tangible benefits for thousands of former inmates who have paid their debt to society but are still shut out of a second chance. like the nearly 75% of ex-offenders who remain jobless up to a year after their release. as snore paul puts, it the biggest impediment to civil rights and employment in our country is a criminal record. our current system is broken and has trapped tens of thousands of young men and women in a cycle of poverty and incarceration. many of these young people could escape this trap if criminal justice were reformed, if records were expunged after time served and if if noen violent crimes did not become a permanent block preventing unemployment. seema eyre, former civil rights attorney. piper kerman author of orange is the new black and glenn martin, president and founder of just leadership usa which ames to cut prison population in half by 2030. thank you all for being here.
libertarian like rand paul has been giving speeches to conservative audiences about how drug war is a failure, we need sentences rules and that s what i m going to do in new jersey. this is a broader play for rand paul. his argument for 2016 is, look, i have different positions for candidates on key issues like this. that means i could broaden the party. not just, listen, black voters, did you know abraham lincoln was a republican? something like, look, this is an actual concrete think. the naacp is very supportive of what i m talking about. let s talk. so, i find that to be potentially exciting because i actually think the political system always works better when is there are two robust parties that are trying to get everybody s votes, right? so, even if i if i may not myself be casting a vote for that party, i think it is more exciting that way. yet i m still nervous in part, seema, because of what i heard you say about, oh, making decisions and i feel like that world view is st
that people who are in jail are people making bad decisions and committing crimes who ought to go to jail. no, no, no. that s not what you said. wrong categories. one is that category of people who, yes, maybe it s an occupational hazard to go to jail. there is another category, especially now with the influx of identity theft crimes, cyber crimes, technology crimes where you have highly educated, smart, young people who, because they are poor, because of their station in life, they are facing felony convictions without the hopes of an expungement or sealing of their record. and the prosecutors aren t willing to negotiate. so i have, you know, little mark zuckerbergs running around who have no shot because they re going to have a felony conviction on their record. still it s mostly drugs, right, filling our prisons? well, 50% of all federal prison is filled with people who have drug convictions. but it s interesting what you just said, seema, because i do believe that now tha
states, think again. because there is another humanitarian situation unfolding on the u.s. s northern border that also has caught the attention of the united nations and also involves people from another neighboring nation crossing into the united states. only in this case it is people on our side of the border who are in need of help and our foreign friends who could be coming to the rescue. i m talking about the people in the city of detroit, who have been deprived of access to the most basic element of human survival water. in a city that borders the largest source of fresh surface water on the planet, contained within the great lakes, thousands of people are being prevented from getting even a single drop out of their faucet. this summer detroit s water and sewage department is working to shut off the water for up to 3,000 delinquent city customers eechl we each week, in addition to the 710,000 people who had their water turned off in june and the 7,5567 people who had
vehicle. but this will not be the last time a jury will consider this case in court. after last week s verdict was announced, florida state attorney angela corey vowed to dunn again on the outstanding charge of murder in the first degree. joining me are marcus mabry, the new york times editor of the new york times lead blog, seema eyre, a former prosecutor for the bronx d.a. office, khalil mohammad, and igor volsky, managing editor of thinkprogress.org. seema, i have to come to you, and ask, the dunn jailhouse letters, the one that i just read in the setup, let me read a little bit from another one in which dunn talks about thug culture. he says, i m really not prejudiced against race, but i have no use for certain cultures. this gangster rap ghetto-talking thug culture that certain segments of society flock to is intolerable. now, the prosecutor, john guy,