What we owe the incarcerated — and the communities holding on outside

What if the punishment wasn’t the prison sentence itself, but the isolation that follows? In this raw and unflinching conversation, writer and podcaster Rachel Allen joins Tonya Kubo to pull back the curtain on life behind bars — not only for those incarcerated, but also for the families left standing in fluorescent visitation rooms.

Rachel shares how she lost nearly everyone in her life when her husband was incarcerated, the hidden community that forms in waiting rooms, and the burden of secrets she carried until she found safe places to speak them. Together, they tackle the uncomfortable truth: our prison system isn’t just broken, it’s designed to dehumanize. And yet, in the darkest corners, belonging still finds a way.

Episode Highlights

• [03:23] Growing up “othered” and the soft spot it created for outsiders
• [07:08] The fear of revealing her husband’s incarceration — and losing everyone
• [12:19] Creating Beyond Broken and exposing systemic abuse
• [17:38] Why visitation is anything but “pleasant”
• [20:21] Finding fragile community in visitation waiting rooms
• [26:10] But don’t criminals get what they deserve?
• [35:58] How to know who deserves grace
• [39:29] First steps for rethinking incarceration
• [41:05] Why you are not as alone as you think

Belonging Stolen, Belonging Rebuilt

When her husband entered the federal prison system, Rachel’s life imploded. Nearly everyone she knew disappeared overnight, leaving her shattered and alone. Out of that devastation, she built new forms of belonging — both in the fragile, fluorescent-lit visitation community and in her work giving voice to those society would rather erase.

The Hidden Labor of Families

Prison doesn’t just punish the incarcerated; it punishes their families. Rachel exposes the endless advocacy work, bureaucratic battles, and humiliating visitation processes that spouses (usually wives) endure just to stay connected. Survival demands community, even in places designed to keep people apart.

Grace, Humor, and Humanity

Despite the heaviness, Rachel insists on humor and grace as survival tools. From the woman unknowingly carrying a “Sooie, Run, Pig” purse into visitation, to the deep compassion she extends even to those branded “undeserving,” Rachel reminds us that belonging is about humanity, not perfection.

Meet Our Guest

Rachel Allen is an Appalachian-born writer and host of Beyond Broken, a podcast that dares to look straight into the brokenness of the U.S. prison system and imagine something better. A journalist-turned-marketer-turned-memoirist, Rachel has written for global brands, tiny nonprofits, and everyone in between. Her essays and upcoming memoir, Batshit, dig deep into the uncomfortable, beautiful truth of what it means to be human and still fight like hell to belong.

Meet Our Host

Tonya Kubo is a community strategist, marketing consultant, and rebel with a cause: helping people find the place where they truly belong. For nearly two decades, she’s built online spaces that feel less like comment sections and more like chosen family. She’s the fixer you call when your Facebook group has gone straight-up Lord of the Flies and the bouncer at the door of internet nonsense. As the host of Find Your Freaks, Tonya brings together unconventional thinkers and bridge-builders who know “normal” was never the point. Her favorite spaces? The ones where the freak flags fly high.

Key Quotes

• “On any given day I could be talking to an eight-figure entrepreneur or a homeless person—both are equally valuable to me.” — Rachel Allen
• “There is nothing someone can do that makes me see them as less than human.” — Rachel Allen
• “Belonging isn’t about being included. It’s about being expected: Of course you’re here. We’ve been waiting for you.” — Tonya Kubo

Links and Mentions

• Heather Pirtle and the First Network
• Rachel’s upcoming memoir Batshit
• Beyond Broken on Substack
• RachelCatherineAllen.com
• Rachel on Instagram
• Rachel on LinkedIn

Support the Show

If Find Your Freaks matters to you, help us keep it ad-free by buying us a coffee (or two!). Every dollar goes to production so more weirdos can find their people. You can purchase Find Your Freaks merchandise online through Abilities and Attitudes.

Let’s Stay Freaky

• Facebook Group
• LinkedIn
• Instagram
• Podcast Hub

What’s Next

Rachel’s interview left me wondering about whose suffering matters, and which lives we consider worthy of grieving. Episode 5 explores the idea of dehumanization further and how it affects beliefs about those who look, believe, live and choose differently from ourselves.

[Rachel Allen] (0:00 - 0:40)

How is it possible that it could be this bad and no one is like burning buildings down? Basically as soon as my husband went in almost every single person in my life dropped out of it. When it's your loved one who's calling you and their cellmate just died of a heart attack while the guard stood there and laughed.

Like that is the kind of thing that no one deserves to experience. And so when I had the resources again to look outside myself and to advocate for other people, I'm like I don't ever want anybody to feel like I felt in those weeks and months after he went in. I'm like look on any given day I could be talking to an eight-figure entrepreneur or a homeless person and they are equally of interest and valuable to me.

