Mitch Pearlstein, PHD Emeritus, 'Second Chance Hiring'/ Bloomsbury Publishing, NYC/ London 2025

Second Chance Hiring: An Economic and Ethical Necessity

Mitch Pearlstein, PH.D.

 

in this interview, recorded Dec.1st, 2025, Mitch Pearlstein discusses the themes of his latest Book ,Second Chance Hiring: An Economic and Ethical Necessity, puiblished Nov. 13, 2025, Bloomsbury Pub.

Mitch Pearlstein has a Doctorate in Education and is a Senior Fellow, Center of the American Experiment, a conservative think tank, located in Minnesota.

 

 

saac Shainblum (00:02)
Good afternoon, welcome to Voices from the Other Side. ⁓ This is Isaac and I have a very special guest today. am honored to mention that we have Mitch Pearlstein here. good afternoon Mitch, welcome to Voices from the Other Side. I'm especially fond of your style of darkness such as ⁓

Each of us is more than the worst mistake we have made. Could you elaborate on that a little bit, please? Yeah, I would like to say that the line is original to me. I read it someplace. I'd like to think I also gave the guy credit. We have all made mistakes. And some people, when they make a mistake, they wind up in prison. And other people, when they make a mistake, just about as serious and do not.

In each instance, people are better than their worst moments.

Okay. Thank you. That's

Can you that better? Not to throw a lot of statistics at you this afternoon. ⁓ I'm sorry? I said sure. It's been consistently reported and again I'm sort of semi quoting from your book, your wonderful book, Second Chances. it cover to cover. More than 95 % of all people currently incarcerated nationwide will eventually be built.

be released. With the US in need of more workers, ex-offenders are struggling to find good jobs after paying their debt to society. Why do believe this is so difficult for ex-offenders eager to work? ⁓

generalist ⁓ I've written a bunch of books but on family breakdown on education questions and I have only become involved with questions of second chance hiring in the last five six years or so once I joined the board of directors of a very good re-entry program in Minnesota the redemption project and why is difficult? People's fears

the problems that people who have been in prison have and that they bring to a possible job, mental illness, lack of adequate literacy skills, math skills, mental health problems of all sorts. I don't think we acknowledge that well enough. And from the side of society employers, fear, fear of crime.

fear if a company really wants to be of service and hire as many people as appropriate who have been in prison, they wonder quite frequently if they have the wherewithal, the resources, the services to help people coming out of prison who need help. So it is very difficult. My overall point where all this is concerned is that yes, it is indeed

Usually very difficult for a person to come out of prison and get on with their lives in a good way It is possible. It is done every day. Yeah, it is very very difficult every day. Mm-hmm. Okay Thank you for that. Yeah, and a little not a correction but My I'm really come from a field of mental health behavioral health and I'm a peer support specialist

And but I many years with this with a podcast here and I got really involved with Reentry and I actually have a friend of mine and incarcerated and she's in there for quite a while And I had been trying to keep in touch with her and send her goodies and things Anyways Thank you for that very interesting

For the last 25 years you've written professionally as president of the Center of the American Experiment, a conservative think tank you founded in Minneapolis in 1990. You were also a speechwriter for C.Peter, I think it's McGraw, when he was president of the University of Minnesota as well as for Al Quay. He was governor. Yeah, governor. And you were kind of a more, would you say you're more of a journalist? You would say a generalist kind of.

I call myself a generalist now. I've been a reporter though not for a terribly long period of time in upstate New York and Binghamton. I was an editorial writer for four years for the Pioneer Press in St. Paul. I describe my style of writing as academically informed journalism. So at root, ⁓ I like to view myself as a journalist, but I'm academically trained. I have a doctorate in education. ⁓

I like reading the kinds of things that people generally don't like reading. And I try to write conceptually. Which is a fancy way of saying I like writing about ideas as opposed to events let's say. Well I would envision, yeah sorry. No problem, that's it. I would envision that your books would be in universities and that sort, is that true academically? One would hope the best way of getting to them is

through Amazon. He's sticking my name, Mitch Pearlstein, and about four of them will show up. They're in great supply at Amazon, and they're usually overpriced. If anybody is interested in ⁓ getting one or three of them, if they can get in touch with me, I can do it usually easier, cheaper than Amazon. But who knows where the books are? I hope they're in various...

