Transcripts For CSPAN Key Capitol Hill Hearings 20150529 : c

african-american communities and way to reform policing in those places. this event was hosted by the center for american progress and runs about 1.5 hours. >> good morning. my name is winnie and i'm the executive vice president of external affairs here at the center for american progress. thank you for joining us for the important conversation about terminal justice reform. we are proud to be hosting it with the national network. the u.s. is the world's leader in incarceration with 2.2 million people currently in the nation's jails and prisons. a 500% increase over the past 30 years. these trends have resulted in prison overcrowding at a rapidly expanding penal system despite increasing evidence that large-scale incarceration is not the most effective means of achieving public safety. while acknowledging the need to continue working toward keeping our community safe, the impact of over criminalization and over incarceration resonates throughout our country. between 70 and 100 million americans for as many as one in three have a criminal record. a criminal history carries lifelong barriers that can block successful reentry and participation in our society. this has broad implications not only for the millions of individuals who are prevented from moving on with their lives and becoming productive citizens , but also for their families, communities, and the national economy. today a criminal record serves as both a direct cause and consequence of our poverty , presenting obstacles to employment, housing, public assistance, education, family reunification and more. one recent study finds that our nation's poverty rate would have dropped by 20% from 1980 to 2004 if not for mass incarceration and subsequent criminal records that hot people for years after they have paid their debt to society. in fact, a criminal record makes achieving economic security nearly impossible. the impact of mass incarceration on communities of color is particularly staggering and is a significant driver of racial inequality in the united states. people people of color make up more than 60% of the population behind bars. recent events and in baltimore and other american cities highlighted many of the challenges facing our communities. high poverty, lack of opportunity, and rampant inequality. they have also shown a light on serious questions about police practices and the tensions between our community members and the law enforcement officials sworn to protect them hoping to further fuel the call for comprehensive criminal justice reform. the center for american progress and to the criminal justice reform space to add our voice and resources to the vital policy debate and the efforts to reform the criminal justice system at the state and federal level. we're working to make the criminal justice system more equitable and fair. this work includes urging policy changes that would keep our communities safe while ending mass incarceration over criminalization, particularly as it impacts poor communities and communities of color, supporting policies that remove barriers to socioeconomic opportunities for those with criminal records and supporting ways to address the racial and socioeconomic inequities within the criminal justice system itself. many many of the reforms being discussed would actually promote and enhance the safety of our communities. we are proud to be collaborating to present today's discussion of how we can begin to reverse the trend of overcome causation of people of color and address its lasting consequences, including reforming consequences including reforming policing practices and removing barriers to opportunity for people with criminal records you are in for -- criminal records. you're in for a treat today. next, we'll have pastor michael mcbride who will deliver some opening remarks. pastor mike will then be followed by heather and thompson -- heather anne thompson professor of history at the , university of michigan who recently served on the national academy of sciences blue ribbon panel that studies the causes and consequences of mass incarceration. she will then she we will then present the panel's findings. finally todd cox, senior fellow for criminal justice reform will lead a fantastic panel discussion on these issues. thank you for being here and i will now turn it over. [applause] >> it is good to be here. certainly we are glad to be able to partner once again with the center for american progress. i certainly am a black preacher. i we will read my remarks because i i can easily become intoxicated with the exuberance of my own verbosity. [laughter] they tell me i have a time limit. one day a man was walking along the big of a river and saw a baby floating downstream. the -- he quickly walked into the water to pull the baby out. another woman walking down the river bank saw another baby in the water. she jumped in. there were more babies floating down the river. they both began to jump in and pull them out. after engaging in these life-saving acts they realize there were still babies coming down the river. they looked at each other and said we have to go as far upstream to find out who exactly throwing these babies in the water. this is a metaphor for how many of us, community members, all of us who find ourselves caught in the current of floating down the river. we use this metaphor to help remind us that our quest for seeking justice in the cities where too many of our loved ones are drowning down a river of lack of opportunity, over criminalization, incarceration violence, that we have a a responsibility to not just have conversations but to go as far upstream as we can to change the system, structures command conditions that make these realities possible. i believe we have a sacred moment and unique occasion the rise up and meet this challenge because the blood of the innocents are crying out us from the street. the pain of the excluded are reverberating from city to city and the demands for reform and even in some places revolution a -- are bubbling up from every corner of our country. and yet all of us who are participating in these efforts and movements must resist the urge to take the easy way out by reaching for the lowest hanging fruit and doing what i call a race to the bottom rather than achieving the kind of transformative structural reform and change that i believe our families deserve. sadly, i believe we have not yet risen to the challenge. i come here today just a few days remove from participating national days of action to say her name, highlight the many many women who are being lost to state violence and the response of our city leaders who claim to be progressive democrats similar to the response of many others. polanco progressive leadership and it was the response of tear gas, arrested, detainment, intimidation military style weapons and tactics that i believe should not be in the streets of our neighborhood which brings me to this quote that doctor king said. myat least i read it all the times i think he said it all the time where he says i have almost , reached the regrettable conclusion that the negroes great stumbling block in their stride toward freedom is not the ku klux klan but the white moderate who is more devoted to order the justice. -- to order than to justice. today, i will modify the white moderate to include black moderates. reached a place of power and privilege that makes us more inclined to reach for order them for justice. this is why in our work we believe that every revolution must 1st be an intern al revolution. a revolution of our values arts, minds, and so. indeed on -- our hearts, minds, and souls in indeed, on our watch the prison industrial complex has quintupled. indeed on our watch we have seen the expansion of the criminalization people of color taking a many manifestations including the internalizing of that even in our own communities and the concrete housing of that -- and they concretize a that in the general public. these conditions have reached a tragic concern level, and i believe as people of faith we are not just fighting for the future of our country. we are fighting for the soul of our nation. so in this spirit, we are determined to bring a moral imperative and prophetic declaration of these conversations. we have listened the thousands of voices. we have attempted to help facilitate the coalescing of demand the concerns. we believe that we believe that these strategies will continue to inform our countries coming out of the wilderness of mass causation and hopefully's leading us into a future where all of us are able to live free from incarceration, violence and exclusion. some of you will hear very powerful voices the day that we have gathered in partnership with the center for american progress. many of these folks are leaders in their own right. we are blessed and humbled that they have joined the very informative. we want to stand up to for scalable movement that is grounded in the truth that all black lives matter, brown lives matter, the lives of poor and marginalized people are not expendable in this democracy we will continu believe that those are created a policy apparatus that makes mass criminalization possible should not have a a free path to superintend the process to restructure, repair and heal heart. many why in the collective -- many solutions lie in the the collective experiences and wisdom of those who have endured these react -- realities and still have the love and resilience to stand up proudly and proclaim and fight for their own freedom. so today we start here at cap. for the 3rd time we we will participate leading into the white house to ask for an executive order's to make sure some 30 million jobs can be available to those who have served their time and are now in need of full inclusion. we will go to the senate, house, and carry these messages. we invite you all to join us as we raise this banner, as we go as far upstream as we possibly can and meet the occasion is before us. i will close with the words of isaiah the prophet. please don't be mad at me. this is the prophet speaking. they killed the prophet so i guess some of them were mad when they spoke. i want to live a little while longer. i can't stand it in margaret special meetings, -- i cannot stand anymore of your special meetings conferences, weekly worship , services. meetings for this call meetings for that. you have one me out. i i am sick of your religion. you go right on doing one. -- doing wrong. when you put on your next performance of prayer and speaking, no matter how long used become i will not be listening. you want to know why? he have been tearing people to pieces in your hands a bloody. go home, wash up, clean up your act, act, sweep your lives clean of evil doings. i don't have to look at them any longer. say no to wrong. learn to do good. work for justice. help the down and out. stand up for the homeless. go to bat for the defenseless. this is the moral call that we are bringing to this work and are excited it's to be making these journeys. god bless you. let's have a great conversation today. [applause] >> good morning. i am on it to be with you this morning to offer you an overview of a report that i have the honor to participate in my two-year study that we think will be helpful to all of us assembled here today who are interested in doing the important and vital work of criminal justice reform. i was privileged to serve as a member of the consensus panel to address one of the most important issues of our nation which is the fourfold increase in rates of incarceration. our task was to examine and come up with recommendations for how we might remedy it. our panel is convened by the national research council and organized by the national academy of sciences, and asked -- and esteemed organization chartered by congress in 1863 by the lincoln administration. its intent was to serve as a source of independent research-based advice to the government and to society. in this case, the research was assembled by a group of panelists, 20 scholars were on the country who came together over two years with a very specific charge. the specific charge was to ask these questions. what changes in us society and public policy drove the rise of incarceration? what consequences of these changes had for crime rates? what effect does incarceration have on those in confinement? on families and children and neighborhoods and communities and so forth? and what are the implications for public policy of the evidence on causes and effects? are report was subject to anonymous external review by groups of scholars and policy experts following the rigorous review procedures of the national research council, and the reason i mention that is because we hope this report will arm you can help you to give the information you might need to take your communities and help you to go forth. conducting your