commercialism that he gets to be unbearable. i don't know what to do without c-span. i love it. it is on my tv all day long. thank you. e-mail us, or send us a tweet. join the c-span conversation. like us on facebook. follow us on twitter. >> at new york university law school, current and former federal prosecutors discuss strategies for reducing crime in a time of budget cuts. report that argues for changes and how the performance of prosecutors is evaluated. this is an hour and 15 minutes. good morning, everyone. thank you for joining us today. i'm going to start with reef introductions here it i will make a few introductory remarks. we'll engage in a conversation of the role of federal prosecutors in the 21st century and open up to questions. i will start in the middle and whooduce the vice chairman served over four years for the general. attorney the closest to me is paul fishman. u.s. attorney in new jersey. paul served at least one term as the chair of the advisory committee that is an executive committee of u.s. attorneys that meets regularly in washington and provide great leadership in that role. next is ken. the u.s. attorney in the eastern district of louisiana, new orleans. remarking to him has accomplished more in his first year as u.s. attorney that many of us hope to accomplish in our entire terms. he has done great programs. ken, great to be here with you. next with the striking white hair is my older colleague. [laughter] barry is the u.s. attorney in kansas. what is wrong with kansas? nothing. everything is good there. barry and i were in the same orientation group or pledge class as we call it. barry has had a great run as u.s. attorney, engaging in outreach with local law enforcement in kansas and one of the leaders in terms of civil rights as a. -- as well. finally is doug jones. his work led to the report. a former u.s. attorney general in the northern district of alabama. he spoke to a large group of u.s. attorneys about his work when he was the u.s. attorney, his prosecution of a cold case in his district best and from a bombing of the birmingham baptist church and the murder of four young girls in the tragic incident. he handled the execution of ku n involved in the bombing. it was an aspiring speech. adding to know doug has been a great thing for me. that is our panel here this morning. [applause] let me kick this off. on the u.s. attorney general in florida. when they asked me to participate in the blue-ribbon panel whose work has led to the report today. this report is a very important voice at a very important time in the refer may she and of the federal criminal justice system. there are a lot of factors that are coming into confluence here and created an opportunity in .pace at this report in this moment of time is an important voice in that effort. i want to thank the brennan center for inviting us to be a part of this. we want to make sure that we do that. what is it to be a prosecutor in the 21st century? what is it to be a federal prosecutor as we enter the 21st century? maybe for decades are hundreds of years. the model was the prosecutor sat in his or her office for a long time. times have changed in that regard. sat in their office and waited for agents or law enforcement deputies or fbi agents to bring an investigation to the prosecutor. the prosecutor would look at it. we charge a case. move forward with the goal of trying to get as much prison time as possible for the crime in question. the reactive model. that model has been changing for the better part of the last four or five years. surely after confirmed, attorney general holder give a speech in which he had a remarkable line i think. one that has guided me in other prosecutors. the u.s. attorney and assistant u.s. attorney must be more than a case processor. the u.s. attorney and assistant attorney need to be in -- need to be a community problem solver. theythat vision in mind, said about creating a strategy for communities in the united states. it rests upon an expansion of the prosecutors role. are responsible for the enforcement of the prosecution of federal laws. that is our bedrock sensible and some we take seriously every day. one leg of the three legged it stool. people come home to their home communities at some point. it we don't figure out a way to support reentering offenders and reduce rates, we will not make communities safe to hear it a shift away from convictions and length of sentencing to is the community you are serving more safe today because it is your turn on the watch? goalsth dakota with these in mines and with the strategy in mind, work is my colleagues create afice to strategy. as i came in and looked at my role as improving public safety, at theuck at that time daunting crime problems that faced american indian to leave on reservation communities. when you think that a native american female baby in her one and threeas a statistical chance of being sexually assaulted at some time in her lifetime, that is a public safety problem the u.s. attorney should care about. help of my colleagues and input from the communities themselves talking to the consumers of public safety we were attempting to supply. it has had this bedrock of strategy. -- to do what i could to make them part of the community. it was hundreds of miles from a office to those reservations. were not in a position to place a prosecutor permanently. but we would be there on a monthly basis every six week meeting and leading disciplinary teams, training law enforcement, meeting with the key may need the, and starting a dialogue. community,with the and starting a dialogue. i put that requirement into the performance work plans. if they wanted to continue to advance and get races and be successful, they would have to hit those benchmarks of engaging with those communities. we have seen results over the last four years. we haveer of cases assigned additional prosecutors to those communities, we are bringing her cases and removing more of