In this episode of Bloody Angola: A Podcast by Woody Overton and Jim Chapman we bring you an amazing interview by our friends at The P2P Podcast (Penitentiaries to Penthouses) (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-p2p-podcast-penitentiaries-2-penthouses/id1646270646)
At 16, Kiana was convicted & sentenced to 2 life sentences without parole. While physically he was incarcerated, mentally he was FREE. Resilience is his name and after 17 years of living in the can God made a way for him to be in physical freedom.
#formerlyincarcerated #prisonstories #redemption #secondchances #bloodyangolapodcast #woodyoverton #jimchapman #truecrime #realliferealcrime
BREAKING THE CHAINS - FULL TRANSCRIPT - BLOODY ANGOLA PODCAST
Jim: Hey, everyone, and welcome to Bloody Angola. A podcast 142 years in the making. The Complete Story of America's Bloodiest Prison. And I am Jim Chapman. Woody Everton cannot join us today. He is on assignment. But we're bringing you something different today. We did a two-part series, if you haven't checked it out yet, it's called Second Chances. It features a former inmate at Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola. He was actually the first juvenile released when the Supreme Court passed a law making it possible for juveniles who were sentenced to life in prison without parole to get a parole hearing after 25 years. If you haven't seen that episode yet, go check it out.
This week, we have a very special episode. The guy we brought you the story of and who actually joined us for the two episodes of Second Chances, we met through our friends at Penitentiaries 2 Penthouses. It's a podcast known as P2P, and they interview formerly incarcerated people that are doing well as they acclimate back into society. When we did the Second Chances episodes, they were a big part of that, certainly a big part of making the introduction to the gentleman that came on the show. So, thank you so much to P2P.
And they have an amazing podcast. So, we have decided that we're going to bring y'all one of their episodes and we're going to share it on our feed. We thought y'all would really enjoy it. We have some really, really big stuff about to pop off for Bloody Angola. I know that y'all are going to be real excited as we go through that process, but I think y'all will love this episode. It is with a gentleman by the name of Kiana Calloway who was in Angola for a very long time and has quite a story that you need to hear or that you will enjoy hearing.
Without further ado, here's the P2P Podcast in their interview with Kiana Calloway.
[P2P theme]
Scott: Welcome, everybody. This is Scott with Penitentiaries 2 Penthouse Podcast.
Shane: Yes, sir.
Scott: I'm your host. To the left of me, we got Mr. Beatty.
Beatty: Your best friend in real estate.
Scott: To the right of me, we've got our guest, Mr. Kiana Calloway.
Kiana: Swag out. What's happening?
Scott: Special gentleman he is. And then, we got my partner over here to the left, Mr. Shane Johnson.
Beatty: Big Shane.
Shane: Yes, sir. 24 years successful now.
Scott: There you go. We look forward to digging into today's message. Kiana, man has a powerful story. How I know Kiana is we work on a project together through the Justice and Accountability Center of Louisiana. Basically, that's nonprofit organization full of attorneys and policy people who march down to the state capitol every year.
Kiana: Shoutout, JAC.
Scott: JAC. And they do legislative work, so they propose bills, work with lobbyists, senators, representatives to pass criminal legal reform bills. The specific focus though is usually expungement legislation. For those of you who don't know what expungement legislation is, expungements are the things that guys like myself, Kiana, Mr. Shane over there need once we come home for opportunities. Whether it's employment, housing, life insurance, you name it, there's hundreds of things that we get denied for on a regular basis based on the fact that we made some mistakes in our lives and we've paid our time, we've paid our debt, and we're trying to get past that.
So, the work that we're doing revolves around expungements. A, changing expungement law, but B, getting the knowledge and information out there because the average Joe that comes home from prison-
Kiana: Don't even know about it.
Scott: -don't know about expungements, don't know how to go about getting expungements. Furthermore--
Shane: I am one.
Scott: Yeah, exactly. And they're expensive as hell. You could easily rack up if you have multiple felonies, several thousand dollars just in paying the state, the district attorneys, and the clerks of court's office, not even including legal counsel. That's the work that the Justice and Accountability Center does. Me and Kiana are working on a project to get the expungement app through Justice and Accountability C...