own work on this issue. let me quickly highlight our main conclusions. some of these we will be obvious. we hope to give it some weight given where this came from. our 1st conclusion is that the gross incarceration rates' historically unprecedented and internationally unique. historically unprecedented because you might notice the incarceration rate remains relatively stable until suddenly it didn't want to just went -- when it just went through the roof. indeed we are an international outlier of virtually any country and indeed today we now have more people in prison than any other country. it is also important that we recognize formerly that this incarceration did not fall evenly on all americans. it was severely racially disproportionate and include the mentally ill and was overwhelmingly inclusive of people living in poverty. indeed incarceration rates for african americans is been for after six naptime's higher than whites. incarceration rates for hispanic have been two to three times higher. the committee found that the chart is stratified by levels of education. we noted for example that the incarceration rate for black men with little schooling is more than 100 times higher than for white men who had been to college. by beginning with a historical perspective and are report which we invite you to read, download an access fully explored many things. how is it that we came to this turn of events? we underline and located several causes. indeed crime rates did begin to rise. -- in the late 1960's. but we did not locate that so much. we located this in a policy decision. policymakers, politicians responding to civil rights unrest, responding to demands from the streets and deciding that disorder and crime were synonymous was a political decision, and as a political decision that is something we can change. we also talked about the direct causes. these will be familiar to you. we criminalize bases in new ways, for example through the drug war we also overhauled sentencing. sentencing was a direct cause of so many -- such a high rate of incarceration. indeed the volatile political environment provided fertile ground. we discussed and we discussed and went through indeterminate sentencing, laws reducing judge discretion, sentencing laws and so forth. the bottom line is that we chose this policy, and that choice right best changes to our country, the primary being these unprecedented incarceration rates. the thing is if we chose it that means we can on shoes it. -- we can on shoes it -- we can unchoose it. the research indicates very strong reasons why we must's first of all, increase incarceration rates did not relate to a depreciable declining crime. a very important finding particularly when taking this argument to the community. indeed not only did it not lead to an appreciable decline in crime or was not correlated to a climbing crime that we also found that it did not have strong deterrent effect. long sentences did not have strong deterrent effect and therefore had its own negative impact. yet if it did not work it certainly had a lot of other negative impacts which we also document in the report. we know for example it had a terrible effect on people within prison and that it had a terrible effect on communities outside of prison. particularly in communities with high rates of concentrated incarceration. i won't belabor these. of course, everything from severe unemployment, rising rates of poverty, weakening of family bonds for children losing parents command i can go forward. this all adds up to our main conclusion that we have gone past the point where the numbers of people in prison can be justified many potential benefit and indeed the consequences have been so far-reaching it will be quite a task to undo it. but one that we must. i will leave you with principles that we also came to based on research for relatively normative principles. we hope that these we will arm us as we go forward. we have policy recommendations as well which i invite you to look at. we we suggest that these policies need to be informed by certain principles. these are principles that we hold important as americans living in a democracy. the principle of proportionality requires the people who have committed crimes should be sentenced and proportion to the severity of the crime. the principle of parsimony requires the confinement should never be greater than necessary to achieve legitimate social purpose. the committee observed that many of the sentencing statutes enacted over the four decades previous failed to observe any of these long-standing democratic jurisprudential principles. the principle of citizenship which requires humane treatment of those in prison and has been embraced by the international community, federal courts in numerous places that we have abandoned and indeed these principles have been strained by the current corrections policies and practices. finally, our committee which is very much based in science to my rigorous review of literature came up with the overwhelming principle of social justice which would require the prisons should be viewed as social institutions that must not undermine the well-being of members of society. indeed pursuing indeed pursuing this principle would require greater retention, oversight transparency, and more. again, these guiding principles strengthened our overriding recommendations that we must reverse course and reduce the levels of incarceration and then we had actual's -- i'm sorry, policy recommendations overhauling sentencing policy recommending that we eliminate or at least re-examine mandatory minimum sentences, long sentences and the enforcement of drug laws, will reinvestigate prison policy improving the conditions of confinement and also reduce the honda families -- they harm to families and communities of those incarcerated. finally, to assess the social needs of the committee, housing, treatment for mental illness employment, all of the things that have created so much, and communities and indeed that incarceration has made far worse. i thank you for your attention. [applause] and they give you a quick overview, but it is my understanding that i can take questions. this this is a 500 page report. i will put the last slide up it is something you can download with charts, issue briefs, all kinds of information that we hope will be of use to you. i am certainly willing to answer questions as well. >> thank you. how many scholars were formerly incarcerated for directly impacted by the growth of incarceration? two questions. why is structural discrimination , which in my humble opinion the elephant in the room not listed as the underlying cause of incarceration? >> okay. wonderful question. we had one of the members, one of the scholar members was formerly incarcerated. the requirement of the national academies to put together the community was a -- the committee was a scholarly requirement. that is to say we had to have various recommendations that we brought from our homework. for example, i am a historian. we had historian. we had sociologists, putting the scientists, but we very much make sure that in our review of the literature we took the voices, concerns and indeed experiences of the formerly incarcerated in incarcerated seriously. for example one of our key , members on the community has done a tremendous amount of work on solitary confinement. we had a real imperative on this committee to make sure that when we were doing studies they were not just top-down studies that we very much take seriously the voices of the people who were most impacted. what was the second, i'm sorry? the structural discrimination. yes. i invite you to look at chapter four of the report. even though our actual, what we came down to actual policy recommendations limited number the report and those recommendations came out of a deeply historical analysis of the root causes. while i highlighted a few i think you'll find that we pay great attention to long-term issues of policing in poverty and so forth. and that would be in chapter four. yes. go ahead. >> good morning. thank you. i ask this question based on the 20 years i spent patrolling the streets of washington, d.c., as a police officer. part of the growth of the incarceration stop licking. the police are the gatekeepers. and so how do you -- what we have seen were baltimore and other places, the justice department is supposed to be providing oversight. on police departments. how do you recommend that we 1st deconstruct the police culture? because, if the police are the gatekeepers, you have to deconstruct that mission before you can change the police. so how do you see the faith community and policymakers coming together to deconstruct the mission of the police. >> it is a wonderful question. i have to answer it in two ways. as a committee member, as the committee, we did look at policing come all the police and policing did not end up in our recommendations. by extrapolation our recommendation, to change the policies that feed into high rates of incarceration certainly would begin with the immediate implementation of policies on the ground. which is policing. speaking to you as an individual and myself as a fellow and someone who works on these issues, i do think that the issue of policing is front and center and is very much now linked to issues of incarceration much more so than it was only embarked upon this report. and i credit the people of the streets for making that the case. people have spoken people have spoken and make clear that we cannot talk about incarceration without policing. i welcome your comment and certainly as an advocate i support that and think we cannot change that culture, that implementation if police officers on the street are expected to continue this low-level policing of drugs and so forth. great question. okay. apparently i am not allowed to , take any more questions. we will move forward to our panel. i'm sorry, to todd. thank you. [applause] todd good morning. : i am a senior fellow here at the center for criminal justice reform. we have been discussing the broken criminal justice system manifested incarceration over criminalization. it is a major driver of inequality, particularly racial inequality and poverty here in this country. this all has important civil rights implications but also important human rights implications not the least of which how we achieve the opportunity to have the right to live a life with barriers to basic economic security and human dignity. we are also prepared to answer a few important questions. such as what obligation in society do we have and what are the consequences for all of us if we fail to restore justice to communities and acknowledge the humanity of our fellow community member? how do we ensure we respectfully and genuinely speak out's, and -- seek out and finally what can we do to strike a proper balance between keeping the committee safe are the same time addressing the structural inequities in the criminal justice system. today, we today we are proud to welcome distinguished panel will help us sort through these questions. we don't have lot of time. i am going to invite you to take a look at our website. i will introduce them briefly. president of hope baptist church. judith conti, a federal advocacy coordinator at the national wild project. ronald davis director of the oriented policing services and pastor darren ferguson amount, baptist church in rockaway new york. and finally, a lea michele gaza the cofounder of black lives matter. i will start with you, reverend ferguson. could you talk a little bit about your work in new york and how that has informed what you see as what we need for criminal justice reform. reverend ferguson: i am a formally incarcerated individual. 