[Tonya Kubo] (0:41 - 2:04)

We're wired for connection, but most of us are faking it to fit in. I'm Tonya Kubo and this is Find Your Freaks, the podcast that flips the script and spotlights the quirks you thought you had to keep quiet. Subscribe now and head to findyourfreaks.com for show notes and extra. Because around here what makes you weird makes you wonderful. Normal was never the point. We love to talk about community here.

How to build it, grow it, sustain it. But today we're actually going to talk about what happens when you're cut off from community by systems designed to rob you of your humanity. Today's guest Rachel Allen is a writer journalist.

I feel like Renaissance woman would fit the bill. But most importantly to our conversation today, Rachel is the host of Beyond Broken, a podcast that critically examines the US federal prison system. And doesn't just look at what's going on inside of the prisons, but really invites us to rethink what we believe about who belongs behind bars, who doesn't, and what rights they have and how we should protect them.

Rachel, I feel like we could just chitchat all day long because we have known each other for quite some time. But I want to get into it by having you tell me, who are your freaks? Why do you love them?

[Rachel Allen] (2:04 - 2:29)

That was such a lovely intro. Thank you so much, Tonya. So my freaks are anybody that somebody else would curl their lip at.

And that's the best way I can describe it, because it's like could be people who are incarcerated. It could be I do a lot of work with the evangelical community because I grew up in that and then left it. But I still understand it.

And I've always had a thing for that particular type of underdog where somebody else looks at them and they're like, oh, gross.

[Tonya Kubo] (2:32 - 2:38)

As in my mind, I think of all the people who I go, this is gross, too. I know.

[Rachel Allen] (2:38 - 2:40)

And of course I do it, too. Right.

[Tonya Kubo] (2:41 - 2:51)

Well, and that's what I love about your passion for the people that others like to other. And I'm just curious, like, where does that come from?

[Rachel Allen] (2:52 - 3:22)

So like everything, right? It's probably coming from growing up feeling very othered in a particular community I was in. It was very deeply religious.

And while I tried to push my brain into that, it just didn't work. It just I couldn't make it fit. And so I felt just so profoundly othered in that.

And then it gave me a really soft spot in my heart for people that I see who are somehow deemed unworthy or less than.

[Tonya Kubo] (3:23 - 4:06)

Yeah, well, and what you're talking about really is the concept of feeling that you are the square peg constantly trying to shove into a round hole. And what I love about the work that I've seen you do in full disclosure, you're right. You're my copywriter.

So by the time this episode airs, I hope the website is redone by now. But so, you know, we know each other pretty, pretty well. And the idea that, you know, what if you didn't have to shove yourself into the round holes?

What if you could just go out there and find a square hole? And so I'm curious for you. Did you just like fall off a turnip truck one day and be like, this is who I am.

This is how it's going to be. Or was there a journey to get there?

[Rachel Allen] (4:06 - 4:28)

There was definitely a journey for the longest time. I really thought I must have been psychotic or insane or just in some way unable to understand the reality of the world around me, because everybody else was like, it's a and I was like, hey, no way. It just cannot be like, I cannot get that through my brain.

Yeah, so it was definitely a process was a process.

[Tonya Kubo] (4:28 - 4:38)

How long of a process? Because I really feel like there's somebody listening who is like, can I just can you just tell me what the timeline is so I can like put up in a sauna task list for that?

[Rachel Allen] (4:39 - 4:51)

Speaking to my heart, I wish I could say it was six weeks of dedicated work, but it was really I would say it was really about 20 years and like two, three mental breakdowns.

[Tonya Kubo] (4:52 - 4:57)

OK, all right. So just count it by mental breakdown, I guess.

[Rachel Allen] (4:57 - 4:59)

Exactly. Those are your milestones, right?

[Tonya Kubo] (5:01 - 5:24)

And I love that in spite of all of it, because you deal with some really heavy, heavy stuff, heavy stuff in your work, heavy stuff in your personal life. You never seem to lose your sense of humor. Now, I'm curious if you're like me, is it like do you actively try or is it one of those things where you're just like at this point, it's laughing or crying and crying never got me anywhere?

[Rachel Allen] (5:26 - 6:09)

Yeah, I think I mean, it's a load bearing structure for sure. And I definitely have days and weeks and thankfully in the past months where everything has just felt so absolutely heavy that it's like I don't even know if I want to get up tomorrow. But I found like I just have this natural humor and I think that's I've seen it help me survive for so long that by now it's second nature.

And as you said, it doesn't like the breakdowns are necessary and when they happen, they happen. But if you try to make a life there, that just makes a bad situation so much worse. So it's like, you know what, let's find something dumb about this to laugh about, because otherwise, what's the point?

It's true.

[Tonya Kubo] (6:09 - 7:08)

It's true. So with that in mind, let's take this really to what I know you're passionate about talking about. And and it was something that, you know, it's personal.

And we knew each other. I can't remember how long we knew each other before you actually told me that your husband was incarcerated. And it was one of those things was a boxer message.

And you were like, oh, by the way, you were kind of talking around it, I think. Of course, I didn't know that because I didn't know anything. And then you said, well, I don't know if you know this about me, but my husband's incarcerated.

