TASHA CARVELL
The Forum
True crime seems the likely category for a podcast created and produced by inmates in a state prison, but branding the show now streaming out of the North Dakota State Penitentiary that way is exactly the kind of typecasting “Chainz 2 Changed” is trying to avoid.
Like its hosts, their guests and the subject matter they tackle every week, the answer to how “Chainz 2 Changed” ought to be designated in the podcast index is a lot more complex.
“Chainz 2 Changed” isn’t just a clever name for a prison-based podcast. It represents the shared vision of its hosts and the system in which they reside, and is just one of the many ways the two men who host it are working to make change — not only for themselves, but for their fellow inmates and the justice system as a whole.
The podcast is also a byproduct of the changes the North Dakota Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has been undergoing for nearly a decade. It all started in 2015, when legislators, judges and prison leaders took a trip to Norway to learn about the Nordic model, which focuses on restoring people’s humanity while they are incarcerated, with the goal of giving them a better chance at success when they are released.
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DOCR Director Colby Braun said there is a societal expectation that there needs to be a just penalty when a crime is committed, but there should also be contemplation about what happens once people are in the system.
“That punishment is coming to prison and the loss of freedom. But when somebody ends up at the Department of Corrections, our job is — how do we return that person better than how they came in?” he said.
He said that means giving inmates jobs — such as teaching other inmates math equations, training service dogs, creating specialized housing units where they can take on responsibilities such as doing their own laundry, or helping their fellow inmates through peer counseling.
It also means giving them some license.
Antonio Stridiron, also known as Dread, hails from the U.S. Virgin Islands. He’s one of the “Chainz 2 Changed” hosts, but before that he was the brains behind a hugely successful change the State Penitentiary has adopted.
Antonio Stridiron discusses the “Chainz 2 Changed” podcast, which is recorded inside a cell of the North Dakota State Penitentiary, on Tuesday, June 18, 2024.
DARREN GIBBINS, TRIBUNE
When new inmates arrive at the facility, they go through an orientation process, which includes a class about accepting responsibility for their crime, acknowledging victims and others who had been hurt by their actions, and what they will make of their time inside the prison. Stridiron pitched Braun, who was the warden of the penitentiary at the time, on an idea of having inmates conduct the initial orientation sessions rather than prison staff. Hesitant at first, Braun now acknowledged it was a brilliant decision.
“In one class you led that I attended there wasn’t a dry eye in the room. You’ve got 70 grown men in prison with their heads down, recognizing the things that they’ve done, and figuring out the changes they need to make,” Braun said to Stridiron in a “Chainz 2 Changed” episode last September.
Incident reports among the orientation class dropped from an average of 43 per month to just 13 after only four months of inmates taking over the orientation classes, according to Stridiron. Braun confirmed that the trend of low orientation group incident rates has continued since the initiative started.
Evidence of the DOCR’s reform-oriented commitment can be found around every corner of the State Penitentiary in Bismarck.
“Chainz 2 Changed” records inside U.N.I.T.Y Village, a small unit housing of up to 50 18- to 25-year-olds and 15 more senior mentors with the goal of creating a space where young incarcerated adults can have a community of support in which to work on skills in improving relationships with the goal of reducing recidivism.
Just before you reach U.N.I.T.Y Village, the prison’s Behavioral Intervention Unit sits at the end of a long hallway in a newer wing. The unit was once called Administrative Segregation, which served as the penitentiary’s solitary confinement unit. Up until about 2016, it was locked down 23 hours a day during the week and 24/7 on the weekends. Inmates used to be assigned there for months on end based on a subjective staff decision and there were little to no efforts for intervention or rehabilitation.
Now, thanks to the Norway learnings, only the most serious infractions can land an inmate in BIU; therapy, treatment and skill sessions are automatic; isolated confinement is rare; and most residents are back into the general population within days instead of months, according to the DOCR.
‘A way to get us out into the community’
Inside U.N.I.T.Y Village, Zach Schmidkunz, the co-host of “Chainz 2 Changed,” led the way to the cell-turned-studio where the podcast is recorded. The walls are lined with foam soundproofing panels. A few minutes later, Stridiron theatrically popped his head into the “booth,” as he calls it. The hosts settled into their usual chairs in the cramped space, the table in front of them littered with microphones and other recording equipment, to tell the story of their podcast.
Stridiron said the seeds of the idea which eventually became “Chainz 2 Changed” were planted during a tour reform advocates in the Legislature had arranged for a group of their fellow legislators who were skeptical or even opposed the Nordic-style reforms that were being proposed, almost seven years ago.
“They were surprised and impacted in the right way by seeing the different changes that we’re doing in the facility,” Stridiron said. “They were like, ‘Man, this is amazing. If the outside community could have tours like this and see what’s going on here then we could get the support we need to get more like this done.’ Well we know (tours for average citizens) is mission impossible, of course, so we had to find a way to get us out into the community.”
He said a fellow inmate suggested a podcast as a means to do just that.
Stridiron did some initial “digging around” on the podcast idea and said he recruited Schmidkunz, a longtime friend, to help.
