>> victorious present a direct of the institute of justice here to talk about criminal justice reform. let's begin with your group. what is your goal? >> guest: first of all let me begin by saying thank you fragment on s your show. my organization works nationally to and over criminalization, particularly black and brown and poor people and in what i described as this country addiction to punishment and prison. we count on our strong federal leadership and have high expectations for this new administration, the biden-harris administration to office achieve our mission. >> host: before we get to the next administration what happened under the trump administration on criminal justice? >> guest: well, a few things happened under the trump administration on criminal justice. in some respects we should look back further and recognize for the past ten years this been significant reform, at the state level and thee local level, for the criminal legal system, reducing its impact on people, trying to reduce the number of people that are going into the system, trying to shorten sentences and reduce the elements of punishment that exist in the system. in the obama-biden administration in the last two years, of it there was significant push for reform to also shrink the footprint of that. i would sit in the trump administration we kind of held steady work on one hand there was a lot of rhetoric from the president that is typical fear mongering of a lot of order stuff we have heard, talking about cities that are falling apart under democrat leadership, high rates of crime. this is something we've seen for decades and decades and this is what is led to the building of the justice system but, in fact, in policy terms there were some modest reforms. the present site in 2010 the first step act rich edson sentencing reform in some reforms of the federal prison system. actually just last week congress passed a reform that was 27 years in its necessity, and it's making which was to return the use of pell grants which is federal financial aid for low income students. make those grants available for incarcerated students. in 1994 1994 crime bill didd h those grants. the president just signed that bill two days ago. we have on one hand with the previous administration a lot of hot air andni read rick and tryg to rile up the american public and make it fearful, particularly minorities. butes on the other hand, on some modest reform in still another reform at the state and local level. with her thoughts about criminal justice reform during this administration and what they would like to see next paired republicans, (202) 748-8001. democrats, (202) 748-8000. an independents, (202) 748-8002. if you worked in the criminal justice system or were incarcerated, there is a line for you, (202) 748-8003. i want to show our viewers with the incoming president had to say in october, before the election, and see a town hall when he was asked about the 1994 crime bill. [video clip] >> a lot of people were jailed for minor drug crimes was it a mistake to support it? >> yes, it was, but the mistake came in terms of what the states did locally. what we did federally -- remember, george, it was all about the same time for the same crime what i have done as chairman of the judiciary committee, i took the 10 circuit court of appeals, took some really brilliant lawyers working in judiciary, we did a study and determined what happens if, for the first, second, third offense, for any crime in the theinal justice system at federal level, if you are a black man and it is the first time you commit a robbery, how long would you go to jail, and if you are a white man, how long? black man goes to jail on average 13 years, white man two years. i went down the list of every single crime. so we set up a sentencing commission. every single solitary maximum was reduced. but what happened was it became the same time the same crime. so instead -- you have to serve between one and three years, and it ended up becoming much lower. black folks went to jail a lot less than they would have before. but it was a mistake. host: nick turner, what did you make of his answer there? guest: well, i think the answer was -- i want to say two things. one of the things is that president biden, when he was a senator, played a role in the architecting of the 1994 crime bill. i think he understates it a bit. i do not think the 1994 crime bill created this system of mass incarceration that we have, but it certainly accelerated it. and he did not talk about a lot of that. and i think the second thing that we hear in that clip is that president biden, president-elect biden, like many people, have evolved. one of the things that many politicians have recognized during the last 25 years is that this country's approach to crime and punishment, which is essentially -- i describe it as an international aberration. we are unlike any other nation in the world, incarcerate at 10 times the rate of other countries. we are extremely punitive. we do not rehabilitate people. and we do this spending $250 billion a year on the system. as a result, we put people into prisons, and the prisons do not help them to succeed when they get released, and 95% of them are going to get released, but they are so 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 that we have spent a ton of money on that damages individuals and families and their communities, and it does not work. president-elect biden, like many people, i think has 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 offer up two quick facts just to help understand the context of this. right now we have 2.3 million people incarcerated in this country. a massive, massive system. like i mentioned, it does not work, does not help people to rehabilitate and be effective and constructive members of society when they are released. and the economic impact on people's profound. a recent study was done by the brennan center which showed that if someone has been incarcerated in their lives, it will reduce their lifetime income by 51%. that is a remarkable thing, a remarkable life on punishment. it does not benefit them or their families or their communities. and there is another study in 2017 that show -- this is a remarkable fact that people have to let sink in, that one in every two families in america have had a family member -- not a distant family member but an immediate family member -- incarcerated in the last 10 years. we have created a massive system that is incredibly extensive, does not work, and burdens 50% of the american public. it suppresses lifetime income for those people. so it is contrary to what any kind of good policy we would want to have. is that theelieve