16 months on rikers island. seven years mostly in sing sing. after release in 1998, i started working with several organizations working on what eventually became reentry. at that point it was guys getting out of jail. we were doing it out of the back of our cars. a guy came home and we had extra socks at the back of our car. we'd pick him up at the jail, take him home. eventually getting into ministry and different things, we found that you know, there's a lot of imbalance in terms of what's happening when people get out of prison. so what's happening is in new york state, for example, you get out of prison, you get $40, it belongs to you anyway. they give you $40, i don't know if they give you a metro card anymore. i got out 17 years ago so i don't know what the policy is now. and they basically send you home and give you these great things. they don't gain and maintain employment, be home before 9:00 at night and all of this stuff. and so what happens is you have all of these folks who come home, and they feel alienated from society, and they don't feel like there's any place for them. they can't get jobs because they're afraid to go to a job interview, because when they go to a job interview, they're going to ask them that magic question that frightens everybody who's ever been incarcerated, have you ever been convicted of a crime. and there's a feeling across the board that there's no place for me, there's no hope for me, so what else can i do? and to their credit, myself and others have progressed past those points and been able to do things like what i'm doing through organizations like faith in new york who's working on band in a box, through organizations like new york theological seminary, through organizations like healing communities. we've been able to get people to understand that it's not -- i always tell folks who get out of prison, it's not your net worth it's your network. and networking is the way to get past it. so what we've done in new york is working with faith in new york to band a box, to get fair hiring practices more people who were formerly incarcerated, what we've been doing is working with different reentry organizations to make sure people get the things they need in order to readjust themselves to society in a proper way. and also just being able to be there for people. as a formerly incarcerated person, one of the things i can do is talk to people and have those conversations with individuals to help them reintegrate and let them know it's possible. a lot of people don't see the possibilities, and that covers a lot of the work we've done so far. todd that's great. : thank you very much. and, judy, i think this is a good segway to you. we're discussing a lot about mass incarceration overcriminallization. what impact do you think removing barriers for folks with criminal records in employment across the board would have on that conversation? judy you can't talk about : criminal justice reform without looking at what happens once people get out and once they have that record. because as a society we just continue to punish people over and over again. we often don't let them vote, so they can't even have a say in the democratic process through which laws are passed about criminal justice. we erect almost insurmountable barriers to getting employment and reemployment once somebody comes out of incarceration is the single most important factor in preventing recidivism, giving people that sort of opportunity. so we're so pleased to be working with the picot national network, many groups in this work that we call the fair chance hiring practices. we've talked about the ban the box movement, to make sure that the question about criminal records can't be asked on initial job application. that it has to happen further along in the process. once somebody already understands that you are a qualified individual with something to offer that employer. and we find that when people get vested in an applicant and they ask the question later in the process, they're willing to listen to the explanation. they're willing to judge the person on the entirety of their merits much more so than they are if just that little box is checked. and then they go through the individualized assessment that's required by the eeoc guidelines on the use of arrest and conviction records. and they decide whether or not there's a business necessity to refuse to hire somebody. and it's just such an important tool in giving people that chance. so we're very excited that this moment is happening in criminal justice reform and that it is happening in a genuine -- not even bipartisan, if you will sort of an omnipartisan way because people from all walks of life have recognized that what we've done hasn't worked and the ways we continue to punish people long since they've paid their debt to society just offends all notions of justice and decency and morality. >> todd thank you. director davis : i'm going to switch gears a little bit. we've been talking a lot about the tensions between local law enforcement and communities. can you talk a little bit about what the the president of justice is doing -- the department of justice is doing to try to respond to this and also from your perspective how we strike the proper balance as we've been talking about between public safety and removing crime and violence from our communities and also reforming law enforcement in such a way that we have fair and equitable criminal justice system. reverend davis: so first, good afternoon, everyone. i don't think you've departed too far from the topic of reentry, because that is a significant part of how we reform the situation is recognizing the impact of system on people across the board. as i look at it, i spent 30 years in law enforcement before i became the director of the cops office, and i watched my evolution as a cop. in 1985, when i became a police in oakland and i remember for , those around in the '80s and '90, we started dealing with the crack epidemic. this is probably where many of our policies started with regards to the war on drugs and mass incarceration. and had you went up to me in 1985 and asked me about reindustry, i would have told you -- reentry, i would have told you i believe in it whole -- wholeheartedly. clearly, those views are completely wrong. fast forward i became chief in 2005 of a community in east palo alto. i had really the honor of meeting a formerly incarcerated person who educated me and really touched my soul to the point of saying people deserve second chances, redemption. more importantly, as we started working together, we started seeing the impact of reducing recidivism, the impact of police and community relations was strong. i think after 30 years if i could just offer this, we are probably at one of the most defining moments in american policing history that i've seen since i've been in this arena. and probably in the last 40 or 50 years. we have the opportunity and, quite frankly, the obligation to redefine policing in a people are talking about a cultural shift. we have to start with what is the role of police in a democratic society. i'm going to borrow a phrase from dr. king on how peace is not just the absence of war, it's the presence of justice. public safety cannot just be the absence of crime, it must also include the presence of justice. so we have to change what we want the role to be for policing. so mass incarceration, statistical drops in crime cannot be the priority of public safety or law enforcement. so what the department of justice has for us to really work on this one is my office focuses specifically on community policing. we offer services for police departments to take a look at their operations, their assessments, to work with the community, to evaluate, to provide progress reports. we provide training. we deal with issues of implicit bias , which is a huge issue of why people do what they do and getting to understand the impact of it. we have the department of justice has a civil rights division which everyone is aware of with pattern of practice investigations, most recently the agreement in cleveland. the ferguson report. we have a lot of services. and i think the way we respond to crisis, the way we respond to what's happening in the country is, one, to provide assistance to communities. i think the attorney general said it best that we cannot federalize local law enforcement, and that's not the intent. there's a reason why would -- why we created these 16,000 departments, it was about local control. but we can help set up standards by which the 16,000 agencies should be able to follow. and we should assure that whether it's two officers or 20,000, that they are engaging in constitutional policing and that the impact to the community is the same. we can also provide training and guidance. we can identify best practices and working with the community to ensure that we are doing it the right way. i also point to in december of last year the president put together the 21st century task force on policing. and he wanted to, really wanted this task force to identify a couple things, address a couple questions, how do we build trust between the communities and the police department and how we do so that we still can assure we have the kind of public safety that we all deserve. and for and for a about three months, four months the group worked and there's a report out we just released in may that identifies 60 concrete recommendations on how to proceed forward. and what i would strongly recommend as community leaders, civil rights leaders, you know, teachers, community members, law enforcement is to really look at those 60 recommendations. and they range from looking at and independent prosecutors to civilian oversight to implicit training to hiring to diversity. those core things that we know would get to the systems that are at play. you know, too often in this country we make the debate about good officers and bad officers and that does come into play. we need to hire right cops to do the job effectively. but as someone said earlier, maybe one of speakers, it's not just about good and bad officers. we actually have systems that will make sure good officers have bad outcomes despite their best behavior. the system was, in fact, designed to have the outcome which is the disparate incarceration of young men of color. we're still operating in some systems that were used to enforce jim crow leas, policies -- jim crow laws policies and -- and practices that exist today. and so a part of this is changing the culture of the organization, changing the operational systems, questioning how we provide public safety services, questioning how we fight crime. and, you know, making sure you're empowered to ask your department and your cities the right question about what they're engaged in and use that task force report as a report card. are you engaging in these following things, and if not turn to the department of justice and get some assistance or follow the better examples. . i'm going to close with this we , have a very unique opportunity to transform police anything this country. i'm watching in my own generation now a new civil rights movement, and it's an amazing thing to see, you know? just a couple weekends ago, last weekend my son graduated from high school, and he just got accepted to college. he's going to be going to northwestern. now, i've been a cop for 30 years, i was chief for 8, now i have a pretty good title at department of justice but i still have the same fear as every black man here and black mother that when my son goes to this college, what is he going to encounter? what happens when he walks down the street when he goes into chicago? it's not an indictment on law enforcement. i was one for 30 years, it's the most noble profession, and i respect it across the board. but we have a lot of things to fix, and we -- this is the time to do it. so i would really say that we really need to push forward to to find ways to to wring the community together -- to the bring the community together, make the civil rights movement not against the police, but with the police. i'm seeing chiefs walking on demonstration lines i'm seeing police departments starting to recognize, and i'm hearing police unions recognizing that we need to improve the relationships. so i would just ask that we come together, that we basically not make it a -- [inaudible] it's easy to point blame, but can we get in that circle of change together and really advance public safety for this country that it doesn't make a difference what color my son is, that the only thing i should be worried about when he goes to college is his grades and whether or not he wants to bring me a grandchild too soon. [applause] [laughter] >> wow. ms. garza, i'd like to pick up on something director davis referred to, the democratization of justice. can we talk a little bit about how we can do a better job incorporating the voices of most impacted voices of community members genuinely into this debate? how can we -- what do you suggest we do to make that happen? >> absolutely. so i think the first thing that's really important is to answer this question that mr. davis put forward which is what is the purpose and intent of policing. and you know, from one perspective you could say that the purpose and intent of policing is to solve problems, right? and from another perspective you could say that the purpose and intent of policing is to, is to incarcerate people, right? to criminalize, to strip people of their rights and also to punish. and i think what we're seeing right now is a movement that's trying to push more towards the question of how do we solve problems and are police mess for that. that's an honest question. i think the other thing that's really important is to understand that to deal with the question of criminalization we also have to deal with all of the issues that lead to it. is so someone earlier said that you know, poverty is inextricably connected to this question of criminalization. and so if we're going to address that, then we need to put the most impacted