criminalization, black and brown and poor people, what i described this country's addiction to punishment strong federal leadership and have high expectations with this new administration. to help us achieve our mission parts to it before we get to the new administration, what happens under the trump administration on criminal justice? >> few things happen under the trump administration on criminal justice. one, in some respects we should look back further and recognize that for the past ten years there has been ensignificant reform at the state level and the local level for the criminal legal system. reducing its impact on people, trying to reduce the number of people who are going into the system, trying to shorten sentences and produce the ntvowel punishments the existing the system. in the obama biden administration the last two years there was significant push for reform to also shrink the footprint of that. and i would say that in the trump administration, we kind of held steady. on the one hand there is a lot of the rhetoric from the president that is typical of the law and order stuff we are talking about cities of, you know, that are falling apart under democrat leadership. high rates of crime for this is something of seen for decades and decades and this led to building of the justice systemce. but in fact in policies terms are some modest reforms. the president signed a 2018 the first step act which had some reforms of the federal prison system. and just last week congress passed a reform that was 27 years and it's making that is toak read turn the use of pell grant switches financial grants to low income students. edto make those eligible for incarcerated students. the 1994 crime bill did away with those grants. the president just signed that bill two daysth ago. we have on one hand the previous administration a lot of hot air and rhetoric in terms of the american public and make it fearful. particular of minorities. but on the other hand, some modest reform paid still a lot of reform of the state and local level. >> i want to invite our viewers to call them with their thoughts about criminal justice reform during this administration paid what t they would like to see next as well. republicans (202)748-8001. democrats (202)748-8000. an independent 20248002 pretty few works in the criminal justice system or were incarcerated with the line for you (202)748-8003. i want to show our fears with the incoming president had to say and october before the election. and abc news townhall menus asked about the 1994 crime bill. >> in the meantime an awful lot of people were jailed for minor drug crimes. was it a mistake to support it? > yes it was buried here where the mistake came. the mistake came in terms of what the states did locally. but we did federally, i near member george is all about same time for the same crime. but i w had done of the judiciary committee i took the ten circuit court of appeal took some brilliant lawyers working for me and judiciary paired we did a study. we determined what happens for the first, second, third offense for any crime in the criminal justicece system. and at the federal level. if you are a black man it's a first time you commit a robbery, how long would you go to jail on average of pure white men how long. black men would go to jail on average 13 years white men two years. i go down the list of every single crime. so we set up a commission every single solitary maximum was reduced in there. what happened was it became the same time from the samerv crime. so instead you have to serve between one and three years, ended up being much lower. black folks went to jail a lot less than they would have before. but it was a mistake. >> nick turner what do you make his answer there? >> while i think the answer was in fact, i will say two things. one of the things is a president biting he was a senator played w a role in the architecting of the 1994 crime bill. i don't think the 1994 crime bill created the system of mass incarceration that we have. but it certainly and celebrated it. he did not talk a lot of it. i think the second thing that we here in that clip is president biden, president-elect biden like many people have evolved. many politicians have recognized over the last 25 years is that this country's approach to crime and punishment which hassc essentially been, i describe it as an international aberration. we are unlike any nation in the world. we incarcerate ten times the rate of otherer countries. we are extremely punitive. we do not rehabilitate people. and we do spend $250 billion year on the system for it as a we put people in prisons. and prisons don't help them to succeed when they get released. 95% of them will get released. so what happens is they are so damaged in prison, so many people are damaged in prison, that when they come back out they end up returning to prison at rates of over 50%. so we have a system we spent a ton of money on. the damage for individuals, families and their communities. and it doesn't work. president-elect biden, like many people hasop recognized that fact. that very truth. i think what he was talking about was saying that his administration needs to do something different. i want to just offer up two quick facts to help understand the context of this. right now we have 2.3 million people incarcerated in this country. so the massive, massive system that we mentioned before does not work. i just not help people to rehabilitate and be constructive members of society. the economic impact on people is profound. there's a recent study done the brennan center which shows that if someone has been incarcerated in their lives, it will reduce their lifetime income by 51%. that is a remarkable thing. that is aif remarkable life long punishment. it does not benefit them, their families or their communities. as a another study this is a remarkable fact that people just have to let sinkk in. one in every two families in america has had a family member. not a gifted family member but an immediate family member incarcerated in the last ten years. so if you think about what we've done, we have created a massive system. burdens 50% of the american public. and it suppresses lifetime income with any good want to have. what i believe is the new administration