The Rant Podcast
A bi-weekly podcast focused on pulling back the curtain on the American higher education system and breaking down the people, the policies and the politics. The podcast host, Eloy Ortiz Oakley, is a known innovator and leader in higher education. The podcast will not pull any punches as it delves into tough questions about the culture, politics and policies of our higher education system.
The Rant Podcast
Reforming Prison Education with Scott Budnick
Hollywood film producer Scott Budnick, known for blockbusters like the Hangover Trilogy and Just Mercy, shares his journey from making hits to transforming lives through prison reform. What triggered a successful Hollywood producer to dedicate his life to mentoring incarcerated youth? Scott reveals the heart-wrenching encounters that steered him down this path and how his collaborations, including introducing Kim Kardashian to prison reform, have amplified his impact.
Education can change lives, even behind bars. Listen as Scott recounts his experiences teaching and mentoring in maximum-security prisons and the dramatic improvements they’ve observed. From the inmates’ newfound hope to the better work environment for correctional officers, these stories illustrate the ripple effect of knowledge and compassion. This chapter underscores the need for systemic change to support reintegration through education.
Wrapping up the episode are inspiring success stories, such as that of Ramon Escobar, who went from incarceration to founding a thriving security company employing people with similar pasts. Scott discusses legislative strides and initiatives like the Hollywood CPR program at West LA College, which opens the door to high-paying union jobs for its graduates. Ending on a hopeful note, Scott delves into his current efforts with One Community, crafting narratives that foster empathy and unity in major films and shows. Join us for a thought-provoking conversation on redemption and the undeniable power of education and support.
Hi, I'm Eloy Ortiz-Oakley and welcome back to the Rant Podcast, the podcast that pulls back the curtain and breaks down the people, the policies and the politics of our higher education system. Welcome back to the podcast. In this episode I sit down with well-known Hollywood film producer and prison reform advocate, scott Butnik. Scott is known in Hollywood as a film producer of such films as the Hangover Trilogy, project X and Just Mercy. His work in California to highlight the challenges that men and women face in California's correctional facilities has got him the attention of politicians like former to currently and former incarcerated individuals and his amazing experience introducing Kim Kardashian to the California correctional system. If you enjoy this episode, don't forget to subscribe, hit the like button and leave us your comments. Now. I hope you enjoy my conversation with Scott Butt. Scott, welcome to the Rant.
Speaker 2:Podcast man. I'm so happy to be here with you, brother. We have history.
Speaker 1:We have history. It's been a long time. Yes, yes, it's good to see you, thank you my man Appreciate it I love the hat. Thank you, yes, sir.
Speaker 2:Representing Los Angeles. That's right.
Speaker 1:So, scott, we've known each other for some time. You've been doing great work around prison reform, around improving education for currently incarcerated individuals. You were doing this work when I was still at Long Beach City College. That's where we first met. Yes, you were bringing some of your great young men to come enroll at Long Beach City College and we worked for Governor Jerry Brown, did a lot of work around improving education opportunities for currently incarcerated youth, and then you were one of my bosses at the California Community Colleges, appointed to the California Community College Board of Governors. So it's great to be with you and we have a lot of history around the work that you've done around prison reform. But you've also had this whole other life in entertainment. You're a movie producer, you're a Hollywood staple. So what motivated you? What caused you, to a Hollywood producer like you, to get involved in an area like prison reform?
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, I think it comes from probably a similar place to place to you, man we, just like young people, are the future and it's it's incredible to be able to help, guide, mentor, uh, or even get so much mentorship from them. Right, and, and so I always was someone that wanted to help young people. When I was young, I had a lot of mentors, so it was just something that always interested me, and I did a movie called Old School and met a friend on that movie that asked me to come down to a juvenile hall in the San.
Speaker 2:Fernando Valley. On a Saturday morning I went down to a creative writing class to be a guest speaker and I sat down at the table with about a dozen kids 14, 15, 16 years old all facing life sentences in prison. Wow, sat down with the first young man that was next to me, little tiny kid, 15 years old. I said how was your week? And he said it was a really tough week. I just got sentenced to 300 years to life in prison and that stopped me in my tracks.
