Transcripts For CSPAN Discussion On Race Relations And Police Accountability 20160104

That, freshman congressman mark walker of north carolina. State legislators from maryland, north carolina, illinois, new york, and missouri part in aook discussion on race relation and responsibility. Many of them are from places that have recently received significant Media Attention on race relation issues. Thank you all. It is a great honor to be here. Engaged with such a distinguished panel and i know that they are known to all of you, but just for the purposes of the record i would , like to acknowledge who is on the panel. We will proceed by way of posing some questions, asking our panelists to talk about some of the very crucial issues that we are all facing at this time. First, we have the honorable catherine she has been a Public Servant for over 20 years and been a part of the baltimore Maryland City council. She is currently the majority leader that is the best politician for getting the job done by the city paper. She has been an entrepreneur by trade and currently also someone who has received the naacp legislator of the year award. We also have with us, the honorable gilda cobb hunter, she is with the South Carolina house of representatives. She was the first africanamerican woman ever elected to a statewide office. She became the first freshman appointed to, and is now Ranking Member of the house committee. She is also the first to the first person of color ever to lead a legislative caucus. As has minority leader she has , been dubbed the conscious of the house. Historic effort to build the first monument for africanamericans at the state capital. She is also executive director serving orangeburg. We also have with us, the honorable carl heastie, the first africanamerican to serve as u. S. State assembly. He has worked closely with easily majority to develop a financial plan, a historic 1. 8 Million Dollars investment in education. Represents the 83rd district of northeast bronx and principal negotiator for minimum wage, which was historic and trendsetting. He has also been a champion of public health, estimates over the passage of law children under 18. That speaks volumes that you would even have to pass a law. He has also been a very strong proponent for victims of domestic violence. We also have, the honorable clem smith from the state Missouri House of representatives. Hes also for the he has also received his degree from Columbia College and has been a longstanding member working in workingt assembly in the aircraft industry. He stands on the executive community, and also on the National Labor caucus. We also have with us senator donne e trotter. He was elected to the illinois General Assembly in he 1988. Previously served in the house of representatives and served as chair of the joint illinois legislative black caucus. Since then, he has championed health care for women and children, as well as laws banning assault weapons. I think we can all think about why that is particularly salient at this moment. Witnessing the Current Events unfold. Currently, he is a majority leader and chair of the appropriations Community Committee overseeing the budget. He is making sure that disadvantage communities are represented at the table. He has also been a leader and justice issues. Finally, last but not least, we burbank whohris , was the director of the Law Enforcement engagement for the center of police and equity. Chief burbank is recently retired, but is part of a Ground Breaking program, which is actually affiliated with one of my colleagues at ucla. It is the center for policing equity. My colleague teaches in the psychology apartment, has been a leader in speaking about ways of addressing bias in policing and has been a crucial part for the center of policing. He is an advocate of the just the database as a solution to weighing public trust and solutions. He worked with the Salt Lake City Police Department from 1991 until his retirement of june of this year, where he was appointed to chief of police in march of 2006. He has been selected of the member of the enlightened 50 most influential leaders in the state of utah and one of the six Police Chiefs in the nation to discuss with president obama regarding gun violence. I could go on, but i think we would much rather hear from these people, then hear about these people. At this point, i am going to raise a couple of questions, and hopefully get a lively discussion in hear from them about the Important Information and work that they have been doing. In many respects, you all represent baltimore, South Carolina, illinois, new york, missouri, there is a powerful thread that really connects all of these places and a kind of racial the accuracy. These are all places where over the past two years, black men, women and children have been , killed by the police and people have paid attention. It is clear that the death of black people at the hands of the police is not new. It is a longstanding part of our history. It is something that black people have struggled with for a long time. Indeed going back to 1951, a , group of black africans advocates including paul robison, filed a petition called we charge genocide. A bill that they brought to the you in with the repeated violence by the police against black people. What seems to be different now, many people have refused to accept that it is normal. Recently, i was pleased to be at an event, the honor of a renowned civil rights lawyer and respected jurist. One of the longest serving federal black judges. He put it this way, when you are in pain, you have to complain. We are interested in hearing your perspectives and tell us what is and what is not happening on the ground with regard to policing and the efforts to do with the racial crisis that has produced and perhaps we will start with our senator, pugh. What i have experience in baltimore the grayrience of freddie created an uproar in our community about Police Brutality or black men specifically , dying at the hands of police. What that has done, it has stirred this movement not just in baltimore, but across the nation, to make us take a look at what do we expect police to do. We hire them to protect and serve our communities. A recent report shows that when Police Encounter and many of our africanamerican communities, they deem to be a situation of violence, when they go to arrest or take