In this episode, we hear from two recent UC Irvine students, Babak Gilani and Alfonso Matas. Both men are graduates of the UCI LIFTED program, each graduating with honors in Sociology. The acronym, “LIFTED”, stands for Leveraging Inspiring Futures Through Educational Degrees. It’s the first in-prison B.A. degree completion program in the University of California system. Piloted at UCI, LIFTED enables incarcerated individuals to apply to transfer into UCI as juniors and earn a bachelor’s degree from UCI while serving their sentence.
The podcast is produced, recorded, and mixed by Frank Harrison, co-produced by Matthew Sichler, with additional production by Collin Smith.
In this episode:
Babak “Bab” Gilani, UCI LIFTED Class of 2024 Graduate
Alfonso “Al” Matas, UCI LIFTED Class of 2024 Graduate
Transcript
Announcer
Hello and welcome to CDCR Unlocked. This is the podcast of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Today’s episode is brought to you from the Division of Rehabilitative Programs. In this episode, we hear from two recent UC Irvine students, Babak Gilani and Alphonso Mata. Both men are graduates of the UCI LIFTED program, each graduating with honors in Sociology.
Announcer
The acronym LIFTED stands for Leveraging Inspiring Futures Through Educational Degrees. And it’s the first in-prison B.A. degree completion program in the University of California system. Piloted at UCI, LIFTED enables incarcerated individuals to apply to transfer into UCI as juniors and earn a bachelor’s degree from UCI while serving their sentence.
Babak “Bab” Gilani
Babak Gilani or Bob. You can call me Bob, I guess.
Alfonso Matas
Alfonso Matas. You can call me “Al”.
Babak “Bab” Gilani
(”Bob & Al”? “Al & Bob”?) So, my experience with education, I think California is CDCR is doing a great job as far as giving opportunities to pursue education. Man, A Bachelor’s degree from UC Irvine! We’re the first cohort (in the) 156 year history of the University of California going back to 1868. Berkeley, Cal, Berkeley. And June 20th, 2024, is gonna be the very first graduation in CDCR and the
Babak “Bab” Gilani
history of the UC, so that opportunity is not lost on me. We’re making history and I’m super grateful for that. And now they have master’s degree programs and I’m advocating hopefully for Ph.D. programs and super grateful for this opportunity.
Alfonso Matas
Regrettably, I have a 33-year perspective with CDCR, now. It was just “CDC” back when I knew them. And in a sense I’m a bit of a time capsule for them, I guess because I’ve seen so much change happened within the department from that period to now. Education in particular has had a lot of transformations, a lot of ups and downs.
Alfonso Matas
One of the first places that they take from when there’s a budget crisis is education, unfortunately. There was a period of time where we lost our vocations. We lost a lot of education. It was very limited to people that they were absolutely required to educate by law. To a certain point when I got incarcerated, as in l wop life without parole sentence, I didn’t have these opportunities that I have now.
Alfonso Matas
So for me, it’s great because it’s not just a change of policy, of regulations and it’s a cultural change that I see happening, a movement that I see happening towards true rehabilitation and restoration of lives. Most people that are in prison have trauma in their history that led to the point where they’re at in their lives, whether it is violence in homes, sexual violence, homelessness, something brought them to the point where they were at, where they committed to crimes, to where they’re here.
Alfonso Matas
And so this education programs, like LIFTED, programs like AA (Associate of Arts) programs that are being run all across the state now are a good indicator of where we are headed as a maturing society, I think.
Babak “Bab” Gilani
Oh man. So yeah, California is one of the leaders, if not the leader in higher education in the United States. There’s over 10,000 AA students statewide, over 300 bachelor students statewide, and several dozen master’s students. There’s a second cohort of a master’s program starting in the fall. Higher education has been instrumental in my recovery.
Babak “Bab” Gilani
It’s because the way I see myself is just different. I have a higher self-worth and a lot of the core wounds that brought me to prison was low self-worth. Now I see that, you know, if I put my energy towards something like education, I have potential to do great things – win writing awards and compete with UC Irvine students that are on campus.
Babak “Bab” Gilani
Education has helped me better understand myself, has improved my thinking, of course, critical thinking, but thinking in general, long term thinking, perspective-taking, seeing the world through other people’s perspectives, which helps me develop empathy for others and what they’re going through, which makes me a better person. Education has been instrumental in my rehabilitation, and truthfully, if I wasn’t doing education, I wouldn’t be where I’m at today.