Yeah, fair enough. was going to ask you about Maybe a little later. ⁓ Thank you for reminding me about you know And I will kind of remind folks listeners to you on how they can also you run through bloom very Yeah, publisher. Yeah, this is my new publisher Which was going to be my regular publisher Roman and Littlefield a bloom Berry About a year or two ago purchased a good chunk of Roman Littlefield a major US publisher where

Three of my previous books are found. Okay. So right in the middle of my writing, we changed publishers. Bloomsbury is recognized as a serious academic publisher among other things. I'm very pleased about that. They're in the United States obviously, but also in England. I don't understand. It was pretty fancy. like it. Yeah. Very good. Awesome.

Yeah, I was pretty impressed too. ⁓ And your book, by the way, really spoke to me on many levels. Thank you. You're very nice to say that. ⁓ Presently, also, you are on the board of directors of the Redemption Project Reentry Program of the 20th City, is correct? Right. I'm intrigued. You better understand the connection to Prisoner Reentry, the Redemption Project and the idea for your book. Check Second Chances. ⁓

Second-Chance Hidering and economic and ethicalness. Yes, sorry. Yeah. Last time I'll correct you about anything. I have that down somewhere on the... So I know you explained it, but could you go into that a little more on the congruence with the connection to the Prisoner Reentry and how you wrote the book? That's what the Redemption Project does. Reentry...

It started, I'd say about six, seven years ago now, by two friends. I had worked with that center, the American Experiment, one of whom was the chair who wound up in prison, federal prison for 14 months. came to believe that ⁓ the people there were better people, frankly, for the most part, than he thought they would be. And his name was Tim Owens.

Dwight Constance and they decided after study to start a re-entry program called the Redemption Project. They had a conception of getting people in business to work directly with people who are in prison and then if everything worked well in those conversations, the ex-offenders when they came out,

would have jobs with ⁓ those businesses. Well, that proved to be a little too complicated, getting people, business people into prisons and COVID into fear. So it is a program now where there is mentorship, serious mentorship of business people and non-business people. And what distinguishes the program from other re-entry programs, and my aside here is I have the greatest respect for people who...

entry programs. ⁓ the Redemption Project uses the cardinal virtues of wisdom and fortitude and temperance and people who are in prison have an opportunity to be in classes led by people in the Redemption Project. And evidently this is working very, very well. It's still a relatively new program and there aren't

great numbers of people who have been involved in the program, but it's several hundred now and their recidivism rate is Remarkably low. That's fantastic. Yeah, so I was on the board And it was on the board because of my involvement with Center of the American experiment ⁓ Nonprofits I knew something about nonprofits that they invited me on

And somewhere along the way, several years ago, it was suggested to me that I do a said, uh, sounds good. So I started writing the book and one thing led to another and four years later, here we are. Fantastic. Yeah. It's a great book. Again. Thank you. You're very welcome. Um, by the I'm sorry. Yeah. Yeah. For the camera. Yeah.

getting caught in the wires and everything. This is real class when I hold up the book. I'm not sure the video is going to be taken but for our listeners. Thank you. I love the cover by the way. Oh my goodness the cover is magnificent. I it today to a group and I started off by saying please do judge this book by its cover.

One of the nice things for me about doing a book, at some point along the way, you get to work with the publisher in coming up with a cover. And in this instance, as I think ⁓ maybe one other time, they sent me, emailed me these graphics, these services where there are hundreds and hundreds of graphics that you can pick for a cover. Interesting. Very cheap for

publisher or anybody who wants them to get them, to use them. And I mean, they were hundreds, they were thousands. 10 minutes into my search, I said, that's it. That is perfect. Suggesting what I want to suggest. Freedom. The only thing we changed, the birds originally were flying from right to left. I said, no, we have to reverse it and have the birds fly from left to right. Better show it. Better show it.

So very pleased to thank you for that. Oh, you're welcome. No, was fascinated by the, because I come from a kind of an artistic background and I had my podcast designed by a graphic artist. felt that it was really worth it. And I have three barrettes, by the way, in gilded cages. This is kind of my artwork. Well, that's wonderful. Yeah, I really, especially to.

Loved the fact about the chain link was kind of like a chain link and the deterrent to bear it. It's fantastic Yeah Moving on Jeffrey Gazanek, that how you pronounce his name? Because then an author of untapped talent how second-chance hiring works for your business in the community asserts that An economy that has too few workers to grow at a robust pace is more than just a slow growing economy

his economy forever teetering on the edge of recession. ⁓ Could you comment on how do you see at present time what it's going to take for optimism to return in order to expand the economy ⁓ which ultimately will help incarcerated and ex-repenters?