is committed to reversing this multi- decade experiments of failure. >> wrote in the hill newspaper, five ways biden can jumpstart prison reform immediately. those five areas in and out or less investment, transform conditions of confinement, and monetary c injustice, improve criminal legal system transparency, and accountability. as well as expand opportunities for post secondary education and for training for people in prison. i just want to put that out there for viewers to think about. and ask you about those five areas. let's get the call. anthony in minneapolis, democratic collar. >> hi, i don't see up there the box. the box is the problem in criminal justice i have not heard anybody speak of it. if you do get a chance to speak to the president talk to him about that. the box causes more problems. once you have been incarcerated with that boxer you cannot get a job, housing, anything. as long as you have that box there, without is the very reason we keep it there. i want to say have also been through that system. i've been incarcerated for a did not understand about the 50% of that is correct. i made $119,000 in my lifetime paired time 62 years of age. as long as we don't talk about the box i know it has to be common sense and take away the box. because first and foremost people have done things, criminal stuff. but it is common sense. as long so keep that box there. i don't think anybody ever says anything about it. that's the biggest problem in criminal justice it makes people go back to jail. if you cannot find any place to live, can't get a job, you're going to steal, do what you have to do to force it for yourself and your family. select the right nick turner. >> i appreciate anthony's comments. ii want to begin by saying i am sorry that he had these experiences that he has had while he was incarcerated and released. the box that he is talking about is something employers often ask people when they are filling out applications for jobs where they have been arrested, convicted or spent time in prison. that is, often meant as a way to weed out people who have been touched by the system. what anthony is talking about, goes exactly to this point that i made, 51%, if you look again at the lifetime earnings of people incarcerated. it is 51% less than if you have not been incarcerated. you're getting cut off from jobs. you are getting weeded out. you are being discriminated against. and this is millions and people. of the one point that i want to make is it is a big problem at the back end of the system when people are getting released. one of the most important things that we really need to talk about, and that i mentioned our efforts focused on closing the front end of the system, reducing the number of people who are subjected to the box of which anthony discusses. so how do we keep people from beingg sent to jail? one of the ways to do this is to get the federal government to stop sending money to states and localities to build jails. if you build them they will get filled. remarkably there's even a u.s. department of agriculture program that is supposed to encourage rural economic development that helps support jail building. the federal government should get out of business like that. they should do a number of things also. there are a number of bills that are currently being debated in the house. there is the community first pretrial reform and jailed incarceration act will use federal money differently. to strengthen our people going to jail to do with the box anthony's talk about but it's extremely important to shrink the footprint of the system. going to hernando florida, you are next. >> i waser just winning a big going to do any changes for the 65%? i was incarcerated a couple of times. and i think that the 65% should be passed. maybe that would relieve our funds for the state prison systems to maybe do a better vocation course. to better train inmates for release insist to society. >> guest: so if i understand your question correctly, i appreciated it. i believe it was 65% you might be referring to is something called truth in sentencing. and truth in sentencing means if someone has been sentenced, a number of states are in the country of said you have to -- rather than being able to earn good time through rsrticipation in programs and letting yourself have relief, you have to spend 65, 75, 85, sometimes one 100% of the time her tort takes away the incentives for people when they come out. >> 85% of their sentence notbeie or have the incentive of being released by strengthening themselves and build skills the federal government would give the states money to build new prisons and what thatt bill did is a put $10 billion on the table for states and change these policies and that will give you money to build new prisons and a lot of states did that. i use that as an example of the incentive making that the federal government can do in that context within incentives and a huge growth in the prison population and what the government can do now is try to figure out or reduce the number of people in the system and how to direct people when they had a mental health challenge or selfb infused into the public health system and not the criminal legal system. >> carly in bryn mawr pennsylvania, democratic caller your question on criminal justice reform. >> first off i want to say thank you for mentioning bill the ]community first incarceration act, i did not know about it and as someone that is a democratic socialist is is very interesting, thank you for that reading. i kinder of wanted to talk about how policing -- not policing -- how policing coincides with even immigration and even the decriminalization and equalization of all drugs. you have to follow me here. i personally believe much like portugal we need to decriminalize and legalize all drugs because not only does that usincur immigration, creates countries, it also leads to less violence in our countries because then there is no market for dealers t' actually sell and much like in canada what we would need to do at that point is have treatment centers or injection sites, so people don't necessarily buy if they're trying to wean themselves off certain drugs if that is what they want to do. and that is actually save lives in certain places. and