And I remember at one point thinking, oh, well, I hadn't come up before. And then also thinking, well, that's because it's not my business, actually. Like, you don't owe me that story.

But I'm curious what was going through your mind then? I mean, I don't suppose you can remember, but I imagine you don't lead with that in conversations for a reason. So just talk me through that, like maybe what has happened?

What is your fear when people find out?

[Rachel Allen] (7:08 - 8:11)

So funny enough, I actually do remember sending you that message because the reason that I finally was like, OK, there's no way that I can talk to you in a way that's not going to be weird. I was sending you a Voxer message at like two in the morning or something because I was driving back from Texas where my husband is and I live in Tennessee. And it was some sort of message.

And I was like, OK, I just need to get this out for Tonya because I'm going to be sleeping tomorrow and we have something we need to move forward with work. So I didn't feel like I could just message you at two in the morning without being like, I'm fine. This is a little weird.

Also, here's what's going on. But another reason I remember it is because every time I have that conversation with someone, it's really scary. Even if it's someone like you who I know really well and who I'm like, I'm pretty sure is going to be chill about it.

You know, and most people are. But every single time I have that conversation and I start to bring it up, I'm like, I have this moment where it's like, are we still going to be friends? Or are you going to decide you don't want to know me anymore?

Because that's what's happened basically as soon as my husband went in. Almost every single person in my life dropped out of it.

[Tonya Kubo] (8:13 - 8:13)

That's heartbreaking.

[Rachel Allen] (8:15 - 8:15)

Yeah.

[Tonya Kubo] (8:16 - 8:20)

And did you see it coming? I'm curious because I would I don't think I would see it coming.

[Rachel Allen] (8:21 - 8:48)

No, I was completely sideswiped. I mean, this people I had known for decades, people that I considered to be family, people that I had worked with for, you know, five, ten years. And sometimes it was the big dramatic blow up of, oh, my God, I can't believe you.

Like, I don't want to know you anymore. And sometimes it was just the quiet, like, oh, yeah. I'm going to go with somebody else for this next project.

And then they kind of just, like, slipped away, just like sort of slink away tail between their legs, so to speak. So I have a lot of questions. But before I go there, I want to just point out how profound that timing was because, of course, you and me are all business all the time.

So when, you know, when somebody hires me, it's the scope of the work and I don't bring my personal life in. I don't really even bring my other client's lives in unless it's pertinent to the project. And in my experience, you're kind of the same way.

So, you know, what you didn't know about me at the time is I was working for a nonprofit organization that was doing a lot of advocacy around a law that had passed in our state that allowed incarcerated women who gave birth behind bars to actually pump milk and provide milk for their babies who would presumably be in foster care. And so when you share that, I just happen to be deeply entrenched in humans' rights issues around jails and prisons because the structures are very different and the laws that govern each are very different. And so when you shared it with me, I don't know that if you had shared it with me three months before, I wouldn't believe I wouldn't have had a different reaction.

But I had a very different perspective because I knew things in that moment that I hadn't known until I was on that project. And so I think I was like, I have all these questions and I don't know if it's appropriate to ask these questions, but I'm going to ask these questions anyway.

Yeah.

And you were so gracious. And I think that is something that I see a lot of time by society's weirdos, right? Is, well, we ask them inappropriate questions because they're the first person who we felt safe enough to ask the questions to and never is it their job to educate the rest of us.

And yet nine times out of 10, I find they are so stinking grateful to have genuine nonjudgmental interest and curiosity. And I felt that from you, but I'm curious going back to those people who decided that they could no longer be part of your story. Like, I think for the benefit of the listener, we need to just come to terms with like, it's not like you had charges against you.

This was entirely something involving your partner, independent of you. So it's not even like they were like, oh, well, you ran drugs for somebody that wasn't even that.

That'd be so much cooler.

Yeah, it would be so much cooler. I'm curious because I think what was going on in that moment is really what laid the foundation for what you do now. Do you agree or disagree?

Yeah, yeah, no, I absolutely agree. I had always had that, like I said, soft spot for the outsider or for the weirdo. But finding myself in a situation where I had just undergone one of the most traumatic events of my entire life, I was shattered.

And then having every single person pulled back from me in that moment was devastating. And so when I had the resources again to look outside myself and to advocate for other people, I'm like, I don't ever want anybody to feel like I felt in those weeks and months after he went in.

All right, so tell us what you do to make sure that never happened.

So I do, I guess maybe the most public facing thing I do is I created a podcast called Beyond Broken and you had mentioned it. So it's a six part audio documentary where I go through what I found to be six of the main areas of experience that I've gone through in the past five years with my husband's incarceration. So we start with intake and we talk about just what the process of that is like, because everyone thinks it's like, oh, you just show up and they go in and like, it's kind of a bummer, but everything's okay.

Much more nightmarish, really horrific. I had no idea which state he was going to be in for over a month. He went in at the height of COVID, ended up being in the facility that had the highest COVID transmission rates in the entire country, and there's no way to connect with them.

