Hes often one of my greatest inspirations. Marilyn mosby is baltimores states attorney. Absolutely give it up for marilyn. Well known for taking bold moves in the pursuit of justice, not as well known, shes become a dear sister friend of mine, also a huge inspiration. Shes doing so much good work to help reform the criminal Justice System in this country, and shes leading the standard with baltimore, so please lets give it up for marilyn. [ applause [ applause ] you might know him from new edition and bell biv devoe. I might break out in the poison dance real quick. But hes here today not for the dance moves and for being a producer extraordinaire, hes also here to help inform this process today. Michael bivins. And next up we have colin warner who well hear a lot more from later in the program, but its so important when we talk about these issues that were not just talking policy. Were talking about the people these issues have actually impacted. So colin warner is here today. Well watch a trailer about his experience later on today, this afternoon. Colin, we welcome you to the stage. Next up we have a wellknown activist here in baltimore an organizer, ray kelly, who found the National Spotlight on his city after freddy grays death. His work has been seen in the department of justices overview of the Baltimore Police departments work. And hes here today to join us and talk about what we can do to impact the policy. Thank you for joining us. Next up the andrea james who is a boston area activist and author who uses her personal experience working in the criminal legal system and then being incarcerated in federal prison to fight reform. We will hear from andrea today on both sides. We welcome you to the panel. Next up we have jewel james who is a Michigan State representative. He is michigans youngest state representative. And before that was the youngest elected City Council Member for the city of we are so often hard on our young people for not being involved. He not only is involved, he ran. Lets give it up for terrell. And last but certainly not least, i call him my mentor, i call him doc, none other than dr. Michael eric dyson to help round out this panel today. You know him very well. Lets give him a warm welcome. Please be seated. Then so you all know, there are folks in the audience who have no cards. Well try to get to your question. So if you see the volunteers holding the note cards, they can take your questions via the note cards this afternoon. Good morning. Good morning. Is it still morning time . Yes, its 11 14. 46 minutes left for morning. I really think its important that before we dive into other pieces of this, we hear the term mass incarceration, criminal Justice Reform so often, and i think we throw them out so much that people start to lose the compassion about the issue. So i really want to take a moment to set the stage. Marilyn, i want to start with you. What mass incarceration really is and why we should care. So just both the definition, how we define it and how it impacts us and why we should care, why we should be utilizing our energy to really throw ourselves in and get involved. Id love for you to use the examples as well. When we talk about mass incarceration, we have to think about for a very long time the criminal Justice System has had a disproportionate impact on communities of color. And weve criminalized our communities in ways in which nonviolent offenders have resulted in a disproportionate impact of individuals, africanamericans being incarcerated. So you know, when we talk about reforming that, its a matter of trying to address the systemic issues and ensuring that we are not just locking up black people based on nonviolent offenses. So next, i want to go to dr. Dyson. I know hes done taking his selfie now. You got to be able to throw shade at your mentor, right . So i want to go to dr. Dyson to answer the same question. Before we get into some of the anecdotes that actually happen to be sitting here with us. Its great to be here with dr. Angela rye and all the other panel here this morning about. When we think about mass incarceration, we think about, as attorney mosby said, the disproportionate concentration of people of color and what we now know as the Prison Industrial Complex which means, local jails, federal jails, and prisons who warehouse disproportionately africanamerican people and latina people. That means that for nonviolent drug offenses that other people are hit on the back of the hand and told, you go home and you become a better johnny or jill, shaniqua and jamal are sent to prison. There sent to prison because theyre introduced to it in terms of detention in public school. Look at the relationship between discipline when your children are kicked out the second and third grade, god knows sometimes even kindergarten. Then they are known as a disciplinary problem. And then they go to detention. Then they are sent from detention to local detention centers. That becomes a feeding cell for a jail cell which becomes a warmup for prison. Again, these are not people who are inherently criminal but they have become as ms. Mosby said, criminal lives. When the honorable ms. Mosby talks about criminalization, that means your children are targeted for specific slots in prison and in jail. Mass incarceration suggests that a disproportionate number of people of color are subjected to this for doing the same offenses that white and other peoples commit. They are given time off, theyre given time release, they are given programs where judges allowed them to work off their time in other fashion. Well, that is not the case for black and brown people. That leads to an accumulation of black and brown bodies in prison. Think about it. In the 80s, we had numbers of people in prison. That has doubled and tripled. Now we have what, 1. 