Speaker 2:I bet I said what happened and he said I stood next to my friend who shot the victim in the butt and for standing next to the guy with the gun I got 300 years of life in prison. And like it was that moment where I paused and thought like if that was my kid he'd be out on bail so he'd be sleeping in his own bed, he wouldn't be in this cold, dark juvenile hall and he'd probably have the best lawyer in Los Angeles and would probably get probation for standing next to someone that shot someone in the butt. The victim was in and out of the hospital in a day, but David was going to prison for 300 years of life and that just seemed fundamentally really unfair to me and as I went around the table and heard the stories of them, you know, everyone was a victim before they decided to be a victimizer.
Speaker 2:Right, it was poverty, it was foster care, it was physical abuse and sexual abuse and witnessing domestic violence and seeing violence at an early age from adults. It was hurt, people hurt people. And I said to those kids on that day I said, if you guys are willing to change and work towards change, I'm willing to come in here every week and start teaching this class. And I did. I started teaching that class in 2004 and I still teach that class today. It's less creative writing, it's more just mentoring and re-entry, et cetera, but that's what got me started. And obviously the community college system plays such an enormous role in either preventing people from coming into the system or helping them start over and start fresh and start their life of success when they get out.
Speaker 1:That was certainly the story for me. I mean, it was my probably third chance to get back in. I'd just gotten out of the military raising a family. What service. I was in the Army for years and I went to the Army because I just had to leave town. You know, right out of high school I didn't go to college and so those six months after high school I found every place I could get in trouble and I could sniff it out. So I had to get out.
Speaker 2:Were you getting in trouble before you went to the Army?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean you know I was getting in trouble, but at least I had. You know, I had football, I had sports. I mean you know I was getting in trouble, but at least I had. You know, I had football, I had sports, I had school, I had something to to keep me from just running all over the place. But but once that lifted and I didn, good idea to leave an 18-year-old guy like me all alone. But that's where I was. So the Army created that family for me, created that structure for me Structure yeah.
Speaker 1:And I wouldn't be here but for that decision.
Speaker 2:I know this is not your interview, but after the Army, what was your next?
Speaker 1:move. So, after I spent four years in the army, I came back. I had a daughter along the way and I felt I needed to come back and be a father you know, not the greatest father, but I was a father. And so that's what motivated me to come back, and I just started working odd jobs, whatever I could find to figure it out, wow. And so, you know, one thing led to another. And you know, one day I enrolled in community college. And you know, you know what other place in the world can you just walk on campus and enroll in college?
Speaker 2:And that was my story. It's unbelievable and when I when I moved to California in 99, it was unbelievable to see like the scale of what California community colleges were right Like 112 or probably more now 116 now 116 community colleges, no barriers to entry, whatever you want.
Speaker 2:You want to go get your BA one day and go that route, or if you want to go hands-on and learn a trade, like it's just the most brilliant system ever and it's like game-changing. And obviously my son is in a community college right now. So whether you're the son of a movie producer or whether you're a kid in a criminal justice system, it has something for everybody and I'm obsessed.
Speaker 1:Well, I know this isn't a podcast about community colleges, but just think about all the Hollywood royalty that went to community college Arnold Schwarzenegger, tom Hanks, george Lucas. You can go on and on and on. Those are huge names. So, scott, one of the projects that you lifted up was this anti-recidivism coalition ARC. It's done a lot of great work For our listeners.
Speaker 2:describe what ARC is and what are some of the most impactful things that have come out of that project prison. They were surrounded by a lot of positive energy and positive individuals and people that were, and then it. So it started out just basically as a support network family and then grew into like direct services. So we have five housing programs at this point. We have a huge mentorship program. We have college coordinators that help enroll people and get them situated on campus and with financial aid et cetera, and we have job developers and career developers and career readiness, which gets them kind of geared towards a career of their choice. We started the largest construction union apprenticeship program for formerly incarcerated people with the LA Federation of Labor and the Building Trade. So someone gets out of prison within 12 weeks of paid training, they are in the union for life and we guarantee them their first union job. Um, we have.