So you have no idea if this person you love is dead or alive. So we start with that. Then we go into family work, the guards and how this whole system perpetuates.

What do you say it perpetuates?

Oh, how the whole system like keeps going. So my experiences. Yeah, my experience is once people get into this, they're like, how is it possible that it could be this bad and no one is like burning buildings down?

And I was the same way, right? But I've been on the other side too, where it's like, you know, we all watched Orange is the New Black. We're like, well, that looks kind of bad, but oh, whatever.

Surely that's exaggerated for drama. No, it's actually really quite played down. So I spent an entire episode just unpacking.

Like, why is it like this? How is it structured to create these situations? Why does nobody do anything about it?

Do you have any answers? Because I'm like, yeah, yeah, why, why? Tell me more, Rachel.

Tell me more.

I have 3000 words of answers. But the main elements, the main elements that I pulled out were, first of all, it's structured to do that on purpose, right? It is meant to pull people in and use them as free labor.

That's the direct descendant of chattel slavery. And it has a lot of the same characteristics. It's obviously not the same thing, but it is designed based off of that.

And that is where the spirit of that lives on today. And just in case any of your listeners would think I were to be exaggerating like I would have been back then. I mean, actual for real slave labor.

So things like in the fields with hoes and horses type of slave labor.

Well, we can actually talk. I want you to get through the pillars first, but we can talk more about that because that actually just made headlines not too long ago with the Los Angeles fires. People didn't realize the number of prisoners who were fighting on the front lines of those fires for zero compensation and not a whole lot of protection to their health and well-being.

Yeah, I can look up the exact statistics, but people from the Bureau of Labor have done studies and they found, I believe it was in the nineties. Ninety percent of prisoners who have a job say they have not received training for it and they do not have safety equipment for it. And it's manufacturing, you know, it's the types of jobs that you need both training and safety equipment for.

Yikes. Okay, so intake. And then the second one was.

Family. So we talk about visitation.

Okay.

And how that's such a core pillar of keeping recidivism rates down, but also just keeping people singing and helping families not implode while their loved one is away.

Do you want to share any, like, is the family aspects, positive experiences, negative experiences? Is it across the board or does it lean heavily on one side or the other?

With visitation, it's almost always negative. So I talk about this in the episode, but in primary focus is the Federal Bureau of Prisons. So the Federal Bureau of Prisons has a phrase that says, visitation shall be as pleasant as practically possible.

And I got really latched onto that because I was like, this is like, it's a nightmare every time. And the burden is put on these people, primarily women, almost all, you know, very economically disadvantaged, who are destroying their lives to come and see these people over and over again. And it's just, it's horrible.

So to give you a little example of what a typical visit might be, I would show up at 7 30 to wait in a line for visitation that starts at 8 30 or nine. We sit in a waiting room for an indeterminate period of time when a guard decides to show up to work because sometimes they show up and sometimes they don't. They will take our paperwork.

And so we have to fill out all this personal information about ourselves, show our ID, all that. Once they sort the paperwork out, which can take anywhere from 10 minutes to three hours, then we go through an airport security style thing where everybody has to go through the metal detector. Then we wait again for another guard to come and collect us from the visitation area, which again can take anywhere from 10 minutes to three hours.

And then we finally get back to the visitation room where we sit in hard plastic chairs three feet across from our loved ones. And we are very fortunate in that we can do a hug and a kiss at the beginning, but there's no touching in between. And that's it.

It's this cold, horrible fluorescent lighting room and everything in your relationships takes place in those chairs. So all of our, our dates, our romantic relationship, our marriage with each other, all the like random things you have to talk about in a marriage, it all takes place from three feet apart in this horrible chair.

Okay. I have words and I have questions. It's hard to know where to go from here because there is so much and yet not enough time.

Right. So I think what I'd love to do is leave the content of Beyond Broken in Beyond Broken and let listeners who really want to see that underbelly listen to the show. And what I want to talk about is so your loved one goes in and I think the fact that you're married is important.

And because I do think that there are people listening to this show who still think married people and single people have different rights, right? Like you have different rights to access to your loved one if you're married versus not married. So I think it's important to say that you are married.

Yeah.

You lost your community and like I feel like you are one of the most connected people I know because I met you after all of this. And so I'm curious how you found community in this new reality because it's not like you moved away from everything you knew like you made a conscious choice to leave all that you knew and start over. That decision was taken away from you.

But I know you and you probably didn't see that you had a lot of choices, but I mean, you really could have just shriveled up in a corner if you wanted to.

And I did for, I mean, I did for a little while. I definitely did for about six months, six months to really a year. And then I started kind of getting myself back together, but I started reaching these tendrils of community out again after about like six, eight months because there were, I think four people.

