Good afternoon everyone. Mariani andyra welcome to new america to those of you were here for the first time. I am delighted we are having a very important conversation this afternoon about punishment in the u. S. For those of you that may be unfamiliar with this criminal Justice System, you will learn quickly that i think the criminal Justice System is criminal in some of the ways it applies justice. Working, america are even though society is buffeted by change, we are working for individuals and communities. Have the opportunity necessary to lead productive lives. Accessible education for all. Equal representation of politics. Part by telling stories about what is happening and what is possible and we do that by generating big and bold ideas and i think you will see that today. Our criminal Justice System is in dire need of change. Initially used as a social deterrent and to protect those from those who commit crimes. It was intended for individuals to pay their debt to society, be rehabilitated and then returned to society as productive citizens. Instead of doing those things, we have made out of mass incarceration with the u. S. Holding the highest incarceration than anyone else in the world. We disproportionately arrest and andrcerate people of color though we havent never rate of one out of nine innocent people convicted, the Death Penalty exists in some states. Whites and africanamericans use drugs of the roughly the same rate. Africanamericans are imprisoned six times more than their white counterparts. Because of what you can and cannot do once you reenter society, recidivism rates are high. That is a teaser for what we will get into. Andill focus on solutions all that and then some. I want to turn it over to our moderator for the afternoon. That s a 2017 fellow at new america. Serves as the assistant professor of history and aberdeen american studies at georgetown and is also written a book called southside girls. Before i turn it over to marcia, i should mention this conversation is being broadcast the a cspan, so if you dont want to be seen, now is a good time to get out. With that i will send it over to marcia. [applause] good afternoon. I have the pleasure of moderating a conversation between two individuals who have helped us look into the depth of the issue of punishment. Class howards class of governmentsor and law at georgetown university. The justiceector of initiative which brings together scholars, practitioners and students to examine the problem of mass incarceration from multiple perspectives. He teaches regularly in the Prison Program at the jessup correctional facility in maryland. His most recent book is unusually cool rule cruel. He received his ba in economics from yale university. His from the university of california berkeley and while being a professor, his jd from georgetown university. [applause] in november of 2017, our second panelist admission the connecticut state bar and in his words unlikely that a warrant an art article new yorker. On that day, Reginald Dwayne betts remark thats when i my mom saw me at a court when i was sentenced to nine months in prison. I know no one expected this, least of all me. He is the author of three books, the recently published the 2010 memoir a question of freedom. He is enrolled in the phd program in law at yale law mfa programarned an for wider writers. Join me in welcoming him. [applause] i want to get started on your most recent research that really takes a comparative look at the criminal Justice System. That our nation over incarcerate its own citizens, but when we look at the traditions in u. S. Prisons from the perspective of other places we deem developed, what did you find . The starting point for a lot of studies on mass incarceration in the u. S. Is to a numberaratively and of people incarcerated and its a lot higher in the u. S. But most people stop there. What i try to do in my book and research is go deeper into all aspects of the system and inside of prisons. What i found is an actual horror show which is to say at every stage of the criminal justice lifecycle which starts in pleabargaining and sentencing, rehabilitation, parole and reentry, the u. S. Is off the charts and i would say off the rails. There is something that is distinctively american about this form of punishment which is not just about making society er and keeping people protecting society by keeping people off the streets for a short period of time. It is about punishing people. What ive discovered is there are other countries to do it differently and others who do it better. So why are we having this conversation in the u. S. Where i think many people who look at it agreed there are problems. The solutions are right there. Thats what i try to draw on in the book and spell out. Hopefully to lead to some common sense practical change in the u. S. Marcia we know we are in a crisis in terms of the ability for criminal defendants to get representation and we understand the ways that prosecutors have to deliver numbers in order to maintain their positions. What are some other models outside of the pleabargaining structure that you found compelling . Marc pleabargaining is something that shocks all my students because they all watch law and order and they watch movies and in every one of those, theres courtroom drama and sell public defenders making the case for her client then this balance. The reality is vastly different. Does anyone know the percentage of criminal cases that go to trial . 5 . The rest are handled through pleabargaining. That is something that is astounding. There is a constitutional right in this country to trial by jury. Exercise that right, if you turn down the plea bargain that has been offered you in a , heres thenal way deal, take it or go to trial. You go to trial, you will probably get double that. There was a case where somebody turned on a plea bargain for five years and he got life without parole. He had the chance and turn down the deal. This is unfathomable and when i tell people from other countries about this, sometimes youre very simplified plea bargains with specific conditions and an active role of the judge ensuring fairness. Nothing like what is in the u. S. That alone is shocking and appalling. What is the solution to that . We have so many cases that are coming forward with already long delays. Plea bargains are deemed inefficient but it is unjust. The solution might be to build more court houses and have more judges or the solution might be to have more divergence and sensible forms of prosecution and seeking justice than what we do which is just cranking people through and pleabargaining. Marcia it is interesting when we think about discretionary mechanisms that allow for this to happen within the system and then we think about mandatory sentencing. Conversatione this to the other part of this. When we think about the conditions inside prisons, particularly as they relate to haveile