Speaker 2:Uh, before three years ago, if you got out of prison and you were an incarcerated firefighter, you couldn't go into the firefighting field because of the felony on your record. With governor brown we were able to build the ventura training center and we changed that and we've been able to pass a bill to allow people to expunge their records and now anyone that risks their life to fight fire while they're incarcerated can become a Cal Fire firefighter, even an LA City County firefighter throughout the state as well. So lots of career and job programs, therapy obviously, therapy and mental health is a huge thing, right? Trauma is real and overcoming that and getting past it is real. And then we've done a lot around policy change, right, storytelling, having our members tell their stories, tell their successes, go to Sacramento, pass legislation. So I think we've passed a lot of legislation to make the system a fairer system.
Speaker 2:And just have I literally could start listing off the success stories from Long Beach City College, those original kids that I referred to you. One of them is a case manager and social worker and going to school to get his master's in social work, working with young people on a daily basis, helping them change their life. My man, eric, went to the community college and is now works in the prisons and the juvenile halls helping people. Many others are now in the film and television union. The same kids I introduced you to when you were the president of Long Beach City College are making $200,000 a year in the film and television union. So a lot of success stories from those kids that you met.
Speaker 1:One of the things you just mentioned about an ARC project. You mentioned the Ventura Training Center Fire. Training Center. And that rang a bell for me because I was involved with then Nettie Sablehauser, who was trying to coordinate that program, and there were just so many obstacles in the way to get that to happen. What are some of the greatest obstacles that policymakers put in your way that they should really think about in terms of how do they make it easier for current and formerly incarcerated individuals to get the kind of opportunities that you created?
Speaker 2:through ERC. Quick shout out to Nettie, who is very easy at getting over obstacles that bureaucrats put into place. You know, I feel like every obstacle that's been put in our place. Through relationship and transparent communication and proximity, we've been able to get over them. Bryan Stevenson, who wrote Just Mercy, always talks about proximity. Right, when you bring people who may not agree with you or may not understand the issue closer to the issue.
Speaker 2:To meet people, to meet human beings, usually they change and I found that they always do right. There's no one I brought into a prison or met formerly incarcerated people that didn't change the way they think when they met human beings that were like working their asses off for a better life, right, who had made massive changes and transformation in their lives. So are there obstacles? Yes, I mean government itself can be an obstacle. Right, the culture of no is always an obstacle. Getting people on board is an obstacle, obviously, in this issue, very, very conservative law enforcement, who don't even recognize the fact that people can change, can be an obstacle. But I've been able to get some of the most conservative DAs, sheriffs, police chiefs on board just by showing them respect, making a relationship, breaking bread, having conversations, introducing them to people, so it's been fun trying to navigate that.
Speaker 1:In this current political environment. I mean no-transcript.
Speaker 2:Well, I would say that 97% of them are going to be your neighbor.
Speaker 2:I don't know if they're going to be happy about that Within the next few years. So who do you want coming out right, right? Do you want someone who has a college degree and is passionate about a career or giving back and going to be in college and working, living in your community? Or do you want someone whose issues have never been addressed, who comes out just as bad, if not worse? I think that doesn't seem to be liberal or conservative. That just seems to be smart, right.
Speaker 2:I think it's kind of why Newt Gingrich supported a lot of bills we worked on. It's why Grover Norquist supported a lot of bills. It's why the most conservative woman in the entire California legislature, senator Shannon Grove of Bakersfield, is one of my closest allies that when we have people in a corrections system, that it's our responsibility to help them and give them the tools to correct whatever was broken right. We're dealing with a lot of broken people, a lot of people that have been through hell and back, a lot of people that navigated the worst of poverty and they allowed that to turn them from victim to victimizer and so getting them back to that I know, not religious, but like child of God or the person that they were born to be Right and for them to see what they really can achieve. I think that's.
Speaker 1:I think that's huge it is huge and, as you said, education plays such a critical role. I mean not just in their early life, before they go down a path that leads them into incarceration, but once they're incarcerated. There seems to be a movement to get more and better educational opportunities to currently incarcerated individuals, and you've been part of that. We now even have the federal government weighing in, saying that we can make the Pell program available to currently incarcerated.
