Transcripts For CSPAN Police Reform And Public Security 20151226

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From the university of Chicago Law School, this is one hour. On the next washington journal, host my name is jeffrey stone. I have the pleasure of introducing our keynote speaker this afternoon. It is mystone opportunity to do this, because when i was at law school, i invited her and her this is one of the benefits of that. Tracy received her degree at the university of Chicago Law School in 1991. Amazingly, this spring marks the 25th anniversary of her graduation from law school. It is ok. I happen to be with the professor at a reception the other night, a wonderful organization in chicago that works to improve the prison system, and one guest there told me that the professor had just informed her that after earning her undergraduate degree from the university of illinois in engineering, she was contemplating going to lock go, but being in engineering student she did not know much about law school and she was tentatively planning to go to georgetown. According to the story, then being at the university of Chicago Law School, she wound up serendipitously here. I am pleased to say that i was the dean. It was one of the best decisions i ever made, in terms of bringing people to the law school will with the exception of hiring barack obama. Sorry. In any event, upon graduating, the professor served as a clerk on the United States court of circuit. Or the seventh she then returned to the university of Chicago Law School as an assistant professor and later served as a professor of law and director of the Law School Center for studies in criminal justice. Then several years ago, in a judgment, shel ven where she ha remains to this day. During her to stay with career marita deeply in this law school, the professor has worked extensively among other things with the federal government. From 2004 until 2011, she served on the committee of law and justice, the standing academy of sciences and in 2010 she was named to sit on the department created board. Ly and last year, president obama named her as a member of his task force for 20th Century Policing. Her research focuses on criminal procedure and policy with a particular emphasis on investigation. She has a long list of scholarly articles and import them books, including, legitimacy and criminal justice. In a time of Widespread National concern about community safety, criminal justice, and police practices, Tracey Meares is one of the most innovative scholars in the field. It is my pleasure to present my former students and my special friend, professor tracey meare. [applause] Tracey Meares thank you for that generous introduction. I was honored to be asked by the university of chicago to give this keynotes and thrilled to be able to come back home. Hyde park has changed. [laughter] in so many good ways. I admit to feeling sad about the demise of the , the food was fs wereat, but the snif incomparable. My primary goal today was to emphasize the hard work, great 10 of my otherh colleagues who ranged from police chief, too young activists, to civil rights lawyers and union representatives. We all serve together on the task force. This task force was created in the wake of the shooting of Michael Brown in ferguson and the death of eric gardner in new york. The president was especially concerned about the unrest that followed these incidences and he stated, this is actually a quote henthe back of the report, w any part of the American Family does not feel like they are being treated fairly, it is a problem for all this. Not just a problem for some, but it means we are not as strong as we can be. It means we are not as effective at fighting crime as we could be. I task force was charged with examining how to foster strong relationships with local Law Enforcement and communities they protect and it makes specific recommendations on how policing practices can promote effective Crime Reduction while Building Public trust. For those of you in the much colder room, the first pillar is called Building Trust and legitimacy and i think that that is the foundation of good policing. I will hit on that topic. But there is a fight the tour ur andat comes deto that comes because i was here last week for the International Association Police Conference and there i heard the fbi the policeeak at executive research forum, they have an annual town meeting, and because i heard him speak at that gathering i decided to shift in my remarks a bit. , he echoed what he had said here just a few days before, maybe even in this room. He worried about the National Spike in homicides and he said, referring to a conversation he had with an officer who told him that he felt, this officer felt he was under siege, because people are watching him with a cell phone and this officer told the director that he did not feel it getting out of his car. And the director said, i do not know if this explains it, that it is the National Spike in homicides, but i do have a strong sense that part of the explanation is a chill wind blowing through american Law Enforcement over the last year. And that wind is surely changing behavior. That wind is surely changing behavior. I will leave aside for the moment whether there is a ,ational surge in homicides even if there were, whether this there is any reliable serious data that there is a change in police behavior, as opposed to anecdotal reports of understandable changes in feeling and attitudes of police who are now being more scrutinized than ever. That could be partially responsible for this change. I am happy to return to these topics, but here is what i would like to focus remarks on today, that is that i think the Public Safety narrative has lost its way. It needs to be redirected and