facilities, what some of your reflections touched upon in terms of the conditions which people have to live out the sentences . I found the plea bargain conversation interesting. Im not sure if there should be more trials i dont think there should be, but im also not sure if the plea bargains on its own is a problem. Or even beyond that its the fact the amount of time thats available to start is so intense that they cant have a rational conversation on both ends. I have a friend who faced was offered five years for murder. He pled not guilty and he lost the trial and he ended up getting 53 years. He didnt commit the crime and maintained his innocence and the 20 years later, a reporter did a story on him and found out the Police Never Even interviewed him before charging him with a crime and that he did not do it and at the time he an iq of about 62 or 63. His mother was mentally disabled. Maybe the problem we dont is the enough possibility of getting that 60 year sentence on the backend. I say that having pled guilty to a crime and i say that having pled guilty to a crime that carries a life sentence and a do think part of the conversation i pled guilty to the committed the crime. What does that mean to have committed the crime and what does that mean to have pled guilty . I was 16 and i carjacked somebody. I preface it say nobody gets hurt, but my whole community got hurt. The crime was traumatizing. I think the question after that is what should the punishment being . You asked what is it like for a 16 year old. I know that from experience and research and representing kids in detention centers, i know that from speaking the two young people in prison. If you are 14ean or 15 and youve never been away from home for a couple of weeks and suddenly you are tossed into a world that is completely unlike what youve experienced. One of the challenges describing that is one of the things people want to hear is how violent it is. But if i made that argument, death it was the Mental Health workers were absent, the medical staff who were unqualified. Sometimes there was a pocket of individuals that terrorized a prison that were always reasons around the prisoner guard to prisoner ratio. And for reasons around the protocol of how things were done. How problems were managed of the institution. I think i will end with saying this, it is amazing to me that we still send juveniles to prison in the united states. The tragic reality is that we have been treating juveniles as mid1800s andhe we have been sending juveniles to prison on a regular basis since that time even after the juvenile system was developed. People want to anchor the conversation around those who committed the most violent crimes. But what they dont talk about is the people who did not commit those crimes and end up in prison and it will drastically change your life for the worst. Marc comparatively, this is something the u. S. Has. The other countries dont send juveniles to prison for these lengthy terms. It is something where they say this country has lost its mind. Reginald it is amazingly different and its so irrational. I declined to a 16 15 years old. Who was 16 ent 15 years old. Court, you have a time slot, you have to get there on time, you get in and get out. You show up at 7 30 in the morning and you remain there until 3 30 or 4 00 in the afternoon. Heause this kid was 15, couldnt be locked up with the adults. So where was he . Basically in a solitary confinement cell. Forgotten just how difficult it is to find a way to occupy your mind at 15 and so i went to see him and we went into the cell. Me and my supervising attorney and we had nothing to talk to them about. It was a foregone conclusion he would be guilty, so we had very little to talk to them about because all the evidence suggested he did it, he told us he did it and i think that overcome but its the pleabargaining because how should we think of those cases. We were in a cell with him for 23 minutes talking about nothing because it looked like he was breaking. He was upset because his mother had not answered his phone call. When we think about what the system does, its one way to think on a broad level, but its different to say what does this mean, he has not been convicted of any crime. If he pleads guilty he will probably get time served. But what does that mean for him going backandforth to court, each time he had to sit in a room by himself or eight hours. For eight hours. I think that we have let this idea about rehabilitation. And at the time there are people who find mechanisms to remain connected and grounded through the process. In a sense, solitary confinement is one of many kind of accepted forms of punishment that has been rationalized within the system. So from both of your perspectives, the critique of solitary confinement, is there a Global Response to that and is there any way we can make sure people on the outside of this can really advocate to stop this practice . Marc other countries in the world consider a torture. It torture. If theresxceptions a particularly violent act in prison where someone gets death every effort is made to help the person solve the conflict. Prison country and most in most prisons when you get into solitary, it is for a month. People going for a long period of time and start acting out. If they act out, they get more solitary. It creates this process where we are causing psychological damage and then as a result of that, we are giving them the exact same thing creating more psychological damage. It makes no sense. Reginald that happen in colorado. Is guy was locked up, he been in solitary for a number of years and was released directly. I wish i knew his name. The then director of the department of corrections in of a number ofrt states including washington that had looked to reduce the number of solitary confinement. And thenase this man he goes and murders the director of the department of corrections. I do remember this guys name. Took his place. And the question became what would rick ramesh do in the face of this tragedy . Because you could usually just easily ramp up solitary confinement. It seemed like i was the only choice. I was certain he was going to ramp up solitary confinement. What he did was he went to ,aught solitary confinement i spent more than a year in solitary confinement and this grown man who was a cop, i met him a few times, he was a tough guy cop, been in the department of corrections for a few years, he wrote the oped and said frankly i can do 20 hours and then he called and said im done. Come open the cell and let me out. Theontinued to decrease number of solitary confinement after having experienced it. One of the other things that happens in the context of the conversation is we imagine the crime this guy committed last not just forever for the purposes of you having a criminal record, so we dont even need this imagine what it means to suffer solitary confinement, to suffer through improper