Speaker 1:It is huge. So and it's a recognition of what you just mentioned you know why not invest in them? Because once they come out, it's much more likely that they're going to stay out. So what do you see the role of higher education playing going forward in reducing recidivism? And if there are educators out there watching who want to get involved with currently incarcerated individuals, what's the best advice you can give them?
Speaker 2:Get proximate. I have a bunch of friends who were professors on campus that decided to roll the dice and go teach on the inside, and 100% of them every one of them say this is so much easier. Guess what doesn't exist on the inside Cell phones. Guess what exists on the inside A captive audience, that's for sure. There's a lack of freedom of movement, right, you really can't just skip class, right? And people that want to change their life are going to be coming towards those classes. People that don't care are not going to be coming towards those classes no one's forcing them to be there who are not distracted by their phones they're not distracted by so much of what we're distracted by out here and they take it so serious.
Speaker 2:Every single professor I've talked to said this is way easier than teaching on campus. These people want it more. They're hungrier, they work harder, they all do their work. It's unbelievable, and I'll tell you what's interesting. Eloy is, I have a friend who's a correctional officer. He was a correctional officer at Kern Valley State Prison, a level four maximum security prison, where every week there were stabbings, there were murders, there were fights, there were riots, there were drugs. Horrible place right. Right.
Speaker 2:And an incredible professor from Bakersfield College decided that he was going to come in there His name was Brian Hirayama and be the first professor I think statewide before we opened it up to every community college in the state and every prison to kind of pilot this. And he comes onto this very violent yard and he starts his first class in the school area. And my friend, jeff Irvin, was an officer and was not that happy coming to work, which meant he wasn't so happy when he came home. Maybe he wasn't the best father, et cetera. And at first I think all correctional officers are taught to resist these types of positive things you have a lot of officers that would say things like well, my kids don't get a free education, why do they get a free education? Which is so insane, which is not true.
Speaker 2:And I watched Officer Irvin get completely transformed. Being in the building with all the Bakersfield College students, he became the biggest proponent of Bakersfield College. He then got promoted to sergeant. Now he's a lieutenant. He's about to become a captain, but I watched the college program transform him. I watched Bakersfield expand to like a dozen classes on that yard all in the same semester, then expand to like four or five other prisons in their area and I think they might be one of the biggest providers in the entire state at a bunch of prisons in the Central Valley, with like dozens and dozens of professors coming in to teach inside who all will tell you better than my classes on the outside.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know Bakersfield is a great example Chaffey College and Rancho. Paloma is another great example, they do just amazing work. Yeah, so, scott, you talk about getting proximate. You get proximate all the time. You're in these correction facilities all the time, and recently I noticed that you walked in with Kim Kardashian. I got to watch it on the latest episode of Keeping Up with the Kardashians. Tell me about that experience. What was that like and what was it like walking in with Kim Kardashian? Good to know that you watched the Kardashians.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and Kim's always welcome to come on the podcast Tell the world there you go. So when I left the movie business and I was just running ARC, I got a line text from a number I didn't recognize and it said hi, scott, this is Kim Kardashian West. Someone referred me to you and I've been watching you and reading about you and I'm thinking about going to law school and I want you to be my mentor. And that was a wild text to get.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:So I called her and it really was her and asked her if she wanted to come to a women's prison the following week. And the next week she canceled everything, drove two hours in 110 degree weather and came to the California Institution of Women in Corona, california, and spent four hours inside with the women, was super empathetic, was deep, just like a really real person, and that led us to just a great relationship over the last five years where we've worked on campaigns to free innocent people. Right together. We visited lancaster prison and san quentin and pelican bay, all the way up at the oregon border shout out to college of the redwoods doing incredible college programs in pelican bay. And this is the first time that, like I thought, cdcr would actually let us film, and so I asked her if we could bring the cameras inside and shoot an episode of the Kardashians. She loved it. I asked CDCR, they loved it. So we went in and it was a wild experience. I mean, it's always wild when she goes inside, but now, with four cameras going and microphones and everything, it was a big experience.