the more dangerous folks from those communities. we aren't stopping there. we are also working hard to support viable crime prevention programs. years, he hashree six or seven times a year gone to the high school and middle school at an indian reservation and north dakota and met with middle schoolers and high school is to talk about challenges they face and talk with them. stay away from drugs. this is what domestic violence is. these are the challenges of sexual assault. wear your seatbelt. things as simple as that. juvenilees in our system one of those kids he has interacted with in that other setting, those kids are embarrassed. they don't want to see him in the courtroom. they want to take to heart the lessons he has given them when it comes to speak at their schools. that is an example of a crime prevention program that i think has a potential for success moving forward. that is an expand in north dakota. a small office. a small district. we have shifted the way we do this nest. we'll hear more from folks about what they have done. i want to start with the dog. he is the lone informer attorney general on our panel. we're talking a little bit of prosecutors. your lens is broader than the rest of us. you have been involved in these issues and some of us. to this point? we are interested in hearing your views on that. >> thanks to the brennan center for the panel and the work on this program and the work they do in general. it is amazing the way they can have a voice of progress particularly in the area criminal justice. it has been an honor for me to be involved. there are two things i think that michael said that we ought to take note of. reduced.e, crime has we are seeing a continuing drop in clients. everything about that is great. that isnd aspect connected is we incarcerate 25% of the world prisoners in this country. those are connected. enoughnel is not naive to think that the aggressive prosecutions over the last 30 or 40 years have not contributed to the drop incline. they certainly have. the flagortant to show and that they are being aggressive. budgets -- see the the country's fence millions of dollars annually to incarcerate individuals. overwhelmingly, the majority caps off authority, but some 40% of the prison population is african-american. there's something skewed with those numbers. folks have started to look a little bit smarter on what we can do to maintain that level of security and even reduce crime further. at the same time, not send entire generations of people to prison. i first began my career as an assistant u.s. attorney general in 1980. it was in a day when just as the war on drugs -- we remember the war on drugs. a term that i hate. a war implies someone is going to win and someone is going to lose. we are still fighting a war on drugs. we will always fight a war on drugs. the fact is during that time, both politically and with the department of justice, things began to change. the term that we've heard for her generation -- four generations became a smaller part of the prosecutors role. we had mandatory minimums that congress decided they needed to show their constituents have tough they were going to be. i'm not criticizing by the way. it had its place at the time. -- aspartment of justice the decades wore on, congress continued to act. thatf the byproducts of was in the federal system, almost every crime you have seen has all the sudden found its way into the federal code of criminal conduct. used to be don't make a federal case out of it. that used to be a big deal. you make a federal case out of something. now you make a federal case out of just about anything. the have been vocal about federal criminalization of our nation's laws. as a criminal code expanded, so did the role of federal prosecutors. he had more crimes to deal with. now you not only half prosecutors who lack the judges.on -- so did before those guidelines were advisory, it was it was a getting assistant u.s. attorneys to learn how to exercise discretion. they didn't have any. the department of justice sent in the guidelines that required amended their offices to seek the highest senate possible, even on plea agreements. that has helped reduce crime. the budget has busted. some of you people have gone to prison because of it. i think it dates back a little bit longer. i know at least during the last 15-20 years you have seen the department began to do programs were u.s. attorneys would not just supervise their assistance and make sure that they were aggressive and prosecution. one of the more famous program money went into communities to help neighborhoods with afterschool care. things that would keep people off the streets. slowly seenors have their role more as not just the lead prosecutor, not just the ,hief law enforcement officer but was introduced as the chief law enforcement officer of the district. the u.s. attorney role is much bigger than just simply enforcing the law. we have got to figure out ways in which we can reorient it. the guidelines as well as the priorities the u.s. attorneys office. that would take a lot of doing. .e talk about climate change they're talking about climate change. so are we. it is just a different climate. is going to take some courage from both our political leaders as well as the prosecutors regardless of the administration. a bipartisan effort to come up with new solutions that don't require prosecutions and incarceration. it will take congress in the way they look at budgets. one of the things i know all u.s. attorneys have faced is in their budgeting have focused on specific areas that they want to see more prosecutions of. your budget was geared toward those. you had to send money for new prosecutors in the area of drugs and firearms in terrorism. whatever the case may be. congress is going to have to loosen up. having i think -- i think they are still having a difficult time understanding their role. revenue sense of discretion. they don't have to just look at a case and