reshaped. That is why i chose this title, i am not sure you know my title, but i was told i need to have a title, for cspan. [laughter] ainst public ag safety and for Public Security. Trustport makes public central and the question is, how do we do it . The Public Safety narrative, by that i mean the narrative that makes what police do, the number of police strategies, where they i will call it Police Effectiveness. Public support for police is directly related to the publics evaluation of Police Effectiveness. This turns out to be not the case. You might find that surprising today in a world where there is so much discussion about Police Effectiveness and media policies. The notion of a ferguson affect itself suggest there is a crisis that we might need such that tomight need sacrifice Police Effectiveness concern to fulfill our about police accountability, etc. It might surprise some of you 30 iunder the age of cannot even pretend that i am under 30 anymore. It might surprise you to learn that the idea of Police Effectiveness at Crime Reduction with respect to evaluation of police is a metric of relatively recent. For decades, many scholars of policing and police itself leaves Law Enforcement has little impact on crime rates. Scholar,ley, a police who several people know well summed it up nicely in his 1994 book. The police do not prevent crime. That is one of the best kept secrets of modern life. Experts know it, the police know it but the public does not know it. Yet, the police pretend they are societys best defense against crime and agree if they are given more resources, especially personnel, they will be able to protect communities against crime. This is a myth. Today, of course, Police Executives are expected to reduce crime in their jurisdiction. Potential to impact crime rate is conventional wisdom thanks to the folks in this room like david, frank, there he is sitting right next to david. Other folks across the midway as well. However, as my colleague noted in his testimony a few months ago, while police have seemingly become better and better over time at reducing crime, surveys indicating levels of public support for and confidence in police have remained relatively flat over the same period of time in which crime rates have fallen precipitously. Perceptions of trust and confidence were grounded in assessments of Police Effectiveness this is not what we should be finding. One might ask if Police Effectiveness does not drive public trust, what does . Another answer might be police lawfulness. Again, in light of repeated incidents of quite Shocking Police brutality, considering the tragic death of walter scott who was shot in the back by a white Police Officer, we might think commitment to the rule of law, and especially constitutional constraints that shape engagements with the public and. Police would support public trust police would support public trust. There are a couple of problems to think about that relationship. One, of course, is whether we have an objective measure of police lawfulness. We heard a little bit about that in the report about how we count civilian deaths at the hands of police. He gave us very Interesting Data about that. Im not relying on data. If you look at the time over which time has declined, many people probably think that there is a much higher level of police lawfulness today than there used to be. There was an nrc report that seemed to indicate that. It came out about 10 years ago. I collaborated on that report. Not as confident in our assessment of that conclusion based on recent events. Here is another issue with thinking about the relationship between police lawfulness and assessment of public trust. That comes out of my own research with tom tyler and jacob gardner. It illustrates public assessments of how the public thinks about whether police are doing a good job are not really that sensitive to whether police are behaving consistently with constitutional law, because the public does not define lawfulness or determines sanctioning through the same lens of legality that police and other authorities used. This research that im talking about is forthcoming in the journal of criminal law and d criminology. We have empirical evidence showing this assumption. It is the promotion of public trust, then we have to recognize policeoth effectiveness and police lawfulness or relevant, neither alone is sufficient. I think the Public Safety narrative lost its way when many of its major advocates began to argue that Police Effectiveness becomee reduction has selfjustifying. That Police Effectiveness at Crime Reduction is a warrant for itself. It is not. We need a new narrative and i decided to emphasize the word security as opposed to safety. There may be a better phrase, but here is the primary point we need a Mission Statement for policing that recognizes that people desire to be kept safe from each other, security , as well as free from government repression. That pursuit of both at the same time is not a zerosum game. How to achieve both . I think the answer is fairly clear, or part of the answer, and that is with and through a commitment to policing that makes legitimacy and procedural justice central to its mission. You are going to learn much more about this research and these ideas when tom tyler summarizes his paper, so im not going to take his thunder. This will also give us more time for questions at the end. Im going to sketch out some basic points now. Here is the basic. Theory. Peoples conclusions regarding their assessments of the fairness of legal actors, institutions and law does not flow primarily from their assessments of the police at Crime Reduction or apprehension of wrongdoers. People tend to place much more weight on how authorities exercise their power as opposed to the ends at which that power