voices of folks who are in poverty who are searching for jobs who are without food, who are being criminalized for being poor. at the center of the conversation. and part a of that is by having those folks shape what the policies, practices and systems should look like because nobody knows better how to shift the trend of criminalization than those who were criminalized. the final thing that i'll just put in the center of the table is not only do we need to center those voices, but we need to put folks who have been directly impacted by the system that we're facing in positions of power. so it's not enough to have task forces, it's not enough to have a person who can speak to these issues. fulks need to be able to make decisions that impact our lives. and until we're able to do that we're not going to see a lot of the shifts that we desire, and that's why in the opening remarks we heard, right, that it doesn't actually matter what the face looks like if the agenda's the same. so let's make sure that the people who want to move a more progressive agenda are in a position to be able to make those decisions. >> thank you very much. reverend brown, given your work in north baltimore, i want to talk to you a little bit about or ask you, um, you know, ms. garza referred to how we can sort of get the voices of the most impacted into the conversation. what issues are you seeing on the ground in your work that aren't being translated into effective policy either at state level or at the federal level to reform our criminal justice system? >> well, i think alicea hit it on the head when she talked about and referenced the power arrangement and who actually is determining where our resources go. i think that we have to really just sit -- [inaudible] as my jesuit brothers and sisters would say, we've got to lean into that discomfort and look at the ways in which the power brokers and stakeholders are often times those who are not directly affected by the institutional racism that is manifested in local communities. writes? and so i'm having a deja vu moment a little bit. i'm not a old guy, but i studied history. and after the watts uprising in the '60s, some of these same kinds of settings happened, and the same kind of report was produced that spoke to some of the same issues -- and i look forward to reading your report. it's 500 pages, i will get to it at some point. but some of the same issues were addressed in the 1960's. when harlem went up, some of the same reports and recommendations happened. so when we talk about what we need and how to bring them into the conversation, i would say the conversation is already happening, it's just not happening here. it is happening in the local commitments and the barbershops, beauty salons and local communities where people are providing expert analysis on not only the problem, but also the solutions, and i have a hunch -- i don't know if this is true or not -- but i have a hunch that the solutions that people are coming forth with in, like gilmore homes in west baltimore and east baltimore are the kinds of solutions that make us uncomfortable because it may mean us moving out of spaces of privilege and rendering space to others who can speak best and move the most on these issues. and so what does that look like in baltimore? in baltimore right now what that looks like is not only the legislative work we're doing as part of a wonderful organization called baltimore united for change, it's a group of social justice organizations with a long and strong track record of working on these issues from the legislative advocacy to op-eds and everything else. community organizing, etc. but in addition to banging on the system as i'm terming it right now, in addition to banging on the system in terms of going to annapolis and getting legislation passed and etc., we also have to build some power. and that is the piece that i don't -- as i study history, i don't see that piece put forward as strongly, right? and so with the report and commission that came out after watts, it was what can we do for them? and the report and commission that came after harlem, what can we do for them, right? and so it's this assumption that at the base of it if we just provide more, then they'll calm down writes? -- right? and i think also on the other side of that i think is people who are directly affected by these issues of institutional racism and the like also have a tendency sometimes to recline and say, okay, now that the uprising is done, let's wait for the experts to come in and fix it, right? i think we have to remember why, why did i even get invited to the center for american progress in the first place? it's because young people in baltimore said enough is enough, and all of the avenues that you have set up to to deal with the issues that plague us are not working, and so we're going to do things our way. and then i get an invite to a wonderful panel. [laughter] rights? or alicia gets an invite -- speaking at wonderful conferences, right? so i think remembering what got us here, right, how do we continue to organize the build for power in such a way that continues to have us at tables of negotiation and not at the kiddie table n. my family, i've got country roots in my family. my dad's side is from north carolina, my mama's side from virginia, and in our family coming up when we had big family gatherings, there was the adult table and the kiddie table, and i was so excited when i graduated from the kiddie table to the adult table. at the kiddie table, you had no right to say anything about what the adults were speaking about right? and so we looked over there, but if we even acted like we heard 'em, they would -- move over, mind your business or whatever. and so we graduated to the adult table. why am i saying that? i'm saying that because i believe that organizing on the ground in baltimore and oakland, new york, and what have you, that it's time to turn over the kiddie table and go to the adult , table, move the adults away, this is the agenda we need to set up. baltimore looks like a speeding ourselves. one in four people in baltimore live in a food desert. and until we in the midst of the uprising said, you know what? we need to start doing some of this stuff on our own because we can't wait for the benebraska -- the benevolence of others to come and save us in the midst of our trauma. so we started feeding ourselves and creating a food system that connected churches with farmers, with colleges and universities and i personally was driving -- alicia was on my church bus -- i personally was driving food around the city along with our partners and our colleagues and feeding ourselves. and at the pennsylvania and north avenue, and i'm a pastor too, like pastor mike, and so i feel -- i need to shut down in a minute, i feel my third point coming. quickly, i'll just say what we saw was we started to create the systems that we needed. and so near the pennsylvania and north avenue, i was watching on cnn and whatever else, the corner stores were affected to the degree that entire neighborhoods were starving because those corner stores were affected, right? and that's criminal even before all that went down. it's criminal that entire neighborhoods are relying on corner stores to eat, right? and so midst of the uprising that picture crystallized, and it was urgent for us to move forward on feeding ourselves. not only that but also on canvassing our own communities. so we are not calling 911 for everything. let us move into spaces where we develop the training, skills necessary and just be neighbors and sisters and brothers again so that we can help to engage some of the issues that might lead to interpersonal violence so that we don't even have to call 911 for everything. and so you saw bloods and crips and black guerrilla family and preachers and imams, sisters and brothers marching together through the streets, just checking in on family members. you ok? even in the midst of the curfew we are checking with each other. basically in a nutshell, in addition to banging on the system, in addition to going to the white house and moving forward on legislation to ban the box, etc., etc., i think it is a mistake for those who are post directly affected by these issues to recline and wait for others to do it. we have to continue to build for power economically, socially and politically so that we can get to that adult table and say no more will we rely on the benevolence of a system that has an appetite for our destruction to decide our destiny. no more. [applause] >> taliban i you really feel. quite still make me follow that. >> won't. we're all going to follow this in talking to a one. number of you about this panel we talked a little bit about this bipartisan moment that we are all observing or experiencing, and i want to ask each one of you to answer this question. what, if any, opportunities do you see for solving the problems you all identified? getting off, getting to the adult table pushing through in communities to take care of the predicates to entering the criminal justice system, resolving implicit bias, getting to issues of reducing barriers to folks who have records? what opportunities do you see to resoing all of those issues and more many this bipartisan moment in the state level, at the federal level. i will start with the stars of. >> well, firstly, incarceration is incredibly expensive, and one thing that i think democrats and republicans can agree on is that it's an incredible waste of money. and certainly not an effective use of resources given all of the things that we are trying to make sure has resources and funding. so that seems like an opportunity to me. i have to be honest though, when we talk about the bipartisan moment, we have to be very conscious of the fact that a incarceration is also an industry and a business. >> yes. >> and so until we remove the profit motive from putting people in cages and keeping them there for years and years and years and years and years and then having them under state surveillance for years and years and years, we're not going to make much progress even in a bipartisan moment. so that's something i think we need to be paying attention to moving forward. but again, i do think this question of how do we more effectively use our resources to promote the social good as opposed to continue to further social ills is a wonderful opportunity. >> you know, in terms of the postconviction barriers that we see, you know, we're seeing red states and governors in red states passing laws issuing executive orders. and, alicia is right, a lot of it is from this notion that this doesn't make economic sense, what we're doing. you know, when i'm in rooms in d.c., there are people from sort of all spectrums that are there because either it costs too much, it offends their religious sensibilities, they're worried about the civil rights implications, you know, from sort of all spectrums of the political sphere. and they're coming together at this moment and understanding that we've got to give people a second chance. and what i think is so important about that is what the reverend was talking about. that in and of itself is something that can put formerly incarcerated people right at the center of the solution. because once that first person gets a second chance in an employer situation and people know their story and they understand that this person has made a mistake, has accepted responsibility and has changed their lives, or, quite frankly they learned that maybe they , didn't make a mistake, that the white kid two neighborhoods down didn't make as well. but they didn't get the chance that that kid -- who looked like i did as a teenager -- god. and that will start to be a way to open up the conversation about the racial systems that we have in this country that give some people a chance and other people not a chance. and about the never ending human capacity for redemption and to turn one's life around when that's needed. and i think that's one of the most tremendous tools. so we come at it with these public policy levers, but what's really going to make a difference is when people get that chance and other people have their eyes open and their hearts open. and they understand that things aren't black and white, simple answers, yes or no, right and wrong. and that there's a lot of complexity to it. so for me, one of the things that's most exciting about this moment is the opportunity for people to really learn from other people who have gone through the system, about just how unfair and unjust it is no matter how it is that you got there. >> wow. i think a lot of the roots of this is in something i will call us versus them. the us versus them is that there are -- we're talking about closing prisons, right? there's an economic engine that is driven by prisons in different communities, especially in upstate new york where i'm from. so they want to take away