care of one of our individuals and our communities, we often find that they are being shot or killed. In the case of freddie gray, it was him traveling from the time he was arrested to the police station. Then, later to the hospital where he was killed by the police by those who were his ride to the police station. It also sends an alarm to the community as to what are we expecting police to do. Why do so many black folks and update in these situations . I think what has happened down, is this whole look at releasing in the community, what do we need to do . How do we reformed behavior that has become a part of these individuals who we hire to protect and serve . In maryland, what we do currently, is looking at the whole practice in policing in our neighborhood. Also, whether or not they need to be psychologically evaluated for Police Officers that serve over a time. Whole idea of how the respect the community in which you serve . The other issue that we found when we began to look at policing in baltimore, less than 20 or less that lived in our city, our police force does not resemble the community that is served. It is very difficult for you to understand the community when you are not a part of the community. We are looking at all of those issues and how do we change that. In our community. Representative smith . What are we doing in missouri . Not much, to be truthful. Pretty much everybody may know about the Mike Brown Killing that happened in ferguson, which is in st. Louis county, right outside the district i represent. It brought to light a lot of issues that have been going on in the area of Excessive Force used upon black men. A lot of times, ending in long prison sentences, or death as we saw in the case with mike brown. Then, we had a couple of other shootings afterwards, dealing with st. Louis city Police Department. Those officers nothing went wrong, and it seems like deadly force is the go to before using a taser, before talking with an individual that may be holding a butter knife. We are going to fill them with lead, and then we will figure it out and say i feared for my life, and he goes that way. The legislature, what we have tried to do, a small group of us was to try to get different standards put in place. Some cultural sensitivity things put in place. We have a lot of departments, the makeup of the office is not reflect the community at all, as we saw in ferguson. It had almost 70 of black People Living there, with two officers that were black. That makes a difference. You have to be relatable to the people that you are supposed to be serving and protecting. Out of all of this, missouris answer was to limit the amount of traffic revenue the city could receive. We have kids, men, women getting mishandled by Law Enforcement, but the response was lets do something about traffic revenue. The ball was dropped. There was a group of us that continue to fight. If we do not have cooperation, things are certainly partisan and nothing will happen. You mentioned that the move was made to tap the revenue, that was a response to the department of justice report that one of the things that was discovered in the ferguson situation, the traffic stops and misdemeanor offenses were being used as a way of raping women in the city as opposed to issuing public safety, which i can tell is quite skeptical because this initiative will have meaningful impact on the way with that report, it brought up an issue that was happening in a lot of different list of different municipalities. St. Louis county has 91 subdivisions. We have a lot of small cities and a lot of small different Police Departments. With city bill five, which cap revenue from traffic tickets, it brought the percentage at 12. 5 at st. Louis county. Ferguson was at 13 . They did not impact ferguson, it impacted a lot of cities that were ran and led by africanamerican leadership. They skirted around the issue, and they were good bills that were filed they could have addressed some of these murderous practices head on. They went to the side. Senator trotter, chicago has been in the news about the recent disclosure the video concerning look on walker. What is your perspective on how this discussion is unfolding . First and foremost, it is nothing new. What makes chicago stand out in this particular incident, 16 shots and 400 days for an unarmed man and it has been 400 days before the ministrations, or our Government Entities acknowledged the fact that this was over the top. What has happened in chicago and the rest of america, since reconstruction. Police officers are unmatched who collects clan men who went to your house this is nothing new. We have to get back to the whole thing, what is the mission of our Police Department . Is there a mission to serve and protect the people . Or serve and protect those individuals that got them their jobs, that certainty, that wealth . They are that wall. There are some instances, between those who have, in those who have not. The actions and the force of actions that they take is in many cases condoned. Todays tribune headlines, being out here in california, we had 14 People Killed yesterday. Our headlines are saying that the mayor says we do not need probes. No federal probes. We are taking the care of this right here. These are things we need to address, it is becoming more knowledgeable because of the internet. I do not care if you are from birmingham, alabama or tuscan, arizona, where indiana, this is what is going on. We as a Community Must stand united to get the message out, to serve us and acknowledges as a people, not as an enemy. Those are the kinds of things we are going to be looking at. The culture in illinois, one of the biggest things going on, we are finding out, the reason why for 400 days that the Police Officer who did this, had 17 charges of excessive violence against them and has never been punished. Why was he still working and collecting his full salary . It is because we have put in place, in illinois which we have to address, their union. Until there is a conviction, they can stay on their jobs and get paid. There is all these other smaller things that enforces or allows these Police Officers to do with they do. They are not in fear of punishment. We have to tear apart those Little Things that allow them to get away with this. Those are very interesting comments. Speaker heastie, if you were not mind speaking, you know