Great question. When I delivered the manuscript to Bloomsbury, ⁓ just about a year ago, I think it ⁓ was right before Christmas of what was last year, 2024, there were more jobs available in the United States than there were people looking for jobs, which usually is not the case, but it had just happened.

started happening a short while earlier. And I made the point, is great news for people looking for work. Well, in the year or so since then, there have been other problems with the economy and all of a sudden it was written just about two months ago that there are now more people looking for jobs than available jobs, which is usually the case. I have confidence in this economy that it will...

start growing again, it's frankly it's growing now but not as robustly as some would hope. There are jobs out there, there will be jobs out there. Sometimes, and not just for people coming out of prison, they're easier to get or harder to get at other time. But Jeff Kozenik is, ⁓ as as I'm concerned, my leading light where these questions are concerned.

He's a banker, he's a very senior banker in Boston who has this interest in helping people coming out of prison, as I say, get on with their lives. And he hits this from not simply an economic perspective, not just a business perspective, but it's very good that he focuses on business and getting jobs and so forth. And he's written, as as I'm concerned, the best book on the subject that I've seen, not that I've seen them all.

The difference with my book outside of following up on his themes, I also deal with the ethical side, religious questions and so forth. So I hit it from both an economic and, as I say, in the subtitle, ethical perspective. But Jeff is just first rate. Fantastic. Yeah. Yeah, I was really fascinated by that.

Another book about family fragmentation you had interviewed Ron Haskins of the Brookings Institution. I was really interested about that, how difficult incarceration is for children who become alienated and you were talking about that's a big family fragmentation is a big part of this. ⁓ Could you expand a little upon Haskins as you mentioned powerful comments? Yeah the background for my interest in family breakdown is that I'm of the mind.

that as long as the United States has so many kids being born out of wedlock with fathers nowhere to be seen quite frequently. Right now, about 40 % of all American children come into this world outside of marriage. And in many communities, the percentage, as we know, is much, higher. And I'm of the mind, as I mentioned a moment ago, a doctorate in education.

And while questions of education policy are important, obviously some programs are better than others. I'm of the mind as long as we have those kinds of out of wedlock birth numbers, there is no way whatsoever we're going to fix education adequately. There's no way whatsoever we're going to reduce crime whatsoever. So that is my perspective. Ron Haskins is an old friend. His doctorate.

⁓ Is in psychology. ⁓ okay. He Was a very senior Official or staffer I should say for a house committee that worked on welfare reform 20 some odd years ago so he's totally immersed in the academic literature and what he sees around him and government works and so forth wonderfully ⁓

⁓ broad-based and his point is when people men in this instance come out of prison and try to Become involved again in their families It's difficult all around but in this instance very difficult for kids who? May not have seen him had much to do with them for a year or more and ⁓

that time their mothers might be involved with another man. As Ron says, a year in the life of a child can feel like forever. So as we know, it becomes very difficult for that family unit, becomes very difficult for the kids, becomes difficult for everybody. ⁓

I know if you had a chance to see what I sent you some things and I'm sure that Your communications director is that passing along and kudos to ⁓ Nick for helping us out today. Excellent. Yeah And what by the young lady by the name of I've never met her in person, but she's wonderful. I've interviewed her in the Times ⁓ by just one Jessica Lynn ⁓ does go into she started up her own program of ⁓

like re-entry actually in reverse of getting the person, getting the offender, well getting the woman or man about to go into prison ⁓ from the get go right from day one and getting them involved with programs and such. And I think she's onto something pretty cool. Yeah, I would, let me expand on that. One of the points I wanted to make in this conversation, which I very much appreciate.

As I say, it's difficult, can be exceedingly difficult. But there are people out there who really want to help. ⁓ I was taken back as I was writing. I would be at a Starbucks someplace and I'd be editing something I've written. And people would ask, well, what are you doing? I said, I'm writing a book about helping guys get on with their lives. And I don't want to overstate this.

But the gratitude that they had that I was doing this showed on their face and their people think that this is a good idea. Now, whether or not that can be translated into tangible help is another matter. Taking it from another direction, a second chance hiring. When I went into the project, I thought I would have to make a very strong case.

for second chance hiring, trying to convince business people and others that this is really a good, safe idea. ⁓ The idea has won. The intellectual battle, if you want to call it that, has been won. There isn't any movement out there. There isn't a loud voice out there saying this is a bad idea. The trick now is to implement it.