if you want to talk about the portugal model, what happened in portugal crime has gone down drastically in drug use has gone down drastically. it is something that it needsdso do, if we could do that than those things -- the people of color for instance who are largely targeted, i am white, if i go out and smoke weed or whatever i'm likely not to be arrested for it. i'm black and predominantly -- i'm outside of philly if i go somewhere in philly like kensington and buy a gram of weed and there's a cop around the corner or esteem i'm likely to be arrested but if we get rid of that law and make it all drugs legal and decriminalized and put them on the market but put strength and regulations on them, not only does that person get arrested, it's really safer. host: we are following you but i gotta have nick respond. guest: i think carly that is an important thing and an insight to this, one thing really quickly at the top, i talked to a number of callers who are democrats independence andnd i'm sure you have a few republicans waiting in the wings for me but the community first incarceration act is a bill that is intended to focus on a very particular problem, where we see incarceration rising rain on those countries and rural counties in very small cities, and big cities there is actual actually, the past 20 years the remarkable decreasing crime and a similar decrease in incarceration and where incarceration continues to grow in rural counties where people might typically obnoxiously refer to a flyover country or a trump country were seen a lot of growth in those places and that bill which is cosponsored a democrat and republican and armstrong in the house is intended to address the growth and slow down and provide other opportunities one poorly speaks of that gets sucked into the system and i really do mean sucked into the system with thet presenting problems that her health problems and health problems of addiction and mentan to a form of what i'm talking about, i want to mention one last point that carly raises, we have a system of mass incarceration because we havehaa system of massive wrath, there are 2.3 million people incarcerated inio this country d 10.6 million people year in this country and its remarkable number, every 30 seconds someone gets arrested, the last sentence i just spoke, three people have been arrested, some folks might say, they're a dangerous country, a lot of criminals, a lot of bad guys, this is what we know about america, that's what we have the police arresting 70 people, it's up 10.6 million arrest, only 5% of the violent crime, that means that you have a mass of other arrest which are connected to poverty and homelessness and to substance abuse in the police are using only tool that they are trained to use which is enforcement of arrest and they are sucking these people into the system and being sent to prison and their lives are being destroyed in the process rather than getting the kind of help that carly mentioned that you can find in portugal. the big point that needs to be understood of what carly mentioned we need to move a system that has dealt with healthh, problems and move it io the public health realm, we have to be able to provide, we should be investing, not $115 billion in policing, we should be investing a lot of that money in the intervention of social workers and people who are handling homelessness and addiction and mental health and not asking the police to respond that they aren't to respond to, drug addiction falls into that category, i will make one quick note, we are seeing progress in america on this front, there are number of states that have decriminalized marijuana and legalized and also have not only done that but creatingcr legal markets but taking the tax proceedsav for that from the lel markets and invested them in communities of legal burdens and that is black and brown and poor communitiess where there was enforcement and to carly's point that she made about a white woman unlikely to be arrested where someone who is black and drugs is more likely to be arrested is in fact true, black people are arrested 2.4 times more for drug possession then white people are, although we know all the studies have shown there is no difference in the use of drug use among racist, those are enforcement choices that are made by the police and where they are going to enforce into their going to rest a really important set of points and carly made. >> euphoria illinois, nancy and republican good morning to you. caller: good morning, my question in justice reform in new york, new york stops bail, their crime rates are just, matter of fact they le left one person on the street with no bail who killed somebody but we have california who is releasing people from jail that were sexual predators and they are saying their nonviolent, i'm sorry, there's not non-violent and sexual predators. and i understand trying to use n cial workers but can you explain to me how they did that, was it in seattle, they send in a social worker, she is dead because she did not have any police backup. it is okay, i understand criminal justice reform and i understand what trump did, he did a good job, he's bring people out of jail that should not of been there. and there's other people that don't deserve to have bail and don't deserve to b be out. host: let's take that point nancy, nick turner. guest: nancy, thank you and i appreciate the concern that you have i'm going to collect you, i'm sorry foror being polite and correcting in public but your facts are wrong or what you believe to be facts are wrong. and you're saying the exact same thing the mayor and bill de blasio in new york in the police commissioner dermot shea who is to be for increasing crime in new york city. but when you p point to the data in this is data that was produced and there was a connection between people who had been released on bail and went on to commit further crimes, negligible and the facts were just wrong and what they're referring to is spin, the kind of spin the taps into people's a fear that says you know what, arrest everyone, throw them away for good, throw away the key because we are terrified of he's been released but it's factually untrue and this is what politicians know and this is what people take advantage