like Michael Brown and eric garner, those of you who do not know, black women, they are subject to racial disparities, with the problem we face, the law frequently does not impose responsibility. There are no ways in which the Police Officer is not indicted, or not guilty, or sometimes even if they are charged and found guilty of civil rights violations, local government has to pay those verdicts. From your perspective, what does accountability look like . Will be be necessary to achieve it . Senator pugh you can take a vote. We had one man who was shot and killed in front of his grandmother in the young man was the first report. Our member getting a call, i was supposed to teach, in the asked me to go over to the police unit. They told me a young man had gotten wrestling with a Police Officer over his gun because it was believed that he had marijuana. I said to the officer, you are going to tell me a young man when russell was a Police Officer over his gun over a bag of marijuana . Long story short, that was not the case. You can see the video of him walk right into his house. The officers came, it looked like two madmen were trying to break down the door. What can we do to have better relationships with the police so that they do not look like our young men as we also try to go to just lately in offers is more responsible. We passed a bill brought to the attorney general for the state of new york to a special prosecutor, the republic our governor was the first in the nation to do an executive order to have the attorney general prosecute or investigate cases where people may have died in the hand of police. One of the reasons this was done, is because there is always this belief that there is an inherent conflict because Police Officers are the ones who get the District Attorneys that investigations in their cases. To give it to the hands of the attorney general was to try to give the families the belief that this conflict of interest that may have occurred can happen. We also want to go a step further. In the bronx county, a black District Attorney at one after the Police Officers twice. Again, we were not able to get the indictment. We also want to have some transparency in the grand jurys as well to get the families some confident that when those things happen, we understand why. We want to unveil what happens in the grand jury, to give those families confidence and say if an indictment does not happen. Sometimes, in the eric garner case, you had a District Attorney who is then later elected to congress, the question is we are not sure how long of a case he actually put together. I think if we start to have the grand jury and the charges given to the grand jury, if those were more transparent, i think these District Attorneys may pay more attention on how they move forward and do these indictments on these offices. That is the two ways we are looking at it. Thank you. Representative cahb. Im interested to know what accountability looks like in the efforts you have been undertaking in South Carolina. Rep. Cobb i want to thank you for moderating this conversation. For me, accountability from my perspective, the systems of checks and balances needs to be accountable for the loss of lives. Accountability is something that does give weight to the phrase black lives matter. You talk in your opening about when one feels pain, they will complain. One of the things i will will not allow this discussion to it without making a point of, is that people are in pain now because we have video. We have cell phone video, documentation of what has occurred. That is something that is new, and not something that we ought to take for granted. In South Carolina, i am proud to say that we passed the first body camera legislation in the country. I would remind those of you who were here last year to remember our conversation and understand that having body camera legislation is not going to care the ills of police violence. What we have to make sure of, is that we look at our system. I think it is important for part of this conversation to talk about what kind of assessment we are doing to allow people to become Police Officers in the first place. The other part, you have to understand that when people stop on the uniform we need to understand that that does something to people, and he gives them some kind of whatever that is not good for people of color. Accountability is something that we need to be careful about. Final point, there is no cookiecutter for accountability. What happens in South Carolina may not happen in illinois, maryland, or newer. We as individual legislators have got to look at our individual states and it goes down to our district and ask the tough questions and make sure that we are getting the right answers. You get right answers to tough questions by not accepting one source. Thank you. [applause] i should mention that cspan is filming our discussion and will be airing at a later date. We will look forward to that. Chief, to you, the question is, recently james comey, the head of the fbi made a statement that seems to endorse the ferguson attack. The ferguson effect. That is, the idea that the critique of the police use force is related to apparent spikes in Violent Crime. He describes it that drives one mind this way. Each time an officer is attacking the line of duty, it draws the other line this way. The other lines are continuing two arc away from each other, incident by incident, video by video, more and more quickly. Just as both lines are walking away from, and because they are, we have a crisis of Violent Crime in one of our most vital communities across the country. What is your reaction . I sat in the meeting yesterday and heard the director give that very thing speech. The thing that we need to recognize, the criminal Justice System in United States is broken. We measure [applause] we measure our success by the number of people we arrest. When we look at the outcome that produces, we have more people incarcerated in the United States than any other nation in the world. I read yesterday that the shooting in los angeles was the 355th mass killing. That is for people are more dying at one time this year. That is unacceptable, and that is not success. We send Police Officers out every day to your community with the notion of zerotolerance, stop and first in the idea with preventing crime from occurring. We incarcerate people