And to recognize the difficulties of implementation, also recognize that some people say this is a wonderful idea, that they don't do anything about it, people in business. We all know that. You can call that hypocrisy or whatever you want to call it. In some instances, certainly it is there.

But there is no strong opposition to it. I Googled one day something like opposition to second chance hiring. And the first five pieces that came back, all were actually in support of it. were caveats and so forth. But we need to take advantage of the goodwill and the interest that is indeed out there.

Indeed if I might add something if that's okay locally Locally locally anecdotally kind of I was talking to well in one of my interviews and ⁓ Very interestingly the comment came up that if you ⁓ do hire a someone that's being hearing like a second chance or They'll

They work hard and they'll never forget the opportunity to them. Yeah, there is some ⁓ evidence. I don't know if it's hard.

research evidence. because so many people coming out of prison have an extra hard time getting a job, they wind up more loyal, which is exactly what you were just saying. For intrinsic reasons, I'm sure, in many instances, but also fear if they leave, they're going to have that great problem again. So yes, hiring people who are being given a second or third chance ⁓ will

lead quite frequently to not just very competent and there's evidence to show that they're every bit as competent as people who generally speaking who have not been in prison but more loyal. interesting. ⁓ Thank you for saying that. If current trends continue future immigrants in the US born children will account for I believe you quoted ⁓

It was reported on some report research that 80, let me try that again, if current trends continue, future immigrants and their US-born children will account for 88 % of the nation's population. And so what I'm getting at kind of what you're getting, kind of infer that. I think growth in the workforce, though I could be wrong about that, but I should not interrupt.

No, no, that's fine. I'm sure I, I have to, I kind of get streamed a little bit this morning. I got some things out and I could be wrong on that. So please do correct me on that. The question is the birth rate in the United States, the replacement rate is very low in order for population to stay steady, putting aside.

questions of immigration, let's take all that off the table. American women have to have on average 2.1 children. Right now, the number is something like 1.67 children. Meaning, over time, we will indeed lose population, but more specifically in what we're talking about, we won't have enough workers. And I always come back, we need...

workers and if we don't have enough the economy stalls.

It's a wonderful research operation. Pew sounds terrible. P E W. Yeah, I did see that. Yeah. They have calculated that, given the fact that we're not making enough American babies or babies born on this continent by women who have been here, ⁓ we're born here that, ⁓

The number of new workers will be from families where the mother was actually born here, the immigrant mother, and the child more specifically was born here making the kid a citizen. those children will represent an extraordinarily high

of new workers in this country.

is an example of why we need more people in the workforce. Indeed. This example of why the argument can be made, and I make it, that part of this vacuum called, or shortage, can be filled, should be filled, like people coming out of prison. We need them. It's not just a matter of being nice. We need them. Right. Sure.

As you said, you just mentioned something about a hug thug. I'm sorry? You mentioned earlier, in your book also, read like a warm and fuzzy kind of hug thug or something. Oh yeah, when I said there, and it's a very personal book, I can't write without being... Yeah, I noticed that. That's why I talked about it. That one of the reasons this is all so difficult...

Is that it is hard sometimes my language to have warm fuzzies for people who have been in prison people coming out of prison My wife who is clergy. She's a good person The reverend mcgowan a very interesting family. She's episcopal Episcopal deacon i'm jewish and i'll tell you a long story about that later on She loves watching

The prison shows. Orange is the New Black, Love After Lock Up. I don't, I have a hard time, let's just say relating to some of these guys. I have a hard time taking it a step further. I don't like tattoos. And beyond the fact I simply don't like them. ⁓

It's hard for me to understand how a person who has acres of tattoos on him will have an equal chance to get a good job who wants to hire these guys. ⁓ There's a limitation there. So it would be useful, helpful for someone like me or anybody to feel, to be direct about it, warmer towards ⁓ guys coming out of prison.

I wish I could and once you get to know somebody of course it is easy. Yes indeed. have to overcome that sense of distance. We have to recognize as Al Quay would say the man I worked for, the governor I worked for long time ago who was very close to Chuck Olson. I remember that.