is exercised. Researchers studied public evaluations. Political leaders, judges, teachers and the findings are pretty consistent. Conclusions concerning legitimacy are tied more closely to the judgment of the fairness of the actions than to evaluations or fairness of the effectiveness of the outcome. In the social, psychological literature, judgments regarding fairness consist on four factors. Isst, participation or voice an important element. People report much higher levels of satisfaction in encounters with authorities when they have opportunities to explain their perspective on those encounters. This is also true if you generalize. Havingpation and commentary on lawmaking and so forth. These are general examples of voice. Second, people care a great deal about the fairness of decisionmaking by authorities. By this i mean, they are looking decisionmaker neutrality, objectivity and transparency, consistency. Third, people care a great deal about how they are treated by an organization and representatives. Specifically, people desire to be treated with respect of their rights and politeness. Fourth, their interactions with authorities, people want to believe the authorities they are dealing with are acting out of a sense of benevolence for them. By this i mean what people are looking for is a sense of the motive of the authority that they are dealing with. They want to believe they are sincere and wellintentioned. Basically, what members of the public want is to believe that the authority that they are dealing with lets say a Police Officer believes that they count. I will repeat that. If i am a member of the public and im dealing with a Police Officer, i want to believe that that Police Officer believes course,ount even if, of that officer does not believe that. That is kind of the tricky part about this. That it is all about my perceptions, your perceptions, the publics perceptions. The way that we operate in the world is we are making these assessments by evaluating how we are treated in these interactions. These dynamics are inherently relational. They are not instrumental. Rather than being primarily concerned with outcomes and individual maximization of utility im saying that in this room. [laughter] legitimacy based compliance is centered on individual identity. There is a lot more to be said about that and why that is true. I dont actually have time to go into that. David will talk about it at the end. Im sure tom will talk more about that this afternoon. Here is one implication. En police generate good feelings in their everyday contacts, it turns out people are motivated to help them fight crime and we can expect that when they are, there will be lower crime rates in communities. This is not the only benefit of this approach, right . Another approach and benefit of authorities treating members of the public with dignity and fairness is more healthy and democratic communities. Finally, if that were not enough, the research actually shows that when officers take this approach, it is better and healthier for them on the streets. So, how do we get there . Maderesidents task force a number of recommendations. Im going to highlight a few of them. I do encourage you to read this report. There are a large number of important doable recommendations. It will take all of us working together to get these recommendations implemented and make a change. First, the task force recommended that Law Enforcement agencies embrace a guardian mindset in order to promote public trust and legitimacy. Encapsulatesdation the thinking of another task force member. She was a sheriff in Washington State for a long time. She has written that officers must make a shift from a warrior mindset to a guardian mindset. The warrior mindset is about Crime Reduction at all cost. No. Guardian mindset is different. The guardian mindset actually emphasizes the behaviors that are consistent with procedural justice and legitimacy. Importantly, this is going to be a cultural change that has both internal and external aspects to it. Police officers have to be treated with procedural justice within their own organization if we expect them to carry out this kind of behavior on the street. I think this recommendation is actually a tall order. As i said, it requires organizational change in agencies. It requires policing agencies to change the way the officers are trained. Strategies include diversifying the workforce, policing agencies need more women, more educated officers, more people of color, training of techniques. I could go on. I also think outside of a place like chicago, consolidation is also necessary. We have 18,000 different agencies. Many of them are very small. You cannot implement this kind of change in a small agency. One of the recommendations we make is that agencies should be encouraged to consolidate to at more officers. The task force recommended that agencies acknowledge the rule of agencies in this rumination. I discrimination. I dont think this recommendation can be emphasized enough. We talked about it today in the earlier panel. There are powerful examples of practices whereby Police Officials and members of affected communities have come together for conversations about narratives that undermine trust. They are incredibly moving accounts of individual officers making decisions to acknowledge these past transgressions. Here is one story a want to talk about that makes the point really well. There is a police chief who is no longer a chief anymore in montgomery, alabama named kevin murphy. He was born a year after representative john lewis and the freedom riders traveled to montgomery where they were brutally and viciously beaten by church mob and went to a that literally sits across from the Police Headquarters today. Were firebombed in the church, electricity