about 70 are misdemeanor crimes that are not violent. We have never solved drugs, alcohol, and Mental Health issues by putting somebody in jail or prison. [applause] it is not enough to look at the number of shootings that we are having right now. We need to look at why. When you talk to Police Officers in ferguson, baltimore, and you have the attitude that says neighborhoods are lost, it is a war zone out there theres , nothing we can do to say that neighborhood. That is absolutely wrong. We are not going to produce solid outcomes by sending offices into that situation. We need to change the dynamic in expectation of every single Police Officer in this nation. Not how many people do we arrest, how many people do we not arrest and thus prevent the Violent Crime that is happening right now the union United States. When you look at how do we change, what is it that we need to do. We need to hold office is accountable, but the problem with that system, whether it is the department of justice for the local District Attorney, that is after the fact. Someone has lost their life. If someone committed homicide in any neighborhood, it is great that we catch them afterwards, but we still have the impact on society that person is lost their life. It is no different from when Police Officers are involved in shootings. That is a failure of our system. We need to change the dynamic and look and say why are we sending Police Officers out there and what is the expectation . We are perpetuating this problem. You go into a neighborhood, and you ask, you have written a Million Dollars worth of tickets and arrested people, then ask, why do they hate us in the neighborhood . [laughter] it is time to change the paradigm, change our perspective of policing, but we need to push it beyond just our officers involved with shooting and how we train them. Absolutely we need to do that, but it needs to go to the core level with what is our expectation because if we enforce and all neighborhoods the same way that we do that we designated high crime neighborhoods, unfortunately those are in poverty neighborhoods. We must have the same effect on University Campuses and wealthy white neighborhoods if we have that oppressive type of zerotolerance policing taking place. You are going to create an outcome very similar in we need to change that. You have any thoughts you want to add . I want to follow on something they said as well. I would like to hear from the Police Officer as well. One of the things we did in maryland where we began to look at what was happening in baltimore, part of it was looking at what should a Police Officer be. One of our mayors came we have Police Athletic leagues and programs with the community were all taking away. The police were seen as people who were not a part of the community. When we started looking at this from a legislative perspective, what can we do . Because he pointed out, every community is different. At the same time, when we look at who is a Police Officer, what we found was, there is a psychological evaluation that is somewhat given when you become a Police Officer. But there is no rotating system that says, maybe after three or five years, we evaluate whether this person is still fit to serve as a Police Officer. The other thing we found, they were not even psychologists that were giving exams. There was some type of policing Psychology Program and these people were designated to go and provide that psychological evaluation for these Police Officers with the answer. When you talk about reforming and creating an attitude of community, where does it really begin, and what kind of testing should we be doing . Who should we be looking at, whether they resemble your community or not . Who should become the Police Officer in your community . Even the whole time of policing your community, is that something we look at when we talk about change . I do not mean to hijack you. I want to respond to the question. I honestly think there is a solution. Challenge we have is, we have been unable to beyond little bi and pieces of it. Ts not only do we need to evaluate, we talk about statistical information, everyone can gather statistics with who is involved with this. We also want to. Certainly a pioneer in this, what is the underlying bias that policy, practice, procedure. All of the things you describe as the hiring process, interject into a system . Are we evaluating for that . If we are on a regular basis, we can actually predict where it is you are going to have problems, what offices are going to have problems. There needs to be an open system that information freely flows to researchers who are not Police Officer. I am not the smart one at the center of policing equity. There are a lot of quality people to analyze the data. This is what you can do to prevent it, we have to do more than just gather information. We have to analyze it, then take actual steps in order to change that behavior. That starts right from the moment they walk in the door. And what is the expectation that every individual we hire. Senator turner. In i agree with him to a point, but it is the protections we give them in the expectations that we have of them to protect those who have made those rulings and laws going forward. We said that they cannot be fired, there is no immediate punishment. That is where it begins. They get the job and do their job saying i am protecting the public. Their idea of the publics those who gave them their marching orders. That is us. We need to look at those rules that they have and start using it to engage themselves with our community. Crime is not any worse than our community, as far as overall, because anybody can give you the statistics, crime is down in the big scope, but in our community, it is exploding. That is because we have not dealt with the root causes, and that is poverty, deal with homelessness, hopelessness, and that of despair and impacts on this community who lashes out in his defense, or any case of mcdonald in chicago. When you saw the film, and i hope you did not see it because it is not pretty. If you read about it, that is all you need to do. He was walking away from the police who was shot three times, then there was a pause, then shot a subsequent 13 more times. Because he was still moving. I understand that part of their training, if you do not believe that individual has been neutralized, i understand that it is