Speaker 2:It was awesome watching the correctional officers take their masks off and just like smile and laugh and get all giddy that Kim Kardashian was there and Khloe Kardashian both of them. They were both just wonderful with all the correction staff, wonderful with the guys inside. They visited a dog program, a dog training program in the prison. They met with a lot of the college students there, both who are getting their community college degrees from Merced as well, as there's a Fresno State bachelor's program there Right, which is awesome. Then we went over to the women's prison and got to sit with the women at Chowchilla and that was awesome and it just came out Right and obviously, having tens of millions of people see it. Obviously her audience is not the number one audience that knows this issue, so being able to tell these stories to a different kind of audience evoke empathy and a different demographic. It's the number one show on Hulu, so it was an awesome experience and she promoted it on her social media. I mean, she has 350 million people. I think that's more than the population in the.
Speaker 1:United States A few more than I have.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly so. Like there is like real power in being able to communicate to that many people and the fact that no other celebrities with that type of following do anything to make the world a better place Like she, on a weekly basis, is posting up things to help people, and I really admire that about her.
Speaker 1:Well, it was a great episode. I mean, it was really a moving episode and really highlighted the work that you've been doing for so many years. So congratulations to you for being able to highlight that in front of so many people. Thank you Don't being able to highlight that in front of so many people who don't get a chance to go inside a correctional facility on any given day. So, given all your experience in prison reform, what are some of the biggest changes that we need to make right now in order to improve the opportunities that these individuals have when they come out of prison?
Speaker 2:I think, if we talk about extreme sentencing, to me getting rid of the sentence of life without parole is a big priority for me. I think telling someone, especially someone very, very young, that they're going to die in prison and nothing they do to redeem themselves is ever going to be good enough and they have no capacity to change. You're going to be judged based on this horrible act you committed as a young person for the next 50, 60, 70 years. That's just a hopeless situation and I'm hopeful that that law changes. I think, in terms of preparing people, obviously we need more education, right. But, as you know running having run the entire California community college system it's not just about the education right. It's about all the support services that exist around it. It's about having a therapist if you need one, right. It's about having counselors that counsel you and can help navigate you through very complex academic pathways. It's financial aid offices and how difficult just filling out a FAFSA form is right. It's having someone hold your hand while you're enrolling.
Speaker 2:I still don't think the California community college system has figured out how to not make it insanely frustrating to enroll in school or even get a canvas or log into canvas, et cetera. It's like the other day I was trying to help a young person enroll in school for their first time and both of us got so frustrated that, like, wait a second, if I wasn't there he would have never continued into college. It's like to get into canvas for your temporary password. It's got to be into Canvas for your temporary password. It's gotta be this letter and this number, and this has to be uppercase, this has to be lowercase. And then they're telling us that's wrong. It was just insane.
Speaker 2:So, just like to help someone navigate so they don't give up. That alone is important, right? So I think all of that together needs to come. It's not just the education, but it's all the support around it that leads someone to the finish line.
Speaker 1:So, scott, you're a storyteller. You've been involved in storytelling for a long time. What's one of your favorite stories about an individual that you saw turn their life around because of the work that's been happening in correction facilities?
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, one of the first young men I worked with was a young man named Prophet Walker. He was oh, I remember Prophet.
Speaker 2:Remember Prophet yes 17 years old, in juvenile hall, picked up for a robbery that he and another person committed on a train, got sentenced to about a decade in prison, went to Ironwood Prison and, through a very rural community college in Blythe, Palo Verde College, got his AA degree and then went to Norco Community College. When he went to Norco Prison and then, while he was still incarcerated, applied to the Loyola Marymount School of Science and Engineering and got his acceptance letter in the prison dorm and was able to get out and go into LMU School of Science and Engineering, graduated, had an incredible job as an engineer. He built the Ace Hotel in downtown LA and now he owns a incredible real estate company called Treehouse, is doing a lot of low-income housing and development around Leimert Park and other areas, revitalizing areas, listening to the community, becoming fully integrated within the community, and he's in the LA Times today for a new project that he's doing. I'm just so proud of him.