Schmidkunz hand-wrote a business plan for the podcast, which Braun requested in order to consider the idea. The plan included cost estimates for equipment as well as the direction Schmidkunz and Stridiron hoped to take the podcast.
Zachary Schmidkunz is one of the two hosts of the “Chainz 2 Changed” podcast, recorded in a cell-turned-studio inside the North Dakota State Penitentiary.
DARREN GIBBINS, TRIBUNE
The idea for the podcast was hatched around the same time as the first prison podcast ever created — Pulitzer Prize-winning Ear Hustle, based out of California’s infamous San Quentin Prison — launched in 2017.
Schmidkunz said he got the idea to ask the North Dakota Council on the Arts and Prairie Public to sponsor the podcast from Ear Hustle’s show notes, as they had similar sponsors in California.
The sponsors signing on finally earned the podcast a green light from Braun. The F5 Project, a nonprofit organization committed to supporting incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people, also joined on as a sponsor.
Braun said the path to approving “Chainz 2 Changed” was a long one.
He worried it would be an undue burden on staff and wasn’t clear what the security risks might be. But, he said, the level of trust he’d established with Stridiron played a major factor in deciding to OK it, alongside the DOCR’s commitment to strengthening the community inside the penitentiary.
The hosts’ stories
The premiere of “Chainz 2 Changed” in August 2023 happened just a few months shy of a grim milestone for Schmidkunz.
Twenty years earlier, he was 20 years old and suffering from severe depression. He went off his medications and his life spiraled. In November 2003, he shot and killed a friend, Alexis Walter, in his parents’ basement in Minot. He turned himself in and says now that he’d originally intended to take his own life that day.
A jury convicted Schmidkunz, who’d never been in trouble with the law before, of murder and he was first sentenced to 40 years in prison. He is eligible for parole in 2029.
Stridiron does not have a similar light at the end of the tunnel. In 2008, he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for a crime he committed the previous year.
Stridiron was accused of shooting Josh Velasquez during a fight in a Minot alley following a party. He was also found guilty of an armed robbery of another man, which took place the night before the shooting.
Visitors would not guess the “Chainz 2 Changed” hosts’ violent pasts or bleak incarcerated reality by their good-natured demeanors, which shine through both in person and on the podcast. Schmidkunz and Stridiron are both smart, engaged and amiable.
But the two are a study in contrasting styles — Schmidkunz is thoughtful and contemplative, a dry wit infused with a healthy dose of skepticism, while Stridiron is more emotional and buoyant, bringing a contagious spark of energy to even the hardest conversations.
Stridiron often asks guests on the podcast what their most memorable or meaningful experience in prison has been, but he had never previously answered the question himself.
“One of my most meaningful moments was to finally hear my family say they are proud of me. The stuff that I’m doing here, they’re actually proud of me now. It means the world to me that I’m getting that from them because I never got it before,” Stridiron said.
The more reserved Schmidkunz, whose nickname is Z-man, struggled to come up with an answer to the question but Stridiron was ready with a response for his friend and co-host.
“I’m very proud of the Z-man. He has really stepped out of his comfort zone because he’s not like a big speaker. For him to be a part of this, talking and being so involved with the podcast, it’s really meaningful,” Stridiron said.
Schmidkunz and Stridiron share a bond due to a connection they made during Stridiron’s earliest days in the prison.
Schmidkunz had already been in the penitentiary for about five years. His father was a longtime and well-known math teacher in Minot.
“When my situation happened, (Schmidkunz’s) dad was my daughter’s teacher,” Stridiron said. “So when she was struggling, dealing with what was going on, his dad really helped her overcome it. I didn’t even know him yet.”
Momentum and the future
Antonio Stridiron, left, and Zach Schmidkunz smile while discussing the “Chainz 2 Changed” podcast, which is recorded inside the North Dakota State Penitentiary in Bismarck. The duo are on their third season of the podcast.
DARREN GIBBINS, TRIBUNE
“Chainz 2 Changed” recently started recording its third season. Thirty-six episodes are currently available to listen for free on Spotify or the podcast’s website, chainz2changed.libsyn.com. Guests range from fellow inmates, prison staff and leadership, to individuals who are working in various capacities locally and nationally to assist prisoners. The intro and bumper music is all created and contributed by other inmates.
The show has evolved over dozens of episodes recorded since last August, but the overarching aim of the podcast is unchanged from its origins.
“The main goal is trying to reduce that stereotype that’s out there of — what people did to get into prison, that’s all they’ll ever be,” Schmidkunz said.
He said it’s also about helping people like Stridiron, who currently doesn’t have an opportunity to be free.
“Hopefully the right people will hear this podcast and it will reach the next people up who create laws and policies for sentencing and prisons and it’s going to create second chances for people like Dread,” Schmidkunz said.
Stridiron said they want to highlight the hard work inmates do to better not just themselves but the people around them.
“The vision is change. That’s why it’s in the name. If we can change on the inside of the walls I’m hoping that people outside of the walls can change also and see us as people — not just as the crime we committed, the time we got, the verdict that was delivered — and see the dedication and motivation that we have to change,” he said.
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Publish date : 2024-08-05 01:00:00
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