Understanding America’s Prison Problem – With Bill Keller

In place of Office Hours this week, we’re bringing you our conversation with Bill Keller, the author of What’s Prison For, the former executive editor of The New York Times, and the founding editor of The Marshall Project. Bill joins Scott to discuss prison reform, the role race plays in incarceration, and what most of us don’t know about the prison system. You can find him on Twitter @billkellernyc. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Scott Galloway?

  Support for the show comes from Northwest Registered Agent. Your business identity is everything that makes your business legitimate and professional. With Northwest Registered Agent, you don't just form a business, you start a complete foundation built for privacy, credibility, and growth. That includes registered agent service, a business address, operating agreement, domain, website, professional email, phone number, and built-in privacy. In other words, your home address, personal email, and phone number stay private. Don't pay hundreds or thousands of dollars for what you can get from Northwest for free. Visit northwestregisteredagent.com/profgfree and start using free resources to build something amazing. Get more with Northwest Registered Agent at northwestregisteredagent.com/profgfree.

• 0:48Speaker 01

  Your heart can tell you a lot about your health. Apple Watch Series 12 measures your heart rate every five seconds with the most accurate heart rate sensing in wearable. So your vitals app, now with heart rate variability, can tell you when something is off. And your readiness score can let you know when to rest and when to push. Hear the story in every heartbeat with Apple Watch Series 12. The features described are for wellness purposes only and not for medical use. iPhone 11 or later required. Based on Apple conducted study of heart rate accuracy, August 2026. Visit apple.com/aplewatchseries12.

• 1:27Scott Galloway?

  The dog is still on holiday, so in place of office hours, we are bringing you our conversation with Bill Keller, the former New York Times Executive Editor, the founding editor of The Marshall Project, and author of the book What's Prison For? Punishment and Rehabilitation in the Age of Mass Incarceration. We discussed with Bill prison reform, the role race plays in incarceration, and what surprised him most about the prison system while researching his book. We'll be back with our regular scheduled programming next week, so please send in your questions about business, big tech investing, career pivots, or whatever else is on your mind. You can do so by sending a voice memo to [email protected]. Again, that's [email protected]. Okay, here's our conversation with Bill Keller.

• 2:12Scott Galloway?

  Bill, where does this podcast find you?

• 2:14Speaker 02

  Finds me at home in Southampton, New York.

• 2:17Scott Galloway?

  Good for you. So, let's bust right into it. It's no secret that the US loves locking people up. We rank ahead of El Salvador, which is the world's, or has the world's greatest homicide rate, and Cuba, an authoritarian regime that imprisons people for pre-criminal dangerousness. That's an exact quote. So, Bill, how did we get here?

• 2:36Speaker 02

  Well, it's interesting that for most of the 20th century, we weren't here. I mean, we had a relatively high, but not outlandish, level of incarceration. It was about 100 people locked up for every 100,000 population. That all changed in the 70s. About 1990, it was, it was five times that rate. And it's a combination of factors. There was rising crime. There were politicians who were making an opportunity out of rising crime. There was press sensationalism, but there was also the Black Empowerment Movement, which had a lot to do with the intensity of the backlash. There are lots of factors that go into how many people we incarcerate and what the crime rate is.

• 3:19Speaker 02

  But it was sort of a perfect storm of political opportunism, white backlash, and some actual increase in crime.

• 3:28Scott Galloway?

  My understanding is it was sort of a bipartisan effort, that it was Nixon who felt like, he was just angry at people of color, and then, and then the Clinton administration, the crime bill felt like a popular thing at the time. But this hasn't been, I mean, this is, and then the profit motive, right? It feels like it's just been the perfect storm that's taken us to sometimes 10 or 15 times the incarceration rate. Am I missing anything other than politics and a profit motive?

• 3:53Speaker 02

  No, I don't think you're missing anything at all. You're absolutely right that it was a bipartisan effort. Even before the 94 crime bill, there was an 86 piece of legislation that was sponsored by Tip O'Neill, response to the crack epidemic, so-called, and established incredibly draconian penalties for possession of crack cocaine relative to possession of powder cocaine, which was more of a white man's drug.

• 4:20Scott Galloway?

  So let's talk about race. You can't talk about incarceration without talking about race. Can you speak to this?

• 4:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, black people make up about 13% of the population of the United States. They make up 40% of the incarcerated population. That's got a long history going back really to Jim Crow. The 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery, had a loophole in it. It abolished slavery except for people who've been convicted of serious crimes. And so particularly in the South, they took advantage of that to create crimes along the lines of loitering that would make black men particularly vulnerable to arrest. Then they'd send them off to be convict labor. That's no longer going on to quite the same extent, although there is a fair amount of profiteering that goes into the criminal justice system.

• 5:08Scott Galloway?

  Your book does a great job explaining what goes on behind the scenes of the nation's prisons. Can you share what you've learned about what goes on on the inside?