up to you to neutralize them i , understand that is the defense they are going to do. I wanted to ask the question, thinking about representative cobb and you mentioned it as well. The question of how social movements, or black lives matter i wanted to ask all of your opinions regarding how these are occurring. [indiscernible] i wanted to see there is a relationship between the social Movement Demanding Justice and is it achieving accountability. Have you see it from your perspective in your area . With all of these negative things, i have seen a movement of younger people really getting engaged. More so than what i have seen in my short, six year political career. I think they are starting to see themselves in the incidences that are happening. This person is the same age as i am, this person was not doing anything. Onto a point it is on video. We all grow up in a sense thinking that police are going to do the right thing, teachers are going to teach you, and it will be equitable for everybody. But that is not the case. These video cameras are starting to bring this up. We had a protest at the university of missouri thats part of the protests at the university. These are younger people getting engaged, not necessarily getting shut down by some of the leaders. Sometimes, there are leaders in the communities and say go home, we will get our chicken plate and that happens. It is true, i have seen it happen in st. Louis. Now, it is like, we will go in our own direction and start to organize and make things happen. Out of these negatives, i think these positives are happening. With that, there will be more of a strong voter block. They are starting to pull the wool off from those eyes and say we have to Say Something because nobody is coming on a white horse with a sword to save us. We have to save ourselves. It is no different than what it was in the 1950s. What is happening in the black lives Matter Movement is no different than those individuals who sat at those counters and said we are not going to take it anymore. It is not anything different than what we did when we said marching is good, but at the same time, how can the black panther party. And then core. I think this is a natural thing and something we have always done. I am glad the younger folks are engaged, but that is how we fight. Even then, we had to listen to our elders and say im glad you are there because we need the threat of violence. Sometimes, that is the only way to address violence, i can strike back. I think that is what the younger black lives matter group is saying. Do you want this explosion of emotion . Because what i have seen, unfortunately what happened in missouri, is that they did destroy the neighborhood. There were to the neighborhoods in chicago, they do not have to do that anymore. Those lessons have been learned and i think the establishment recognizes that as well. At this juncture we have not had , that kind of violent, negative reaction to what is going on. But 16 shots and 400 days shows you that just because it is on camera, to hold it for 400 days. I do not care if it was in technicolor or 3d, it is not mean anything. We have to address it from within, i believe. Rep. Cobb i think senator trotter has made a great point. Black lives matter is something new. Quite frankly, it is just 2015 version of what has happened in the past. What is missing best connecting the dots connecting the dots for the newsgroup. All of this is the same with what has been done before. What i believe as elected officials have to do, is to embrace the black lives Matter Movement so that we dont keep making the same mistakes. Let me give you an example. All of you are familiar with what happened in South Carolina. Before the emmanuel there was a nine, walter scott and a shooting war this cop took his position and fired a shot in his back. You are also all familiar, that you are glad that the Confederate Flag came down. My point is, we have got to embrace todays groups, whether it is black lives matter, or anything else, and help them understand the difference between symbolism and substance. That is where i want my energies to go. And here is my point. South carolina, yes, we did take down the flag. It is unconscionable that it losing theirple lives for that to occur. If we stay stuck on the fact that the Confederate Flag has been removed from the state capital, without focusing on the flags agenda, we are wasting time. [applause] rep cobb in South Carolina, we are still a state. People are denied access to health care because of the political rhetoric. Im a social worker in idea with systems. I would say to all of us, that our responsibility is to connect the dots. All of this is something that we need to focus on and Start Talking about it and we need to get busy. With these positions come responsibility, and it is time for those of us who are blessed and highly favored enough to have these jobs to do something with it and get out of the title mentality because that is where we are. [applause] i would like to broaden the conversation and invite all of you to weigh in. I think you mentioned mass incarceration and that we were talking about systems. Everybody probably already knows these statistics. Between 1970 and today, the number of people incarcerated increased 300,000 to 2. 3 million. 2001, 1 in 10 black men and the number actually increased more of the number of men to 640 between 1980 and 2010. 20, black women were incarcerated 1. 