jobs from us by closing our prisons and we can't let them do that. inside the prisons there's this tension between us and them. they want to keep us locked up so they are the enemy. and in our churches they don't want to hear what thus sayeth the lord, so they are the enemy, or they don't go to church, so they are the enemy, or they don't open a bible, they open a , -- they open a carotid, so they are the enemy. they wear blue uniforms and carry guns, and they are on our streets, and they want to victimize us. and they are on streets, so they're committing crimes, and they are a danger to us because we may not go home at the end of the day because something one of them does to us. and we have to, some of us have to live on this dangerous precipice of being us and them at the same time. i'm us and them at the same time. i'm the us because i progressed to the point where i have a nice job, and i live pretty comfortably. me and my wife make a nice living. and i look at some of them on the corners, and they are an affront to me because they are where i used to be, but they don't see that they can be where i and, and i live on the am. precipice of us versus them because even though i spent nine years of my life in new york state prisons, my father was a cop for 25 years in new york city. so i went to a place where they put us, and us lived in my house, us was my dad. they were my dad. so we have to start to transcend this difference between the kid table and the adult table and know that the kids have to have a voice because how can the adults properly raise children be they -- if they don't know what the children need? and how can the children properly relate to the adults if they don't understand the adults point? and we have to stop thinking that people are taking things away from us and realize that it's not an us versus them, because if we really looked in the mirror, if we really dig deep, if we really look within ourselves, we realize that when we look at them, they are us and we are them. and the only way to solve this is to come together at the table of brotherhood. cops aren't my enemy. cops aren't my enemy because even though i feel nervous and some kind of way when i get pulled over because i drive a nice car in the hood, i still want them because i want them to protect me. and even though that muslim over there has been vilified and demonized by the media as being somebody that's against american values, they are still us because i have muslim brothers and sisters who want their children to go to school just like i do. and correction officers who want their children to go to school just like i do, because there's correction officers' children who go to school with my children. so at the end of it, we're all in this big melting pot that means if we don't start doing something for ourselves, we're all doomed. and we have to stop looking at it as who's trying to take things away and realize that all of us have something to offer, bring everybody to the -- bring everybody to the table and let everybody have a voice. because at the end of the day, i don't care if you're democratic, republican, white, black, young, old, southern, northern, we all want the same things. we all want good schools, we want an opportunity for prosperity, an opportunity to live better lives, an opportunity for our children to be educated and be safe going to and from wherever they go. we don't want to have to monitor our children at 15 years oold because we're afraid they're going to be shot by somebody who looks like them or because they're afraid of what they've seen in the streets, and they don't know us. so we have to get to know each other. we have to sit down at the table of brotherhood. we have to shake hands. we have with -- we have to hug one another. we have to have uncomfortable conversations. we have to make one another mad. we have to walk away and agree to disagree and not walking away saying i don't want anything to do with them. i may not be comfortable with it, but i have to understand all men are -- and women -- are created equal. and we have to stop that narrative of saying all men are created equal because all men, all women, all children, all black, all white, all christian, all muslim, all formerly incarcerated, gay, straight, lesbian, we're all god's children, and we all have a place at the table, and we have to fight for one another because if you don't fight for me, then we all lose. [applause] >> one of my professors in seminary, he said i'm a believer and a realist, the two will not -- are not the same. he would often say that. he would push us as preachers to stand and lean into the vision of what we can but not so much that you lose sight of where you are. and i'm so thankful for how the reverend just put forward -- i thought i was preaching. we were in a tent revival for a moment. how he helped to point us to a vision of where we can be in light of where we are. i would just add that what sister alicia has shared, i think, is particularly important as it relates to the realities of the bible called spiritual wickedness in high places. we had 17 bills in the last maryland general assembly. earlier this year. 17 bills dealing with police accountability and transparency. and my brother love, another member of the coalition, awesome, awesome brother, we're working, going to annapolis from baltimore back and forth over this 90-day period. and as we were building a statewide coalition to get something done, we learned pretty early on that these bills were not moving. in a very candid conversation with one of the leaders of the legislative black caucus in maryland, i said, delegate, we come down here every other day we've got to feed these people, we're bringing folks from baltimore every other day, why can't we get anything done on this legislation? and she said very frankly, she said to me, reverend brown, she said, the police union puts money in all of our campaigns. >> yes. >> she said, and we can't pass anything if they don't like it. the same thing came back to the fore when not long ago governor larry hogan vetoed legislation that would enfranchise 40,000 people in baltimore alone with the right to vote. and can i just be a little bit weird giving people a second -- with giving people a second chance? i think if we flip that on its head, perhaps it's the people giving the system another chance. perhaps. because when you think about people before they -- black people before they're even born before they're even born having to face hurdles, societal and political hurdles before i even come through the birth canal. we can look at how the tables are stacked in such a way that before i even get here, you're running before i can have my birthday. and so i think that when you look at the profit motive that you raised, very important point which is why i go back to building for power in local communities. i am thankful for those who are doing the work at the federal level and trying to move things forward there. but i, again, remember watts. major legislation passed shortly before watts went up. and people -- why, we just gave the right to vote, this, that and the other, and why are people still upset? i think a part of that may be because it just takes so long before my day-to-day reality is impacted by something that whoever's in the white house signs. and then, too, when you look at the democratic and republican, in maryland, yes, we have a republican governor right now. but as pastor to mike said earlier, you know, we are a democratic legislature. maryland's supposed to be a progressive state legislatively, politically, etc., nothing moved. so i think the opportunity is for local communities to continue to build for power, continue to examine questions like what is the role of police and what do we need to feel safe. and then with this question of how can we improve relationships between the police and the community, stop killing black people. stop killing brown people. >> please. >> stop killing trans. stop. let's start there. before we go to how are we going to hold hands and walk into the sunset, and you stop killing us? let's just start there. on the ground in baltimore, it's really not that complicated. stop shooting me. we really can just -- we can shut down the whole conversation, send this back to the bar. stop killing black people, brown people. stop killing, marginalizing, oppressing people. let's start right there and continue. if the onus is always on the community to show up with good natured, good hearts to extend a hand and a peace branch, i think you are wrong. i think repentance is due for the system that helped to put us in this position right now. it -- this position right now. it is the police, it is the system of policing that must repent, and let's go from there after we get that done. >> -- quite solidly a. >> two things. i'm going to start where the pastor to left off at, and i think we have to be careful -- not to say that he's wrong but i think it would be oversimplistic to simply say stop, right? because if everything stopped today, a lot of the systems we have still involve mass incarceration, bad relationships, and i agree with you about one thing. one of the things we're learning is what happened in some agencies and not all of them is to get reconciliation, the acknowledgment of the role the police have played in oppressing communities of color. so i think there has to be a starting point, i agree with you. the starting point has to be the acknowledgment, in some cases even the apology that it was the police that enforced jim crow's law, the war on crime that resulted in disparate outcomes the police that have disparities in everything from incarceration to even the use of deadly force. we acknowledge it. it's our policies. even though they're well intended, they have resulted in deteriorating, literally thousands of neighborhoods across this country. then i think we can sit down and have a conversation. i do agree with you, it is hard to talk to somebody you feel is still violating you at the moment they're talking to you. so we have to balance that. i would say with this bipartisan moment, i would really encourage -- especially the empowerment of local leaders, and i agree with having people at the table that have the power. and i would say the best way to have the power is to understand the system so that you can change the right part of the system. and so this is a bipartisan moment. we see that there is a lot of support for issues of sentencing reform because as was just said, it's very expensive to keep people in prison. that's not the only part of the system in which you would want bipartisanship. just shutting down a system is insufficient. some states are doing justice reinvestment. it's reinvesting billions that we're using in incarceration back into the very community so that they can empower themselves and deal with the true culprit of crime and disorder in our communities which is poverty lack of education, opportunities and a lack of hope, jobs, things of that nature. that money should be reinvested. we have a federal reentry sewer agency group -- interagency group that the administration has started, and they identified something like 30,000, 40,000 barriers to people coming out of prison. just things you would never imagine. when i started the reentry program in california, i learned something that was amazing to me that i didn't know know as a policymaker, and that was a person coming up to me and saying at the time, chief, this guy owes child support, so when he gets out of prison, he doesn't get an id card. he was doomed to come back before he even walked out the gate. he can't get housing because he's formerly incarcerated. if we're going to inform the system, make sure you understand the system. it has to be about reinvestment. you don't want to federalize the police ndc. in fact, the motto i put in my office right now, our job is to help fill advancement field. the answer to the questions we're looking for are in some communities, either an 18-year-old who lives out there all day, how do you create the venue for them to succeed? that is the challenge i think local leaders like here at table have to grapple with to get there. but i just want to make sure we don't over celebrate that. we want bipartisanship, it is occurring. i think we should embrace this moment, but it can't just be one aspect of the system. it to has to be that system of mass incarceration and not similarly a lot of arrests. it's the back end, and it's everything in between that you would want bipartisanship to support its. >> thank you, director davis. i want to let you answer this last question. you touch on recommendations. there are 60 recommendations. where are our local police officers, local police departments supposed to begin in terms of taking next steps to follow the recommendations of your tax force? >> one is to actually recognize that the recommendations