I get a phone call. The next day, it's the court administrator, you know, called me up.

Oh, well, you're suspended. We pay an investigation for bringing an inmate drugs.

What the fuck is you talking about?

Damon Shepard grew up in St. Louis with a dream of making a difference in the criminal justice system.

Raised by a single mom, he started in security and worked his way into corrections after falling short of becoming a cop.

But that dream quickly turned into a nightmare.

While working in a juvenile facility plagued by corruption and contraband, Damon was set up in charge with bringing drugs inside.

Forced to resign and fight for his name, he now exposes the broken system from the inside out. Damon, welcome to Lockton, man. Thanks so much for coming out here today. Yeah, man. Thanks for having me, man. I've been waiting to come out here for a long time now. I've been telling my mom, like, man, I'm trying to get out there. I'm trying to get out there. You know, so I'm glad to be here, you know. And shout out to your mom for being a listener

of the show. You were telling me she's been watching the episodes every day. I just talked to her this morning. She caught the episode of the guy from Breaking Bad, so she was excited. She's like, I'm a big fan of the guy from, you know, well, the show of Breaking Bad. So I'm glad she's

tuning in right now. You know what I'm saying. And she, you know, she's like, oh, I didn't know he had guests like that. I'm like, yeah, I told you. I'm like, this big podcast, you know what mean? Yeah, that was a good episode. It was different, but it was good. And RJ did such a good job telling his story.

And it's just, it's nice to branch out.

But it's still within the world of the criminal justice system. And it's just, it's nice to branch out.

But it's still within the world of the criminal justice system.

But it's different at the same time, makes it unique.

Yeah, you know, at all the episodes I watched, it was a guy named Quay.

I guess he was a C.O. from Ruckus Island.

Yeah, Quill. Yeah, Quill, yeah.

I watched him, I think he's on 60 days in, too, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah, I loved his interview. I probably watched it every five times. Went to sleep watching me because I can relate so much to what he was saying and stuff like that. Yeah, you're not the first person that said that, especially that comes from a correctional officer background. Oh, for real. Yeah, people liked him because he was very real about just everything there and nothing really phased him right right right

he was just honest and vulnerable he was honest calm and then there was like a lot of things he was

like you know like he was saying like with some of the inmates like he was saying with some of the inmates

like not all of them or bad people but like well they

did something to get there but they ain't all so good like inmates do complain a lot you know and

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