say, this fits within this guideline. that is what i will recommend. they will look at the same factors that a judge might look at under the cove. at that point i think we are beginning to see a lot of framing. i think the attorney general is a huge step in the right direction for federal prosecutors. make no mistake, we have a culture change that we have to address not just within the department, but within our political system and communities. every budget in the country is by all of the law enforcement and incarceration and prison system issues that we face in this country. >> thank you. the points you make about the budgets is an interesting one. i have heard it discussed this way. it resonated with me trying to do business in a tough budget time. when you know the federal prison budget is one third of the entire department of justice budget and if that is projected to grow in the near future, that money is going to come from somewhere. it's good to come from our offices. the choice is not between mandatory minimums or shorter sentencing. the debate is between the status quo mandatory minimums and less cases being done on the front end. that stars do bring into question the risk of safety to communities. we had to devote strategies to address that moving forward. have taken steps over the last few months to take a look at this idea of what can a u.s. attorneys office you to him pack -- to impact the budget? we are prosecutors. criminals need to be incarcerated. in kansas, how are you facing this challenge? >> i came in from outside the department of justice. i didn't have an experience working with the doj. manager.esource i be slice of the pie that is a certain size. do i want my prosecutors in our office to merely focus on getting the longest sentences they possibly can for smaller group of individuals or to broaden efforts and get reasonable sentences for a larger group of individuals to keep our communities safe? one of the things we look at was something that has been on the books for a long time. divergent might be a young woman who works for a bank . calls the police. i have been robbed. two black men came in a stuck a gun in my face and took $5,000. after being interviewed, she breaks down and cries and says i took it. she has no prior criminal history. the money has been recovered. is that person someone we should saddle with a felony for the rest of her life? is that someone we should put into the system so the resource of the folks in the probation department that has to be there those were more violent in nature and are now shouldome supervisory, we burn resources for that person? i don't think so. we did after begin extensive amount of outrage. one of the things i didn't want to have for my fellow folk and -- enforcement was the feds they will tell us what we should do. i have been engaged to be very active in the outreach. two thirds of the folks in my state live in one third of the eastern portion of the state. often --e i heard most kansas,ould be western that is an entire county. this is the first time i ever met the united states attorney. it was important. a part of the move toward smaller crime initiative, we set down with the folks and put together and retooled, retweet our program. it had it been addressed since 1995. we set out some guidelines. we havemething that now changed the tool, will the twill he used? what are the issues -- will the tool be used? what are they issues? if you are prosecutor who grew up our came to the department during the time the mandatory guidelines, it really was a get two points for this and you will work for this. something will do between this many months and this many months. outretion pretty much went the window. for a lot of folks, that is how they matured as prosecutors. one of the challenges we have is to institutionalize the notion that you have great leeway. you can look to the guidelines as guidelines. that again has been a real challenge for us. number of our lead prosecutors and oliver offices go down -- all of our offices go down to meet with the attorney general, to meet with various folks to impress upon our prosecutors that this change is coming. to gothat great fortune to the white house at the less u.s. attorney conference. the president came in. we had our picture. he stuck around this time. the initiative and how it was a unique moment in time we needed to seize. when i went back to my office, i convey that to my prosecutors. this is not a great area. this is what our boss wants us to do. it doesn't get any higher than that. i think we have moved in that direction. there are still challenges to be made to get people away from doing sentence enhancements. in the past, you'd file and motion to enhance that sentencing to maximize the time. us.ify it to we have a dialogue. that is not just something that is out there. when our judges says, i don't really know the difference between if you do 10 years or 15 years. i do know if it makes you that much better of a person are not. that really struck me. that is good, it kansas common sense. we have tried to approach our prosecution with common sense. thanks. i want to talk about efforts of building the other two legs of the three lighted stool -- legged stool. >> thank you. obviously the united states leads the world in incarceration . the city of new orleans and eight -- leads to stay in incarceration leads. we focus on enforcement as our .ool of prosecutors we have tried to engage in additional tools, specifically on the reentry level. we try to engage with our business community. i think we all agree that a major part of reducing recidivism rests on providing long-term stable employment as they returned to our communities. so what we try to do is engage the community. talk to them about the risk of employment in this community. like the workforce tax credits out there. called 32+2+2tive that is really an entry reentry collaboration between nonprofit organizations in the community as well as