Interview with Douglas Smith

Description: 

Doug Smith is a criminal justice policy analyst for the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition and an Assistant Adjunct Professor at UT Austin’s School of Social Work. Smith was incarcerated for six years, an experience which led him to his current work developing policies to reform the criminal justice system. In this interview, Smith shares how his struggle with addiction resulted in his incarceration. He describes day to day life in prison, and how prisons deal with the mental and physical health of those incarcerated. He also recounts the day a friend of his died in prison, and talks about what it was living in the Walls Unit in Huntsville, Texas, where executions are carried out by the State of Texas. This interview took place on May 13, 2017 at the Texas After Violence Project Office in Austin, Texas.