new administration is committed to reversing this multi-decade experiment of failure. host: you wrote in the hill newspaper five ways biden can jumpstart criminal justice reform immediately. federalve areas are in investment and local law enforcement and incarceration, transform conditions of confinement, end monetary injustice, improve criminal legal system transparency and accountability, as well as expand opportunities for post secondary education and training for people in prison. i want to put that out there for our viewers to think about and they can ask you about those five areas. let's get to calls. anthony in indianapolis, democratic caller. caller: i do not see the box. the box is the problem and america with criminal justice. i have not heard anybody speak of it. if you speak to the president, talk to him about that, because the box causes more problems. with it there, you cannot get a job, housing, anything after incarcerated. we will have recidivism, and that is why they keep it there. i have been through that system. i have been incarcerated. i understand -- i did not know about the 50%, but that is correct. i have only made 119,000 dollars in my lifetime, and i am 62 years of age. also, i would like to say this again, as long as we do not talk about the box, i know there has to be common sense in taking away the box. first and foremost, people that have done criminal stuff, stealing -- no, you cannot work, you're not going to work in a bank. but it is common sense. long as we keep that box there, and i do not think anybody ever says anything about it, but that is the biggest problem in the criminal justice because it makes people go back to jail. if you cannot find any place to live, cannot get a job, you're going to steal, do what you have to do to support yourself or your family. host: ok. nick turner? guest: i appreciate anthony's comment. i began by saying that i am sorry that he has had the experience he has had, being incarcerated and then released. ae box he is talking about is notion that employers often ask people when they are filing whetherions for jobs they have been arrested or have been convicted or spent time in prison, and that is often meant as a way to weed out people who have been touched by the system. so what anthony is talking about goes exactly to this point that -- if youat 51% of look at the lifetime earnings of people who have been incarcerated, it is 51% less than those who have not been incarcerated. because you are getting cut off from jobs, getting weeded out, being discriminated against. this is happening to millions and millions of people. the one point that i want to make is that it is a big problem sort of at the back end of the system, when people are being released, but one of the most important things we really need to talk about and that i mentioned in my hill op-ed are efforts focused on closing the front end of the system, reducing the number of people who are subjected to the box which anthony discusses. so how do we keep people from being sent to jail? pretrial. one of the ways to do this is to get the federal government to stop sending money to states and and at these -- states localities to build jails. if you build them, they will get filled. there is a u.s. department of agriculture program that is supposed to encourage rural economic development but helps support jail building, so the federal government should get out of business like that. that are a number of bills are currently being debated in the house. the community first pretrial reform in the jail incarceration act, which will provide incentive grants to localities to engage in pretrial reform and to shrink the number of people going to jail. jail, so so it is important to do away with the box, but you have to shrink the system by focusing on the wide end of the funnel and making sure we narrow it. host: robert, an independent caller. you are next for nick turner. caller: i am wondering are they going to do any changes for the 65%. i was incarcerated and i think 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 the inmates for release into society. robert, if i understand your question correctly, and i appreciate it, i believe the 65% you might be referring to is something called truth in sentencing. truth in sentencing means that if someone has been sentenced, a number of states around the country, rather than being able in programs and readying yourself for release, you have to spend 65%, 75%, sometimes 100% of the time -- so it takes the incentives for people to succeed when they come out. -- this is something that i that a preacher of sentencing reform in the 80's and 90's that the federal government played a huge part in expanding truth in sentencing, actually in the 1994 bill saidme that those incarcerated had to .pend 85% of their sentence the federal government within -- within give states federal money to build prisons. that.of states did so i use that as an example of the kind of incentive they gave that the federal government can do in that context, very long incentives. that is an incentive that led to huge growth of the prison population. what the government can do now is use incentives to figure out how to reduce the number of people going to the system. the less people who have mental health challenges or substance abuse into the public health system and not into the criminal legal system. host: carly in bryn mawr, pennsylvania, democratic caller. your question on criminal justice reform. caller: i want to say thank you for mentioning that bill and looking at it now. [indiscernible] i did not know about it. as someone that is a democratic socialist, it is interesting, so thank you for that reading. i kind of wanted to talk about how policing -- not policing, coincides policing with jail, with even immigration, to intersect, and even the decriminalization and legalization of all drugs, so it might be a minute, but you will have to follow me here. much likely believe, portugal, that we need to decriminalize and legalize all drugs, because not only does that curb immigration -- because also leads to less violence in our countries because then there's no market for dealers to actually sell. and much like in canada, what we would need to do at that point is have treatment centers for injection sites so people don't necessarily buy if they are trying between themselves off certain drugs if that is what they want -- trying to wean themselves off of certain drugs if that -- >> we will be this and take it back to georgia for vice president mike pence is campaigning for republican senators david perdue and kelly loeffler. live coverage on c-span2. ♪ ♪ ♪

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