To. Die. Right or is it our going to die. A shocking new number was released today and it deserves our undivided attention one out of every 100 americans is now behind bars walked up in prison or in jail. The most important thing. As to talk from your heart if you have more than one child give a like an overall message but then do an individual one to each child throw them a kiss or talk to them about what you do daily the rest should be just you if youve written a poor weve had people pray weve had people saying one guy showed his little boy how to shoot a basket be creative. These are gifts to your children. The families are punished right along with. They have found people dont think so but the collateral consequences of somebodies incarceration affects not just that whole family but it affects the whole community and affects you as an individual or the you know whether or not and whether you know that person or not thats incarcerated. To pay inform. You should care. I have a background in film and video as a producer and i thought theres got to be something i can do so why not combine my career and my experience with the present system and come up with something for these kids. In that camera. And that they can look at them and say. You know this isnt your fault you did nothing wrong it means a lot and for many of these men and women its the 1st time theyve really taken responsibility which is huge and thats a 1st step in recovery if any time any time is to take responsibility for. But even with. This. Readiness of everybody that. I was going to go to. Im going to do the best they can to stay out of this booth. For. Good this. The way. This once you got to know the numbers so can we be would so. Love to. The. Next chapter. From 1020. 00 to 1970 this whole half century of American History the rate of incarceration was roughly level or about 110. 00 per 100000. And this is a broad span of our history this is the ruling twentys and prohibition the depression and all the social change the world war 2 the postwar economic boom the the fiftys the explosion of suburbia the sixtys and all the social turbulence through this whole period the rate of incarceration is roughly level in the United States at about 110. 00 from 100 times and this reflects you know the policies of Police Departments and prosecutors and judges operating all over the country in the local and state level and then in the 1970 changes so that by now the rate of incarceration issue why does over 700. 00 and. Of course are issue for africanamericans is over 4400. 00 and so you have to wonder how does what she did this century stability get with this dramatic increase of incarceration in. Americas public enemy number one in the United States is drug abusers once the federal government decided that were going to have war on drugs they were able to then take a lot of money from the federal budget and send it out to states. I realized the need. To deal with this problem. In this administration we have increased the amount of money for busy handling the problem. It will be 600000000 dollars this year more money will be needed to do it virtually everybody thought the drug war was the number 1. 00. Issue and so you had politicians of both parties and you know district attorneys and elected sheriff everybody wanted to get in to drug cases and get aggressive about new laws to punish the new agents to arrest the new prosecutors and pick them and new prisons to hold them. We move the train when i was very young we moved here we moved you know to mobile homes we used to always roll up and down the hallways of course it was the projects so sometimes we will sneak up on the roof which was the top floor 12th floor and you know look out and of course that was very scary as a young child but you know when you live in the projects its always so much stuff that you can get into my brother was tragically killed when he was ran over by a truck and i remember pacifically going to the corner with a habanera and seeing all the blood because they left all the blood still in the street the traumatic experience of losing my only brother and that truck ags and i know it had done something to me you know drugs from our state that time was hard all the way or because my son was doing drugs my nephews was to my drugs my niece was doing drugs my sisters with doing drugs and it was like an epidemic. Of drug abuse. And i cannot explain. I cannot explain my feelings because id at that time i didnt know how i felt you know i was sad because i felt like they were different in their lives but there was not the not to do about it to change their lifestyle. That was it. After my brother passed away i kind of withdrew from a lot of things i didnt talk as much i was very quiet on probably as early as my teenage years. 