• 5:16Speaker 02

  Yes. First thing that I learned that I think everybody who spends any time in prisons is struck by is the incredible waste of human potential. There are obviously people who deserve to be locked up who are dangerous criminals, but the number of people who, if they just had a sense of purpose, would be productive citizens, is really shocking. And we locked them up for 20 years and made no effort to equip them to be citizens in the free world. Too little training, so they emerge with no skills. They're alienated, brutalized, and stigmatized. The number that shocked me most is that upwards of 600,000

• 5:59Speaker 02

  people are released from prisons in America every year. It just seems to be such a stark choice. You're going to release them as brutalized and stigmatized individuals with no skills, or you're going to try to make them be good neighbors and citizens.

• 6:16Scott Galloway?

  And what are your thoughts if there were two or three things, if you, I imagine you're hearing from elected representatives who want to talk about prison reform, what are the two or three things you would suggest would have the biggest impact?

• 6:27Speaker 02

  Education is one. That's one where the data is just unmistakable. The Rand Corporation has done periodic surveys of recidivism rates for people who have various levels of education while they're incarcerated, and the numbers are startling. So that's, education would be high on my list.

• 6:46Scott Galloway?

  So, education programs while in prison, taking class, getting certification?

• 6:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:51Scott Galloway?

  And is this just general, is this just the benefit of taking classes and learning, or is it getting some sort of certification that increases your economic viability post-prison?

• 6:58Speaker 02

  It's both. It's, a significant portion of the people who are incarcerated are functionally illiterate, so a lot of it is just getting basic GED education, but the data shows that the higher you go in the educational totem pole, the less the likelihood that you're going to commit another crime or be arrested for another crime. So that'd be one. And I write in the book a lot about these experiments that are based on Norway and Germany, and of course, we're not Norway, you know, they're a homogeneous, oil-rich, welfare state, but there's a philosophy that goes into the more enlightened European incarceration systems,

• 7:42Speaker 02

  which is that your punishment is that you're deprived of freedom, your other rights stay intact, and you make a conscious effort during the time somebody's incarcerated to address whatever issue it was that made them commit a crime in the first place, whether it's lack of skills, or mental illness, or a drug addiction. And you start with that the minute somebody arrives in prison, and you try to send them back out into the world with the, equipped to deal with the challenges that life presents.

• 8:09Scott Galloway?

  And what do you think of prison release programs? What would happen if we took our, I don't know if it's 2 million, and took a third of our prisoners that were, you know, convicted of drug crimes, nonviolent criminals, and had some sort of massive prison release program?

• 8:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, that doesn't solve the problem of what you do with them when they are incarcerated, but the, if the basic problem is...

• 8:34Speaker 02

  Mass incarceration than it is where we're many times what other developed countries do in terms of the population. Yeah, we know we could reduce the population by a third. I would think without a great deal of difficulty, but it would require political will, transition services for people who are getting out and money. You know, you can't really fix the prisons by defunding them, much as that slogan sounds appealing. You have to invest in training staff to treat inmates as human beings and citizens, not as numbers or menaces.

• 9:14Scott Galloway?

  We'll be right back.

• 9:18Scott Galloway?

  Support for the show comes from Bilt. Most of us work hard to earn our keep, but usually there's no one around to hand you a cookie when you successfully pay your monthly housing bill. No one except Bilt, that is. Bilt has expanded from their original renter rewards program and they have a lot more going on for members now. For example, members can earn points on mortgage payments, too. Every housing payment gets you points that get you a lot more than baked goods, such as flights with top travel partners, including United and Hyatt, Lyft rides, Amazon.com purchases, and much, much more. Here's another benefit of Bilt membership. You also get access to what they call a neighborhood concierge. You can make restaurant reservations, book fitness classes, and find new local spots, all while rewarding you at more than 45,000 merchant partners. It's simple.

• 10:01Scott Galloway?

  Being a renter and now owning a home feels a lot better with Bilt. You can download the Bilt app and join the membership for where you live at joinbilt.com/profg. That's J O I N B I L T dot com slash prop G. Use our link so they know we sent you.

• 10:19Scott Galloway?

  Support for the show comes from Upwork. Trying to scale your business? At some point, you're probably going to hit a point where you need some help. Sometimes the best way to break through that is bringing in the right talent at the right time. Upwork can help. Upwork is a one-stop platform where you can find, hire, and pay expert freelancers across more than 125 categories. Whether you need specialized skills for a single project or extra support to keep up with demand, it's easy to connect with experienced professionals, review their work, and find the right fit. You can move faster without taking on the commitment of full-time hires. And for businesses that need the very best talent, Upwork Business Plus provides access to the top 1% of freelancers on the platform. AI-powered matching connects you with qualified candidates in under six hours, cutting down the time spent searching. Upwork also takes care of contracts,

• 11:04Scott Galloway?

  payments, and other administrative tasks, so you can spend less time managing logistics and more time focused on what's next. Visit upwork.com/profg right now and post your job for free. That's upwork.com/profg to connect with top talent ready to help your business grow. That's U P W O R K dot com slash prof G. Upwork.com/profg.

• 11:31Scott Galloway?

  So you mentioned Norway. How does incarceration, not only incarceration rates, but how does incarceration, what actually happens inside the prison, differ across the world?