Speaker 1:Well, I imagine, as those stories multiply, they turn around and help other individuals and you just build a whole community that way.
Speaker 2:So many people that I mentored in the prison system actually work for profit now, wow.
Speaker 2:And I have another young person named Ramon Escobar who started a film and television security company and he's hired a hundred people that came out of jail, prison, juvenile hall to work security on movie sets and commercials and TV shows and he's paid it forward.
Speaker 2:And then, like I can't tell you, the hundreds of people that went through the Hollywood CPR film and TV program at West LA College and are now in the film and TV union Right, like I've never seen a program in the country that pretty much guarantees you, if you complete it over 18 months, you're going to be making six figures for the rest of your life. An 18 month program at a community college that walks you into the union and your next day of work you're making five to $600 a day, not five to 600 a week. Five to 600 a day, not $500 to $600 a week. $500 to $600 a day. You're making $125,000, $150,000 a year if you're willing to put your head down, make sacrifices, work hard, show up early, stay late, et cetera. And so, just like to me, like all of these success stories are possible because of programs that exist at the community colleges.
Speaker 1:So we talked about the college side, the education side. I got to imagine it's also tough, even when they get that education, to get an employer to put them to work. What do you say to employers about the kind of individuals that come out of these programs?
Speaker 2:I mean, they're going to work harder. They're going to show up earlier. They're going to stay later Every day. They're going to work harder. They're going to show up earlier. They're going to stay later Every day. They're going to come with gratitude because no one just handed them a job, because who they were related to, they had to work for it. They have such appreciation for someone that's there to help them change their lives and they're a better employee.
Speaker 2:I know in our construction union program I was talking to the guy that runs the laborers union and our guys go into the laborers bootcamp with 30 other normal people off the streets and out hustle everyone. No one taps out. They usually lose like 30% of the people that start. Never do we have anyone that taps out. And it's the same thing with my friends at the LA Chamber of Commerce who have their business leaders at UPS and Amazon hiring our guys and saying these guys come and crush and have great attitudes. We've also been able to change a lot of laws right. Got kind of the ban the box stuff so they don't have to check the felony box For the firefighters.
Speaker 2:we were able to pass an expungement bill with Assemblywoman Eloise Reyes of San Bernardino that allows people that risk their lives to be inmate firefighters to fully expunge their record when they get out and have no criminal record. So a lot's been done. That's great to hear.
Speaker 1:So, scott, let me ask you one last question as we begin to wrap up. We've talked a lot about the work that you've been doing. What's on the horizon for Scott Button? What should we be looking out for? What kind of projects are you working on these days?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean through my film and TV company, one Community, I've been able to take the storytelling we did at ARC and kind of scale it on a big way.
Speaker 2:So figure out how to tell these stories in major movies, tv shows, documentaries, doc series with the Warner Brothers and Universals and Netflixes and Amazons and Apples of the world distributing them. Our first film we made right before the pandemic was Just Mercy with Warner Brothers and having Warner Brothers finance a huge movie with Michael B Jordan and Jamie Foxx about the criminal justice system and then spend tens of millions of dollars to market it to tens of millions of people around the world. Being able to scale those things are meaningful. We just made a movie that we sold at Sundance called Winter that will be out soon families and celebrates mothers and grandmothers and is a big family comedy, drama, just joyous story that's going to be coming out soon. It's a beautiful film. So just expect more like film and tv content that that bring people up, that unite people, that create empathy and that bring joy to the world well listen, scott.
Speaker 1:I really appreciate you taking the time to come onto the podcast and, more importantly, I really appreciate the work that you do. I mean. I wish more people would have the commitment.
Speaker 2:You're one of my heroes. Well, you know likewise likewise.
Speaker 1:I mean, you give and give and give and you've never stopped giving. So thank you, brother, appreciate it. It's been great to be here, man, thank you. Thanks for joining us everyone here on the Rant Podcast. I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Scott Budnick. Please continue to follow us on this YouTube channel or wherever you get your favorite podcasts hit, subscribe and leave us your comments. Take care, everyone, and I hope to see you all again soon here on the Rant Podcast. Thank you.