hygiene, improper medical treatments, horrible food. You dont have to do that yourself because you deserve it for coming that crime. He says no, before i make a decision, let me understand what it means to be in the hole. The last mos in a room with him, the last time i was in a room with him, i was in a meeting of correctional administrators. The problem they were addressing was decreasing Racial Disparities with in the system. Understanding it wasnt their fault, they have no role in people coming into prison. But there are things they can do in the department of corrections to decrease Racial Disparities in different points of the system. On that day, i wont quote them exactly because i might misquote. But im relatively death relatively certain between relatively certain he said between 30 and 60 in colorado have been released without being a threat to the community. , dontuote me on that put it on tv. Interestinglynce enough is one of the aspect of solitary confinement we dont discuss enough is protective custody. You have a wide swath of people who are in the whole not because theyve done anything wrong, but because they are afraid to be in population. Anythingnow if it is thats actually more tragic than that. Because ihe hole once had extensively done something wrong. But i was in for six months. The guy beside me had been in holehole for years the for years on protective custody. It got so bad that he would they would try to release him and then he would act out just to get put back in for all kinds of reasons he felt like he could manage being in a general population. Marc one little thing on solitary. At georgetown incoordination with the Martin Luther king league we are actually hosting a twoweek exhibit of a replica solitary confinement cell in the Central Building and we will have does go Public Events that focus on solitary and the damage of solitary confinement. Starting next week. Reginald i went in to check it out and i was Walking Around the space and they said you want to go in there and i said im good. And i thought i would go in. If you are the conversation earlier, i have a real problem with people demanding my cell phone. I was like you cant have my cell phone. Me and her gun and it is backandforth and she said will you can have these you cant understand the experience. I said would you like me to take my shoes off as well . Should we have a Kangaroo Court hearing so that i know how long i have to stay and then she realized that i must know something of what i was talking about and i think the danger in this is how do we actually understand experiences. Sometimes we imagine walking into a cell under our own like that means anything like it is to be shackled and sometimes dragged into a cell. I dont think it equates. Have one is that we will , ano from the rikers film expert on an excerpt on test solitary with testimonials. We love and incarcerated formally incarcerated people there who will talk about that and we have a system of people reflecting and leaving notes and taking it very seriously. Obviously there is nothing that can actually replicate the experience, but we are trying to have people understand the gravity. The biggest thing i found and this may segue into other topics , the general public does not understand and the demonization of people who committed crimes is that people dont get the experience is going and visiting prisons. I brought hundreds of students into prison and dozens of faculty members, and every single one of them walked out of there saying that changed my life. , cant do that for everybody it is actually really hard to get access to prisons. In a veryg to do solemn, serious way to let people think about how dehumanizing and experience it is. I think we are taking appropriate measures. Reginald i was going to we actually set that up. [laughter] reginald i like the thoughtfulness in the video and having someone around. There is a big focus on the experience. Marcia throughout this conversation on solitary we are really touching upon the way that the racial is asian of the system often leads to changes in the conditions. When you talk about the juvenile Justice System, as that system had more and more black children in it, the system became more committed to a certain type of penal process. I want us to think about the ways that race and gender Work Together in the system because i think that people are often surprised to learn about the number of women who give birth law shackled. The ways transgendered individuals are put in solitary confinement in both a protective and punitive way. What when we think about tackling this incredible system that has so many problems in it, what are the ways we can think about it in terms of gender justice, racial justice, asexual sexuality issue so that we get help mobilize different groups to make sure they are also working on this because this cannot just be the work of the people who want to reform the system. There are a lot of people need to be brought in. What are some of the ways we do that in order to create a Sustainable Movement to change this . Reginald the question you raise is what kind of literacies do we need to bring to this question . I think that has not been on the table when primarily critiquing the system. I think a different question that we have to more thoughtfully engage with is what should the system actually look like . There are different type of conversations we did have. A conversation about how the system is motivated to do harm to specific communities and how the system does harm specific communities. Then you have researched the challenges that. James performance book james formans book that raises the question about what does it mean to have a city thats advocating for some punitive policies. And what does it mean for that city to be advocating both for punishment and something else. In some of these conversations, the only way you care about someone like me who has been in prison is if i also went to gail yale. Amazing is the number of people who bemoan the fact i was incarcerated now, but when i was 16 in 1996 and this is around the time of super predators and the crime bill, there were really few people but moaning the fact i was incarcerated. Even to this day there are very few people but moaning the fact that that generation was incarcerated because they are now 40 years old. What i think and bring us to the point you are talking about is to begin to have more robust conversations about the policies that need to be changed that get you out of prison. Once you start asking about concrete policies, i will name four people i need to get out of prison and once i name those people i have to think about what has to happen to get those people out and i and then i end up asking myself different questions about what those people and me need to address to help them get out of prison. Too frequently we talk about broadly reforming the system but we have no idea what that should