Babak “Bab” Gilani
That’s 100% a fact.
Alfonso Matas
It teaches you so many social skills that are not related to facts, are not related specifically to your career that you’re going to have in sociology or in business or whatever it is you might be taking, the college experience itself teaches you about life. It helps you grow as a person, and for us, it definitely helps us build a skill that is weak for us, which is empathy.
Babak “Bab” Gilani
Yeah, I mean, if I may jump in, I think a credit to UC Irvine LIFTED, their program, a lot of the courses we’ve taken have had a group project component, a group presentation component, and it’s helped us, helped me anyways, develop some soft skills. Like teamwork. Like public speaking. Like group planning. And I’ve learned that I enjoy public speaking.
Babak “Bab” Gilani
I enjoy giving a presentation. I enjoy the preparation and the planning that goes into that. And even writing papers, you know, I remember sitting down for my “Sociology of Penology (subfield of Criminology)” course and I had to write an essay, write the final project, write an essay. I actually sat down at the dayroom table, my laptop, which I’m super grateful for the laptop, because without these laptops, it wouldn’t be the same, right?
Alfonso Matas
Absolutely.
Babak “Bab” Gilani
Yeah, we need the laptops. But I sat down to do my paper and I realized, like, I enjoy writing papers! Like, how cool is that?! It was kind of weird, but how cool is that?! I like writing papers! That’s the education program. The skills that it’s developed in me are incredible. I’m so grateful.
Alfonso Matas
I have to agree with you on that. On everything you just said,
Babak “Bab” Gilani
Writing papers, too?
Alfonso Matas
Yeah, I have like a dozen papers. We have limited space, right? We have six cubic feet and I’m tossing stuff right now out to make room for these papers that I haven’t got to yet, (laughs) sociology papers. I’m a huge comic book fan. I’ve gotten rid of every comic book I have. I’ve made room for a prodigious amount of reading, post-degree, because this is how much has captivated me, how much has changed my worldview, my perspective.
Alfonso Matas
Now I find this all so fascinating. I constantly want more. I want more. Again, our perspectives differ a little bit because I’ve been incarcerated as long as I have, and it’s odd to go from so many years without access to technology and then all of a sudden, BAM! In the last five years or so, we’ve gotten laptops, tablets, video visits and–
Babak “Bab” Gilani
EBSCO….CANVAS
Alfonso Matas
EBSCO and all these things, and it changed the game entirely for education in prison.
Babak “Bab” Gilani
It’s like, when you’re losing weight or when you’re aging. I guess I don’t notice some of these changes, right, as well as someone else might notice because they have a different perspective. Not too long ago I was walking the track and talking to someone that I had known on another yard like five years ago, six years ago.
Babak “Bab” Gilani
And his comment was, “You’ve changed, man. You changed.” And I’m like, “Oh, okay. ” He’s like, “Yeah, yeah, you changed a lot. You changed a lot.” “Like, really? How so?” “You’re just- You’re a lot more calm. You’re a lot more calm.” So I think it’s not a coincidence that, you know, we have 23 in our cohort of students that are graduating.
Babak “Bab” Gilani
Cohort three is like 35 or so students. So as time goes on, more students are taking advantage of the opportunity. You know, I’d like to think that people are seeing the changes in us and they want some of that, right? They want to take part in that. And I see the changes in myself.
Babak “Bab” Gilani
It’s hard to say how other people see me, but I definitely don’t think the same way or act the same way as I did even just two years ago.
Alfonso Matas
I agree the influence is definitely there. Everywhere I look now, there’s guys on laptops doing papers. Sometimes I’m walking my dog and I hear two guys run by me and they’re discussing Marx– as they’re running. I don’t even know. It’s just such a huge change. Last night. A guy that I don’t even know, congratulated me. I’m like- Yeah.
Alfonso Matas
You know. “Thanks,[…]guy.”
Alfonso Matas
I have guys come up and ask me all the time, like, “What’s your experience like? I was thinking about going, but I’m not sure.” And it’s nice to to have them to value your opinion and come up and ask you, “What’s this going to be like?” And the best thing that I can say is, “It’s going to be what you make of it.”