lines were cut. The police nowhere to be found. In 2013, chief murphy was part of a delegation that welcomed representative lewis acta montgomery. Back to montgomery. The chief said i want to apologize. We, the Montgomery Police, failed to protect you and the other freedom riders in 1961. The Montgomery Police were not very good to you, but today, we are a better department. He went on to explain the kinds of things they were doing. Them i think that is the end of the story, but then he takes his badge and says this badge is a representation of service and protection. In particular, promotion of individual Constitutional Rights of members of the public. Colleagues were not worthy to wear this badge, but you were. I want you to have it now. He takes it off and gives it to him. This amazing moment you can youtube it and see it on the net. Is pretty powerful. Ts pretty powerful. It is an incredibly powerful act of reconciliation. The question is how to do this work in largescale. It is necessary. We call it a critical component of justice. It is extremely difficult for people have been treated poorly as a group and individually to expect benevolent treatment. Acts like policies and strategies are necessary and likely not sufficient. Certainly, proceeding as if the past did not happen as the professor noted today in his presentation before the Symposium Group is not an option. Return to where i began and that is it is imperative that policing agencies recognized that Crime Reduction is not selfjustifying. Police action taken for the purpose of making community safer, especially Aggressive Police action, can have a counterproductive result of destroying the very reservoir of trust in which communities and agencies depend for proper functioning. The idea promoted by folks like ray kelly and Rudy Giuliani and maybe former mayor bloomberg that we ought to somehow balance the benefits that groups of people such as africanamericans and young africanamerican men in particular receive without truly acknowledging that cost to them in terms of enforcement im not just talking about incarceration. It is shortsighted and deeply flawed. It is because their arguments premise is that aggressive policing is necessary to to achieve Crime Reduction. That is just false. Critical to understand here is that promotion of public trust is actually associated with voluntary compliance with the law. This means policing agencies can achieve their goal of enhancing Public Safety while at the same time pursuing the mandate of increasing public trust through greater commitment to legitimacy and procedural justice. I think, prescription, is relatively straightforward, the process of taking the medicine is not. One might imagine the treatment for rabies. Im probably dating myself, but when i was a kid, the treatment for rabies was 21 shots in the abdomen over three weeks. I understand that is no longer the case. I think now it is like five shots in the arm. When i was a kid, we were all terrified by rabies shots in the gut. Im afraid of dogs to this day because of the rabies treatment. I think that the path to Police Reform will be Something Like this. A narrow prescription we all understand is clear, difficult to endure but worth it because the alternative literally is death. Change will be painful for policing organizations. There will be resistance. There already is. Past dependency is strong. There is a sense of righteousness. Change will be difficult for the affected communities, especially communities of color. Think of disadvantaged neighborhoods in baltimore who long distrusted police, or the kids that craig was talking about today. There will be resistance. There already is. Past dependency is strong. There is a sense of righteousness. Why should we be hopeful about this . There are all sorts of examples of changes afoot. A primary example happened in illinois. The governor has signed the omnibus Police Reform legislation that was passed almost unanimously by both houses. This is a 135page bill. It has all kinds of stuff in it. A requirement for the kind of Police Training on procedural justice. It has regulation on body cameras. It even requires that even Police Officer when they stop a person give that person a receipt that has the officers name, badge number and the reason for the stop. There is new requirements in massachusetts for Training Like this. The attorney general of california as required wholesale training of every policing agency in the state. The new York Police Department has recently announced it will begin to document every single use of force, including the kind of force used at stops. There is movement and response to the national conversation. But, i think we need deeper change. If you go to the website of the invisible institute organized by jamie calvin you will see videos of a handful of teens recounting their experiences with Chicago Police. Some of you if you were in the symposium today have already seen some of these videos. Craig who teaches at this law school refers and describes to the world that the kids live in that they describe as one governed by an alternative constitution. That description resonates with me. I think we are in the midst of a National Moment right now. One in which we are trying to understand and work towards the terms of citizenship in a very real way that neither the first nor the second reconstruction can achieve. Aten though ther reconstruction could have provided the legal architecture for doing so. The constitution, the reconstruction amendments and congress through the civil rights act, Voting Rights act, the second reconstruction, provided what we might think of as a formal curriculum of citizenship. Theses laws tell us who we are by how we value freedoms of all individuals. In an article i have written colleague