2, 1. 3, 1. 5 Million People in prison, the most of any industrialized nation. Masses of those happen to be people of color. Not only are they doing the same thing, theyre getting harsher sentences in the refusal of judges in some cases because theyre locked in with mandatory minimum sentences which makes a difference when you have an attorney general like eric holder in place and when you have an attorney general like Jeff Sessions in place. Jeff sessions has reignited the war on drugs. And as tupac shakur said, the war on drugs is a war on black and brown people. Mass incarceration is the masses of people of color being subjected to penalties that viciously and specifically target us in ways that throw away the key when we are put into jail. And then, finally, the criminal Justice Reform means we need to reform the criminal Justice System that is often unjust to us. When other people when we look away from what they do, when we overlook what they do, when we give them a second, third, fourth chance, when they have affluenza, my child is too rich to go to jail, so please let him out, whereas the people in the hood in baltimore are not seen as affluenza and as a result of that they go to jail for three and four and five and six and seven years. When we think about the fact that a white woman is killed by the police in minnesota, what happens . The police chief has to resign. What happens when Philando Castile announces to the Police Person that he has a gun on his person . He is killed in seven seconds. The reform of the criminal Justice System suggest the inputs we make, the data they derive from looking at the number of times were stopped, Philando Castile 50 or 60 times over the past ten years. So we see a reform of the criminal Justice System and we have to find a way to make sure judges are not bound by mandatory minimum sentences. People of color are not subject to arbitrary forms of reprisal in a criminal Justice System that doesnt Pay Attention to us. And fimle that we get the same breaks as everybody else. Black folks say if you do the crime, you do the time. Youre being ignorant. Thats not how white folk do it. They hook their kids up and find a way to keep them from being in prison. One of the things that i think is also important this morning, i believe in focus groups. I think this will also help us set the stage as we transition to the actual anecdotes of personal stories on the stage today. I need you all to be active participants. I know its been a long morning, but i need you to stake awoke for a second and engage. The first question i have for you. Please dont be ashamed that this is a family conversation. How many of you all have been incarcerated at some point in your life . Then how many of you all have a Family Member who was or is . And the last question dont keep standing up. Participate. The last question is how many of you all have a good friend who was or is. So when you look around this room, when you look at even the stage, we dont have a choice but to engage on this issue because it literally impacts almost every Single Person in this room. So with that, i want to transition to you, colin, and the reason why i want to go to you before you answer, theres a trailer that we have about your story, but then i want you to talk to us a little bit about what happened and your personal experience. Of being wrongfully convicted. But if we can run the trailer. If you focus on your breathing, it will bring you out of your mind and back into your body. Just know that you are not alone. Crime today is an american epidemic. I aint no killer. The system doesnt work for people who cant afford to defend themselves. The whole neighborhood know what happened. The whole neighborhood know you grabbed the wrong guy. Im an innocent man. A mother shouldnt lose her son. Ill work for free if you take a look at this case. We cannot afford this. You want to believe him, they will keep me in here. You know i will die before i do that. But i cant fight that for you. You got your family, you got your hif. Why are you still wasting your time on me . Thats not just about you. Its bigger than that. Colin lived in texas or louisiana, he would have been executed long ago. Longer sentences, more prisons. They took everything from me. More police. I cant just pretend this situation doesnt exist. This situation is, too. We cannot leave an innocent man in jail. Im going to take you home. Its just a matter of time. Colin, thank you for being here. I really want you, you know, as quickly as you can and this is tough because seeing the trailer b you i want you to share a little bit about your experience being wrongfully convicted. Om of us are well aware of the central park five or we know somebody who was wrongfully incarcerated or wrongfully arrested. Talk about the impact of that on you and how that shaped your life knowing youre innocent. Hello, everyone. And man, woman and children. Again, my name is colin warner. And the trailer you just saw is a synopsis of what happened to me. What i can say is that i was literally dead. Dead upon being convicted for a crime that i didnt witness, didnt participate in and had no knowledge. The feelings that i could share with you, theres not too many words that could adequately fit into your mind, into your mind, but having a life taken away for something i seen this as a murder is hell. Based on the movie, i hope that each and everyone will get something from the movie because i feel you dont have to be incarcerated to get something from the movie, right . Love. I believe this is what keeps us separated and all these other issues coming upon our head. But we have power, right . Me and my friend came before the syst system, before the system, oh, its 21 years. But in the eyes of god, 21 year s. So