of stupidity or ignorance, greed,

or just plain bad judgment. but they did not need to be sent to prison to be punished. 18 months for catching too many fish. 2 years for inflating income on a mortgage application. 3 months for selling a wells tooth on ebay. 15 years for a 1st time, non violent drug conspiracy in which no drugs were ever found or sees. there are thousands of people like these in our prisons today, costing american tax payers billions of dollars when these individuals could be punished in smarter alternative ways. our courts are over punishing decent people who make mistakes and our prisons have no rewards or incentives for good behavior. in this alone, criminal justice and prison systems contradict their own mission statement. and what i'd like to think are guess sean mcdonald for being with us today. and thank you to our viewers for joining us for another episode of the whistle blowers. i'm

john kerry. aku, please follow me on subsets at john kerry onto. we'll see you next time the. 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 the, [000:00:00;00] the the, what is part of it that the employee would post good isn't the defense you of us and that in the word part is it something deeper,

more complex might be present. let's stop without collisions. let's go out of the action or attempt to welcome back to going underground, broadcasting all around the world, from the u. a. in the middle east. the nature of proxy war on russia through ukraine is ended. it's 10 via since the u. s. coo and can be renewed u. k. u. s. and you, um, to warn, garza is ended its 10th a month now involving lebanon, the ron gammon, syria and iraq. how much more is washington prepared to sacrifice as it provokes war with north korea and china? that's that alone regime change plans in venezuela and failing strategy in africa. a country that has over 750 military bases and over 80 countries the united states