We have to understand and appreciate the integrity of the soul of everybody. We can talk about Al Quay if you'd like. I was going to, yeah. A long time ago now. Al Quay was governor of Minnesota from 79 to 83. He had been in Congress for 21 years prior to that. And he became, as I say,

very close to Chuck Colson. He became involved in visiting prisons, specifically Lorton Prison, while he was still in Congress. And it was fascinating. This is a human slice of it all. The prisoners were overwhelmingly black. Al Quwee is not only white, he was a dairy farmer from homogenized southern Minnesota. But there was a connection.

because of his religious animations, his beliefs. Interesting. And I am not the most observant person in the world, but I have always appreciated the power of religion, the power of faith. I've long said that what we need to do in this country is take greater advantage of our religious institutions and traditions while fully respecting American variety and the First Amendment, Absolutely.

⁓ So if we want to talk about that I can talk about that though. Let's just say because of my wife's

job as a deacon of a couple of churches, one of which was a black church, my wife is white. I have become much more comfortable in showing up in church and gaining from that and appreciating that and what it can do for individuals obviously, also what it means for society. Yeah, it certainly is reflected upon that in the book. I can see that. Thank you.

⁓ How are we doing on time? you still going for a little more? Sure. Okay. I don't know if you wanted to touch on illegal immigrations or not. Or should I kind of go ahead from that? Because I had a question on that. Yeah. I'm staying away from illegal immigration because ⁓ it would be diverting. Political.

political this is just not the time to if I started talking about illegal immigration whatever I would say would make some not be the right thing

Sufficient detention. Yeah, what I do say though Is that we have to in this country get it right meaning we have to be more accepting of legal immigration Again, I keep on coming back to the term we need these people We need these people working in when it comes to H1B visas for example Such a large proportion of them are wonderfully trained

Engineers scientists and so forth. Hmm Bye

Short-circuiting that group for people to come to this country is just so self-defeating. But because of the understandable ⁓ emotion and fight over illegal immigration, legal immigration has been slighted and undercut and we must not let that happen.

Thank you.

that. Getting back to Al Quay, and I was fascinated by the, as I mentioned, I also pick out these really interesting kind of side personal stories and I'm, you know, I was really taken back by it and moved by that. In writing in The Sunrise, Al Quay experienced a kind of watershed moment, I like to call it, when he, as a child, he was in the first grade.

on a class trip to any witnessed alone prisoner in a one cell community jail. ⁓ His thoughts later turned to an even gloomier passage as I'm sort of quoting from the book that fittingly recalled some words by Peter, how would I get this right, Kura Potkin, who was a Russian anarchist. a long time ago. Yeah. I found the book and I knew if I wrote something about it I'd sound like a more enlightened

But anyways, it's um, yeah, he was born like that. Well, this was in 1842, which isn't interesting. Yeah, yeah, it was someone writing about prisons and Russia make Europe as well Yeah, my father was born in Russia by the way, yeah, I have my forebears

Eastern Europe.

The que story by the way, he was just, he was a person of deep faith. I could tell. that once he overcame his fear and uncomfortableness of going to prisons, ⁓ he was, let's just say, in. He was magnificent. I thought you were going to talk about

The story I just wrote about again in a column, ⁓ he and his family grew up in southern Minnesota, Northfield. They were dairy farmers and he had three siblings. And this was during the Depression. And the story is, and anytime I talk about it, the hairs on my head to the extent I still have any stand up, that ⁓ they always ate, the four of them always ate

in the kitchen unless the minister came for dinner or some such or there was a major holiday and then they ate in the dining room.

Well, people, and he called them hobos, and that's what they were called at the time. Looking for food. Remember the depression that we get off the nearby train? And they would come, they knew to come to the Quay home. The Quay farm. Looking for food. And under those circumstances, they ate in the dining room. Because as Quay's father said, if I were in their situation, that's what...

Being at the table now, another way of looking at that, employers have the opportunity to give people an opportunity to be at the table of a job. Wonderful. And if employers would appreciate that better, that would be their ministry in many, many respects.

I don't say that they should hire anybody just because it feels good. Right. They have to do it because it makes a good business decision for them. that's one of the things I would like to think strengths of the book. But we have to, when we talk about giving people second chances, we have to look at giving people second chances. Absolutely. That's a wonderful story, by the way. I was very moved by that. Thank you for bringing that

By the way, the quote I was going to get to, getting back to, as you said in the book, the core, Queen did say, we have to be able to see the infinite worth of every human being. Yeah, that was the line I was summarizing poorly at the start. Yeah, now that you did a great job. And I see this as being, as you say, a fundamental premise to Second Chances, and I apologize for not putting in the rest of the title there. Oh no, no problem at all.