we have to recognize what we have and keep it for a certain amount of time. Were talking about mass incarceration of kids, these kids have nobody out there. Nobody out there to show them something different, to teach them. Theyre on the streets 24 hours a day. What do you expect them to do . Go to college . From the streets . We have to be afraid. Because if were afraid for the next man on the street, you will do nothing for the kid. We have to step in. This is one of things that surprised me after being 21 years in prison is how scared we are as people to do anything. We are great, but our greatness is come down to normalcy. Colin, you just mentioned carl king, who is your childhood friend who works diligently to help get you out of prison. Is he here . Take a stand. Thats my angel. Thats my angel. [ applause ] colin, what it sounds like youre saying is so often were timid as a people. So often there arent enough carls, but there are too many collins that dont have carls in the Prison Industrial Complex that are in jail for things they didnt do or theyre serving time for things they shouldnt be serving time for, to docs earlier point. Right now its hit or miss. We dont have proper representation. Yes. Thats key. Right . We are basically on our own. We cant give up on the kids. We cannot give up because if you give up, we give up on ourselves. So going forth in your biological kids lives and the lives of every kid on the street, man, woman, child. Reach out. We are a community and the only way to accomplish anything is by coming together and moving forward. Thank you, colin. Andrea, i want to go to you next because you worked on both sides of this issue as an activist for folks who are incarcerated and then having served time yourself. I would like for you to paint a picture because you say that that informs your work of what its like inside a prison and why its so important for us to not only address the issue of folks going in but also addressing the conditions that folks are forced to live in behind bars. Also, thank you to the naacp for inviting us on to this platform. We come from the voices of the hundreds of thousands of black women who are sitting right now as we are convened here in a cage and the effects of that on our children and communities. So to have the organization of the naacp to understand how incredibly important it is to raise awareness within its membership of the swift and dramatic increase in incarceration of black women in this country, i thank you for being aware of the importance of that issue. So yes, i was a former criminal defense lawyer sentenced to serve a two year federal prison sentence. This issue is personal to me. Im a born and raised very proud in the community of rockies buxbur massachusetts. My children and husband are still living in roxbury. And we are the fourth generation to live in that community. We understand firsthand what happened in the country over the past four decades starting with a war on drugs which was really a war on black people. We saw the crack epidemic come into roxbury, the problem was crack left quickly but the very draconian hard on crime policies that incarcerated millions of black and brown people never left. So thats the work that we now do at the National Council for incarcerated and formerly incarcerated women and girls. I didnt think that there was anything coming into the community with all the personal experience i had, coming as a criminal defense lawyer. Coming from being married to a man who two decades ago served a twoyear mandatoriy criminal drug sentence. This is very personal to me. I did not think there was anybody could tell me more about our broken criminal Justice System when i left my 5monthold baby boy and my 12yearold daughter in the parking lot of the federal prison for women in danbury, connecticut and stepped into that prison crammed full of black women. Almost 2,000. And thats just one federal prison. There are hundreds and thousands of prisons where people are being held in prison cells. Theyre separating mothers from children. When we talk about the violence and the gun violence and the social issues that we are dealing with in our communities today, we cannot do that and have those dialogues and find solutions that are separate from dramatic criminal Justice Reform that needs to happen in this country. It is directly in relation to the warehousing of blacks, men and women, in this country. In the federal system there is no better place to see where we have generations. I was in a prison with generations of black women from the same family. Grandmothers, mothers and their daughters on the same drug case incarcerated for a minimum of ten years mandatory minimum plus sentences. And if you ask them where are your male counterparts, they, too, their husbands, their brothers, their uncles, they are also in a federal prison somewhere serving these very long draconian drug sentences. Who, i ask you, is left behind to care for our children and to raise our children . So we have to understand the very importance of stepping out. I come from a prominent black family of lawyers and doctors, all members of the naacp. I understand, i understand what our people think and how weve tried to separate ourselves from us black folk and these black folk. Yeah, yeah. We cannot, cannot continue to do that. This issue, as you have seen with everybody in this room stood up, has seeped in and pervaded our entire lives throughout all of our communities. And now it has taken the Fastest Growing incarcerated population are black women in this country. Theyre separating us from our children. Women cannot mother from inside of a prison pay phone. It doesnt work. And so we have to understand the conditions are horrific. 