of, and if they tap into the fear that people have which is often racialized or have to say that they're going to get people to vote for them and they're going to get people to support them in their efforts to make the system tougher than it needs to be and what they never talkve about ever in the case of new york, we had a false set of facts about a connection to the crime rate but no one ever talked about, thousands of people avoided going to jail as a result of the t bail reform which meant that thousands of fathers and mothers were able to sit at the dining room table with their children and they weren't just scooped up and thrown in jail, they did not lose their jobs, they did not risk losing their homes because they were able toay pay rent and the justice system so often imposes on people but the politicians who you listen to don't ever talk about that but this is what they have had an immediate family member who has been incarcerated in their lifetime this is what most americans, black, brown, white are experiencing but it's not what the politicians want to take advantage of, talk about and i think what i'm seeing around the country, many people livedying this is a reality, the policy and we want to see something different, i appreciate you raising your point, i think you are wrong but i hope what you will do you will pay more attention to where you get your information and try to think more broadly about that. host: lisa in texas, and independent. lisa, good morning you're on the air with nick turner. go ahead. caller: good morning mr. nick. most of my point you have hit on, i personally think we need more rehabs and we need more timing forni the police to know how to deal with the mentally ill and we need more mental healthvi services versus prisons because we are creating the world that we live in by continuing to filter people through. i have been street ministry and jail ministry on and off for years and what i find most of the people are homeless, mental illness, also poverty, if you're poor and you go to court any don't have an attorney, you are going ton prison. host: nick turner. guest: lisa thank you so much for the work that you do. you could not be more right than talked aboutat you and not only do we need to make sure that we are providing services and care in communities so the people who are sick or who are homeless can get the help that they need and the help is not the justice system intervening, we have to do that but i want to take your point and expand on it a little bit, why this really matters, one of the things that we saw over the past few months, the wake of the death of george floyd was a national operating and a call for massive transformation of policing in america and part of what you're talking about is exactly right we need to be investing in the services and the capacities of communities to heal themselves and thrive in government services that help people to thrive, i want to talk about why it's so important that they are either excreting addiction or homelessness or mental health or have done something very minor and we don't want them in the grips of the police, i'm going to bring it back to the statistics that i raise, 10.5 million arrest every year, only 5% of those are for violent crimes, again for small offenses or behavior that we have been talking about, i want to tell you why this matters for black lives, i'm walking through a number of people who have been killed by the police, george floyd, philander casteel, eric garner, you know what drew the police all of them, george floyd, the police were called because he passed the counterfeit 20-dollar bill, society called three guys to address that. orlando casteel who was shot in his car because the cop stopped him and allegedly a broken tail light and h air gardner, the cos confronted him because he was selling lucy's, here in new york it's single cigarettes which is a violation of thehe tax code, e have the police doing all sortsi of things spending $115 billion a year on policing and it's over criminalized and he gets to your point in carly's point and it puts people a great risk and black people at great risk because of the racism that exise carry around with them. that is why it is important that we shrink the system and we come up with solutions and interventions and have nothing to do with the criminal justice system. host: let's go to diane, democratic caller europe next with our criminal justice reform. caller: thank you for taking my call, nicholas you ar awesome ai would work for you for free. one of the things i have to bring to the forefront is first off all bail is basically only something the rich can afford and if someone is not rich it devastates their family, their homes, their income and it takes people into poverty. this country thrives on people who are poor and it dates back to the civil war when there was slavery and if it was not poor they would not be able to bring about the crime built, my example that i once had a taxi and i got pulled over for my blinker being broken in my passenger had drugs and they said it was ridiculous and let me go after being there all night, i found out after i had gotten a job at a bank that they falsified that i pled guilty to a drug crime and i did six-month probation and this is some of the stuff that is going on and another thing that is really important, what i need to mention, an african-american like you were saying before has committed a crime and wants to get on with their life, they cannot, they can't because someone who is not hispanic or african-american they go right back into the job market, i'm not asking for a million dollars i'm asking for them to let everything be on an even scale and if you've committed a crime let everybody go back and in closing i would just like to say this i want you to investigate this, when you are driving down the highway and the policeman gets behind you, they can read a lot about you, what do they see, i have been pulled over a lot here in new jersey and state troopers are monstrous pulled over like my handicap sticker and a look at my grandson like they want to tear into him but i will drive this young boy forever because i don't want the police to get a hold t of him. what did the police see in the back of your car, what