businesses. we're trying to courage 30 local businesses to hire two returning citizens for a two year period. a representative of diversities in louisiana. also businesses that provide long-term employment opportunities for these individuals, not simply for a 6 month period. we partnering with a reentry initiative that is housed out of the state penitentiary. out of angola. the types of resources that are available far surpassed what we see at the federal system and local jails. in that program, the angola program what we are seeing is inmates getting training in a hard skill, things like welding. they are getting over 100 hours of cognitive and life skills. drug treatment, drug education. ultimately they are getting out of that system. they are getting very cheap east or high school equivalency. once they return from fat what we are hoping to do is to provide the initiative as a pipeline where they walked out of prison with a long-term stable job before they returned back to the community. we are hoping that becomes part of the answer. where every aspect is really engaged in the fight of trying to reduce crime in the city of new orleans. that is one pillar of the work in the office. the second is trying to prevent crime in the very first place. i was born and raised in new orleans. i am the second youngest u.s. attorney fry now in our country and happen to have lost a brother to street violence in new orleans. -- attorney right now in our country and happen to have lost a brother to street violence in new orleans. we are using the student pledge against gun violence where we are going to all 450 schools on one day, october 15 of 28. we're simply asking the young people to pledge not to bring a gun to school. they promise not to use a weapon and promised to use the influence with family and friends to ensure those individuals to not use a weapon to resolve a fight or dispute. it has been around since 1996. over 10 million have used this and taken the pledge. i think ultimately on that day we will spend -- send a very powerful message that our young people are taking a stand against violence in the community and schools. the second piece of the work in terms of prevention and intervention really is and how shoot. we have a prevention strategy built off of professor kennedys work. it is a fantastic initiative. it has been implemented in various cities across the country. we have analysts that have been financed through the work. what we're trying to do is identify how people are connected. he was involved in some of the narcotics trafficking and use of violence trafficking organizations. once the analyst -- what the analyst has also done is taking research from an analyst to focus on social networks in terms of identifying which individuals are most likely to die from gun violence. we have applied the research to the streets of new orleans. we have the ability, the data that shows these individuals are at a greater risk of losing their life to gun violence. by high risk, i mean and nearly 60% greater chance of buying from gun violence than the average new orleans resident. that is frightening. i would daresay we would simply wait until the young people simply showed up in a coroner's report or police report. as i said, that is not enough for me so it is not enough for my office. so what we're doing is focusing on 14-6-year-olds. very few who have criminal history but are connected to individuals who have been engaged in violence in our streets. connected to individuals who have artie lost their lives on the streets of new orleans and we are trying to engage them and prevent the same result for them. we're asking face phase-based and other organizations to adopt one individual use off of the list. one institution adopting one youth, we are asking that institution to provide three mentors from their membership or congregation to ensure daily contacts with the person. we have an overwhelming number that are african american males and a significant number of african-american women and have several caucasian males in this group of 14-16-year-olds. we're asking those congregations and memberships to provide three mentors. we're providing a mentor curriculum through some are ready standing programs that exist in the new orleans area. we are also asking the membership or congregation to embrace the young person in the family and wrapped her arm around the group and help provide additional resources the family may need. housing, food, transportation -- which we all know are significant concerns or many of these young people. -- for many of these young people. these are the individuals that will show up on the front page of the newspaper unless we take urgent action in intervening in their lives here yet that is what we're trying to do through the program. >> thank you. [applause] what we just heard is a long way away from the model of the prosecutor sitting at the desk waiting for an agent to bring the mckay style. i think the story is amazing but not unique. there is a new generation of united states attorneys committed to expanding the roles in the 21st century the on a historical perspective. i will turn to paul next. >> thanks. i appreciate that. [laughter] >> we had some prep calls for this. i was able to get everybody but paul on a protocol that lasted about 10 minutes. i have paul on his own call that lasted half an hour. i have no idea what he will talk about. i know paul has a great reentry program called three new that is mentioned in the report. i know one of the things that frustrates you is there is great work being done but isn't funded? will the funding be there to support the work that barry is doing in our reaching to local law enforcement to support the additional u.s. attorneys needed in north dakota to make sure we have the community prosecution strategy on the american indian reservations? you have been in the department longer than some of the rest of us. i would merely suggests that perhaps that may be a