90 of women who are currently incarcerated in our countrys prisons, federal, state and county are women suffering from untreated trauma. They are women who are victims themselves. Theyre criminalized and they are essentially incarcerated for being poor and struggling with the illness of addiction. How dare us, how dare us as a country allow that to be the solution that we take the most vulnerable women, black women whose lives have been devalued by a system that has intentionally devalued the lives of all of us and allow the system to incarcerate our black mothers and daughters in the way theyve done. The conditions, we could be here all day if we began to go down the laundry list. We just help to introduce the dignity for incarcerated women act with senator cory booker and Elizabeth Warren in washington, d. C. That bill speaks directly, angela, to what youre referring to in regard to the horrific treatment and conditions of women living within the prisons across this country. And that hopefully that is a bill that everybody in this room will Pay Attention to and help to move along so we can stop separating women from their children, stop overcriminalizing black women and stop putting them in prisons when they need to be in the communities. That billion dollars that was spent back in 1994 for the crime bill fills for prisons. It got us to the place we are today. Imagine if we had that billion dollars and had spent it on educating our babies. Imagine if we had that billion dollars and built affordable decent housing. Imagine if we had poured it into the Public Education system that the Trump Administration right now is trying to gut and privatize. These are the issues that we need to focus on. We have got to get our head out of the sand, my people, and understand it requires us to hold our back straight, understand that some of us make mistakes but we must use those experiences to create the radical change that needs to happen in the criminal Justice System today. Thank you, thank you. So mike, when colin spoke, he said something that immediately made me think of your work with my brothers keeper in boston. He said, you cant give up on the kids. You cant give up on the kids. To me that was such an impactful statement. It was small but impactful because i think if many of us were honest, we dont spend quite enough time with the kids. Being a part of a village that is constructive. Were very reactive in our community. I think weve seen that most recently with a lot of the reaction to kids being killed by the police. Were very reactive. And youre doing proactive work and i want to hear about it. I just want to say good morning again. The room ive been watching you guys for the last hour. I want to make sure people are feeling good. And when im in concert, i always say, are you feeling all right . And can i hear you say yeah . Yeah. Im listening and the reason im here is because i was invited because in my hood in boston, i represent so many different parts of the city as a voice for people who are trying out and needing something. And these kids dont even realize what they can do. Parents cant even afford memberships for kids to have day camp, which to us when we grew up was the best thing to do in the summertime. To go to a facility to swim, to play ball, to color. Whatever you could do inside of the building, your mom always knew where you was five and six hours out of the day so you wasnt out on the streets in trouble. You had a tshirt on, you had a bag that had lunch and you met somebody else on the other side of toub that you normally wouldnt have rocked with because kids didnt travel like that. When i think about the kids today, my job and where i come from in music, i try to give as much as i can to them. I bought 700 free members for the roxbury ymca, and all they had to do was go online and just register. If the parent had two kids, sometimes theyd let him get in with two kids because we wanted to change things. Up there somebody was always getting killed. A young girl got killed with a stray bullet. It affects all of us even if its not our child. Shes just on the bus stop trying to get on the bus and the cat riding down the street missing who he was trying the shoot which shouldnt have happened anyways, but the young girl got killed. And that affects us in boston. Me with my voice, i try to do what i can where i can. Me being a celebrity, this being here today is an opportunity to share the microphone with some of the panelists just to say that, yes, we do have to look at the kids. In my field, a lot of artists leave their hood and dont come back. Okay . We see them rocking the b hat or the ny hat or the a hat, but they live behind the gate. So if youre behind the gate and youre talking about something, youre not a foot soldier, youre only saying that so the audience can continue to connect with you. Youre not really saying it because youre down in there and youre talking to them and youre helping them and youre giving them a sense of hope. So today for me, as much as i can get on this mike because i know its about 15 of us up here. Im going to make sure in my time on this mike that, one, i get to connect with you, i get to connect with you. And we all good back home, you can think about all this information that you can take back with you and know that anything i could do in your community, im mike bivins im online and easy to get at. I dont just talk in boston. I talk to new york city and i love getting down with the kids. Thank you. So ray, i want to shift gears a little bit because ive just talked about our reactive approach to more proactive measures. Youve been on both sides of that, both reacting to some of the most tragic situations in the community thinking mainly of freddy gray. But youve also been proactive in policy and changing things and reform. I want you to lean in a little bit as an