exist and to take the time to read the report and to understand that these are recommendations. and not recommendations of what we can do for you, because it's not -- these are recommendations for the local law enforcement communities to do themselves. i think the second part is to acknowledge that there is a dramatic need for change. that there has, something has to change and to understand why there is so much unrest and why people are so upset with the police. the third part, and i think this is the critical part, is the acknowledgment of why we're standing here right now and that the demonstrations are not just people who want to defy the law, it is an expression of people's frustration from being disenfranchised and being oppressed for many generations. the generational mistrust is exploding. once the agencies understand that, then the idea would be to then sit down with the community. of the recommendations we have i think, the task force was brilliant at shifting it that we didn't say here's what you should do, because once again that's an edict, and we're basically telling communities a what to do. for example, civilian oversight. they recommended that the core principles of civilian oversight should be there, that this checks and balance requires that. it still requires local leaders, community members and local government to decide what's the best venue, format and structure for you, and it's not a one size -- for them, and it's not a one-size-fits-all. so i would really think the police departments should, one read it, should do an evaluation to see what recommendations they're implementing, which ones they are not. the community should do the same thing, and they should sit down together and figure out which ones are applicable to their community and implement it. we're putting grants out there to incentivize it, to support it, additional research to identify those best practices, and i think -- and we're going to keep trying to help at the federal level, but the keyword is help, because i agree with everyone here it has to be, you know, some of these issues have to be dealt with at the local level. >> thank you very much. we are going to open it up for questions. by the way, ms. garza has to make a flight back to, back home. so thank her. [applause] pastor mike's going to join our panel for the q&a. go right ahead. >> my question is this, you can't get locking two million people up and it not be bipartisan. so you all are saying this is a bipartisan moment right now. white supremacy and racism is bipartisan. so to term it as this is a special moment for my freedom when my being locked up is not that? and by the way, i'm the person that helped coin the term ban the box. so at a certain point when we talk about banning the box, for the most part unless we change it to fair chance and allow other people to move it forward, we won't even get credit for our own voice. it will be taken over and usurped by educated people that doesn't necessarily mean that it will empower anybody. so when y'all talk about ban the box and you don't attribute it to a body of people that actually been fighting for other -- for over a decade to get equal rights, then you're actually doing us a disservice because it will disempower us. >> i agree. and a lot of the work we've done around ban the box new york even with the city council and the picot network, one of my critiques of this is that ban the box is a nice gesture that starts a conversation and needs to go further. it's not a be all end all because there's ways around ban the box. and in most legislations that i've read, there's not enough teeth to really punish employers more not following the mandate. so it's really just the beginning, it's one of those symbolic victories that we need to fight for, that we need to continue to fight for which starts a larger conversation which reverberates into further policy change into exactly what you're talking about. >> if i could ad one thing to -- add one thing to that, i watched him when i was in east colorado, -- palo alto basically, knock on a thousand , doors, hit the street, all of us do the work to come up with that and start with whether it was oakland or berkeley, city by city, going to council meetings and doing it. and it goes to what the previous panel's talked about, about the movement and local people making things happen. that does start to dissipate as it starts rising and starts getting to people with big titles. if we keep our eye on the ball that this movement, i still say this bipartisan moment because there are policies on all sides of the aisle that have contributed to the incarceration of especially the disparate impact, but it's going to take that same bipartisan movement to end it. i think we keep our eye on the ball that it's usually those that are engaged in the battle those that, as someone said, are the receiving end of the service, the lack thereof or even to presentation that has -- even the oppression that has some of the solutions. we can't forget that. and you're right, as we get fancy titles and all the things that go with it, we sit at the white house and things like that, we have to remember where this stuff comes from, who was the creator of it. so i think that's a very good reminder for us as we go about our days and our meetings not to forget where this is coming from, quite frankly. >> thank you. i am jackie zimmerman, i'm that the department of education, but i'm not here representing the department, i am here for my own learning. mr. davis regarding the recommendations to police departments around country, what if their response is something like, held no? for example, and i make -- and i am asking about the consequences. for example, the southern poverty law center has uncovered in florida that because of the zero tolerance policy in schools if a child as young as eight years old forgets his or her belt on their uniform, they get taken out of school, they get put in adult prisons, 23 hours a day solitary confinement. the parents lose the right to their child. what are the consequences for that from the federal level or any level? >> so the consequences of not implementing the recommendations at the federal level, there are none. the consequences for violating the constitution could lead to activities we've seen and things like cleveland, ferguson. but those are extreme levels. what i would ask is those recommendations, a lot of the lessons learned goes back to what people are saying. the consequences for not doing good policing, the greatest consequence is the community. not me in d.c. they should be worried about the empowering community that tells that mayor that you're not engaged in effective policing, community policing, and so we get to hold you accountable through the electoral process, through accountability. because, you know, the system is policing is local. but although policing is local public safety's national. so we do have a role in helping and guiding and providing best practices. but to be very candid, the role of holding people accountable for the implementation of that is limited, and i don't want to miss sell it. we can incentivize, we can encourage, we can lift up great examples of best practices, but if the chief says, man, i'm not doing that nonsense, they can do what, the person holding that chief accountable has got to be that local community that is empowered to say, hold it, i know this is better practice because i've talked to experts on the ground doing it, why aren't you doing this is, i think, the greatest accountability. outside of that we have to wait to where there's violations, but then it means just victims, and you now have powder kegs potentially all over the country just waiting for a single incident to ignite because people are that frustrated. >> this speaks to reverend brown's point of why we have to build our own power. to hold systems accountable. because the truth of the matter is, you know people will go as , far as you allow them to go. we have to make it so consequential for them to be able to pull that kind of stuff off, this is why the young people in ferguson, in baltimore, in new york, oakland, all across the country, why we pour out into the streets, why we pour out into the highways. we want to make it so uncomfortable for people to do business as usual until you are willing to change your practice. and it's an appeal also to our philanthropy and other wealthy folks that we need you all to help resource the building of power in communities to be able to counteract the power apparatus as it presently exists. that is always well funded. always well entrenched, always very -- [inaudible] be able to build very powerful response that makes sure that if we can't get the accountability from the federal government, then the people will bring accountability in a way that is undeniable, and that, i think, has to be a part of our work, organizing the power to actually bring accountability to the local level. >> my name is -- [inaudible] i'm from youngstown, ohio. my question is within all of this that we have going on with mass incarceration, no one has mentioned the profiteering aspect and what we need to do with those corporations. corporations don't die. there like vampires. and another thing, we -- so with the collateral sanctions, we have collateral sanctions in place in every state with the department of corrections that give employers guidelines to hiring. say, for instance, i came home i've been home 22 years, and my charges says that i can work as a social worker. i have my degrees. i got educated, but i can't use this degrees, that's crazy. but how are we going to reinforce these laws and these policies that we with the power now that we know that we have power, how are we going to enforce those laws? we need something else to guarantee the stability that we build for ourselves. >> look, you know, i'm a lawyer by training, i can help guide legislatures in how to draft the best band of for the box law possible, remove barriers, but there's only so far that's going to go because as people have said, there's ways employers find to get around everything all the time. i won't sit up here and be pollyanna and tell you differently. i think it gets back to the underlying point about building power to where it is so intolerable that people just demand justice and won't put up with it anymore. but, you know, to sort of get into another area that i know cap is very big on, campaign finance reform has to be part of this. because if the prison complex industry can keep pumping money into campaign after campaign after campaign for people that are running on all sides of the tickets, there's a tremendous motive there to listen to that money that goes into the coffers as opposed to the people who are demonstrating in the streets. so we have to be honest about what the supreme court has done to our country as a whole on all of the kind of issues that we care about in terms of the power that the wealthy corporations and the wealthy in general have to really dictate how easy it is for our elected officials to vote against the overwhelming interests of their constituents. >> so -- and i appreciate your vampire comment. [laughter] because dracula showed up in baltimore too. when when mr. martin o'malley was the governor of the state, he was promoting and pushing a $104 million you to jail. and our coalition, our groups were fighting against that, and we were ultimately successful in shutting that down. now we have a republican governor who has breathed new life into the same plan with lower price tag. now he wants to renovate and build a $30 million youth jail so here we are having deja vu all over again. one democratic governor, now republican -- now a republican governor. the baltimore sun reported so far during the baltimore uprising that the city has lost $20 million. it was only after that happened that the business class, nonprofits, nonprofit industrial complex and the like, they got a higher consciousness when they had a lower bottom line, right? and so building for power in addition to creating alternative food systems also means looking at other ways so that when we get to -- when we build our own table or go visit other people's tables, we can negotiate from a position of strength as opposed to saying can you please do for me. so in baltimore, april 5, 2016 is the next democratic primary election. so we're organizing now so that when that democratic primary election happens in less than about 11 months now, we'll be able to effectuate our desires from the local communities because we've built up our own capacity and not depending on think tanks and other groups to do for us. >> and the research is important. if we know there are corporations out here who are the draculas, maybe we need to start a dracula campaign. we need to expose them. make them public. because many of this under the cover of night, most folks don't know that a