⁓ There may be just one more. don't know. I know I've got way more than we need. I went overboard here, but ⁓ But we can always this is what editing is for That's That's honestly not getting snowed in The Justice Policy Center of the Washington based Urban Institute released a study understanding the challenges of prisoner reentry and

There was some, whole list of some compelling findings. Is there any way can summarize that a little bit? Because I don't want to go through a whole list of... In many ways, if people are familiar with this field, they're familiar with this... ⁓

talking about how if there isn't family support, visits, phone calls while a person is in prison, that makes it that much harder for them to come out and have a good life. Reintegrate, to be rehabilitated, or as a friend of mine says, to be habilitated for the next life. Yeah, I saw that. Possibly. The best single paragraph in the book

describing all these problems, if you may remember it, was from Duke University and talks about all the problems of lack of education, mental health problems.

Addictions getting out of prison and going back to the same neighborhoods where they have problems to begin with, to the same friends and if part of parole is that they shouldn't hang out with their friends, who are they supposed to hang out with if they burn bridges with their families and so forth. It was a wonderful, though scary and sad ⁓ summary, all in one paragraph of what people face.

Interesting. when I say, yeah, it's tough, it's tough, but somehow some people, not enough people, overcome it. And the trick is to, as you well know better than I, how to help more of them overcome that. Right. And that's why I have the greatest respect for people who work in re-entry, how difficult it is. This is their ministries.

We have to respect and celebrate that it is hard. I'm being terribly repetitive. Hard as everybody knows, but it can be done. It's just not done nearly frequently enough as witnessed recidivism numbers. ⁓ I have a great deal of respect for those in reentry and especially a special friend of mine, Jerome Weiner, did a really fantastic interview.

⁓ with them ⁓ on that and He enlightened me quite a bit. Yeah, I call them good souls. Very generous.

There's something in the, I just wanted to touch upon, something that another researcher, last name is Miller, observed, and castrated, are more likely to be economically disadvantaged, as we kind of touched upon. What do you feel that is?

Generally speaking, affluent people don't wind up in prison. They don't live in those kinds of neighborhoods. They don't have that lack of education. We all know this. The question with women and I think in Minnesota, correct me if I'm wrong, ⁓ just like 10 % of the prison population is female, but such a high

proportion of women who are in prison have children. They have babies, which makes it all so much difficult for many of them than it is for men.

Right, thank you. Maybe we can kind of, you know, start us wrapping up.

Second chance hiring I did read in your book, a very interesting part here too as well. A second chance hiring does not require as much heavy-handed advocacy as it once assumed. It is ⁓ broadly accepted. Having now completed your book on second chance hiring, what might give you pause for some concern at that statement? Or do you believe that still?

Sure. ⁓ Have you seen or heard recently of any major movement against second chance hiring? journalists, academic activists saying this is a bad idea? No. Absolutely not. It's quite the opposite. As I say, the trick now is to actually get it to work. There are lots of people... ⁓

The Second Chance Business Coalition, that's the correct name, trying to remember, consists of, at last count, about 150 significant businesses in the United States. I'm talking about Target and Walmart and really big places. And they're CEOs led by ⁓ Diamond, and of course I forget his first name, from... ⁓

big bank and I forget the name of the bank, ⁓ JP Morgan. He has led it and he talks about how a very significant proportion of his employees at the bank, at Immense Bank, are second chance people and they are performing very well. Whether or not all 150 businesses are enthusiastic, as enthusiastic as Jamie Dimon

first name ⁓ is questionable by definition. But there is the interest in doing this and shifting gears just a little bit. When I talk about mental illness and you're the expert here, I don't want to demean people. don't want to categorize people unfairly, but so many of these people, and I can speak actually quite personally what we haven't talked about. I have a daughter.

who has spent time in jail and prison. I do remember that. certainly mental health problems. So it's part of the difficulty. Whether or not business is adequately motivated, but also whether or not the people who might be hired are in good space. The services have to be there.

Thank you very much.