organizer and activist to talk to folks here about the things they can do to impact the policy process whether its a legislative solution, changing a regulation on the books and changing the way the Police Interact in our communities. What are some of the things you can suggest Going Forward to see folks engage. I want to first just welcome everybody to Baltimore City. Thats what we do. So the no boundaries coalition, we are a residentled advocacy group. So our foundation is raising a resident voice. So what we try to portray to our residents is that we have power. Power, by definition, is the ability to act. So as trained organizers and advocates, we kind of push for not only action but knowing when to act. And not only that, knowing how to act. So what we promote is engagement. Whatever the situation may be. Of course, it always starts with a focus on voting. That is a communal voice. And in our communities, sadly, because of the lack of hope from years of oppressive practices and bureaucratic, theres a lack of hope in our communities. So our task is to, one, show people that we can do things ourselves. So we kind of recognized now is the time to act. But when we react to anything, we first craft our solutions and in the Numerous Community meetings we do talks and listening campaigns. And we use the tool of visibility and constant engagement. Throughout the whole process of the Consent Decree and the dojs investigation because it happens on our back doorstep, it was important that we made sure that the media didnt control the narrative and we made sure people were hearing from us. That fight goes on. Its always hard to get people to go to these structure and meet also that leads up to the big event where thats the true engagement and in Baltimore City, were at a historic time right now with the Consent Decree and the indictment of the officers after the freddy gray. This has all changed in motion. And what we try to do now is make sure people recognize that this is a generational moment in baltimore and if ever you wish to be up in front of anything, now is the time. This is your actual opportunity to influence a change that impacts us personally. We cant keep going into a conversation about mandatory minimums and war on drugs and war on guns when like dr. Dyson said and like states attorney mosby said, we have a history of this. We have the first. Look at the consequences of our past practices when using this type of tool to control a community. And thats what its used for, to actually control these black and brown community. Now we have privatized prisons and now people are making money directly off of black people being incarcerated and all over this country. And we have to kind of look at the root issues of all of this. We have to find out why our communities are targeted for these types of issues after 150 years of oppression after emancipation, why do we still have these localized pockets of black people that are the brunt . We have to stop using incarceration to triage the consequences from this systems past practices and thats how it affects our community. So what we do as a coalition is to get the everyday resident to be involved to kind of create a conduit of speaking in values. We have to not say that the system is broke, but we have to recognize that the system is working perfectly. Its just made to work against us. Right. So what we have to think about is changing the system. By disengaging, you can say it doesnt affect me until it affects you. Everybody stood up in this room. Yeah, everybodys affected. Thats definitely what we saw. Ray, really quick, dr. Dyson, i am going to get to you. But please, i wanted to give you a moment to offer a 30second closing to the people so we can get you out. What everybody said is extremely important. The thing is not to surrender your agency. Right, to think oh, my god, its going on. Theres nothing we can do. You see all the people up on this stage come out of communities where our people suffer. Im going to detroit right now in part to visit my brother who has locked away for 28 years. So i know personally existentially what that means. We know that some people are given a way out. You can be a Stanford University student who raped a woman, raped a girl and served three months, then you can be somebody who kills some dogs and you are going to serve two years. Then you come out shouting against the negro because he didnt cut his hair, but thats a different story. So my point is, right, dont just have a sense of the physical incarceration. Free your mind and your ass will follow. You literally have the mike drop moment because his mike is dropping. Literally a mike drop moment. Last but certainly not least, i really want to get to you. First of all, how old are you . 22 hy said 22. His mike wasnt on yet. 22 and 3 months. I think that its sad when we get so excited that theres a young person doing these things but im also so excited that youre doing what youre doing. Youre not just involved, youre not just going to the voting booth. You ran. I think that speaks volumes about your courage. I want to talk about the first bill you introduced because were on this policy prescription path. Thank you, ray, for talking to us about some of the things we can do as community members. But talk to tus as what you did a z a legislator. Your very first bill was first and foremost, hello, everyone . Lets try that again. Get some energy. Hel hello, everyone. You know theyve been told hi seven times. Go ahead. So im currently a state representative right now. But just a year ago i was on city council ingstrom, michigan. I met a man in the audience, charles belkin, he was arrested for mistaken identity. So he came out to inkster to meet me after i met him at the Congressional Black Caucus and he was telling me about