be in practice. Too frequentlyi got into this aa juvenile who went to prison. When i got to prison i found out i read a poem called freckled face gerald about a 16yearold who got raped in prison. I read the palm and i realized the things that happened to me the things that happened to me i experienced. I wasnt raped in prison, but the fact i had to add that qualifier means to show how demeaning it is that if you do suffer, you cant mention it out loud. The is after i read that, i started to study, started to research the issues. When i came out i found a group who were dealing with it. And i thought that was amazing because they campaign to attempt to answer the question to keep kids from getting incarcerated with adults. Years later we have stopped we have done little to keep kids from being incarcerated with adults. And people i know who went in at that age are out of the space of advocacy. Why is is not have the impact i believe it would had went on the cusp of the Supreme Court decision i was at georgetown washing it, George Washington georgetown watching it. All of that has been deflated. I go to those other groups and how they need to bring in some expertise so we can imagine what we want the system to look like and it may be that way we can provide relief. Marc i think there is no doubt the situation today or for the last few years is different from 10 years ago, certainly 10 and just 20 and 30 years ago. It a lot more lock them off up longer and longer. For there was codewords for certain type of people. , obviously the 2016 elections make things congregated and im sure we will talk about it. There has been a Movement Building and i do think the fight against mass incarceration has become the Civil Rights Movement of today. Marc i agree. Reginald i agree. Marc tell me why. When people ask about mass incarceration, i ask people who they are. I talke never when with people about this issue they are never among the mass incarceration. You feel different primarily because youve spent time in prisons. Youve had a kinship and relationship that you built over time with men in prison where you have a more robust understanding of the possibilities and capabilities and their humanity. A lot of folks dont. You saying this was a different situation from years ago is like saying the knife was 12 inches in my belly and now it is nine. Toave to be able to point some people who i know who because of our work and policies are no longer in prison and im coming up spending three years in law school tried to get one person an attorney. Everybody who i respect thought would give me a yes. Crimedoing 63 years for a that wasnt a rape or murder, it was an attempted capital murder where a gun never went off. He got 63 years in a state with no parole and i could not get of theattorney from some best people in the country. For me to argue that things have changed, i would be lying to him and i have to be accountable. Marc what has changed his awareness and that may be step one out of 20, im not talking for my own experience going about, but im talking spreading that and bringing students, the millennial generation get this issue in a way that prior generations didnt. The first step is knowing about it. Then they all want to go to lawsuit or be public defenders or ethical prosecutors, that will take a long time, i dont disagree. I am in no way celebratory about where we are today. Im saying we are finally having the right conversation framed in a way that mass incarceration is an injustice. The next step is what do you do about it. Im not popping champagne and i wont for a long time. There are people coming in. I got a call from someone who is speaking at georgetown next week , another one who came home in october who is getting involved. Marcia i want to pick up on this issue of coming home. The reentry policies of our time made this question of what is home and what is the condition of home and how you get to stay in that home and if you can apply for Food Assistance or if you can travel to a job. While i think both of you are touching upon the ways that we positively and negatively understand the Civil Rights Movement, it raised a lot of awareness but did not change voter behavior and in some way streamlined racism in a more efficient system and made more people reflective. To think good place about a holistic approach is to think about the real challenges of reentry. If we think about ourselves as committed to making sure more people come out, how do we ensure people are coming out into an ethical and dignified world to care . This is kind of the last component of this conversation. Reginald one quick point. Im not that now eyeing im not denying that we had change in the last 20 years, i deny that it was as robust as it needs to be. They said if we continue the rate of dhi qar thracian that we are at, it will take eight years. So that right there says we have had no change. Dead and imill be primarily concerned about a grandfather just being a grandfather. Reentry i take all of this stuff personally. The problem is that i dont know how to engage in a conversation where i dont take it intimately personal because it is not just about my experience, it is about the experience of people i know who still struggle every day and you still struggle with the ways in which they are blocked and even if they get released, they are blocked from achievement. I can even complain about the things i and jordan because literally at every step of the way, the doors i excited to be open have frequently required the kind of effort that we shouldnt expect anybody to have to exert because it wasnt just my effort, it was my wife suffered, it was my friends effort, it was the communities i was a part of. Scholarship tuition. When they found that i had a felony, it was denied. It is more difficult to hide the ways in which we continue to punish people who have a criminal record when you in a safe way. Aty were willing to deny me a place i was qualified for marcia mark, what your perspective. Marc i dont know what range of i suddenly got cap is not to miss which is far from the case. , is called the book. Nusuallycruel im very negative and pessimistic about what is taking place. Till will insist there are no through the Younger Generation and the use of narratives and stories, through , there isd dna something with awareness and people are mobilized and upset about it. Maybe they just go home and go back to their instagram and they dont do anything. But i think there is an awareness and that is meaningful and that something that is to be encouraged and hopefully keep inspiring them. In terms of reentry, it is a disaster and Chapter Seven on the books reentry. There is no comparison to the other countries here. First of all, the. Of incarceration is about getting ready incarceration is about getting ready to reenter it helps you get better. Whether its job training or education, social services. To become a prison guard