lot of our fortune 500 corporations are actually profiting off of private prison labor and other forms of legalized slavery, quote unquote. and i think we can shame them publicly in a way that will at least create some kind of public accountability, and we need to do the same thing thing with our elected officials. in the state of california, our governor has taken lots of money from the private industry, private prison industry, and we had to make make -- we had to make that known. and we believe that just because you claim to be a ally of our communities don't mean you get a free pass. if you're engaging in activity that is counter in some of our young folks say revolutionary, dare i say immoral or just plain wrong, then we have the responsibility to make it known. and if they want to continue in the behavior, then we all have another opportunity to hold them accountable through our voting to where we shop and support etc. we -- >> we have time for one more question. >> good morning. i am the president and founder of the coalition for change. we represent federal employees present and former, who are dealing with race discrimination and retaliation in federal government. and my question is to mr. davis with the department of justice. you know when ferguson happened and michael brown was killed and when baltimore happened and freddie gray was killed, everybody was looking for department of justice to intercede. my question is given the climate of retaliation within the department of justice where the u.s. marshals, black marshals marshals, black marshals have filed in civil court class action and they're pending another one at the eeoc, anyone can google it. he had a 25-year-long lawsuit against the u.s. marshal service after he whistle blowed and told how they were targeting black neighborhoods. my question is what is doj doing to change the culture internally for those persons who speak out against injustice, who are trying to safeguard the public like those persons in ferguson and etc. that is the question, and i also would submit to you that you support congressman elijah coming's bill on the hill you talked about transparency. that's what we need to safeguard civil servants who speak out and say there's a problem here. >> i'm going to let director davis respond. >> yeah, i mean, other than -- i'm sorry, your name again? tonya, i mean, you're familiar with the departments policies on whistleblowing and actually whether the inspector general or -- there's a lot of options for people to deal with issues of retaliation against whiting blowers, so -- whistleblowers so i'm not in a position to speak to, quite frankly, the u.s. marshals' service or the lawsuits filed so i'm at a disadvantage other than as a principal, a component. i know the it is our continue wall -- our continual conversation at the justice department to insure that federal employees are protected, that they're respected, that their voice is heard, that you have to protect the whistle blowing because this is how you identify corruption inefficiencies, ineffectiveness. so i think what i would say more so than to regurgitate policies is just to really reinforce and encourage employees to take advantage of all the protections in a venue they have in reporting. there are a lot of options there, but i am going to talk about the marshals service. i can give you my card later and if there's a follow-up i can do for you, i will. but i'm at a disadvantage to answer 5:00 the -- answer about the marshals service. >> i'm going to have to bring this to a close. i want to thank our panel, and ms. garza who had to leave, for this very stimulating conversation. it was great. thank you all for coming. [applause] which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] -- [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> scientists and journalists look at what is being called "science denial is in. -- "science denial is on the." -- science denialism. [applause] >> former new york governor george bit tacky has officially launched his presidential campaign, holding a kickoff event in new hampshire. he joins a field that includes ted cruz, rand paul, and marco rubio, as well is currently -- as well as carly fiorina, mike huckabee and rick santorum. this is about 30 minutes. george the tacky: -- george pataki: thank you so much. thank you for standing at my side in helping us have one of the greatest families that i am so proud of. thank you for being here. god bless you. you are the reason that i am here this morning, to help your futures be better futures. [applause] as i look around this room, i see so many friends from new york state texas, and illinois -- and of course, across new hampshire. thank you all for being here. [applause] many of you helped me get elected as governor of new york three times, and you are here again. thank you for your loyalty. [applause] [speaking spanish] [applause] gracias amicus. -- amigos. we are here in new hampshire, the birthplace of the republican party. abraham lincoln's party, teddy roosevelt's party -- who fought for the square deal so that the council could not limit the freedom of working americans , and ronald reagan's party, who restored americans believe in ourselves and in the value of freedom, the freedom that is made us into the greatest country that the world has ever known. the freedom that i fear is at risk today from an ever more powerful and intrusive government in washington. it is to preserve and protect that freedom for us that i stand here today. it is to preserve and protect -- [applause] it is to preserve and protect that freedom for future generations that i speak. it is to preserve and protect that freedom that this morning i announce i am a candidate for the republican nomination of the president of the united states. [applause] mr. pataki: thank you. [applause] mr. pataki: thank you. [applause] mr. pataki: thank you. [applause] mr. pataki: thank you. [applause] mr. pataki: thank you. when people think of new york, they generally think of new york city and i understand that. but my upbringing was quite different. i grew up on a small farm in a small town on the hudson valley called peekskill, new york. my four grandparents were all immigrants that went through ellis island. peekskill was not in its money but in its people, black and white, christian and jew, rural and urban at the same time. we were not wealthy, well-connected, or well known. yet every one of us growing up in that small town believed in the american dream, hard work, and believed in ourselves. we believed that if we dreamed something we could do it if we worked hard, studied hard, had faith, family, and friends encouraging us, nothing could be beyond our reach. we believed in the american dream and it was real. my father was a mailman. when he went to first grade he could not speak one word of english. no one ignored him or lowered their expectations. instead, they helped him learn the skills he needed to succeed. my mother had to turn down a scholarship to cornell because it was the depths of the depression and she was the only one in the family working so she took a job as a waitress. by the way, my mother is 99 and at home doing great, and she is watching this live on the stand. -- live on c-span. [applause] mom, thank you. [applause] mr. pataki: they never saw themselves as victims. they were americans. although they might not have had every real opportunity for themselves, they knew that their children could accomplish anything. my brother and i worked on our farm as kids. when i was in college, during christmas and summer vacations i worked at the fleishman's factory with my cousin and in the evenings and weekends we would come home and work on the farm. for my dad, working two jobs was the norm. he would leave the house at 5:00 in the morning, deliver mail throughout the day, come home and work on the farm until it was dark. if the alarm ringing in the middle of the night, he would answer it as captain of our volunteer firefighters. today, my brother is an astrophysicist and i'm a candidate for the highest office in the country. [applause] mr. pataki: this is the promise of unlimited opportunity america held for my family and for me. it is that promise of unlimited opportunity, that belief in america which i want to restore for every family and every child and every community in america today. [applause] mr. pataki: today, too many americans feel the best days of america are behind us. that our children will not have the same opportunities we did. government has grown too big too powerful, too intrusive. washington bureaucrats believe they know better than us and can tell us how to live our lives. trying to dictate to every child in every school what they must learn. a young mother seeking to start a small business is inundated with paperwork and regulations and gives up. a small manufacturer seeking to build the next plant and create american jobs is faced with excessive taxation and forced to build that factory overseas. too many americans feel the path of opportunity is closed to them. we must make sure it is not. the problems we face are real but i have never been one to dwell on problems. i am a solutions guy. when you grow up on a farm and you have a problem, you do not ask the government to solve it. you just figure out what needs to be done and go do it. that is the american way. if i had the honor to lead this country, let me tell you some of the things i would do right away to get oppressive government off the backs of americans. today, there is one former member of congress lobbying for every current member and the first thing i would do is say, if you ever served one day in congress you will never be a lobbyist. there will be a lifetime ban on members of congress. [applause] mr. pataki: i would repeal oppressive laws like obamacare and end common core. [applause] i would eliminate excessive taxes that crushed small businesses. [applause] mr. pataki: i would throw out an incomprehensible tax code written by lawyers at the direction of lobbyists in the interests of the powerful, and replace it with a simple, lower rate that is fairer to all of us. [applause] mr. pataki: i would lower taxes on manufacturers to the lowest in the developed world so that factories and jobs could spring up across america. and shrink the size of the federal workforce, starting with the bureaucrats overseeing obamacare. i would fire every current irs employee abusing government power to discriminate on the on the basis of politics or religion. that is not america. [applause] mr. pataki: let's let every washington politician know, from now on, you are going to live under the same rules and laws that we do. no exemptions for politicians from laws they impose on us, no special rules for the powerful. [applause] mr. pataki: our justice department will treat all fairly and uphold the constitution. no one will be above the law not even if you are a former secretary of state whose name happens to be clinton. [applause] mr. pataki: let's deliver a clear message to the politicians in washington. you are our servants, not our masters. [applause] mr. pataki: do this, small business will thrive. we will think things and build things in america again. we will create and innovate. jobs will flourish, and people's faith in america will soar. some are going to say, you cannot do this. do not believe that for a second. they told me that when i ran for governor of new york. they said i could not win. too many people were dependent on government. the bureaucrats and powerful interest were too strong. people could not regain their confidence in new york's future. in a sense, they were right, they could not do it. i knew we could and we did. [applause] mr. pataki: in 12 years, new york went from the state with the highest tax burden, the lowest credit rating, and billions of dollars in deficit to a state with billions in lower taxes and its highest credit rating in decades. all it took was for me to get government out of the people's way. [applause] mr. pataki: it seems like liberals have so much compassion for the poor that they keep creating more of them. [laughter] mr. pataki: when i took office we had every poverty program government could think of and yet, one in 11 of every new york state residents was on welfare not on medicaid or disability. one of every 11 of man, woman and child were on welfare. the american dream did not seem real to them. after 12 years of my conservative policies, we replaced dependency with opportunity, resignation with hope, mere existence with dreams, a welfare check with a paycheck. when i left office, over one million people fewer were on welfare than when i began. [applause] that is what our policies can do. conservative policies replaced dependency in new york. i know we can do the same thing for the united states. [applause] mr. pataki: i was governor of new york on september 11. it was a horrible