what happened. As soon as i became a state legislator, he had came to me and he had said that he was traveling around getting other representatives to submit this legislation. So he brought it to mep. At that time i had probably known him for about a year. It automatically expunges the person if theyre arrested for mistaken identity. In michigan, in michigan, it is a thats trial stuff right there. In michigan it is a majority republican state. So a lot of times you couldnt go for automatic expungement across the board but we can go in baby steps. Thats my first bill called auto erase legislation. Okay. So on this same or in the same vein, marilyn, you ran for states attorney. You had the courage to do it. I talk often that black folk would be like, oh, a prosecutor, though . But why you chose that particular path. One footnote here that she probably doesnt want me to mention but im going to do it anyway, but because marilyn was courageous not just with the freddy gray case but so many other instances were being tarted, shes being targeted. Shes running against someone put up by the fop because marilyn is not in their pocket. We need to support our sister in all the ways that we can. I want to assure you that were aware of that. Sometimes when youre courageous, they target you. I want hear from you on why you chose this particular path and some of the things that youve done there. Then well understand why shes targeted. She wont say that, but i did because im the sister. I appreciate it. Thank you, angela. The mission of a prosecutor is to seek justice over conviction. The idea or the concept that prosecutors would now be in a position to seek justice is not abnormal. When i was 14 my cousin grew up with me like a brother. He was killed outside of my home in broad daylight in dorchester. When he was mistaken for a drug dealer. If it wasnt for the testimony of a neighbor who had the courage to come forward and testify to police, my family wouldnt have received any sort of justice. This was my first bro dukz at 14 to the criminal Justice System. I see my cousin with all these dreams and aspirations is now going to a grave. But the person responsible for his death was also 17. You talked about our baby. Having to go into the courtroom and see the number of afric africanamerican men going in and out in chains and shackles, i wanted to know how to be able to reform that system. What i learned and what we are now understand about the role of a prosecutor is that prosecutors have a great deal of discretion, right . One of the most powerful sort of advocates in the criminal Justice System. That discretion not only has an impact on defendants and victims, but we can all see how it has collateral consequences on our community. Understanding and recognizing that systemic reform comes from within, right . When we think about the role of a prosecutor, the prosecutor is a person who decides who is going to be charged, what theyre going to be charged with, what sentence recommendations theyre going to make, right . When 95 of the prosecutors in this country are white and 79 are white men and as a woman of color, i represent 1 of all elected prosecutors in this country. You kind of understand that disproportionate impact its had on communities of color. So understanding that was what i wanted to do, reform the criminal Justice System from within. I ran for states attorney even when everybody said it couldnt be done. Now that weve had kind of im in this role. Weve applied justice fairly and equally regardless of ones sex, religion or in this matter you talk about freddy gray, or occupation. So we have that, but its also very important as an africanamerican woman representing less than 1 that my Life Experiences speak for themselves, right . I dont need any sort of cultural sensitivity to know how young boys like freddy gray were being treated by the Police Department all across this country. So what are we doing . We have to holistically attack these issues. I talked a little bit about that before, about systemically addressing the issues of why crimes take place. We look at a city like baltimore and i want to use baltimore as an example and this is every city in america. Weve become complacent. We talk about the number of young black men being slaughtered on the street. In 2016, 314. This year were up to 189. We talk about these numbers just as if theyre numbers. But we dont talk about the fact that 24 of baltimores population lives in poverty, 35 of our babies, our children live below poverty. 18,000 vacant houses, 16,000 vacant lots. We dont talk about the Unemployment Rate of africanamerican that is more than twice that of whites. Those are the systemic issue. We talk about getting to our babies, we really do. You have to be able to get to them before they get to the criminal Justice System. When we talk about colins experience, right . Ive taken a holistic approach. Ive been in the office for two year and seven months, it feels like its been 27 1 2 years. But we have a conviction integrity unit where weve had our first exoneration of Michael Bryant who was wrongly accused and incarcerated 17 year. Thanks to dna evidence he was exonerated. Three years after he was exonerated, he died. We work with no boundaries when they were working on doors and ensuring that we had an accurate sort of accounting of what was happening in our Police Department. They were instrumental. I worked with no boundaries. Those prosals were adopted by prosecuting attorneys. Ive gone into the jails and worked with the Elevation Program thats now been defunded by the state of maryland. We were talking and helping women as they transition from incarceration back into the community. When we talk about our young people, that has been a primary focus for my administration understanding that