That I had known like the entirety of everyone I had ever known from the before times and the after times, four people stuck around. And I figured if those four people were going to leave, they probably would have left in the six months where I had, yeah, where I had mostly just been like falling apart. And so I started to reach out a little bit to them and they were so gracious and so kind to have people continually checking in and being like, Hey, I know you're not in the space to talk yet, but I'm here when you need to.

And so I started reaching out to them just a little bit and a little bit. And then it kind of grew from there.

And now somewhere online, I read something that said that how you're moderately famous in the prison system. I want, because I feel like you've got community there too. And I'm curious how that developed and what it looks like.

Cause it doesn't look the same as your business community, obviously.

Yeah, no, it's very different from a business community. That's something I actually talk about on my personal website. Cause I was trying to explain the breadth of the writing I do.

And I'm like, look, on any given day, I could be talking to an eight figure entrepreneur or a homeless person and they are equally of interest and valuable to me. And so a lot of that came out of this community that's built up around, I call it the visitation community because it's all the wives and family members of people who show up for visitation regularly, like I do. And it developed slowly.

I think everyone there is a little bit cautious because again, you would think that people wouldn't be very judgmental because we're all sitting in, you know, the waiting room of a prison. But people do get judgmental or they get spiky or, you know, just unpleasant. It's people going through the worst experience of their life.

It's hard to make friends.

But yeah, well, and hurting people hurt, right?

Yeah, exactly. And like, yeah, nobody's in their best space at seven 30 in the morning, like in a fluorescent room stressed out. We would start talking and you see the people who kind of like know what they're doing and you get to know the newbies and we try to shepherd them along because it's incredibly overwhelming when you first show up.

But there's a thousand rules and they change every single time. So it's the feeling of like going through the TSA line, you know, but they change the rules and then everyone screams at you.

Oh, yeah. So your shoes can be on at this airport, but they can't be on at that airport. And over there, the kids have to obey certain rules, but here the kids kind of can just do whatever they want.

Sort of same instability.

And the stakes this time are not like you, you have to wait in line a little longer. It's you get to see your loved one for the first time in six months or a year or three years. So it really matters that you get it right.

But it's not written down anywhere. And you just have to kind of figure out as you go. So that that type of thing does make for strong community.

When you see someone, you're like, hey, you can't wear those jeans in here. Or like, by the way, they're going to kick you out if you try to wear that watch. Make sure you like throw it in the trash or whatever.

And so we start talking to people, start building this up. And then as I started doing the podcast, I knew I wanted to have an episode specifically on family. And I wanted to interview other family members, because so many of the people who are involved in the system are the kind of people who nobody else would ever hear their voice.

And it was so important to me to be like, look, you know, I I have a more public face. I am more used to writing and being published. People know me, you know, in the very small way that I'm known.

But no one would ever hear Linda's voice or Robin's voice or the other people that I interviewed if I hadn't talked to them. And that was really important to me to get their conversation out.

OK, and have any of them gone on to use their voice more or was it really just within the context of talking with you?

A lot of them do a lot of private advocacy. So having someone in prison, it's very easy to take on a full time job of fighting with bureaucracies, because that's what you have to do just to help them survive a lot of times. So I know a lot of them are very, very familiar with their senators' phone numbers.

And they talk to the Bureau of Prisons directors and stuff. But one lady that I was especially happy to connect with, her name is Heather. She runs something called the First Network, which is federal inmates requesting sanction treatment.

And she is incredible. She's built up almost a unionization system where there's different representatives on different floors of various prisons. And so when something happens, everybody reports it at once to their rep and then they can get, say, 400 complaints through to their senator at the same time, which makes a lot more of an impact than having them sort of dripped out.

OK, that sounds powerful. And how long has that organization been in existence?

Just a couple of years. She started it after her husband was incarcerated and it actually started because there was no they had no snacks for visitation. And when you're in there for eight hours and there's no food, it's really hard.

So she kind of being this sort of self-starter type woman was like, well, how come there's no vending machines? And the guard said the old ones broke. And so she found the number of the vending machine company and called them and was negotiated a new plan to get them into the prison and got it fixed and kind of went from there.

OK, so I've worked for government, so I understand the bureaucracy from the inside. I really do. And yet it's like it just took a phone call.

I mean, I'm sure there was more. I'm sure there was follow up and check with this person, check with that person. There's some phone tag and everything.

But ultimately, it started with a phone call that like that's not her job. She's not paid for that. There are people who are probably paid to pay attention to the vending machine.

There are.

But the entire attitude of, I would say, 99 percent of prison staff that I've encountered are if you don't make me do my job, I'm not going to do it because you can't fire me anyway. They're very heavily unionized, which I'm normally super in favor of. But in this case, it's not very helpful.

And yeah, it was somebody else's job. And they actually actively impeded her as she was trying to get this done because then that's one more thing that they have on their report that they didn't take care of.

OK, so I know. Well, I believe I don't know because I don't actually know who listens to this show, right? Like, I don't get those kind of stats.