topic. >> let me make an observation before i start. what makes ken's description of what he is doing in new orleans so remarkable, he is doing it with bubblegum and start. it was no money, right? i would like to believe if we save a lot of money on the back end of the prison population, that some of it would be funneled back for us to be able to do that. he took existing resources. >> in fact, yes loss resources as a result of sequestration and doing more with less. like there is no office in the country up to full strength and one that has the budget it had 10 years ago. what we have all had to do is to say, we will take an assistant u.s. attorney or two assistant attorneys that would otherwise be prosecuting cases that should be made federal cases out of. this is not the typical case we do. even if she did it, these are not the federal cases. it is the ponzi scheme. it is the people feeling 100 million dollar identity. those are the cases in federal court. if we take prosecutors's off the line to handle these incredibly powerful world -- worthwhile projects, something else is not happening. that is a resource choice. i will talk about my reentry court. one thing this attorney general has done, and it is important to note eric holder, the first attorney general to of been a united states attorney and have been in the field and the link cases. i do not mean other people's experiences not value -- valuable. having been out in the field and in the u.s. attorney in a place like d.c. where there is no district attorney, the attorney general had a vision in his head and his experience of what we should do and how we should behave. this was a big difference in the way the apartment has thought about the mission. the mission is to protect the public, increase public safety. we're supposed to do it fairly and with appropriate procedures and making sure the system treats people the way they should be treated. once you get past those core concepts, the way we do the priority choosing is very different. i do not have indian reservations in new jersey. i do not have counties as 8000 people in them. i have the city of new work with the highest carjacking rate in the world. 400 carjackings last year in a sea of 300,000 people. i have camden which had the highest rate per capita in the western hemisphere. we have the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world. we have a huge fiber network in new jersey. we have a reputation for political corruption in new jersey. sometimes they would claim and would get -- the problems that we have to deal with in each of the 94 districts are very different, even though we all have the same job title. what the attorney general has been very good about is telling us that we should not only be community problem solvers that be the people who decide that things in the district overall we have a lot of discretion and freedom. put people in the kinds of places we need to to address problems in the districts. the second thing this attorney general did and if the attorney general said i wanted you to think about this differently and think about it in the way that texas was talking about it with kansas common sense which is what is the right outcome in a case like this? when you look at a case, what do you think as a prosecutor? what is the fair and just result? i will talk about why that works a lot of the time and why it does not work. i will want to answer the question. >> before i even start. >> i will be brief. first, we have done a lot of outreach. it is not complicated. they can do as much as they want. they can talk about internet safety. they can go out and spend a lot of time talking to people in the arab and muslim communities about the civil rights concerns in the way we can address those. whatever it is they want to do, as long as it is related to the mission of the office, that is great. again, we have hired an outreach coordinator and that is all we have got to make it happen. the second is we have started a reentry court. that basically focuses on high risk returning federal prisoners to new jersey. the high risk ones are the ones most likely to come back. low risk to not meet the same kind of attention. we invite them to the program and tell them if they come into the program run by a fabulous judge that we will give them intensive supervision and will be in court every two weeks to meet with the judge personally, that we will pay attention to how they are doing and what they are doing and always asked the question, what do you need? the goal is to take the people who have paid their dues, went to crimes for -- that were serious for which they should have gone to prison but are now out. it is a fabulous inspired program. they are doing a huge amount of eentry work. they are inspired to watch these guys get up and thank the judge. thank the judge and the prosecutors from my office and public defenders for helping them get their lives back on track. each of them got up and spoke. one guy who is a double i've -- tattoo on the side of his neck he recollects said heand turned to a woman who with a federal public defender and he said you change mid life more than anybody else did. because one day at 7:00 o'clock when it was dark you offered me a ride home. and that showed me that you trust med to be your car. it was a chilling moment. it was a chilling moment for everyone to realize what it meant and what it could have been if it had not been he decided to change his life. that is the kind of stuff we re working on. my plea is to think about how we will fund them as you talk about these issues. it is not cheap. it is cheaper than jail but if we save money on the backend sprs we going to spend fit on the front end? >> with all respect, we save the ball -- the best for last. we've got at group of u.s. attorneys -- i always bristle when they refer to us as the field. that being said, there is a lot of wisdom within the department of justice. there is a tremendous amount of power to