5 times men. Some of you may have an article called the black family in the age of mass incarceration. It takes us back to the report in 1965 were daniel, who worked for jfk and then lbj said that the way was to vote for the patriarchal family this tension in the black family, you which was caused by white oppression. In this way, he attacked inequality to the breakdown in our family. After the firestorm following the release of the report, his reform ideas that she had an idea about job programs for black men. They got pushed aside, and instead, the bad conditions in black communities was tied to the black behavior of like families. Particularly those led by single mothers so that the focus then became on controlling the behavior and black criminality is because of that inequality for the push an increase of severity of punishment. Given the historical facts that senator trotter alluded to earlier, this is a longstanding association between blacks and criminality. We now have been faced with a crisis of mass incarceration. There are various forms of proposal, including those at the federal level various organizations have been working in severe racial consequences. Created a coalition [indiscernible] it now turns out, that he may be somewhat controversial because they have tied it to changes and federal law that would make it harder to prosecute corporate crimes for environmental violations, and damages to financial misconduct. They have come up with a proposal that they also want to raise the bar for prosecuting certain types of crime. What do you see as the way forward on this intervention into mass incarceration . Particularly what has happened, with what has happened at the state level. What is happening in your areas in regard to this question of mass incarceration . Anybody can weigh in. What we have been doing in new york, when it comes to poverty, there is a correlation between poverty and crime and lack of education. We started a conversation about trying to look at the entire structure. Representatives cobb, you said you were a social worker, we look at education alone, criminal justice alone and Mental Health alone. We need to start to look at that and totality and how it affects the family. In rochester, it is one of the most impoverished cities when it comes to young people, particularly young people of color. They have tried to come up with an antipoverty initiative. They have a lot of Community Groups working together in which they have never worked together before and looking at the different aspects. They have gone out and done surveys to families, asking why are they in this situation. What can be done to help them get out of the situation. For us, one of the first discussions i had with the governor when i became speaker was, he seemed to be concerned about education and saying that we have failure and struggling in school and poverty. We need to concentrate on that. We started an initiative where the schools that have been failing for more than 10 or more years, we give them extra resources to come up with extra resources. We are now in discussion with the governor in trying to do that for every struggling school in the state of new york to try to put families and young men of color on those past that lead to incarceration. I think that everybody is different, even of everybodys talking about mass incarceration now to reduce it. I think the issue is the cost of mass incarceration. Those on the other side have become more interested because it is cost of massacres ration. We need to decrease increase the penalties here, but and lowered the penalties here because it is taking up too much of our tax dollars. Now, everybody wants to sit down how do we reduce our geo population when we are the number one incarcerated people in this nation. I believe that everybody has an interest. When we look at this issue, we had to look at it from a much broader perspective similar to what has already been said. I think it is about economics. We as legislators oftentimes focus on some of the social issues, justice issues. We do not focus enough on Economic Opportunity and spreading the wealth across the board. If all of us pay taxes, all of us are to be able to share in the wealth of this nation, but we do not. When we talk about movement, and i agree with you donne, the movement we see today is very summit to the movement of the 1960s. Now, what has to take place, i saw in baltimore that we were burning down our own neighborhoods. That impacts us a great more of a problem for us. I think there has to be in economic focus on how we move our communities forward. When you talk about mass incarceration, you are talking about releasing people back into their communities. What does their path lay forward . What do we provide for those individuals coming out of these institutions who have become a part of our community . Wheres his economic stability that needs to be infused of all these communities . To create better jobs and make sure people are taking care of and Mental Health issues are just. I think that is the future in terms of us as legislators. How do we make sure those provisions are put in place so our Community Benefits . I agree with the panel with that we can never separate the crime, economics, employment, health care. Everything is tied together. What i have such a hard time with reforms suggested now, we are talking about people who are incarcerated in reducing sentences. They do not cover. They do not recover. We are naive to sit here and think that they do. A 16yearold kid with a bag of marijuana, no matter what his races, should not be in the criminal Justice System. [applause] to eightyearolds get on a fight on the playground do not belong in criminal court. We need to change that dynamic and i think the longterm effect will be, less people were into that system and they will be more eligible for jobs and education and health care. Because they do not have silly criminal records on their sheet. We avoid entering them into the system that we have already broken. That is what we need to focus. How can we change that dynamic . The people who end up being incarcerated, are those individuals for whatever reason of violence, cannot be in society. Not those people for these minor misdemeanor offenses which they never recover from plus they go down that road. I wanted to add a slight twist, because i wanted to take opportunity can a response to that because i do not hold thoughts long. Is a great subject to the great point i want to make. A unique opportunity where there is a bipartisan effort in reducing incarceration because it costs too much. But we also be trying to do in my view is to take a look at this environment at the issue of possession of marijuana. I am just saying that we have to to look itportunity reasons we are putting people in jail. Work with our republican say dont send someone to jail for simple possession. It is costing us too much money. Thes not squander opportunity. We are in such a polarized state across the country that we have to seize the moments. When we were at the Congressional Black Caucus weekend, we saw an opportunity to have that discussion across the board. We want Prison Reform we want to make sure that fewer people are incarcerated. It is about whoever is interested in making sure that whatever we see happening in our communities doesnt happen again. Ask part of the question is what is reform look like . By particularped presumptions . Some of the models of reform look little bit like a little bit like moynahan 2. 