But I imagine based on what I know about the U.S. and the makeup in the U.S., I think I can make a strong assumption that there is somebody who's listening who says, so what? If they wanted their rights, if they wanted to be treated like everybody else, they should not have made the decision that got them incarcerated in the first place. And I think it's important to address that question.

And I'm going to have you start it because I have some really stinking strong opinions about it and I want to make sure that my opinions don't influence what you actually say. So what's your response to that? Because I imagine people have actually said that to you.

Yeah, they have. And it's really hard, especially because it's like, but if you only understood how bad it is, it's not like, oh, this is moderately uncomfortable. It's not like it kind of sucks.

It's like people are actively dying in horrific and absolutely preventable ways. I could flood you with stats and stories, but I guess the best way I can describe it is anything that you've heard, like you think, oh, gosh, I really hope I don't get locked up in whatever other place because you're afraid that something might happen to you. I guarantee you something like that is happening right now to people in our prisons and in our jails.

I mean, just to give you the briefest of overviews, like heatstroke deaths, deaths from torture guards, literally torturing prisoners to death on such a scale that people actually pay attention. There's a prison in California where people were gang raping women for decades before anyone did anything. So it's not just like, oh, the food kind of sucked and I'm bored.

It's you have a really solid chance of dying from this. And I know that some people do believe that there are crimes that merit death. But I would say, even if that is the case, I don't happen to believe that.

But even if that was the case, that shouldn't be for something like a low level drug charge that shouldn't be for anything other than the very most extreme cases. And that's just not the majority of people who are incarcerated. It's very easy to think about this in the abstract, right?

It's like, oh, God, like those people think of whoever you hate the most. Right. And you think, oh, man, those people, like, of course they deserve it.

How satisfying would it be if you could visit that vengeance upon them? Sure. And then think about if it's you or your loved one and you, you know, maybe you got a bad lawyer and you don't belong there.

There's a lot of people wrongfully incarcerated. There's a lot of people incarcerated for things people don't even realize you can be incarcerated for anymore, like debt imprisonment. I didn't even know that was a thing until I started researching this.

And I don't believe anyone who can experience the system can then say, like, well, so what? Because it's when it's your loved one who's calling you and their cellmate just died of a heart attack while the guard stood there and laughed like that is the kind of thing that no one deserves to experience.

Yeah. Well, and all I could think about is even for people who believe in the death penalty, right? Like like the states that have the death penalty.

There's rules around how we get to legally kill people. Right. And one of those rules is they can't experience undue pain, right?

Like you can't make it more painful than it absolutely has to be. You can't make it like you can't extend suffering. Right.

And that's why they have lethal injection. And, you know, some states allow an electric chair. Some states don't.

And it's all around how like even if somebody did something so bad that they deserve to die, we don't kill them in a worse way.

Exactly. And that decision is also not made by a guard who just had kind of a bummer of a day. Like we have processes for this.

But the way it's happening now, I mean, and this is a horrific thing to talk about, but I've read well documented stories of people being pistol whipped into brain damage because, again, the guard had kind of a bad day. There was another guy who regards held him under scalding water until his skin started sloughing off. Like there's nothing humane about that.

No, no. And back to your earlier point, right? We don't know about this because the structure is like the system is closed until you're incarcerated or you are somehow connected to people who are incarcerated, maybe an attorney, maybe a loved one.

There is no actual way for you to know. I mean, most of us are getting our information from television. Yeah.

Like I remember the first time I was ever introduced to the fact that prison was like really, really nasty and horrible was watching. I think it was a show called Oz.

Yeah, which, you know, in and of itself, like it's a drama. It's meant to be this like over the top thing. And I think that puts us in the space where we're like, OK, but like that's just Oz like it doesn't really happen.

There's rules against that. Surely people, you know, don't act like that. And of course, they don't act exactly like they do on Oz, but they do act in horrific, permanently damaging ways.

Yeah. And so you've talked about this visitation sort of community. I'm assuming they're primarily women based on what you've said.

Do you connect with them in between visits? Or is it really just who is in the room when you happen to go? However often you get to go.

There's about three or four of them that I connect with in between visits. You know, we'll go out for lunch or a couple of them have very kindly offered to host me at their homes so that I don't have to pay for a hotel when I drive all the way. I know it's it's incredible.

I've got a clothing exchange going on with one lady. We like trade clothes back and forth. But yeah, and then there is the kind of ones that you only see while you're there and that's all they want, you know, like maybe you trade numbers and maybe they'll text you if there's something really bad that goes on and they want to check it out.

But a lot of it is just kind of who's ever in the room at the time.

I'm wondering, and you may not have an answer to this, but what does community look like for people who are living in the prison system, especially the ones who don't have family like you or advocates on the outside?

So it can go a couple of different ways for the people who don't have family or advocates on the outside, which is, I believe the stats about 30 to 40% of people who are incarcerated will never get a visit the entire time they're in. They just sort of stop existing for their family. And that can be horrible.

Either you make friends or you just put your head down and you kind of retreat inside yourself for however long you're there. And you cultivate this kind of temporary insanity or, you know, you do drugs so you can check out and not have to experience it or you sleep all the time. I know in my husband's case, he's a big gamer, a big like TTRPG guy.