we cant just be reactive. We prosecute 50,000 cases a year, we have a 93 felony conviction rate. We have to make sure that we get to our babies before they get to the criminal Justice System. Im seeing them in classrooms as opposed to courtrooms and you get blasted in the media because theyre saying thats not your role. Why am i a prosecutor . Im standing up here and talking about mass incarceration because we have to have a seat at the table. If you dont have a seat at the table, then youre on the menu. Id say so. Absolutely. Is this mike on . Yeah. Now that im sitting here and listening to where were going, for me, it just needs to make sense to me that what im feeling and what im feeling is if were worrying about the young kid and what theyre doing in the street and having to go visit them on sundays in the jail, part of when you talk to them is theyre singleparent homes. Okay . Some homes have a mama, some homes have a daddy, some homes have an older brother. So a lot of the direction and the conversation really is theres probably not enough love in the situation. Sometimes you just have to talk to your kid and tell them that you love them. I dont now how often people wake up or walk outside, but in my crib, i tell my babies i love them. They go, daddy, if youre going to catch a flight, we wish you a safe flight in a text. Sometimes that right there will help steer the person in the right direction. If youre talking to a kid, a girl or a guy and they get in trouble, they might not talk to the police the way they may talk to you. And you just be, yo, what happened, man . Why you do this . You might hear something thats as simple as, im hungry. Im sorry, man. I flipped this bag because i got to eat. I got a young girl i mean, i got a young girlfriend, she needs pampers, she needs milk. I know what im doing is wrong. They wont hire me to get a job. What else am i supposed to do . Then when they leave at a young age and they go behind the bar, some parents dont even visit their kids. So part of feeling like no one loves you and youre just left alone, thats when you really start wilding out because now mama dont want to go see you, aint no one coming to visit you, so you just feel abandoned. So were all talking about mass incarceration, but we aint talking about love. And thats really the problem. Thats really one of the problems in the black community, and thats why im sitting here thinking, damn who took a stance from my side of the block . And this is going back years ago. I guess marvin gaye said, hell, what the hell is going on . So somehow he felt it as a musician and we dancing to marvin and were feeling it but we actually got to be listening to what hes saying because its still going on today. Aint nothing really changed. Then im looking at some of these sharp suits. Were all dressed up this early. Everyones clean, the women, everyones in their dresses. Black people we like to look good. We aint stepping out not on point. But i also know something, when i go to church, that bishop and that pastor was a crackhead, so that tells me it aint what you wear, its whos wearing it. All right . And sometimes as black people we tend to look and we judge right off the riff before someone open their mouth. You dont know what theyre thinking, but sometimes if you take the time out and talks to the next man and the next woman, you might learn something and their story could be inspiring to show you. I dont think of some things and sometimes its hard for people to hire people and to accept them to say, look, thats what i used to be. This is where im at now. Thats all im kind of getting out of this panel is that black people, please, lets just continue to lift each other up and lets not try to judge each other. All right . So what i want to do quickly because i was given a tenminute warning, i want to ensure that each panelist has the opportunity to tell people because see black folks convene a lot, we conference a lot, we have a lot of conversations. But we really have some work to do. I really want to ensure that the panelists have an opportunity to give one thing maybe two things that these folks can do while theyre sitting in their seats right now or as soon as they walk out of the door, what is something that we can do to address this mass incarceration crisis to work towards criminal Justice Reform and really have an impact. Ill start with you. Thats a good question. I think brother mike hit it right on the head that its all about love. Being a young person, i think i was blessed with a family that laid the foundation. They actually came to the church. I had a strong robust family foundation, the community took care of me. And i think Young Brothers like the two guys i have with me, he veeen and dmitrious. Our families raised us, sometimes put aside from some of the people we grew up on the block with. A lot of people are just hungry, but we lenned to be hungry in different ways. This is the most powerful tool right here, is your phone. Thats social media. Just as simple as saying spread love, we can take a picture in here with somebody else. I know i sent out emails and give someone a high five today or Something Like that. Little things that you dont think could have a big effect. But just making a post saying tell someone hello today because you never know what somebody is going through or give somebody a hug or a high five. If we all just said that and used the same hashtag and got it trends. We had people running down the streets and giving high fives and hugs and saying hello. You neff know how that could change the world. I think the singlemost important thing that all of you here can do leaving this space today is to leave here understanding that mass incarceration is the civil rights issue of our time. You have to really open your minds to