0. They talk a lot about the dysfunction in the community. Of thek about the rise family households. Singleparent households. Marriage is less common as a whole across the board. Children of different races are being raised in singleparent homes. It is the case that africanamerican marriage patterns tends to be betrayed his deviant but they are not if you look at the overall trend. Yournterested to hear thoughts about what reform should look like. Your comments on some of the models of reform. These individuals who are talking about incarceration , they didntensive all of a sudden become benevolent. It is sitting their bottom line. Costing more than what it thought to keep us. Then we privatized. Takene have more control out of our hands as legislators. We have now given up that responsibility by allowing these people who have been profiting from incarceration to do so. Individualsof those they didnt all of a sudden become soft on crime. They just know how to get their money going forward. Part of the reform that we have to look at his application when it comes to sentences. We end up in jail or dead. Like the case of Michael Brown in ferguson. There was actually an investigation done they found out in family court that black sisters and brothers were getting harsher sentences than their nonblack counterparts for the exact same things. We have to look at that. That is the pathway to the big house. Once you go to the big house sitting there learning how to cook up your those are some of the small things that weve done. I think reform begins in our school system. The first time you suspended child out of school you are telling them they dont belong. It creates an attitude of them against us. Specially when i know men grow to be a certain height teachers start seeing young boys at the age of 121416 they look at them as though they are men. Behavior does not exemplify the behavior they want to see in a child. It actually begins in the Public School system. Have you treat your young boys and how you treat your young girls. How should they be acting in the classroom. I run the playground. One kick the other boy in the mouth by mistake. The teacher suspended. You have begun to perceive this individual that they dont belong here. It has to begin there. We have to teach our teachers how to treat our children. Lets be careful about accepting the premise that producearent homes dysfunctional children. I dont accept that. Having two parents dont necessarily mean you grow up too great. We need to focus on healthy marriages and healthy families. Examples of all of us can point to where people were raised by Single Parents and it turned out to be some of the most productive people that we have in this country. [applause] we could continue this but i wanted to bring in some questions from the audience. With thiske to start one. There have been instances where black police have shot africanamericans. Do you feel that we are discussing this element of policing sufficiently . Are some of these dynamics going to be mitigated by increasing the number of blacks on the police force . I will never make excuses for the situations that have been described. The majority of Police Officers dont go out with the intent of doing harm or engaging in bias or hatred. Because of the system we have in place it puts them in situations that generates the conflict. This goes back to the incarceration level. He dealing with people who feel theyve been harassed many me times. I dont know if the race of the officer matters all that much. The bias is injected because the policies and practices that exist. We need to absolutely eliminate those people that are going to engage in biased behavior. City, if i wouldve sent officers out and said the most important thing in this city is to have registration violations on your vehicle. The majority of those people would be latino individuals. It had nothing to do with their intent to violate the law. Because of this one little nuance, i have interjected this bias into the system. I dont care what Police Officer you put out there. If i am him on how many tickets he writes. You have now injected in bias into the system. That is not excusing any of the criminal behavior we have seen. We need to look at the beginning of the system. You get brothers buying into the same system to. The code of blue. Want to be seen as outsiders plus i like this check that im getting. There may need to be some sort of Whistleblower Program within Law Enforcement agencies. I dont care if you are black or white or purple, if you are violating the rights of an individual you should be in the job. You shouldnt not to be in that d not be in that job. We hear a lot of talk about black on black crime. How do we respond to this without it becoming a diversion from this conversation about chicago is specifically mentioned here. Chicago is still considered one of the most segregated cities in america. Crime,going to commit a im not going to jump on the bus and go rob nobody white. Crime is a crime of opportunity. Which is certainly part of what is going on. It is indicative of what is happening all over the country. Hopelessness. Until we start creating those opportunities, people can see a pathway of being selfsufficient, were going to have this going on. Im going toy, steal some bread. That is a crime statistic. Use happened be carrying that loaf of bread home im getting get that loaf of bread from you because my family is hungry as well. The vast majority of crime is intro racial but we dont say white on white crime. How the Youth Movement and the black lives Matter Movement have attempted to bring into the conversation of focus on recognizing the systemic conditions that have led to crime in the communities. Yes these are problems but they puttinge fixed by people into a broken system. In my neighborhood i know where the drug houses. I know the police have been told where the drug houses. Some Law Enforcement officials allow this to faster, to permeate the area. They allow these illnesses to go on until the pot boils over. And someone gets killed. They react to the situation. What are the Police Officers supposed to handle the situation. Even the small kids know where the drug