last year, we wrote a piece called how the criminal Justice System educates citizens. Benjamin is a historian of education and he introduced me to a literature that talks about how students are treated in classrooms. It makes this distinction between the formal curriculum on the one hand and the hidden curriculum on the other. So, i was really moved by his work with these teens because it reflected this dichotomy with the formal curriculum and the hidden curriculum. This idea of a hidden curriculum comes from these educational researchers who look at how classrooms are organized. Who are the mascots. Where the kids sit in the lots lunch room. Who is called on or not consider class. In citie civics class. We are provided with instruction of who is and who is not a citizen. Citizens are those whose treatment by a Legal Authority is completely consistent with a formal curriculum. Those whose treatment is not consistent, their hitting curriculum is totally different. We might even say those folks we get instruction on who the anticitizen is. Said that we are actually in the moments of a third reconstruction. I hope so. I would like to think this time we will get it right. How do we do that . Well, one answer might be to rely on this idea about the distinction between the formal curriculum on the one hand and the hidden curriculum on the other. Once we have a system in which the formal and hidden curricula are the same for everyone, then we will have achieved the goal of the third reconstruction. Lets hope we are on the path to its achievement. Thank you. [applause] prof. Stone if you have questions, please line up at the microphone. Hello. Tracey, your attempt to change narrative about policing is on target. In these matters of public affairs, controlling the narrative is really crucial. It will shape thinking and policy. You indicated you are uncomfortable with the term Public Security. I think your instance are correct insticncts are correct. I think the term Public Security in the minds of millions of People National security, homeland security, those terms have been used to justify government action. I encourage you to give very serious thought to find a different term. Prof. Meares thank you. [laughter] i can say that part of the reason why they use the term security egos there is another literature in the u. K. Im referring to the work of neil walker who wrote a book called civilizing security. What they are actually trying to do is what im trying to do in the context of Public Safety. They are trying to have the narrative about what you are talking about, to encompass a greater acknowledgment of not only individual rights, but an understanding in the way state agents constitute who we are as citizens. Im doing a little bit of triage least in theg at domestic policing context, if we talk about people feeling secure in their persons that well acknowledge the role government complaint in creating security. I get what you are saying. Rather than just criticizing, we have to come up with a new word. [laughter] you are right. Prof. Meares ok. Excuse me. What therious to hear task force has worked on or your personal thoughts on how this should be reflected in the school systems, considering the disciplinary structure. Especially when we hear about what happened in South Carolina recently with the use of force and other more punitive measures in schools. Prof. Meares yeah, so, i was emphasizing in my remarks the first pillar of the report which is about Building Trust and confidence. That pillar was the foundation for the five other pillars that we talked about. I can review them quickly. The second one is policy and oversight. The third is technology and social media. The fourth this Community Policing and Crime Reduction. Five is training and education. Six is officer safety and wellness. Has a lot of recommendations about what you are talking about like the kinds of collaborations that policing agencies can and should undertake in schools. We heard a great deal of testimony about trying to reduce the number of arrests that c ome out of the school context. Conversationtion was consistent with that. Kids in vulnerable populations. Understanding the first interactions teenagers have with Police Actually are formative relationships that actually tell make predictions about how law are going to view the in the future. There are pages and pages of this. Id recommend that you take a look. Thank you. Was quite taken by your notion of police as guardians. I was somewhat less optimistic about the ability of this society to reach that understanding. It seems to me, and you talked about this, what we have to do is change culture. I dont see how we do that without incentives. Im not sure that altruism and a notion that we cannot let things go on the way they have been are sufficient. It isularly, if underlying part of the support which is race. There was talk earlier this week by the head of the Chicago Police board and there was an interesting question from a german. They said in germany, all Police Officers have to have a four Year University degree. I would say wonderful. We have to increase taxes to pay for that, particularly if we live in nice, white suburbs where we dont have to worry about this. Give me some reasons about optimism of why we should not be skeptical about having a commitment to the resources to change the culture. Prof. Meares there are so many different ways to get at that. Im going to say three, maybe four things not necessarily in order and may not be completely coherent. But, here is the first. That is training, training, training. I think that one way to get from warrior to guardian is to have fundamental change in Police Training. Certainly, the largest agencies in the country are focused on this task. So, you might not actually be