Alfonso Matas
You can go in there thinking you’re getting a watered down version, you’re not, and you can have a great experience or you could have a bad experience. Everything is what you put into it. But the fact that people are now asking these questions is a huge, huge change. This is kind of one of a kind yard. It’s one of the yards has really modeled the rest of the yards for the state in what direction they want to go.
Alfonso Matas
It’s half SNY (Special Needs Yard), half mainline. There’s inmates with every, you know, from every type of background here and we’ve made it work it’s one of the safest yards in the state. And a large part of that, I think, is due to education, to the opportunities that have been presented here from college to vocations to other rehabilitative programs.
Alfonso Matas
It’s not just the one thing, “You have to have an AA. You have to have an AA! You don’t have those things.” And it’s a combination of all these things that give you the right group of experiences that are going to make you successful in life.
Babak “Bab” Gilani
Yeah, I want to touch on that. Like what you’re saying about the conversations that people are having. You know, they say idle hands are the devil’s workshop and when you’re taking four college courses and you have a bunch of papers to write, you don’t have any time for nonsense. I’ve seen so many people, they’re sitting at the table, three or four guys, working on their group projects, working on their final papers, helping each other out.
Babak “Bab” Gilani
I’ve seen just many, many guys in our cohort especially. I think our cohort’s modeled it for the rest of the yard, like a lot of group work, a lot of guys helping each other. You know the old saying, “each one teach one.” So there’s been a lot of that and I think it’s really not a coincidence that the more educational opportunities people have, the more their focus is on improving themselves, on betterment.
Babak “Bab” Gilani
Correlation isn’t causation, but I think those things definitely are strongly correlated. And I would love to research what effect that has on the population.
Alfonso Matas
Starting out, we had such a mix. Like I had never hung out with Babak on the yard. He was new, Bob, he was new on the yard, but even still, I don’t think we would have probably we… weren’t in exactly in the same circles. You get to meet a lot of people that you normally wouldn’t necessarily hang out with. You’re just one example, right?
Alfonso Matas
Like Kevin, right? When would you ever see me hang out with Kevin on the yard? So there’s such a group of people, such a mix of individuals, and we’re all seeking the same thing. And you come to find out that that guy next to you has the same fears you got, has the same desires you have. And these bonds, these strong bonds form naturally because you all have these same needs and we’re all under the gun. These pep talks, they’re going to be real simple because it’s just picking up where we left off.
Alfonso Matas
We’re constantly reinforcing positive things in each other. By all means, jump in.
Babak “Bab” Gilani
I’ll jump in. I think the pep talk is simple. Like students on campus, they might have 200 or 300 students in a lecture hall. You’ve got a professor and maybe two or three TA’s. There is really not that connection. There’s not that one on one relationship or attention being paid. Here., you know, we got 20, 30 students in a classroom.
Babak “Bab” Gilani
We got these wonderful, world class professors coming in. And WE are getting THEM. We’re not getting a T.A. or teacher’s assistant, a graduate student. We’re getting the actual professor. We are incredibly fortunate, you could say, “blessed” to have that opportunity– that these professors drive down from Orange County through traffic, dealing with lockdowns and whatever else is going on to come in here and teach us.
Babak “Bab” Gilani
And I’ll tell you, you can do it if you put your mind to it. If you sit down and do the work, if you are dedicated and you just put in the effort, you can do it. They got disability services. They got a like seven foot tall guy named Adam comes in. He’s got stress balls. If you’re stressed out, you can squeeze the stress ball, but he’ll help you if you have any kind of learning disabilities. If you have dyslexia, if you have any kind of issues, as far as comes with learning, he will 100%–
Babak “Bab” Gilani
there will be reasonable accommodations given. And you have a cohort of guys that are going to be there to help you, lift you up. You can stay for office hours, (to) get help from the professor. I just want to encourage anyone who has any doubts to just take one class. And if it’s in an A.A. class, if you haven’t been in school for 20 or 30 years, you know, ask around, take something that’s, you know, relatively easy, like a counseling course or something that you’re really interested in.
Babak “Bab” Gilani
Maybe it’s music, maybe it’s art. Take one class and see what it’s like. Take a chance on yourself because I promise you can do it. It’s just up to you. If you want to do it.
Alfonso Matas
You’re definitely going to find things that you’re going to love about this experience that you never thought you would. You’re going to find something interesting; I guarantee it. Because I’m sitting here getting a degree tomorrow that I wouldn’t have chosen. Absolutely. And I’m graduating with high marks.