01213 years old you know i started sneaking a drink in a little bit here and there started smoking marijuana at a very young age i started all selling drugs in you know he came right along with. The family you tend to trust family when i 1st saw him and that was in the hallway and i used to be a hopeless for monetary and out with station right in front of his locker so when i knew that he was coming to his locker i would put my hands up in like black youth way. So he would have to say excuse me something in at that we started talking we got to know each other you know at the home many times in and out over our house. You know my home. Was a really home compared to our house margaret grew up with her parents before the parents all the nice decent house oh great mother great father home something that i didnt have and i started you know just being around her a lot and being around family a lot and next thing you know you know i was pretty much you know once we started going to get i was pretty was there were another house and they were 2 years old i was pretty much stay in there because my mom was on drugs she longs she knew i was there she really didnt have a problem with it but a kindness started you know live in a stable market at a very young age. By the time i was 1617. 00 i was fully engulfed in the drug game and it is only was so big it was only 7. 5 square miles so a lot of rumors a stylus britain along to the train detectives back then they had to take to that one the high school and they kind of got to know me very well and i guess they relayed that information to the trade narcotics and they started watching me and follow me around or stuff like that and i remember the 1st time that they. That they raided my house i wasnt there but my mother was there and i was so i think i just turned 17. And they locked her up and i got a phone call saying that you know your mother was locked up and they want you to turn yourself in. So i visually i turned myself in a 17 a let my mother go and 1st time me ever going until i went to you found because i was an 18 i was always the juvenile still in high school and we missed the prom. When i got out i remember the detective telling me that you know as soon as i turned 18 and it was going to come back. And if i dont straighten out my life that 1st spears would be none compared to other experiences in jail because then i would be over 18 and i would be going into a facility most historians look at the origin of the war in drugs as something of president nixon with his speeches and his creation of of the d. N. A. And other agencies in the 1970 s. But the reward drugs as we understand it with. Enormous enormous case loads and and in and filled up prison population is really a feature of the 1980 s. Under president reagan drugs are menacing our society theyre threatening our values and undercutting our institutions theyre killing our children under reagan there was a tremendous increase in federal spending for anti drug activity cabinet level efforts and Congress Creating bring powerful new laws on day 2 of a new campaign against drug the president backed up a tough talk with action for getting tough on drugs and we mean business its almost like overnight we had discrete idea what we go after the users. And thats what we did we started going at the users in a prison populations. Because obviously theyre far more users enter operations major operations and. We started treating sick people people who were addicted to these drugs one member a member talked to my grandmother and having a conversation with her about my life and how far i had fallen she said to me you know jason would always pray for you and im going to pray that you change your life around. Here one of the things that she said to stuck with me was that you know god is going to find your darkest hour and only there when you realize who you truly your and i heard her but i really didnt hear her. And i left her house that they skip and then it went right back out into the streets. I remember going to new york to cobb then coming back from new york coming down route one coming through union county we had drugs in the car and we had a gun in the car. And i remember being stopped at a light and get now switching drivers i got around to the passenger side and she took the drivers seat and not knowing that it was a cop car right behind us so once again i didnt want to go to court i was going to try. I told my laura that you know we just had to try to get all the charges pushed together give me one senses let me go do my time and hopefully straight up my life i remember pacifically the judge sitting just telling me that now im a 2 time loser. And he said tracy hughes convicted in 1900 you can begin again in 1980 he said come back before me for the 3rd time in the 3rd time is going to be a chore for you. So the temporary orders that im on or before i go to file trial actually do allow me to address them as james and his male pronouns but i cannot do that in front of 3rd parties who. And thats a girl so basically i cant go to a school i keep them away from any friends he might have at school at all theres a girl at my home hes known as james and i use male pronouns what im prohibited from doing right now is try to convince him that hes actually a boy. Just a pretty young boy not a moon its true but in your circles one of. The much for the call was a. Mere mortal in their. Wiring good sort of produce. In the distance but you know what it seems to trace. That down. The direction to would judge to sentence can be done in 2 ways you can say judge heres a crime and for this crime you can impose a sentence anywhere in this range from probation to some term of Years Imprisonment the other way is to say judge you must impose some minimum number of years or months of imprisonment and go up from there so a mandatory minimum this is a sentence where no matter how minor the role