pull the levers and move initiatives like this into the field. give us perspective from the justice, what is it that goes on in washington that canceled port in this part of the ffort? >> it is a real honor to be ere. i want to be clear for a moment, in a room like this, these decisions seem extraordinarily obvious, which is that of course we need to identify and reduce mass incarceration and has been the leadership of the attorney general that is making progress and moving them forward. but you have to take a step back. by ken, i grew up a few decades efore him. i grew up in new york city. at a time refugees when crime was at its highest. i was the da when people in the city were credibly -- were people bly at risk and those who wanted re like that to be in jail for a long period of time. as the crime rate goes up in the united states, very quickly i believe people will say we need sentences higher and people need to be incarcerated. during the crash course in manhattan and the like we saw an enormous push for that with governor rockefeller and the federal sentencing reflected hat. what you saw for the next ouple of decades, you saw in an armistice rarity in the federal government between the way you are prosecuting those who were incarcerated for selling crack cocaine and those who were incarcerated for selling -- [inaudible] when it first came into effect, people thought crack was different. the result became more and more evident, which is young african-american males were going to jail because they pretended to be selling crack. some with powder and some with crack. you saw but horrific phenomenon in this country of african-american men going to jail far longer than the other en or typically men. that became more and more obvious. frankly, what you needed was leadership. there was a recognition this eeded to be changed. i was fortunate that this attorney general and this president said they were going o change it. so i had the privilege in two thousand nine tacoma for the congress and argue for the first time in history the administration think you have o have a change. ultimately the law was changed not one to one but the disparity was to increase did not agree -- was decreased dramatically. when i testified there was an extraordinary scene of mainly african-american women lining up wanting to hug me and congratulate me but frankly i did nothing. it was the attorney general and the president. that is the kind of leadership encourage you have to have. frankly, the man who testify next to me is one of the great judges in d.c., an african-american judge who had been the deputy czar for narcotics back when the law was created. he was the one who said at the time he thought it was great but we revisited it and some changes needed to be made. i was lucky enough to be in washington to do it. the next thing the attorney general did is he created the attorney general sentencing correction working group. essentially what the attorney general was saying to the men and women to my left and right, let's rethink some of our substance here. how we will deal with the death penalty, incarceration. frankly, i think that is very successful. ome of the programs you're hearing today are a result of the attorney general is giving the guidance. then the attorney general in washington decided to change what had been a fundamental recept for many years. whether you are in north dakota or georgia or anyone else, we are told that each time you had to judge the most serious rovable offense. the challenge is going to be it is because of individual assessments people will now say you are too much of the disparity. hat people who essentially have committed the same crimes in essentially the same situation with essentially the same backgrounds, are they getting the same sentence? there is going to be an enormous pressure again to take away that discretion. it is a cycle and we have to guard against the cycle. one last point i want to make which is absolutely essential. in the criminal division what i thought our role was an proud of it was to support the u.s. attorneys. we used to say how can we elp? it was to go after gangs, which was an enormous initiative. o that they did not take the 14 euros and forced him to be a ang member for life. the other thing was that the budget was going down. the only part that goes up is the bureau of prisons. because the population increases. the challenge is to be smart and have the reentry challenges and do what the american people o not support. use all really what the elected officials did. on one level they want to eal. someone let out in the reentry program that committed some horrific crime, there will be enormous pressure, so we need to create this for veryone. the department really showed a lot of leadership. i think you have heard the results from people. >> we want to open it up to questions. folks with microphones and audience. a question over here. we will start with the judge. start with the federal judge. i just think that's a smart move by anybody in my position. >> are you going to practice in his court? >> you never know. >> something that is incredibly inspiring. what i wanted to ask you, how much thought you are giving to the institutionalization of the ractices and programs? so often receive these types of programs are led by people like you, very smart and charismatic. but then the u.s. attorney comes or next administration comes, attorney general and some of the programs or the perspective that they are important get washed away. this is money because then having people specifically designated to do those types of things become important. i wonder as you are sitting there and some of you who have done this in the past i do not think focused on that. when i was attorney general in connecticut we did a lot of what you're talking about. some published i was a smart as you are to do some of the things you are doing but never thought about institutionalizing it in a way that's another smart, good