in germany it is two years of training. It is essentially to become a social worker. For here it is barely two weeks. Very different orientation. With reentry in european countries, they prepare people and explain to people how to talk about the fact that might be a gap on the resume. They are trying to support people and then legally other than certain sensitive areas with children or financial crimes. Employers dont even have a right to know about why someone was incarcerated. It had no bearing on the job, is a fresh start. In this country there is no fresh start. A firstple didnt have chance, but then they dont have a second chance. It is a huge problem. One thing a lot to say about duane and it will start with a complement. Well everything about duanes story is remarkable and its amazing and inspiring and i therehe recognizes that is a yale halo that gets in this adjuration adulation from the crowd. I know 30 duanes that i can name who are just as smart, just as dedicated, just as capable and ready to come out and do Amazing Things and they are not getting a chance to come out or just a handful will trickle out. Saying wiredint is we letting out all the other duanes who deserve a chance . Maybe you who are just as capable or maybe more so. [laughter] marc in ai met prison. They were engaged and compelling. Abrupt and little aggressive in a good way. Before i open it up to the audience, i think this conversation is particularly illuminating because it helps understand the the talents and gifts we have now where we are, we have an opportunity to move this folder. Throughout this conversation weve seen the importance of architecture, the importance of history, medicine, physical science, we are prepared to fight this because we bring different types of knowledge to this problem. One of the things im so grateful for both of your work is you help us understand not only the complexities of the issue, but you challenge us to use our talents in order to upend the system. Please join me in thanking our panelists before we open up for questions. [applause] i will take questions from the audience. A question is a thirst for knowledge rather than a reflection. We will start with you in the blue shirt. My name is dimitri, thank you for what you shared and your experiences and work on the subject. It seems to me tragically ironic what we are discussing now that the original purpose of writing democracy in america and coming to america was to study the american current desk prison system. A lot of the points he came up ath, he ended up writing masterful work about many other subjects but he did touch on the and possibly reducing prison sentences and the harshness of them. I have two questions. From what i understand in the last 40 years, the population of people in prison has gone up dramatically. Im wondering what the data shows, is it because the war on drugs, what is it thats causing it . Im always interested in a comparative perspective globally. What is it about the german resume guards a spot on. Is other question ive had some people have called the prison industrial complex, how much are they able to lobby inside washington, d. C. And get their interests advanced and the law to privatize prisons, etc. Muche to go there, but how is the lawyer business, criminal courtroom complex of economic interest . Because one thing to tocqueville said, he was writing during slavery so it was but he said americas much more equitable than france, but he said the equable it is of the ability of a poor person to get a competent lawyer. Sorry sorry for speaking so long. Tocqueville,tioned start off with a quote from him i started the preface, but since when is been telling his personal stories. It said the book originated in the summer of 85 when i was sitting in a jail cell in london. In terms of the i talk about tokeville and how he was astute in understanding american democracy but actually completely missed predicting where it was going to go, criminal justice, because he has a quote about in no country is criminal justice administered with more mildness than it is in the united states. You could do a 180 on that one. But in terms of what explains this, and really it is a phenomenon thats over the last 40, 50 years, starting in the mid 1970s. The war on drugs is key part of it. Also an Important Role has been played by prosecutors in pushing for convictions, the professionalization of prosecutors, but even branching out further from that, if you look at society, i emphasize four main factors, one is race. This follows the Michele Alexander argument that after enfranchisement of africanamericans, after the end of jim crow, that locking africanamerican men up became the new way of trying to have racial control. Right . Second is religion. Starting in the mid 1970s you had a very politicalization of what had been a private sphere that was infused with racial images. Then you had politics, which is something elsewhere the u. S. Is very exceptional. This is the only people in other countries are just shocked when i tell them that we in this country elect prosecutors. Elect judges, that they run campaigns. That they fundraise. They have political advertisements, they brag about how many people they sentenced to death and so on. There is something utterly bizarre about the way in which judicial politics is politicized. It should be a meritocracy, should be based on logic not about fearmongering through commercials and elections and so forth. And you mentioned the industrial complex. As this system has been built up. In the 1990s there was a new prison being built every ten days, every ten days there was a new prison opening. People talk about private Prison Companies and dont realize thats only 8. 8 of prisons. People have the sense that they are everywhere, private prisons. But they have had a lot of influence, through lobbying and so on and also the private companies that work within public prisons, there are a lot of vested interests in keeping mass incarceration very high. Unless we are going to have change in terms of how people think about race and practice racial punitiveness, which starts in the schools, by the way, as you mentioned, very young. Unless we have changes in reasonable, i think there is some movement there in term of a more redemptive approach and more tolerant approach of Second Chances clue religion thats changing a little bit. Politics, i dont see any change there, its still tough on crime still wins and then the business is still very deeply entrenched. I think those are the four main features that explain this american exceptionalism. Do you want to address the legal representation. I will add, when you had this boom in the increase in the prisons being built you had federal policy that said i will front you federal prisons if you get rid of parole. We might have slowed down on building the prisons but we havent had a comparative federal policy trying to find ways to encourage