experiencing it on the street yet here in chicago, but i can tell you that the training on procedural justice here is very innovative. Its chicago is a leader in doing it. They have trained over 12,000 officers in the first eight hour module. I dont know how many they have done in the second. It is on its way. The new York Police Department is required to reform its training out of the floyd litigation. That reform is underway. I know in part that it is underweight because i am working with them, with other people to do that. There are many recommendations about that in pillar five of the report. You say, ok but, resources, right . Because new york and chicago, while tons and tons of offices chicagoork as 38,000 has about 12,000. That is a drop in the bucket when we are talking about the entire landscape of american policing. I think if we are going to have this change, many two things to happen. First, the requirement to certified Police Officers have to adopt these changes and make it a requirement. That is one. Second, there has to be the resources to actually implement this kind of training wholesale. It will be hard to do without some kind of force consolidation. That is one of the reasons why we recommended that. How does that happen . You might think one way you do consolidation is to give agencies incentives to become with the lure of federal dollars. It turns out fewer than half of the 18,000 policing agencies get any money from the department of justice at all so why would that be an incentive . It will require some kind of thentive, i think, given by executive leadership of every state. Like governor who is encouraging the municipalities to consolidate. Fact there is a federal given to the governors. I will give you more federal dollars in order to get this done and then we have the regular politics that happen. I dont know. In that sense, im not super hopeful, but i will say that this change of the whole warrior mentality is relatively new. That just happened in the context of policing agencies believing that this is what they can do. They did not used to believe that. The talk with the bailey anecdote that i started with. I think with all this scrutiny, the litigation, the fact that every police chief of a major city understands i will say this on cspan shovel everybody elses shit all the time. They are expected to solve the discipline problems in school. They are expected to deal with the fact we have the institutionalization of institutions. There are some serious issues of Mental Illness on the street. Theyre expected to deal with people battling the disease of addictions, because nobody else is dealing with this. They are constantly looking for innovative responses, right . Theyre motivated. I think there is reason for hope. I wanted to tell you that on november 19, which is two thursdays away, our group is going to have a forum on your 21st century report. Shawn smoot from your group will be there. We also have david, who was a member of our academy, who will go into the history of police. If you look at that history, david briefed me a little bit about what he will say, there was in england,peeles, and depended on a sense of community. That the police come from the community. I think itll be interesting to review the findings of your task force against the light of a Police History that few people know about or look into. I did want to say that our group was founded by ernest virges in 1950 who was a sociology professor here. The application of social science to criminal justice studies. We had hans and norville morris, he was the dean of this law school and a prominent criminologist. We are a bunch of old people, but we like to look at these things historically. I look forward to what happens in our review of your report against the historical background. Thank you for your presentation. Prof. Meares thank you. Hello. In spite of all the efforts to shift from warrior to guardian mentality, no matter how am the certifications have changed, whatever training takes place, there will be some officers who dont get the message or refuse to. My question leads to the disciplinary process. In many jurisdictions, mandatory binding arbitration is the means of resolving disputes, especially discharge of officers. A very common pattern is for an arbitrator hearing the grievance file to say yes, the officer is guilty, but it is not a big deal. We will put him back to work. Just recently, the city of boston attempted to have a court order set aside for arbitration decision. They were unsuccessful. The officer had been fired three times for three separate offenses and each time reinstated by an arbitrator. Of course, there have been civil litigation which has cost the city of boston and the taxpayers substantial change. My question is did the commission give any consideration to these issues of disciplinary cases but ver are adjudicated and how it could be more effective . I can give you or stories of rrorcers being hoo stories of officers being reinstated with no question of the guilt. In cincinnati, two onduty officers took a very intoxicated woman and escorted her back to have sex with her. They were fired and two officers concluded it was no big deal. Two day suspension and back to work. Prof. Meares ok. [laughter] considerion was did we discipline in particular and the recommendations and the answer , althoughh that level we did hear testimony and take testimony on the relationship between Disciplinary Procedures im talking just Disciplinary Procedures and also these ideas of procedural justice and legitimacy where you would think that having more Community Input and certain kinds of accountability might be inconsistent with the kind of Union Demands i think that lead to these kinds of structures you are talking about. We did talk about things