and caring person does not take it away because from their perspective, that is no longer as important and need to focus more on incarceration for longer amounts of times because ates are going up. >> i just want to say that the word institutionalization for he programs is not one we have started talking about in the community in the past six months. under the new leadership of the attorney general, -- advisory committee was the attorney general that was there from day one. e played his role. >> i was going to answer from the judges question. colleagues talk about what they're doing in the district of the attorney general was mindful of it. ne privilege was you work with the u.s. sentencing commission, and we did do that and also, are able to work with the attorney general in dealing with the u.s. attorney. an example of institutionalization, we don't early on with the notion and sentencing guidelines in the sentencing division, even in nonviolent person who had an addiction could not be in a diversion. we changed that. hat was working with the sentencing commission so that they changed the guidelines and commission recommendations. in the united states attorney general exchange that as well. bviously someone can change it again but obviously that is a much bigger effort and would be a small example of one thing. >> anyone else want to talk about how it varies? >> paul talked about taking a prosecutor away from being the prosecutor and put them on a noted task such as out reach. taking sure you give responsibility for the task and as simple as it sounds, give it a title and individual the responsibility to be the point person. otherwise what you put out there is the flavor of the month. we have to in terms of diversion. but diversion for nader is a prosecutor. you are doing more with ess. there is the person. it is just not someone out there but has the responsibility. someone can always come in and change it but once you give someone the responsibility, folks are a little reluctant to give up responsibility. >> i will just say in the narrow arrow -- area where i spent a lot of my time which is public safety on the reservation, the attorney general said if you are responsible for reservations, you will have an operational plan for reducing violence and interacting with the communities. that is the official plan of the office. those lawyers working that beats are required because their performance work plans require them to hold the eetings. to visit those reservations. now the next person can come in and say i don't care about that i'm going to reach into the machinery in the department -- this machinery and change it but that's hard. those steps are being taken. we like to think we're intuitionalizing it but you raise a great point. >> there was something about that and i appreciate judge robinson in the clinton at ministration. lanny mentioned community biased. i don't think you will be ever to institutionalize any of these programs unless there's the outreach that paul is doing that ou get the community you get in the community. it is getting out into the community. . e community bion it took years for congress to see the disparity and it was because of the constant community efforts of victims and their families to get to happen. i think that lanny was absolutely right. the tables were turned and unless you get that community valiant right now you're not going to get that back. >> hi i thank you so much for all of your remarks today and a common theme has been the constraints that you face because of mandatory sentencing laws. one is the reforms one of the bills that are out there is the smarter sentencing act. and the attorney general has supported this act i'm wondering if you could talk about among the 93 of you mr.there is any effort to support this piece of legislation and also if you could talk about, we say what's the matter with kansas. but what's the matter with the assistant u.s. attorneys? we have assistant u.s. attorneys that claims to represent and a large po ortion of these ausa's and has polled them saying they don't support this legislation. so i'm wondering if you could talk about that as well. >> i'll take it. so there's no question that there -- you know, we have 5,000 prosecute overs in the field. some of them were hired last week. some of them were hired 30 years ago. they are all political stripes. they have very different views in various different parts of he country coming from areas.nt there is an organization called the national organization of united states attorney general that's not a union but represents some number of people who are members and they have a view that this is not the right direction to be going. we're con trained as u.s. attorneys in our ability and -- whether we're allowed to lobby or not. i can answer questions from any politician or a representative that i know. i'm not talking about cases but what is your policy and i talk about outreach and reentry and our need for funding. we can lobby. but i think people know that there's a lot of u.s. attorneys who have spoken publically in speeches and informly about what our views are on this thing. but i do want to make a point. even if we don't feel con trained in that sense, if your goal is to reduce the federal prison population, yeah, you can really only do one of two things. you can prosecute fewer people which no one seems to suggest, right because it's not like we don't prosecute an enormous part of people to begin with. e prosecute fewer of those people. should people go to jail for less time. that's something that people talk about and are interested in in particular cases. but if you -- at the end of the day, if you prosecute, if you ask for lower sentences and you negotiate plea bargains that are less severe, people will plead guilty sooner and the prosecutors will be freed up to prosecute more cases, right? the end result of this will be fairness and treatment of people in a way we think is appropriate. but