states to reinstitute paroles. We opened up the front doors and closed the back tours. And the pill grants. You shut them down and they havent return ared. Despite years of reform you havent had a return of pill grants. The question about the lawyers is difficult. Most public defenders dents make any money at all. Right . I mean you are lucky if you work here in dc you get a public defender you have got one of the best lawyers in the country. You can work in other states and you get a public defender you might not have one of the best lawyers in the country but its kind of like criticizing a teacher who has a classroom with 50 students for not being as skilled as another teacher who has 15 students. All of that i think creates almost an impossibility of providing just representation. Actual why couldnt he get a lawyer . Return to that. He couldnt get a lawyer because he had already been convicted. He had been convicted. You are entitled to have an attorney during your trial. You arent entitled to have an attorney post conviction. If you lose your appeal then you arent entitled to have an attorney at all. Frankly, anybody who has dna they want to address as their attorney in order to produce their habeas petition. There is all kinds of deadlines to meet which you dont know about if you are incarcerated. That goes back to clinton. In the red. Hi, my name is isabelle, i work at new america. I have a question. I know there are federal prison and state or local or county prisons. Im curious if there is a distinction in terms of how the prisons are run and treatment within prisons as well as policy between the state and federal level and what advocacy looks like at the state level versus the federal level and if the prospects for one are better than the other . Obviously im sure they are better in blue states. I think the differences are so answer in and so profound that i dont know if there is a way to begin to answer that question except i will say you have somebody like mark who started a clemency project that can exist on the federal level and is a blue print for things that could be reproduced on a state level but its more difficult because you dont have the sort of drug policies and the drug laws that have been sort of peeled babb. You dont have that on the state level necessarily. But i think there are so many difference from doing time in a state prison to a different state prison to a prison in a different state to a prison in a different federal it is a lot. I mean its impossible to really quantify how different the experience is for one person in a the state of mead being at jess on as opposed to another prison on the jess on compound thats five minutes away. Huge variation. Its hard to generalize. But overall the standard is pretty terrible across the board. But you know the thing with prison conditions there is a lot of research on programming. Thats something that varies across prisons. That might be a funk of who is lot of research on programming. The warden, which could change when that warden chains or it could be at the state or county level. It might be depending on where the prison is located. If there is a lot of volunteers in the area. If there is a college nearby. San quin quentin is a unique prison in the united states. There are people there who qualify for minimum security who could be to other facilities who ask to stay at san quentin because of the programs. Pause of the fact that its in marin county. Because of the fact there are volunteers, whether its becomely, stanford or other institutions or clubs in marin county. So they have education programming, shake sphere clubs, they have a pod cast. They are amazing. The thing thats so clear, this is why it is a no brainer in my mind. Programming works. Education, its incredibly clear, if people get an education when they are in prison if they take some Higher Education courses it reduces recidivism by 43 . It make them prepared to reenter. It changes their mindset. I have seen it literally happen. It activates them in some way. Its cheap, humane and makes sense. It keeps society safer. Think about it, 95 of people in prison, even though they are in there for way too long, at some point they are going to come out. Who do we want them to be . Who do we want to be living next door with, who do we want to be sharing the commune with . We want them to be well equipped to return. Right now at georgetown we are starting literally this month, a Prison Education program. Something we feel that georgetown and d. C. Department of corrections feel the same about this. That it is a win win for everybody. This is something that i think more prison us should be doing. I wish there were ways of measuring and evaluating prisoner mo precisely to reward those who have more programming and perhaps punish in some way those who dont because the results go along with it. Its very clear, more better education and programming, better results. Why would anyone want to oppose that . On the topic of education, i dont know if you heard recently the new Jersey Prison system banned the new jim crow from that was overturned today, actually. Im curious about policies like that in general which into like minuta but how we can stay vigilant to be sure that things like that th impacted. We will continue to build awareness. Then what . How do we really start to shift the tide towards action . What does that look like . And weve started to see bipartisan support on this i think in part because of the dollars that are flowing into this area but im curious if you have thoughts on whats that shift thats beyond a programmatic level or a individual level but you really start to see institutional and systemic change. Let me take the third one. The third one, i think i did this project when the law school we sort of studied the highest rate of recidivism. I hate words like recidivism. In maryland it means parole violations. At one point i was sitting in on hearings. And one guy was hifg with his girlfriend who just had a child. He was staying there overnight. He had an ankle bracelet because he was the caregiver when she was at work. They violated his probation for not being at home. During the hearing they stepped him back eight months. At the end of the hearing he said can i change my address . I thought maybe he wants to move to another country. He gave the address of his girlfriend. So the parole board says thats fine. He got violated for going to his girlfriends house and then upon conditions of his release he was authorized to go there. We studied for a few months and consistently technical violation, technical violation, technical violation, none of it was serious enough to warrant another criminal offense. All of it led to somebody doing more time in prison, three months to a year more in prison. One of the things that we can do is find ways to be on the parole board. This is an Administrative Agency with broad discretion and zero oversight. And