that were related. The fact that many Police Boards operate iin the way you are talking about. A Police Executive will want to fire a Police Officer for an egregious behavior and the police board will reinstate that officer. That was an example we used to point out the complications of civilian oversight. Where civilian oversight often ofes place in the form the police board that reviews the decisions and it is not actively involved in setting policy and articulating Community Goals and projects. The board it is not call the angeles the los version of the police board is not just reviewing particular police decisions or executive decisions. But, i think youre pointing out this issue of discipline and the like is jumping off point for me to say while there is a lot of good stuff, we did this report in 57 days. 57 days. The chairs were appointed in december 1. The rest of the task force was on december 19. We started in january 13. We had 150 witnesses who testified before us in certain hearings. We had hundreds of pages of written testimony and put together what i think is a pretty good document in that time period. It is not enough, not a complaint. There are many, many other things to say and hbe said. The other point is this idea that you were bringing up is accountability. It is a critical aspect of Building Trust. You are not going to trust agencies or individuals in the context of agencies who are not held accountable for wrongdoings. We definitely have to figure that out. Interested in how you are defining the role of police from the perspective of guardianship. It makes me wonder if there is any policy initiatives that seeks to rather than having police shovel everyones crap, having the social services that are necessary to take the role. Are there any policy solutions that are actually being played out or considered that would reroute these resources to things Like Mental Health services, municipal services, better schools, not shutting down schools and other things that might get to the source of the need for the police . Prof. Meares i should say that there were two overarching recommendations in the report that your comment makes me think i should point out right now. Recommendation a that the president form another crime commission. We basically have not had an overall review of the criminal Justice System since 1957. It is about time. That was one. The second is, and i will read this the president should promote programs that takes a comprehensive look at communitybased initiatives that address the core issues of poverty, education, health and safety. That is what you are talking about. Our focus was pretty narrow. We cannot do everything, but we did talk about things such as i will give you an example having 911 triage. By that i mean, if you get a 911 call where it appears the incident is involving an individual who is suffering from mental disability, in some cities, they will shift that call to a group of 911 receivers who are actually with special training to deal with and ask the right questions so that the right resources, to the extent that they exist because they dont and all cities, are been deployed to that situation. A lot of times what you have are people receiving calls who dont have adequate training who then deploy people who dont have adequate training to situations that could be completely avoided in a situation where there was training. One final point on this you take the police like the u. K. Where, yes, there are as many guns arent as many guns, but they have, the police have an overarching motto about preservation of life at all costs. When an officer is sent to a situation im not talking about in custody which is another issue if you have a person with a mental disability who is facing an officer with a weapon, most of the officers there are trained to simply slow the situation down. You get sandwiches, i will get coffee and we will await the person out. That is not what happens here in part because the officers are not trained properly and the people who dispatch them do not ask the right questions. Thank you, professor meares. [applause] prof. Meares thank you. It was fun. On the next washington k on the gina smilic Economic Outlook for the year ahead and the effect of the Federal Reserve raising Interest Rates as well as Consumer Spending and job creation. En joins us to discuss the political situation against isis. Washington journal with the headlines, your phone calls and tweets every day on cspan at 7 a. M. Eastern. While vacationing in hawaii for the christmas holiday, president obama and the first lady stopped by a Marine Corps Base to visit with troops. The president gave brief remarks wishing the servicemen and women a Merry Christmas and thinking them for their service thanking them for their service. [applause] obama hello, everybody. Merry christmas. Happy new year. Happy hanukkah. We just want to hope you guys are having a great holiday. It is wonderful to see all of you. This is one of our favorite things to do every year because not only are we in hawaii for also able but were to say thank you on behalf of the american people. So many families here are serving tirelessly. It is not just those in uniform who serve, it is also the spouses, the kids. There are times you are missing birthdays, soccer games, making sacrifices. As we know, when you are deployed overseas, it is tough. Even though we have been able to reduce the number of folks who are deployed in places like iraq and afghanistan, there are still folks over there every single day and it is still dangerous as we saw this past week. We had some outstanding brave men and women who were killed. We never take for granted what all of you do for the american people. You help keep us free. You will keep us strong. Whatever service you were in,