that. Open your hearts to that and understand. Second thing is that i think if you already havent but you have to understand that the people most directly affected, that includes at the top of that list incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people have to create the radical change. We too often have left the most directly affected people. The people who are the other experts, the people with the live experience that have excellent ideas about how to create the very radical change that we need to see in this country. We need to go back to the ormg nal intent of justice reinvestment. The original justice reinvestment which was to incarcerate, to redirect folks entering into the system particularly our women, particularly our women. Our men as well. But our women or the Fastest Growing population right now and to take the savings and invest that money just like we invested that billion dollars into building a prison from 1998 to 2008 we built a prison every ten days in this country and we filled those prisons with black bodies. Now we have to decarcerate. Not reentry but no entry. And take the savings invested in those communities that are now communities like mine in roxbury and boston that are called Million Dollar blocks. We have invested a Million Dollars on a single city block after a single city block. Incarcerating and reincarcerating and cycling in and out of this unrelenting system our people. So you really have to leave here maybe with a different mindset that you came with. Connect yourself with the people who are on the ground doing this work, and the experts say know what needs to change and really be a force. Use your voices, use your vote to make sure that we are putting people in office that are on board with us to create the change that needs to happen. Right now in Baltimore City theres like a million things that need to happen. Because tomorrow theres a public hearing on a City Council Resolution to once again introduce mandatory sentencing in Baltimore City. I think the media action everyone in this audience can do is contact the baltimore mayor, the City Council Representative of Baltimore City and demand that they slow this and have a conversation, a process because we have to listen to what everyone said on this panel today. And we have to look at these consequences that we suffer, the traumas in our communities every day. And we cant allow this regressive practice is what it is to happen again. So contact a Baltimore City council person. Contact the mayor. Reach out to any legislator influence that you have because tomorrow at 10 00 a. M. , theyre going to be talking about doing this to tus once again and well be having this panel five or ten years from now. What we all need is love. Were too selfabsorbed, right . And if you look at other races, other peoples, they always come together. Theres some system. I was in boston last month and at 7 00 in the morning and there was one guy in the gas station. He was an african. He came over from nigeria four months ago. And hes in that gas station by himself early in the morning. That didnt just happen. He knew what he was going to do before he came over here. Thats the system we need. We need a system. You see whats happening now. And it will continue to happen if we dont get up and put ourselves to work. We have a lot of time to lay under the ground. Why not do something while were up here . Thank you. Good stuff. Right. Me . Right. I would say thank you all for having me. This is actually my first time being at the convention. I was so looking forward to it. I met some really great people walking over from the hotel to this convention center. And i just hope we keep advancing and i just hope that some of the things that we talk about we can fix it and i hope they dont stay on your back but they support you, marilyn. Yes, please. I know when i was home and i was watching the baltimore thing and the riots and we saw you on television, me and my wife and my three girls, we were smiling because we saw us. You know . And then they would put dorchester under there, so i was really happy then. Let me just say this, that people are afraid to speak up. All right . Lets just be clear. Theres a lot of entertainers in my field that wouldnt want to associate themselves with Something Like this. Because theyre afraid it messes with their image or someone telling them to be too pro this or too pro that. But all of us come from hoods. Aint none of us born with a silver spoon. And if someone in your family left you some money because they came into some money, then thats a very but for a lot of us a dollar is real. I know we had to spend money to get up here and enjoy ourselves in this beautiful cityp i just hope that owl of you have a safe trip back to your city and that next year some of the things we talk about, the only way well know if it works is if we can see it happening in our individual cities, but lets continue to be a voice, like i said, my colleague said, lets just continue to spread love. If any of you feel like getting down in november, come see new edition on tour. I think, first and foremost, i think as africanamericans we have got to stop being complacent. I think that when we look at the number, just the sheer number of the Young African american, most of the young men being slaughtered in our streets, not just in baltimore, lets not get it twisted. In chicago and almost every urban city in america, we become too far too complacent. Colson absolutely right. We as africanamericans have become somewhat and mike, i appreciate you being here as an artist, but its not just the artists that are afraid to speak up, right . Its not just those with names, its also those of us who have gotten into a position of status
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