And so he plays endless games of Dungeons and Dragons and Settlers of Catan and all these stuff. So he is a nice community of like gamer dudes that have gathered around him. And then the other thing people do is they join gangs.

Sometimes they also call them cars, like in the federal system because they ride together. So they'll join a car and your car is your family while you're there.

So they can find community, but it's not necessarily the most healthy.

Yeah, you know, people can get you can get very lucky. You can meet cool people. In my husband's case, he lives in he's a veteran and he lives in a dorm with a bunch of other veterans.

And so they have like that other strand that kind of pulls them together. But it's also I don't want to spread misinformation and be like, it's so dangerous. Everyone's out to get you because that's not the case.

Most people just want to do their time and get home. Like nobody wants to do this. But if you I guess if you have a habit of continually putting yourself in situations with bad boundaries or, you know, if you have something that you're dealing with, like addiction where you have to feed a need, I think it is very easy to get in with people who don't have your best interest at heart.

Yeah. And back to because it's such a closed system, there's really no checks and balances. There's no there's no outside perspective, really.

So you had mentioned that there's a story you never get to tell. And I'm curious if you want to tell it now, because it was just it's about a woman with a purse. So tell us about this.

This is a woman I see a visitation. I've never spoken to her. We just have never crossed paths.

And I tried so hard to fit this into Beyond Broken, but it was just a little detail that I couldn't quite shove in. But this woman, she's, I don't know, probably like a boomer aged lady. You know, like she looks like she lives in a nice suburb.

We can only bring in transparent purses. So she has her purse, but it has a strap that goes across her body. And I cannot imagine that she understands the implications of this.

But the strap says, Sue, run, pig. And it has a little picture of a pig on it. And I it must be a sports thing, right?

Like it has to be like she is either the bravest or most socially unaware person who visits that that system. Right. Or maybe her kids are in FFA.

Yeah. Or maybe she's got kids in FFA and it was a fundraiser thing. I don't know, but wow.

Yeah, it just it delights me every time I see her. And she and her husband just look like the most like buttoned down, suburban white people you will ever see. So in my heart, I hope she's a secret badass.

That's my that's my dream.

Well, I'm just curious. I don't know that I could have like held in the giggle when I first noticed. Like, were you able to like poker face it?

When I very first saw her, we were actually like back in the visitation room. And so Tommy, my husband's name is Tommy. He saw my face go and he was like, what did you see?

And I was like, oh, my God, look at that purse, dude. So we did laugh about it, you know, but we didn't want her to think we were laughing at her, too. So we kind of like kept it between ourselves.

Keep it on the inside. All right. Right, right, right to the last question I have is based on something you said before we started recording, which is understanding the difference.

Well, I'll just actually say exactly how you did, right? Is how do we know who the right outlaws are to give grace to?

Yeah.

Talk to me about that. And then if you can just give me like a one through five checklist on that, I would really appreciate it.

Totally. Yeah, I actually have a downloadable PDF. We'll link to it in the show notes.

Yes, I was hoping, hoping you would go there with me. All right. But back to the big question.

And no, there is no downloadable PDF with this. Only online business owners get that joke. But yeah, no.

All right. So how how do you figure that out?

So in my case, right, I am inclined to extend everyone, at least hearing them out, right? And like, it's like, OK, tell me, like, tell me what's going on and I'll see if I believe you or not. And I know that if I actually care about it, I'll do some fact checking and really see.

And a lot of times, you know, you either get the sense where you're like, yeah, that tracks or you're like, all right, man, like, I don't know what's going on, but something about that's weird. And I think you're not telling me the truth. And that's fine.

You don't owe me that. But also, I'm going to take a step back because I don't know what's going on and I don't know how to orient myself safely with that. And that's where I start.

And I know it's such a bummer because then you have to think about your own responsibility in it, where it's so much easier to be like, well, they have that label, so they're a bad person. So I'm going to stay over here as opposed to you're a person. I'm a person.

How are we going to navigate this?

Yeah, well, that makes me think. And because I know you have evangelical background, right? It makes me think of the difference between grace and mercy, right?

I don't know what you were taught, but I was taught like, you know, mercy is when you don't get the punishment you deserve. And grace is unearned forgiveness, unearned benevolence. And yeah, the way I see it right is like, is grace ever wasted?

Even if they're a terrible person, they were a really good liar and they like got you hook, line and sinker. Like, what's the worst case scenario there?

Yeah, no, I totally agree because I think where things get dangerous is when people extend grace and then do something they're not willing to do or do something without understanding the possible consequences of it. There is a lot of fraud that happens with inmates defrauding people on the outside because they have a really good story and then people send the money and it's the whole thing. And I don't recommend that at all.

I guess the extent of my grace is there is nothing someone can do that makes me see them as less than human. And I'm always willing to listen to the story at least once and then see where I want to go from there.