As you mentioned throughout your book, you work closely with Al Quay, first as a speechwriter and later as its biographer. You mentioned he was a Minnesota congressman, governor, and constant visitor to prisons. ⁓ Just if I can touch upon one more thing, riding into the sunrise, again, reminiscing on something that really ⁓

was interesting to you in exchange I had with him 20 years ago about people who managed to see out of prison for five years or more after release and you I think was here that asked how did they do it and he gave his answer they had somebody to walk with them he said every single one that he interviewed and by this stage it was after his

time in Congress after his time as governor and became involved with prison fellowship more specifically in Minnesota and in the Dakotas and he wanted to find out why how What was it help people stay out of prison and he interviewed people as you say we've been out I think for five years. All right, what was

What was the way? And he learned that every single one had somebody, as he says, as a great expression, to walk with them. Except for one person who didn't have one person to walk with them. The whole congregation. wow. With them. Fantastic. We need that kind of support. Now, everybody's not going to respond to religious

help that way, but enough will. I also write, frankly, about my wife, the Reverend McGowan. ⁓ I want to write about compassion. ⁓ The kind of compassion that she lives by as a deacon and as a former executive director for a dozen years of a homeless shelter is not the kind of compassion one...

can expect business people to display and to have. But a variation on a theme would be good. When we first met, and this is the second marriage region, whether or not you want to edit this in or out. That's up to you. Oh, I'm talking about it, and it's in the Diane, her name is Diane McGowan, Reverend McGowan.

When we met 35 years ago, she was leading the homeless shelter at Our Savior's Lutheran Church in South Minneapolis. And she would have dinners at home, significant dinners, for people who, number of people who had graduated the homeless shelter. She would do this at Thanksgiving and at Christmas.

Eastern and sometimes the fourth of July and her idea was These folks haven't had a real life and talking about place at the table sure a Real-life dinner with fine China really pretty decent China in crystals and silverware that silver and ⁓ She that was

She viewed her ministry, she wasn't ordained at the time, as a ministry of hospitality. She had these wonderful relationships with these men and women. And she would be so obsessed before these dinners. For six weeks at a time, she would be crazy. ⁓ And I came aboard, I was the fiance, and as if I had any sway in this whatsoever, I said, you can continue doing this.

But you can only be crazy for two weeks, not And I look back on my life and to the extent I'm a decent human being, my marriage to a very decent human being has something to do with it. Or running a homeless shelter, or being a deacon. Our hosting, first she hosted, then we hosted these dinners for people who never...

had an opportunity to have such an evening. I'm very proud of what she does. And my compassion, I'm not the most hands-on guy in the world. And you asked, someone might ask, why the book? This is my way of doing something good. I'm not hands-on going into a prison. I could if I wanted to, but it's just not me. And I'm 77 years old.

My way of contributing is writing books and other things. Fascinating. Kind of like what my contribution is with podcasts. We all contribute in our own way. Very good. I hope you keep going with that. Second Chance Hiring an Economic and Ethical Necessity by Mitch Perlstein.

Again, as I said, book Second Chance Hiring truly spoke to me on many personal levels as you can tell. about that. You were very, very nice to say that. Thank you. Thank you ever so much Mitch for appearing today on Voices from the Other Side. I want to appreciate you taking your time. I really enjoyed this more than probably any other interview I've done. That's great. God send. I wish you all the best and you have a magical marriage.

very pleased and very lucky. Spiritual. And is it still snowing out there? That stopped about a day or so ago. I woke up, it was the first day that the temperature was under 10. You're in Maine, familiar with this. Oh yes. You used to it very quickly by the time I got to the studio it was something like 19 degrees so that's bombing. So how much snow did you get? heard different stories.

We don't get as much snow as some other places, Buffalo and Syracuse. I lived in Bampton, New York for seven years. That's where I did my degree and then worked there. Right. And at the university again. And Bampton was not as cold as the Twin Cities, but it wasn't far off. Okay. Well, I will stop here and...

again thank you very much drive safely and maybe we'll have you on again happy new year anytime you too and ⁓ again just one more time if you wanted to give a plug for your book second chances ethical second chance hiring ethical necessities and economic and ethical yeah thank you and how can people the best ways to i think the easiest way you can go to bloomsbury

B-L-O-O-M-S-B-U-R-Y their website. That's what they would prefer, I say. But the easiest way is going to Amazon. Go to Amazon Books, stick in my name, Mitch Krollstein, and about four of the books will show up.

You pay your money and you get your book. I love the book. painted it on my highlighters and painted the sky. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, well thank you again, Mitch. And I'm going to stop the recording here. Be well.