• 11:43Speaker 02

  Well, the most progressive countries, which would be the Scandinavians and Germany. First of all, the prisons are not quite so obviously cages as they are in the United States. They're more likely to be like college dormitories. The biggest difference of all is the staffing. To become a corrections officer in a United States prison, you're probably going to get a few weeks of training, mostly to do with crowd control and self-defense. In Germany, to become a correctional officer, which is a prestigious and desirable job, you do two years of college-level education that includes some courses in human rights, law, and psychology. And your job is to make them better.

• 12:26Scott Galloway?

  Talk a little bit about the difference between men's and women's prisons.

• 12:29Speaker 02

  Well, ninety percent of the people who are incarcerated in this country are men, so probably only natural that that's the template for designing prisons. Women's prisons tend to be offered less robust academic programming, and it's likely to be stereotype, putition training, or things that are sort of stereotypically women's work, if they have programming at all. One of the things that struck me, whenever I talked to women who were incarcerated or who had been incarcerated, I would always ask them about what they thought of Orange is the New Black, which is probably the most common American source of information about women's prisons. And they said that, you know, that's television, it's drama,

• 13:12Speaker 02

  it's, they emphasize the lurid and the sensational. But one thing that Orange is the New Black gets right, according to women who've been there, is that while men's prisons tend to organize along racial lines or gang lines for self-protection, women's prisons tend to organize along family lines. You create a sort of prison family to study with, to commiserate with, and that becomes very important to women. And it gives the authorities a lever. They can punish you by removing you from your family and putting you in isolation or transferring you to another prison, which tends to be a way of enforcing order in the prisons. The most striking thing, women have babies,

• 13:55Speaker 02

  and there are studies suggesting hundreds of women have babies in prison every year. In most cases, they're separated from their children at birth and sent either to family or foster care. And that means that both the women miss the opportunity to develop their maternal skills. The babies don't get the kind of bonding that's essential in the first year of life. There's a place outside of New York, Bedford Hills, which has a nursery where women can keep their children with them for up to eighteen months. And there's some pretty compelling research that shows that this is healthy for both the mothers and the children.

• 14:32Scott Galloway?

  Bill, in five years, if your book had a real impact, what would you hope to see happen? What are you hoping to accomplish with this book?

• 14:40Speaker 02

  I'd like to have people be talking about it, not the book, but the situation in prison. It should, we had around the Obama years, birth of a conservative prison reform movement, which led to some, not sweeping reforms, but led, made it safer for a politician to advocate humane treatment, education programs, college funding, and so on. And now we're, everything in Washington and state capitals as well, it's polarized and paralyzed. I'd like to, I'd like to see us get past that and get back to where we were in the earlier part of the century, the, so the Obama years, where there's a bipartisan acknowledgement that you can lower the recidivism rate by paying attention to what people do while they're in prison and what is done to them.

• 15:25Scott Galloway?

  And what was the biggest surprise when you were conducting your research? What was sort of the myth or the preconception that you had that was dispelled?

• 15:32Speaker 02

  I think there were two things that surprised me. One of them, which I've already mentioned, was just the waste of human potential. I taught for a little while at Sing Sing as a volunteer, and I had 16 students in my class, and I was just blown away by, they all had a sense of purpose, they were thoughtful, they were engaged, they followed the news. Now, not everybody in prison is so evidently redeemable, but I just kept thinking, you know, if these people had been given an opportunity to become entrepreneurs, they would have been really good at it. The other thing that struck me was how many people there are who are trying to fix things. I talked to top corrections officials in several states that have been trying to experiment

• 16:16Speaker 02

  with different ways of rehabilitation. I regard them as fairly heroic because they do it against budget and political challenges that are almost insurmountable.

• 16:25Scott Galloway?

  Bill Keller is the author of What's Prison For: Punishment and Rehabilitation in the Age of Mass Incarceration. He is also the founding editor in chief of The Marshall Project, an independent nonprofit news organization focused on crime and punishment in the US. He previously spent 30 years at The New York Times as a Pulitzer Prize winning correspondent, editor, and op-ed columnist. He joins us from his home in Southampton. Bill, thanks for this important work. It's something that really demands or really warrants more attention. It feels like it's a stain on what is America over the last 50 years, so thank you for your good work.

• 17:04Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 17:10Speaker 03

  Running a business shouldn't feel like surviving a software group project. One app for accounting, another for inventory, another for sales, and somehow, none of them talk to each other. That's where Odoo comes in, an all-in-one business management software that brings every part of your business together. From sales and accounting to inventory and marketing, all in one powerful platform. No messy integrations, no bouncing between tabs, and best of all, no spreadsheets. Stop managing software and start managing your business with one unified system. Try for free today at Odoo.com/vox. That's O-D-O-O dot com slash vox.

• 17:46Speaker 04

  This podcast is supported by Anthropic, the public benefit corporation behind Claude. Everyone's got a hard question about AI. Anthropic was built to surface those questions and share what it finds along the way, because there's hope in hard questions. Ask yours at Claude.ai/Spotify and keep thinking. That's Claude.ai/Spotify.