time for us and i am sure for all of you as well. the personal loss was devastating. it still is. i saw up close horrible consequences of too many believing that because radical islam was thousands of miles away, across an ocean, that we were safe in america. sadly, it was not true then and it is not true now. the most important thing government does is to provide for the security and safety of its citizens. [applause] mr. pataki: sadly, washington is not doing that. i will not forget the lesson of september 11. i fear too many in washington already have. to protect us, first we must secure the border. i am the proud product of immigrants but we must know that everyone is coming here legally and coming not to harm us but to be a part of a better america. in the face of that increasingly dangerous world, this is not the time to weaken america's military, it is time to strengthen our military. [applause] mr. pataki: not so that we can use it but so that we do not have to use it. a strong america is a safe america. [applause] mr. pataki: ronald reagan proved that peace through strength is more than a slogan. peace through strength is a policy that works. weakness, equivocation, leads to chaos and brutality and war. the world is a better place when america is strong, and a champion of liberty and freedom. [applause] mr. pataki: allies and friends of america must know that our word is our bond. we will stand with our ally israel. a democracy on the front lines of barbarism and terrorism. [applause] mr. pataki: we will stand with our allies in nato and the free baltic states against a resurgent russia. we will make sure the number one sponsor of state terror in the world, iran, never has a nuclear weapon. [applause] mr. pataki: we will provide whatever aid is necessary to those already fighting isis on the ground, to stop their barbarism and inhumanity. and yes, if necessary, american forces will be used to defeat and destroy isis so they can pose no threat to us here. [applause] mr. pataki: we will not spend a trillion dollars on a decade of nation building overseas but i will never forget the lesson of september 11. we will destroy a radical islam's ability to attack us over there before they have a chance to attack us over here. [applause] mr. pataki: our allies must trust us, our enemies must fear us, and they will. [applause] mr. pataki: we will defend our freedom. we will not be the world's policeman. libby and i have those two sons, both of whom served overseas. teddy as a marine lieutenant deployed to iraq for a year. arnold is a lieutenant in the 10th mountain division returning from afghanistan. we are proud of them, we are proud of every single person here who has put on the uniform to protect our freedom. to all of our veterans, raise your hands, we salute you, god bless you. [applause] mr. pataki: libby and i know what it is like to like awake dreading a call in the middle of the night when your child is in harm's way overseas. i do not want one parent, one husband, wife, or loved one to experience that fear unless it is absolutely necessary. but we will do whatever is required to protect the american people. [applause] mr. pataki: the challenges facing america today are real. i know that we will rise above them. think of what this great country has overcome. washington at valley forge lincoln trying to hold together a nation divided, roosevelt facing both the great depression and nazi germany. yes the challenges of a large , and oppressive government in america are real but this is still america. compared to those challenges we have overcome in the past, these seem like trivial things. i have no doubt we will rise above these as well. today, those in the other party, instead of offering ideas, seek to divide. when you have no solutions instead you offer fear. they say we are anti-immigrant. we, the proud children and grandchildren and descendents of immigrants, we know that immigration has and will continue to enhance the greatness of this country. [applause] mr. pataki: let's send that party a clear message. unlike them, we do not believe that they come to this country so they can get a government handout. we know immigrants come to work, strive to get a better life for their families, and we welcome all who come here legally. [applause] mr. pataki: they say we are against the middle class. this too is nonsense. everyone here understands it is the men and women who go to work, pay the bills, and follow the rules that are the backbone of this country. we are the party of the middle class, and unless you mean someone who left the white house dead broke and 10 years later had $100 million. [laughter] [applause] mr. pataki: unless by middle-class they mean someone who charges a poor country $500,000 for a half-hour speech. that is their party's candidate. [applause] mr. pataki: she speaks for the middle class? they are the party of privilege. we are the party of the middle class. [applause] mr. pataki: they are the party of the past. we must be the party of the future. i know that with the policies we believe in, we can change the world. let the next decade be the decade when the american worker and innovators, the best workforce in the world accomplish things we can only dream of. let the next decade be the decade when americans finally cure cancer and and for all time the scourge of alzheimer's. let the next decade be the decade when america powers the world with our own clean unlimited resources. let the next decade be the decade when americans -- we have yet to imagine that the next decade be the decade where americans can have boundless economic growth while enhancing and preserving the natural environment. let the next decade be the decade when america proves to the world, you ain't seen nothing yet. [applause] mr. pataki: i saw the horrors of september 11 firsthand. the days, weeks, and months that followed, i also saw the strength of america on display. for those months, we were not democrats, republicans, black, white, young, or old. we were americans. we had been attacked. we were going to stand together to show the world we were unafraid and would come back stronger than ever. i completely reject the idea that we can only unite in adversity. we are so much better than that. i know we have true greatness in us because i have seen that greatness countless times. i have seen what americans can do when we understand we share a common dream, a common future, a common destiny. i know that working together with the support of the government dedicated to restoring freedom we will once again astonish the world with what we can accomplish. [applause] mr. pataki: let us come together as americans and unite to face the challenges ahead. let us transcend those challenges and seesize the unlimited opportunities the future holds. let us move forward so just as the dreams of that child growing up in peekskill, new york, came true, so too can the dreams of a young child whether born in downtown baltimore or in new hampshire. stand with us. let's go forward. i guarantee the 21st century be america's greatest century. god bless you and god bless the united states of america. thank you. [applause] mr. pataki: thank you. [applause] ♪ don't stop believing ♪ larry gilbert: i am larry gilbert, former u.s. marshal of the district of maine. i reached the cap on social security. i understand you are opposed? mr. pataki: i am not going to answer it. good to see you, thank you. thank you. >> great job. mr. pataki: thank you. thank you so much. >> i need a picture. ready? one more. thank you. great job. mr. pataki: thank you. >> thank you. mr. pataki: thank you so much. >> great job, we are so proud of you. are you kidding me? we are so proud. john: my name is john and i came all the way from maine. i am a small business owner. mr. pataki: thank you. it is all about you guys. it is all about the future. i love new hampshire and i love meeting people and talking to them. thank you very much. >> governor, why won't you answer my question? mr. pataki: thank you so much for being here, really appreciate it. thank you. thank you very much. it is about you guys, the next generation. giving you the hope and opportunity. i know my entire life has prepared me for this moment. i have had great experiences with leading and changing, and i have had tremendous experience dealing with people in the private sector on a little farm growing up in peekskill. i know i have the ability to lead and change the country's direction, and appeal beyond just the republican party. to the electorate we need to win this race. some of the agenda you have heard, to change washington. vision, experience, and the belief in this country to bring people together for a better future. we will keep fighting. >> hello, governor. good luck. other states you will compete in? mr. pataki: we are kicking off in new hampshire but i have been to iowa three times, south carolina three times. we will be around the country. i love new york, i am not going to ignore new york. i can guarantee you. obviously new hampshire is very important, it is the first primary. so much of it is retail topics. i love that you sit down across the kitchen table and they ask you a question. i love that. >> do you feel you can distinguish yourself as more of a moderate? mr. pataki: i think i have led for many years a very deep blue state, but changed dramatically. some of the changes i've talked about today shows i can win the election, i can replace dependency with opportunity. i know that in my heart. we are going to fight the fight. i think having been in the private sector is a bonus. i have spent plenty of time in the government. i know how to reform it and move it forward. i also know what the private sector is about. >> why here in new hampshire? you are the only one to actually do the announcement here. and why this time around? mr. pataki: i love new hampshire politics because so much of it is here, where you sit across kitchen tables, people look you in the eye, and that is politics. why now? it is a critical time when i know we need things for this country. i know my entire life has prepared me for this moment. i know i can change this government the way people want. it is a critical time for the country. i know i am ready. i have the ideas and ability. >> are you going to win the primary? mr. pataki: i am going to do everything i can. >> the next candidate for president is expected to enter the race. former maryland governor and baltimore mayor martin o'malley is expected to declare. you can watch the announcement live on c-span. this sunday night at 8:00 eastern on first ladies influence an image, we look into the personal lives of three first ladies. sarah hope had a very strong belief in politics. margaret was opposed to her husband's presidency. as a teacher, abigail fillmore was the first presidential wife to have a profession. she began efforts to establish the first white house library. this sunday night at 8 p.m. eastern on c-span's original series first ladies, influence and image -- examining the lives of the influence of the first ladies on the presidency. sundays at 8 p.m. eastern on american history tv on c-span3. as a covenant, the new book -- first ladies. historians on the lives of 45 american women. it is available in hardcover and an e-book for your favorite bookstore or online retailer. next, i look at what has been called science the nihilism. with science looking at climate change, excretion, and vaccination. part of the annual congress on affairs at the university of colorado. the conversation is about one hour and 20 minutes. >> all right, let's get started. first of all, may remind you to please turn off the sound on your cell phone's, if you have not done that already. this is wednesday, april 8 at 10:30 -- panel number 3263. denial in the face of facts. i got an anti-science panel. [laughter] i am tom blumenthal, the former chair of development of biology here in boulder. i'm currently the director of the medical school. let me briefly introduce the subjects, i want you all to try to imagine a world where established scientific fact were ex excepted. where nobody was deliberately seeking to undermine the public's acceptance of or by raising doubts about being facts because they seem at odds with their religious beliefs. huge numbers of americans simply don't believe facts, people believing in the truth matter as to matters a -- matters a lot not because it affects the truth but because whether or not we act based on truth or fiction matter as lot. this isn't a scientific issue. it's a political one. today's panelists will address the thorny question of how to get people to believe facts even when they don't want to. so let me introduce the panelists in the order in which they're going to speak. first is michelle fowler. she's an astronomer and a science communicator. she's been a regular

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