The Hustler Files

According to the Responsible Business Initiative for Justice or, in short, RBIJ, everyone is entitled to respect, equality, fairness, and dignity under the law.  It is this mission that drives Maha Jweied and her team to work with companies and bring solutions that promote public safety, deliver justice, and strengthen communities.  But RBIJ doesn’t stop there.  They are dedicated to changing the...

The title of this episode is aptly named for guest Aron Roy.  Like many justice-impacted individuals, Aron's journey means digging down deep to find the grit to transform and not return to their past life.  But Aron also has the courage to share what sent him to prison for almost a decade and the transformation that took place during those years.  Aron’s story is semi-unique in that he entered pri...

As Joe Biden started winding down his Presidency, and Donald Trump started accelerating his, Joe Biden took advantage, like all Presidents, to commute 37 men sitting on death row.  These commutations reduce their sentences from the death penalty to life without parole. These 37 (out of 40) are in federal prisons vs. the thousands that sit on death row, in the State prison systems and can only be c...

Throughout this 2nd full season, one of the go-to themes has been to chat with various Sheriffs about their jails and the communities they have watch over. In case you’re not aware, there are approximately 3100 Sheriffs’ across the United States and a similar amount of jails. Also if you’re not aware, the various tiers of incarceration are Jail, State/Private, & Federal. While each Sheriff run...

In April of 2023, Episode #11, we first chatted with Economist and Author Jeff Korzenik. His book, Untapped Talent, had been recently released, and we were excited to hear about how a well-known, National U.S. Economist, became involved in the fair chance hiring movement.  Since then, Jeff has been crisscrossing the U.S. making a case for hiring justice-impacted individuals, one speaking engagemen...

In Episode 89 we became acquainted with Sheriff Karl Leonard of Chesterfield County, Virginia.  We circled back with the Sheriff to meet his Behavioral and Mental Health Division Director, Kerri Rhodes.  Kerri is no stranger to the tragedy of addiction, and in looking for a way to heal herself, she found a pathway at the Sheriff’s HARP program by helping incarcerated individuals with addictions an...

You have to love a person who has spent 43 years in a career and when asked ‘When are you retiring’ their response is, ‘When I don’t have anything else to learn’. Sheriff Karl Leonard of Chesterfield, Virginia, is that person.  For his entire career, he’s been a public servant; from a military career to the Chesterfield Police Department to the Pentagon and now the Sheriff of Chesterfield County,...

Sadly domestic violence is a 365-day-a-year issue, but the more survivors step forward, ask for help, and share their stories, the more aware society becomes of this ongoing epidemic.  Liz Dineen, CEO of the Western Massachusetts YWCA, has been one of many organizations across the country to take up the protection sword to help women and men, of domestic violence. In conjunction with the Hampden C...

Over the last couple of decades, tech companies and tech-minded entrepreneurs have been developing various ways to assist incarcerated and justice-involved individuals with job training both behind the wall and upon returning to the community.  Checkr, a California-based background tech company, has been leading the charge for more employers, like those they work with, to become more socially resp...

When you leave jail, there isn't much you take with you, so to receive a backpack filled with shampoo, conditioner, socks, female hygiene items, snacks, water, and other items can feel, as one formerly incarcerated individual, like Christmas.  Most ideas to help less fortunate, others, have the commonality of being hatched at a kitchen table, and LOVE In A Backpack is no different. When St. John’s...

Here in 2024, the 13th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution still states; “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction”.  This year, on the California ballot, was Proposition 6, a ‘yes’ vote would amend the California Constitution and pro...

Unfortunately, the cycle of domestic abuse can be handed down, from generation to generation, and it is an inheritance that can prove deadly.  Such was the case for Kelly Savage-Rodriguez.  Kelly grew up in an abusive family, and her mother was constantly, in the criminal justice system.  Kelly herself was in a domestic violence situation when sadly she lost her 4 year old son, at the hands of her...

On September 10, 2024, in Philadelphia Pennsylvania, Attorney Alex Van Dyke, of famed legal firm, Kline & Specter, along with 67 million viewers tuned in to watch the Presidential debate between Vice President, Kamala Harris, and Donald Trump.  What transpired that evening, would once again put the former Central Park Five, now known as the Exonerated Five, back in the spotlight.  That night a...

Sheriff Kieran Donahue of Canyon County, Idaho, will tell you it’s humbling to be a Sheriff that's responsible for a jurisdiction that encompasses 602 square miles, with a population of close to 250,000, but then again, Sheriff Donahue is no ordinary Sheriff.  Sheriff Kieran Donahue’s career reads like an adventure novel and maybe that’s because it’s been just that.  From an Alaskan Fish & Gam...

We all know the pink ribbon that signifies support for Breast Cancer.  But did you know there’s another color ribbon that’s just as significant?  It’s the purple ribbon of Domestic Violence. In 2012, in Nampa, Idaho, Sheriff Kieran Donahue of Canyon County approached his wife, Jeanie, and suggested they launch an organization to raise funds for those affected by domestic violence.  In his line of...

This episode continues some additional, and important storylines we explored during our recent visit behind the wall in Episode 79. Coincidentally, it also touched upon a recent Op-Ed article on BostonGlobe.com from Professor Susan Sered, a criminal justice specialist who wrote, ‘incarcerated women are being held in overly restrictive environments despite evidence that women pose little security r...

Eva Hamilton, MBE (Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire), is nothing short of a whirling dervish when it comes to seeing a challenge and then creating a solution.  For 38 years, Eva has worked with some of the U.K.’s most marginalized groups.  From her organization, Business Action on Homelessness to the program Seeing is Believing, a collaboration with HRH The Prince of Wales...

We’ve all heard the quote – ‘The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.’  With more than 600,000 people being released across the U.S. each year yet more than two thirds are rearrested within three years, the prison reform wheel needs to become more innovative, and leading that charge is the California organization, Impact Justice.  The...

This milestone episode for The Hustler Files was recorded at the Hampden County Jail, in Western Massachusetts, but this conversation with Sheriff Nick Cocchi, who runs the jail and Liz Dineen, CEO of the YWCA of Western Massachusetts could take place in any city or county, USA.  Domestic violence month may be in October, but it’s not a once-a-year issue.  It’s also NOT just a female issue. 1 in 4...

Prison Fellowship is approaching their 50th anniversary, but when Founder, Chuck Colson, President Nixon’s ‘hatchet man’ launched Prison Fellowship, he himself had just served 7 months for his involvement in Watergate. While incarcerated, Colson was inspired to help restore lives and families broken by crime and incarceration.  He thought Prison Fellowship would only last 5 years.  So, who is Pris...

Launching a social entrepreneurial venture is no easy task, and for Founder, President, and CEO of EDWINS Leadership & Restaurant Institute it was not an overnight success. Brandon conceived the EDWINS concept in 2004, with a three-fold mission: teach a skilled and in-demand trade in the culinary arts, empower willing minds through a passion for hospitality management, and prepare students for...

With a guest gap for this week's show, Creator/Host, Lisa Reilly, thought it would be fun to introduce her Hustler Files Producer Jess Tyler and chat about their favorite shows, since launching The Hustler Files in February 2023.  It’s because of Jess that The Hustler Files sounds so great each week! And it’s not a coincidence that it does! Jess has been in radio for as long as she can remember. ...

Will Soper was first arrested at the age of eleven, defending himself against the man who was his stepfather. This was not the first time Will had been sexually abused, but it was the first time he fought back and sadly his mother took his stepfather’s side.  Despite the toxicity of the family, he was never given any mental health or other counseling and was continually sent back to his mother and...