Well, I think that's a really, really great practice, right? Because you really are just out of time, right? Listen to the story once, see what happens from there.

Now, I'm curious. I've got a couple of things that I want to hit on before we close. So the first is if somebody is listening today and they've actually never thought about incarceration because they all have to.

It's just not part of their worldview, not part of their lived experience. But they're listening and they're thinking, huh, I never really thought about humanity among prisoners or inhumanity, as it were. What do you think should be the first step?

Or what would you recommend is the first step that they could take to begin to undo that belief that those people over there don't deserve basic human rights?

I think the first thing and this is the question that I ask people when they come to me like this, I say, OK, what could you do to where you would truly deserve something like that? What could you do to where you would deserve not having food for multiple days in a row to where you would deserve living in freezing or overly hot temperatures like to where you would deserve a guard kicking your crutches out from under you? Not like, oh, I would take my lumps or like I would take the punishment.

But like, what would you do that in your heart? You would be like, yeah, you know what? I was bad enough that now I deserve everyone to hate me.

That's powerful and requires a pretty extensive amount of self-reflecting. And I think sometimes those are the hardest next steps. Like you said, they're uncomfortable.

I would throw in listen to be on broken first and then ask yourself those questions. Right, because right now it's, you know, Rachel and Tonya talking about these things that happen. But when you hear it from the people who live it, it feels very, very different, I think.

Now, I want to flip it and say, what about those affected by incarceration? Right. Maybe they're the spouse who lost everybody and is now so ashamed that they're just shut in.

What could they do? Like, how can they reach out? What are maybe some resources available to them to find community or at least find a place where it's OK to talk about this part of themselves?

Yeah, this is such a hard one. My first move was to look for like an online community, right? And there's just not really a great one.

There are things like there's a prison wife subreddit and, you know, it is as you would expect from Reddit. It's not where you want to be getting your emotional stability from. So what I recommend is finding one person who you can talk to about this and then look for groups in your area sometimes.

And in some areas, there's a lot more people, a lot more groups. If you're a member of a church or another religious organization, a lot of times they'll have a support group for spouses. There's no real national group I can recommend, unfortunately, or like a nice little link.

But what I will say, just as a reminder, because I certainly didn't know this, but approximately 45 percent of Americans have a direct family member who's been incarcerated. So if you think you're alone, you are extremely not alone. It is so common, but people don't talk about it.

Even if you don't feel comfortable talking to somebody yet, you can be like half the country has experienced what I'm going through. I am not alone.

And now I understand why when you first experienced all this, you couldn't understand why more people weren't talking about it. I mean, 45 percent. Yeah.

Yeah. It's not like, oh, this is this little niche population that affects 4 percent. And that's why it's a big secret.

Yeah.

OK, Rachel, we will put all of that in the show notes. I would now like to have our freak flags fly segment. Are you up for some rapid fire questions?

It's just five. We'll see how fast we can get through them.

All right, let's do it. I'll answer really fast.

OK, fill in the blank. You are my kind of freak if you are my kind of freak.

If you can't understand how anybody could look at people like you and be like, how can you not like us? We're cool.

Yes, because we are our own stinking party, aren't we? Right. Exactly.

OK, what's something you love that your friends just don't get?

Oh, I'm really fascinated by World War One. And I know that it's like such a strange thing and no one else gets it. But oh, my God, the psychology of it fascinates me endlessly.

OK, new to self. I will Google World War One because I'm like, yeah, I like the pond there.

That was nice. Yeah.

OK, what community would you infiltrate just to understand it better?

Oh, I feel like I have a little bit of a way in some of my clients work with ultra high net worth people. And I love just watching how they move through the world. I'm like, what are you doing?

So I feel like I'm already a little bit like a fly on that wall.

Oh, that sounds fascinating to me.

Yeah, it's incredibly strange. It's incredibly strange and fascinating.

OK, so what tool ritual or practice helps you stay connected to your people?

Writing. I mean, that's that's for me. Always is going to be writing.

I'll do essays, whether it's essays, whether it's poems, whether it's memoir. That's the way that I really share my heart with people.

You're the one who says words make worlds, right?

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I like that. OK. Who is somebody doing freakishly good work that deserves a bigger stage?

OK, well, this is going to sound like a ridiculous answer, but the first thing I thought it was you, honestly, let me. I'll try to think of one that doesn't sound quite as self-serving for the podcast. You know, who I'll shout out is actually Heather Purdle with the First Network.

She's doing incredibly powerful, very effective work. And there's a Facebook group. So if you just Google First Network Facebook group or Heather Purdle, she's brilliant.

And I want everyone to be able to work with her because she provides very easy, tangible, accessible ways to make a change.

Oh, my gosh, I love that. And definitely say, hey, Rachel Allen told me I should reach out to you. So, Rachel, I just want to say thank you.

And thank you just for being here, just being here. So thank you. And I encourage everybody listening to just check out the show notes and get in touch with Rachel.

There's a lot of good stuff there.