nobody i know has ever said, i would like to be on a parole board. Like we havent really thought about how to make up people who are in those positions. Like we havent really thought imagine your locked up. Couldnt visit from your child you dont see very much. Youre not allowed to hug that child. Youre not allowed to take pictures. He rules that come up i would like to return point where they cannot anymore because enough attention paid and enough outreach would be raised. Three part question. Is talked about individual actions. For the individuals that become enlightened about this issue and want to do something you touched on a couple of resource or folks canlows go to. The footnotes of his book. Great idea. For programs that work at their evidencebased programs. Im curious if you can cite another example. Things that we should be advocating for and constrained for the folks and other level we started talking about some of the obstacles been doing humanization of the person caught up in the system. Itself whereence what is the like to be in solitary confinement. Folks that really dont care. Bout black and brown people we will continue to build awareness. How do we shift the tide towards action. What does that look like. We started to see bipartisan support on this. The dollars that are flowing into this area. Im just curious if you have thoughts on this shift. Really start to see institutional and systemic change. The highest rate of recidivism there is so much buried in it. The highest rate is parole violations. But a parole violation can at one point i was sitting in on hearings. And one guy was hifg with his girlfriend who just had a child. He was staying there overnight. He had an ankle bracelet because he was the caregiver when she was at work. They violated his probation for not being at home. During the hearing they stepped him back eight months. At the end of the hearing he said can i change my address . I thought maybe he wants to move to another country. He gave the address of his girlfriend. So the parole board says thats fine. He got violated for going to his girlfriends house and then upon conditions of his release he was authorized to go there. We studied for a few months and consistently technical violation, technical violation, technical violation, none of it was serious enough to warrant another criminal offense. All of it led to somebody doing more time in prison, three months to a year more in prison. One of the things that we can do is find ways to be on the parole board. This is an Administrative Agency with broad discretion and zero oversight. And nobody i know has ever said, i would like to be on a parole board. Like we havent really thought about how to make up people who are in those positions. I actually think Administrative Law is the way we have to think about danging and decreasing the prison population. Because there is people who are already in prison. You are not going to get back in court. Not going to be resentenced. We have to figure out how to make clemency and parole work. I was in a state i wont name. I was visiting that parole board and it was a local pastor that was on the board. And a public defender was the head of the parole board and that gave a different face to the problem. As opposed to connecticut which was two Correctional Officers who only got those positions because they had reached retirement age and wanted to be able to get parttime salary who were completely uninvested in the people they were seeing on a constant basis. Thats my one way in which i would say this is what we can do to change some of the policies and put a real dent in incarceration rates. The second thing is i have to be worried about how we think about what evidence is, and how we think what recidivism is. There is somebody who is released who is unable to get another job who commits another crime. We have to be careful all of you people in the audience who have a college degree, if you ever do anything despicable in your life your institution does not get blamed for it. If you cheat on your wife, if you beat your kid, if you get a traffic ticket. Right . If you commit a crime, nobody says you went to university of maryland . University of maryland has failed our society. We cant keep sending students to university of maryland. Because you got that education and you decided it was okay to run that red light consistently for six months, right . I think its dangerous for us to put that kind of burden on Higher Education or any program in the system because all of those are legitimate, even if people go through those programs and still end up back in program. Let me have a point on parole and well answer the questions. Theyre often points to members of the parole board. What governors most fear is letting somebody out who commits another crime. That is the number one fear. So in germany they talk about having a relatively high risk tolerance which is to say they do their best, but when someone reaches the end of their sentence or has a conditional release earlier which is a form of parole, that then we as a society are hoping for the best and with the emphasis on rehabilitation that comes in they have fewer failures. The point is were not going to have 100 . Whatever programs they do. We have to be, and a wrote an oped about parole is we have to be willing to consider letting people out of prison at some point. We have people who serve life with parole. That sentence is just given out like candy for life, life. And theyre eligible for parole. Then what happens is when they come up for parole at a certain point, what happens . They might be 30 years into their incarceration. They might be all gray or whatever. And then it goes back to what they did when they were 16 or 18 or whatever. And the original nature of the crime. Nothing about the transformation thats happened, ive written 35 different parole letters, none of them have done any good because in a certain number of states life basically means even though youre eligible for parole, you dont get a chance to get parole. Its essentially life without parole but we have this charade we call trying for parole. So i think parole is usually problematic, but it is an area where there needs to be a lot of attention because the sentencing part, that is changing a little bit. There is some ramping down, three strikes and mandatory minimums and so on. Thats going to take a long time to have an effect on the 2. 