are they see on their screen that's one of the first things we need to do to end police brutality because they're seeing things that they probably do not need to. host: all right diane, nick turner? guest: diane i want to thank you for calling and i want to acknowledge the trauma and the pain that you spoke of and say how sorry i am about it, i am sitting here on "washington journal" and i'm using lots of -big numbers and i'm talking about research, 10.5 million arrest and 2.3 million people in jail and someone in what you just described is important for listeners to hear which is a personal call that is experienced by people who end up getting sucked in to the justice system and it is really profound, the night that you spent in jail, the fear that you have for your grandson and the society is and should be better than that, i appreciate you sharing your experiences, i want to talk a little bit about the point you made on bail, i am not sure if all the listeners understand what bail is but when you have been arrested and are awaiting your court proceeding, the judge will often set bail as collateral, it dates back to a time, this was centuries ago they said it out so you would have a reason to return to the court proceedings other than just responsibility. we really want you to come back so here is $10 bail or whatever it might be, it's really intended to have people return to court to create a bit of a guarantee, what bail has turned into an america and has everything to do with poverty as diane was talking about, it ended up being something that was insured people are locked up pretrial while they are still presumed innocent, because they cannot pay it because judges set bail at extremeet area mount and people are able to pay, the prosecutor asked for bail, the average american, the study has shown it was close to half of all americans that do not have $400 available to them in an emergency and a set of statistics there somewhere in that neighborhood and so the judge sets bail on $500 and you are one of the 50% of people, you will be sitting in jail and you will be separated from your children, you may lose your job, you might lose your apartment because you can no longer pay rent in your life for all intensive purposes is destroyed, what are the things that we see from the research, we've been holding people pretrial for two or three days and not only to disrupt people's lives but has negative consequences and they are more likely to be arrested in the future and more likely to spend time in prison and more likely to have that time in prison be longer than before, we have created a system a little bit like abi mouse trap that trs people, sucks them in and has benefits and that the false promise and it really, really harms people and that's something that folks need to understand, when you hear politicians talking about law and order, you hear people railing against reform that has spared people the state that i just described, make sure you are not being too prejudiced, don't just believe what you hear because we have a system that are based on the false promises and what were trying to do now is undo that system and create more liberty and freedom and the opportunity to thrive, black brown and white. host: tracy woodstock georgia, republican, your question or comments. caller: hi, i had to meet my tv. i think a lot that is going on in society today is because of white family, i am older and when i was growing up we were always taught the golden rule, due on to others as you would have due to you, if b we can get back to that, their family,o their education and people need to learn, don't do the crime if you can't do the time. thank you, hang up and listen. host: nick turner? guest: i appreciate that, that is a role that i live my life according to and i teach my kids to live their lives according to and it's a rule that i expect of my government, what i think is incredibly important, not only should we expect this individual, we should expect government to treat people with a commitment to their human dignity, with commitment to their potential to thrive and be productive members of society and to give them every chance to do so and i bring this back to the discussion that we are having because we have a system again that is massive and when you get sucked into the system the policies we have in place do nothing that the caller would expect the individual and society which is to treat them with s respect and to make investments in their human potential, what we have is a system that punishes the exact retribution, diminishes the humanity of people, ensuring that when theyth get relief they will be even less detached from the golden rule than they might've been when they started because they just gone through government system that is ttreated them as less than hum, i am all for that rule, i expect individuals in my life and i'm glad the caller raised that, i absolutely expect the government that we have. host: nick turner the president and director of the institute of justice, thank you very much for your time. guest: thank you. >> c-span "washington journal" every day we take your calls live on the year on the news of the day and we discussed policy issues that impact you. coming up thursday morning, we open the phone all morning and take your calls and comments on the questions, how did 2020 change america, watch c-span "washington journal" live at seven eastern thursday morning and be sure to join the discussion with your phone calls, facebook comments, text messages and tweets. >> you are watching cspan2 your unfiltered view of government, c-span2 is created by america's cable television company, we are brought to you provided by c-span as a public service. >> weeknights this month were featuring booktv programs as a preview of what's available every weekend on c-span2 and tonight as part of the 2020 year in review we focus on books on espionage and operations of military historian ben mcintyre discoverdiscusses his book, andt anderson the quiet american and later chris and the spy masters. >> welcome to the world words you virtually i am here physically my name is jeremy collins i'm the director, today we bring this program to you with hurricane data

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