of the offender no matter how insignificant a violation of this crime it is a minimum term must be imposed mandatory minimum sentences are not new theyve been on the books in this country for 200 years and there are about 190 of them or something and if you look at them they read like the crimes issue or so you can see what the public was concerned about and then Congress Took that concern and translated it into law. Intellect sensing legislation so piracy on the high seas in like 790 s. A life without parole robbing banks and crossing state lines in 1934 was you know 10 years of prison skyjacking in the seventys for as 10 or 20 years in prison and so you can see the you know what was the point the headlines were the headlines were translated into a mandatory sentence and so in the eightys when drugs became a big deal and lots of concern about drugs it was in the top 3 of public concern reacted by creating new mandatory minimum sentences for drug crimes which congress sent to president lee was 5 years me to the minimum 5 grams of crack cocaine grams likes we. Can years minimum is 50 grand of crack cocaine thats like the weight of a kid. These are tiny kuan its all based on one factor your sense you know how what was a drug and how much of it did you have and that determines your sentence so culpability no longer really plays a major role in a persons a person sentence when the crime carries a mandatory minimum when president reagan signed the mandatory minimums and 96. 00 the federal prison population was 36. 00. Now its well over 200000 this is a growth that no one could have imagined mass incarceration in the u. S. Is really unique in Human History there is no democratic nation thats ever tried to have such a massive social experiment as weve done in incarceration and we have more prisoners than any other country in the. Numbers i mean i find it a bit disturbing that we are prisoners from china and they have a 1000000000 people and we do i dont think it gives people an i was when they hear that we have 25 percent of the worlds prison population and only 5 percent of the worlds population in other words we are way over in chorus. Compared to any other country in the world. I had allowed. Somebody is a story here a mine and the police found it and they came after me i ended up literally holding the bag. I knew nothing about the criminal Justice System you know here i was this middle class. Career never even a parking ticket and it was quite a surprise when we went to court and i had that kind of time marijuana. And i was charged with possession of marijuana with the intent to distribute money going to conspiracy to murder i received a total of 55 Year Prison Sentence the judge suspended all but 6 i was fortunate enough. To make 1st parole and i actually served in prison 14 months. Is the cards that weve put in with the messages and asked the families to respond so weve gotten some really good responses and this one was 3 fem up 3 members of the family viewed it. And we ask what were the ages of the children who saw it she put just want to put 6. She says an extremely meaningful for the daughter of the mother who was incarcerated she loved it. We all did. And this one said what did the message mean to your family to know their family was ok and its a huge part of these children who want to know that their families i mean their mom or dad so ok. Theres. Always been 3 years to see. Miss jones lose to grieve for sure is that you dont read. Doesnt your fault just very loving show phone to you one else in the family love does it show me feel you to fall has been me. The role of a lot of this town these last 34 years going to the last. Known. Swan to say the. Very 1st. They said just me to go one year administrative segregation and mistress of occasion is 23 hour long going to the locked up 23 hours each day you come out for half hour shower and a half hour break i know a bit of olive person. At that time i was treated like one of the worst phone persons in the world i remember going into the cell i believe maybe if i buy a cell. I was dead or close i knew i was going to be there for the next year is just an experience that it is going to make your break you are going to come out a better person are you going to come out of worship person than you were before you went in and being in a hole is mirrors that i know i wouldnt wish on anybody. But you locked up for 23 hours i think you can do is. My words i want to grandmother just kept playing over and over again in my mind and those words was the guy i was going to farm in my darkest hour and only there what i realize who are actually was and what i kept hearing that because sand i am at my door now where i am at my lowest point. And. I think right there i realized i had reached my lowest point to life and that the only on the way for me to go from here. I know that crime and other criminal in a country already. Fed up with reading was right politician for the solution is simple crackdown the reason the criminal Justice System isnt working is that were not sending enough people in jail and keeping there long enough that people are saying general way that they will to lock these rascals up and keep them there for a long gone through the 1980 s. There was a major shift in the congress and in state legislatures of doubt how long sentences should be the public