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Danielle Ponder grew up in a musical family. Her father, a pastor, has music pouring out of him, singing in church and at home on their piano. She had a family band, formed when she was 16 with her cousins in a house they all lived in together in the suburbs. But 16 was a pivotal year in Ponder\u2019s world in more ways than one.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the same age that I got my guitar, that was the same age my brother went away to prison for 20 years,\u201d she tells SPIN. \u201cHe was there because of policy. One of the policies was mandatory minimums \u2014 and if these are policies, then there\u2019s something we can do about it. We can change policy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Years spent visiting her brother in the Attica Correctional Facility showed Ponder the clear flaws in the criminal justice system that put him there. That\u2019s when she became interested in criminal justice reform, but wanted to do more direct service work at the same time \u2014 so she took on an emotionally taxing career as a public defender.<\/p>\n
\u201cBeing a public defender was the best way for me to actually be standing next to folks and representing them,\u201d she says. \u201cYou think about your 16-year-old client who was in jail for not having a bell on his bike. You think about your client who was sentenced to 1-3 years in state prison for driving on a suspended license. You think about being Black, and being Black in the system that is absolutely set up to destroy the Black community. Being Black and being in the criminal justice system was probably the heaviest thing of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
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