houses. This question is about reentry. Could you share one Effective Program that has been implemented in your state . The first one was making sure that when folks come back into the community they have identification. If you take away when they go in and you dont give it to them i come out it makes it very difficult for them to get medication and all the other things they may need. Sure that people i had the chance to speak at a graduation. When you leave you are still going to have a very difficult time but let me suggest you the you have the capability to start this. I stopped at a local business and the guy remembered me as his graduation speaker. I asked if i could sign up. I had suggested he started his own business. I created a program that the governor signed into law to for exopportunities offenders to start their own businesses. We keep putting on these with it onlyrams enough money to sustain themselves. When i was elected speaker, i said one of the things were going to do was to review the criminal Justice System. Speakershipthat my would be in vain if we did not do that. I feel bad that i cant name a program. We have democrats in the control but republicans the senate. Even when we reformed to the rockefeller drug laws that was a big issue. What happens to these people when go back into the community . We need to have separate programs. We have a statewide program that really deals with the reentry for people into new york. I would be hardpressed to think of a specific program in South Carolina that is successful and measured in terms of reentry. We have something called the Alston Wilkes society that works once you leave prison the notion of reentry. It is a very old program in South Carolina. Because of all the things weve it is veryt here, difficult for people leaving prison. There are many more things we can do. Box. He box. The president has talked about that. The Second Chance legislation where we are getting more classes of crimes where people can get their records expunged. That has been an ongoing process. Now have done their time so make them full citizens. N get these jobs thes going forward. I would just say dont go to jail in missouri. Programshink of any that will help you once you end up in Jefferson City correctional center. There has been proposed box andion to ban the expungement but it never gets any legs. We have a pretty high rate of going back. There may be a program somewhere , religiousbased programs that do things on a smaller scale. Statewide, i cant think of what this time. Just dont get locked up. I would like to invite the panel to share their Closing Remarks. What can these movements do . There should be mandatory reporting for every agency no matter how big or small in this nation of who are they stopping, who are they searching, what level of force is being used and what is the outcome of that. It should be made public and analyzed. Every agency should be subject to civilian oversight that happens not only when the officers engaged in misconduct but with the policies and practices that get set up in the beginning. California just recently rules about keeping data on every police stopped. It of the arguments against was that it would be too onerous. That objection was overcome. We should focus our time and energy on substance. These issues are systemic. We have been told that the system is broken. Systemt fix a broken with symbolism. My challenge to us as policymakers would be for us to use whatever Political Capital we have wherever we are to make sure that we are tackling the tough issues that will make a difference for the people we represent. If we arent willing to do that and we shouldnt be here. Even in the city of new york we have the number of records of stops for young men of color. What do we do with that data . Weve talked about trying to decriminalize certain amounts of marijuana. All thoseng to do things to keep people out of the system. The challenge is how do we get to change the mindset of the people who are policing us. What does happen once in officers found things that you have to be an expert on criminal justice to see his misconduct on the part of a Police Officer. We can even get an indictment on these officers. We still have these tremendous challenges. We cant shy away from uncomfortable subjects. Such as this one. Legislation that may be. Ntroduced we cant hold to the folks who might finance our campaigns. We have to serve our constituents. The boat is on their neck and it could be on your neck to. If we dont change that the nothing else can change. We cant play that affect the role. We have to keep fighting and keep pushing and keep organizing to get these changes we need. We are involved in our protracted battles. Bootve been under that since we came here. Boot. E here under the it is the same argument that we have to try this change some of our tactics. When my people are in trouble so in mind. We have to keep that in our mindset. We have asked for this responsibility to be the voice of the people. We need to continue to do that. Take a moment to thank our moderator and say that i hope you found this conversation worthwhile. We came here to hear from all of us. We have to take back to our communities recommendations on ourwe improve relationships. We need to understand that we do represent people. Part of it is about economics. If we dont change history will repeat itself. The movements that are taking place today are very similar to those that took place in the past. Thank you so much. [applause] [applause] i have no Closing Remarks except to say thank you for inviting me. It has been a pleasure to meet you all. [applause] [applause] now, we talk with an iowa reporter about the president ial campaign in that state. We begin with a political ad being run there by the marco rubio campaign. States, including this in the Bernie Sanders campaign. [video clip] face evergrowing threats, islamic terror, lunatic in north korea, gangster moscow and a president more respectful to the ayatollah and iran the Prime Minister of israel. Our enemies do not fear us. In the world does not know where america stands. On day one of my presidency that will change. I am marco rubio. I approved this message because the world is a safer place when america is the strongest country on earth. Host that from the marco rubio campaign. Packng he remains in the but not meeting in iowa or new hampshire