was a long term by increasing rates of crime from the 1970 s. And early eightys and they wanted longer sentences they wanted cracking down and thats what happened across the board for all kinds of crimes not only the mandatory minimum drug sentences the effect of all those sensing laws was not just to increase the sentences that people were exposed to so the people were serving longer time in prison than they did before it was also to take the discretion away from the sentencing discretion away from judges and juries and shifted over to prosecutors it didnt limit it discretion it just gave prosecutors. The power to determine what your sentence was going to be by making charging decisions and even by bargaining over what the facts of your case were. So it didnt mean that discretion it was eliminated from the system it just put the prosecutors in charge. Amy was born in 1968 and she was very very shy but by the task that in High School People can cite it in or she played basketball she made good grades high school that we went to a 712 grade i was kind of the little tagalong sister. My brother were friends and i mean my sister her friends just kind of watch sure she was. Always really friendly always showing nice this is a small town. Everybody knows everybody. She got in trouble wed know about it. I had what i consider an idyllic childhood. And some point when im in college i mean guy that works for southwest times record the newspaper there in fort smith arkansas and he asked me if i would be a subject for him to go out and take some modeling photos we went to like several locations and he instilled in me that i really ought to pursue a modeling career consider my mother says to. Me ralston moved to dallas my gosh no you know. What shes thinking whats she going to do and so i think shes going to model so i created a little portfolio before i went to dallas that i could show to the modeling agencies fandy it was well read well traveled well educated graduated Stanford Law School i had gone to princeton Theology School so it was it was very appealing to be around somebody who i was frankly very impressed with and so fascinated with. 8 months later we were getting married at the dallas arboretum and all of our family and friends were there and it was at that point seemed like a dream come true. There were red flags before we got married there were there were frankly there were red flags all along the way sandy has what i consider to be a dual personality and that this other character would emerge whenever i dont literally had to do something radical. The only remedy to remove him from my life was for me to leave dallas i had to leave dallas and id leave all my friends behind and completely. Move to a different city. But he wouldnt leave her i just kept saying you know lets be friends lets be friends he wanted it to be more so he told me that he was. Going to and then i never heard anything for a while though word got back to me that hed been arrested. I hadnt been in dallas in over a year so the only thing i knew to do was to book a flight to dallas to see if i could go through the house listen to the answering machine and try to piece this thing together and eventually think youre going to find out more information and while i was in the dallas house the phone rang and it was sandys german Legal Counsel who had been assigned to the case in germany and at that time he. Gave me very thin details but said that he had been arrested for manufacturing ecstasy and that he wanted to return interning for him there in dallas it was a pretty interesting revelation but i did there was money in the safe that was in the house in dallas and i took that money and i retained an attorney to go over and meet with him in germany. 7 months after sandy has been arrested and i pull into the garage of my car as rushed by Law Enforcement people who are screaming and have a gun out and theyre pointing at my face im being told you know youre in hot water we know that your husband was arrested we know you know we know you visited him in germany and they said we know you have information and all you have to do is just tell us what you know and i wasnt going to say anything because im literally watching these people destroying my mom says its somebody that i really want to confide in and so i add it wasnt very long after that that my lawyer explained to me exactly what it is that my prosecutor wanted they wanted her to wear a wire. And try to m. K. Other people people she didnt even know and. She what she writes. I used to do it she said i dont roll im not going to do this and this Prosecutor Says you. Ruin your lot. Lately. Little. Girl. Little. Lives. Oh. Please. Please. Please. Please its. Pleased. And a very warm welcome to you watching us and see us. Join me every thursday on the alex salmond short and ill be speaking to us from the world of politics. Im sure ill see you then. Google is accused of interfering in last years. Sparking protests in dublin among religious conservatives. Tensions rise between london and tehran over the seizure over the radio an oil tanker off the coast of gibraltar and the court there rules the ship can be impounded for 2 more weeks. German motorists reject the climate activism of swedish teenager displaying mocking stickers on their vehicles. 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