Curtis “Wall Street” Carroll is teaching fellow inmates financial literacy as a practical and better alternative to crime, and the media has taken notice.
“Sixty percent of people in prison are in for money-related crimes, and this is the only money management finance program I know of,” said Carroll. “It’s really bigger than just helping men make money. When someone asks me to help him get out of criminal activity, I am helping him build a new foundation, and that means the world to me.”
The Dec. 4 class was covered by Wilson Walker for CBS (KPIX-TV) in San Francisco, Emily Green for NPR, and Joe Orlando of the Office of Public and Employee Communications for California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. They came to see what “The Oracle of San Quentin” (as Carroll is now called for his winning stock-picking ability) is teaching.
“I wanted to see what people are learning, the whole learning process,” said Orlando.
Carroll said he was motivated to learn how to read in order to understand the place where “White people keep their money.” He’s serving life for his part of committing a murder at age 17.
He learned all about the stock market from an inmate and reading, once he learned how to read. He then developed a system for picking stocks. Studying the stock market opened a new way of looking at money and how proper management and investing can stop crime, he said.
“If not for financial education, I’d be on that yard selling tobacco, weed, and phones,” said Carroll. “Financial education has been a lifer-saver. Now I can earn money legally and manage it properly.”
Troy Williams, who recently paroled, came up with combining emotional intelligence and finance. The two met at San Quentin, co-founded Freeman Capital, and started teaching other prisoners.
The classes have three modules. The first is Reentry, and it’s about teaching inmates what they need to know to reenter society. This includes how to make a resume and handle job interviews.
The second module teaches money management.
“Why does a guy working in PIA earning $100 a month, $1,200 a year and $6,000 in five years parole broke? He doesn’t have a financial education or understand his emotional connection to money,” said Carroll. He inspires inmates to invest in stocks and save money instead of wasting it on junk, so they can parole with a head start.
Module three shows how to prepare for retirement.
Several community volunteers helped design the curriculum and some help teach the classes. Kevin Lundquist and Adam Sanders do mock interviews and teach the inmates how to prepare resumes.
“I found the hardest thing for parolees is getting jobs when they get out. So I thought a program like this would help,” said Sanders. “You can’t let guys out of prison who haven’t been in the workforce for 20 years and expect them to make it without any help. They will be much happier and productive citizens with options.”
Valentina Bravo helps teach money management skills. “The world revolves around money. If inmates don’t have money management skills, they will go back to their old ways,” she says. “So the money you do have, know how to make it last.”
For sponsor Tom De Martini, “My involvement is giving back to the community and helping to effect change in our penal systems and how we need to start looking at restorative justice, not just punitive. These types of programs should be at all prisons.”
Carroll added, “Some think stocks are risky… that’s not true. I couldn’t read, so if I can do it, we all can. Financial education can help those who feel they have no hope.”
More information about Curtis “Wall Street” Carroll can be found at www.wallstreetfeel.com