Babak “Bab” Gilani
Yeah. Why did leave me like that? (laughter)
Babak “Bab” Gilani
So I want to say too, what else are you going to do? You’re going to walk tracks, play dominoes, do pull ups? How many pull ups can you do? I mean, I know pull ups are cool, but how many pull ups can you really do? You can leave prison or you can leave this institution with a bachelor’s degree from a very reputable, one of the top public universities, not just in California, but in the world.
Babak “Bab” Gilani
Why not take advantage of that opportunity while you’re here and even if you think, “Well, what am I going to do with a bachelor’s degree, when I get out, in sociology?” Think of it more of like a Liberal Arts education. You’re going to learn how to be a better thinker, better speaker, better writer, better communicator, and also develop work ethic and study habits.
Babak “Bab” Gilani
All those are going to serve you. I don’t care if you want to be a plumber, a janitor, electrician, a truck driver. Being able to communicate will help you in all those fields.
Alfonso Matas
There’s something else that you’re getting out of here that’s a much deeper, I think, connection that you get to build with your family.
Babak “Bab” Gilani
Absolutely.
Alfonso Matas
Through this experience, (100%) I am not fortunate enough to have kids, but the men that I know in the program that do have children, this is a way for them to set an example for their kids, a way to show them that, “you can do anything.” “If I can do it from in here, you could definitely go to college.”
Alfonso Matas
A lot of the men here are breaking cycles.
Babak “Bab” Gilani
Yeah.
Alfonso Matas
They might be third generation gang members, but they’re first generation graduates.
Babak “Bab” Gilani
College students. Beautiful.
Alfonso Matas
They’re making a new path for their families to follow. They don’t have to follow that same life of criminality that their family has been on, that trajectory, that they’ve had disadvantages. They can make a new path for them. And this is a way for them to connect with their family in that way. And they have. They’ve done so, magnificently.
Alfonso Matas
Guys tell me all the time, “Man, I talk with my kids about when I’m studying, about what they’re studying. And because of me, my kid is going to go to college now. He wants to do that now. She wants to do that now because she sees Daddy is getting his degree.” So there’s so many more things than just a piece of paper that you’re going to walk out –
Alfonso Matas
that is the least valuable thing that you’re going to walk out of here with this program.
Babak “Bab” Gilani
I want to say too, on that note- Even if you might be short to the house, you might be getting released soon, you can start the process in here. And there’s Rising Scholars, which is the organization for Community Colleges. There is Project Rebound, which is for Cal State, and there’s Underground Scholars for the U.C.‘s. And these three organizations,
Babak “Bab” Gilani
it’s a community and they will support you. There are so many social benefits. There’s so much programs to help formerly incarcerated people that have spent ten years plus, that’s a form of post-traumatic stress, a form of trauma if you have long-term incarceration. The state and these organizations recognize that. And if you’re getting out, they’ll help, you know, support you.
Babak “Bab” Gilani
It’s just a great way to rewrite the narrative of our lives. You know, we come in here a lot of times with people that are struggling, unresolved childhood trauma, all kinds of issues, we can leave here restored and help to rewrite the narrative of our lives. And one last thing, like the education system is one of the friendliest industries for people that have a criminal record.
Babak “Bab” Gilani
You can get your master’s degree and teach in a community college network. You can get your PhD and come back and teach for a four-year university. So invest in education and you’ll reap the rewards for sure.
Alfonso Matas
You know, your incarceration could be your disadvantage, or it could be your advantage. It depends on your perspective because you have a life perspective that most people don’t have. You’ve gone through experiences and survived things that most people haven’t. So getting out and passing it on through teaching, through higher education is a value in itself. And this is just my perspective.
Alfonso Matas
I’m not going to oversell this, but I feel indebted at the very least to my victims to do something with my life.
Babak “Bab” Gilani
Absolutely.
Alfonso Matas
I can’t change the things that I did. I can’t change how their lives have gone because of the things that I’ve done. But I can change what I’m going to do tomorrow. (Yeah) I can take a better step and I can help give back, restore some of the things that I’ve broken, the trust that I’ve broken with the community.
Alfonso Matas
You can find all those things through education, through these programs. If you’re on the fence, get off the fence. Bottom line. Because right now is your time.