3 Million People who are locked up today. Parole is where we can make a difference, california, due to a Supreme Court decision, has actually been giving out parole much more regularly because they were forced because of overcrowding and conditions in the prison there to let people out. There are all these scalia and many others saying theres going to be crime waves. It hasnt happened. Its been incredibly successful. Its not 100 . We as a country need to think about that and prepare for that and do everything we can to make that happen. In terms of what can be done, you know, i talked about programs. The other thing is family. The way we treat people in this country when we lock them up, we do Everything Possible to prevent them from maintaining Strong Healthy ties with their family. They get sent far away. The federal system they get sent all over. But even many states, theyre put you know, theyre in sort of rural areas that are really far away from where many people are from and the visitation policy is restricted. The way its set up is meant to actually break those ties and discourage that. In terms of where we can go, the reason why, and i want to come back not quite be an optimist but have some hope which is that on the state level there has been some change in some states and in the end we have 51 criminal justices in this country. We have a federal system in 50 states. Even some deep red states, texas, louisiana, that have been harsh for decades but that have been moving in a different direction, locking up fewer people, being willing to let people out and so on. Its not always for the same reasons i would share. A lot of it is economic. Our budgets are bursting. We need to cut our budgets. Why are we spending 50,000 a year to lock up someone. Why are we spending 100,000 a year for someone elderly who has health needs. I think its more of a human rights perspective. But that still is real. Its an argument effective with certain crowds. I think theres some hope that the combination of those types of arguments will make people realize on a state level where its separate, where theyre not part of all the federal craziness and so on, that there are better solutions. Drug court and so on, its happening for racialized reasons that its sort of a white population thats being addicts and its not criminals anymore. That should have happened 30 years ago. But theres some movement on the state level in that direction. Thats where i think more attention needs to be paid in the states. Maybe its better. Years ago. But theres some movement on the maybe happening quietly in the background without all the sort of fearmongering is a better way. I want to say one thing that i think is worth noting. More like sort of bringing new literacies to the problem. My friend gary with impact justice, he had students in prison. Maybe happening quietly in the there was some pushback. Somebody hit me up on twitter and said im completely against this and they tagged me. I said i disagree with you, i think its a good idea. You like to do that, dont you . Yeah. One of the reasons i thought it was a good idea is i was there and i watched them present. One of the things it did is its not a given that all of us know what it means to be incarcerated. Its not a given all of us know what the system looks like. When you start to bring a Diverse Group of people, each prison was built with this notion, they conceptualized it being some kind of space than what it is now. They also had all had built spaces, so imagine spaces being built that took for granted the fact that the families of prisoners needed to be able to have a meaningful and kind of complex interaction with their incarcerated partners, children, loved ones. And so one of the reasons why i think we need to bring others into this conversation is because they say the same things that me and mark might say, but they raise different questions like oh, the state prison has no Family Access because its built into the side of a mountain thats 79 hours away from the entire prison population. Actually i just wouldnt choose to build it on the side of a mountain in that place. And if i built it, i would actually have a space for restorative justice. I would have a space that i imagine is using as a community theater. Doing all of those things encourages us to think in a different way about those incarcerated. Although i agree with all the system tem systemic racism, and all the structural problems, we dont like the people in prison. We just dont like them. Sometimes theyre use cousins and we dont like them. We dont like them because we disappear them and we dont engage with their existence. We dont meet them, especially if theyre our families. We dont meet them on a level than we were not actually thinking about real crimes when we think about people incarcerated. We think about the standin crime which is something we saw on law and order. How has that show been on for 30 years . Unbelievable. Ten spin offs. I love nbc, though. On that note i want to tell everyone that both duane and mark have books available through our partner solid state books and in a time that has been characterized by this idea of building a wall, i really appreciate your help in braking down not only physical ones, but ideological ones as well. Thank you so much for being here. [applause] we are live today at the sight of the mlk memorial in west potomac park in washington, d. C. As the nation celebrates the life of dr. Martin luther king jr. Is a 450ng the statue foot long inscription wall that features 14 quotes from his speeches, sermons and writings. If you plan to visit and you are using your phone to help with navigation the actual address for the memorial is 1964 independence avenue. That references the civil rights of 1964. We have been taking shots from this location throughout the day to see how people are celebrating the holiday. The memorial itself is on a site line linking the Lincoln Memorial to the northwest and the Jefferson Memorial to the southeast. Throughout the day we will show you scenes from the mlk memorial as visitors come to pay tribute, take pictures and make speeches. Interior secretary ryan zinke he was there earlier today. I joined Martin Luther king the third and members of the memorial. Oundation on the National Mall the riesling taking place at 10 00 this morning at the base of the mlk statue. You saw people taking pictures in front of that. Is back tomorrow facing a Government Shutdown deadline at midnight friday. The house gaveling at 2 00 p. M. On extending government funding. Also members will consider an abortion bill. The senate is back at 4 30 to debate a fisa reauthorization. The senate will also have to work on a government funding bill extension. Watch the house live on cspan and see the senate live on cspan two. Coming up, Homeland Security secretary Kiersten Nielsen will be testifying at the Senate Judiciary hearing on oversight of the department of Homeland Security. Live coverage is underway at 10 00 a. M. Eastern on cspan. Credit President Trump officially signed a Martin Luther king day proclamation. Forehand he made remarks about dr. King in the roosevelt room of the white house. President trump good morning, everybody. Thank you very much. Thank you. I want to thank secretary carson alone with mr. Isaac Newton Farris jr. And guests for joining us today. It is a great honor. Earlier this week i had a
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