it doesn't niesely release result in the federal system in a reduce prison population. what would if fewer prosecutors had fewer cases but that's not something i think is a great idea at least in my own district. >> we'll go over here next. >> thank you. working. i'm kate clark, i'm chief of defender services and the administration active office of the u.s. court. i wanted to thank your vision and your leadership. one of the institutional issues i think that we need to face together, i hope, is that the federal defenders had over 165,000 furlow hours. we lost close to 500. we're down below 3,000 -- 3,800 in comparison. the point being that a lot of our federal offenders and attorneys are saying they can't do these other things such as reentry because of time and we're under a work measurement study. i wonder if there's a way that all of you think about the systems and the institution and collaborating together with the federal defenders so that we can bring life or further life to all of these excellent programs that you discuss today. >> well, in a very broad level and i'm sure the folks in the panel can give you more specifics. but you know, again, because of the attorney general and his commitment, we did work with public dedefenders, our own member requested it a few years ago and supporting additional resources for federal public dedefenders for working with the federal public defenders. i suspect that we know them well and their collaborative. i know that in d.c. both formerly and informly i've done it. and i think, you know, i'm no longer part of the department of justice. so i'm a little less constrained. but surely -- surely for this to work the federal public defenders have to have increased resources as well. you cannot just have the department have them for the very reason you say that i think most people recognize that. but the department itself has not succeeded in getting additional resources and so i think you're hearing right now that it's really, i think a challenge on both sides and you frankly both have to be increased. that has to be done by dealing with elected members of congress and the community recognizing that both parts have to increase. >> governor, do you have a comment? we have a microphone right here. i was one of those urswal politicians, my dear friend. [laughter] 6 >> i want to thank you very much. one of the challenges is joe calafano did a great study at columbia university. and he pointed to the fact that in the federal prison system approximately 70% of those persons behind bars are clinically addicted and yet treatment. eive and u.s. attorney general fisherman has a tremendous program in new jersey. but one of the frustrating aspects we have state side is also in county jail is we provide addiction treatment that's on a continuum into transitional housing. and it seems that the bureau on the prison side is incapable because they grapple with the same budgetary realities with which we all grapple. but they're not going to incur this additional spence of treatment. it's almost as if the prison population is without a voice in so many areas. but clearly in terms oaf treatment as opposed to merely toing time sensely in federal prison would be the ideal place and frankly without dog, lanny and cannon and paul. it's frustrating that we haven't seen the change. and frankly if this administration doesn't do it, od knows who will. any response? >> i would say this and just to expand this because i don't often get the opportunity to address a big city audience like this, right? >> when there's this many people. this is about that. this looks like the whole city of fargo, right? [laughter] >> i will say this, because what we see in north dakota is folks coming out of prison and your point is well taken about we need to do more throughout the process from arizona to the court process to the prison process of making treatment rograms available. >> we still have, we have dangerous folks coming out of federal prison that are moving to small town america that face a challenge and finding mental health treatment, addiction, things of that nature. that's enough on the soap box today. but it is. it's important when you talk about that lack of treatment to recognize it within the system but in the back end people are returning to are those resources even available? >> barry? >> yeah to talk about your soap box -- >> you want to talk about middle america r. fly over america. it's not like that you walked in kansas but you're at 35,000 feet. [laughter] one of the challenges that folks have in rural america is governors quite frankly and i feel for our friends in law enforcement. mental health issues, i mean, police officers are now nut a precarious situation when a fellow is ranting and raging. is that person a danger? should you go over. if he makes a move in a certain way and you taze him. are you looking at obsessive force used against you and the department? and that's because that safety net doesn't exist like it did even five years ago. so it's a real challenge because the mental health issues are just -- >> we're going to go one more question down here in front and then we're going to have to break. the questions have been great. and i appreciate your involvement. last question. >> good morning. >> morning. >> i'm a retired judge from d.c. both in the federal system as a magistrate judge and a superior court judge. and for the last 10 years i've headed a national correlation. i work with lady and department of crack cocaine powder disparity issues. >> i have two questions to pose to the panel. it's been my experience that many of our young black mates are getting involved in drug activities. and indeed, when they come before me as a judge in court they tell me when they plea that they didn't want to get involved in drugs but they were forced into it. >> then they are coerced to give testimony. any of the judges don't have a plob of take it into consideration. this. ckground vigesed addiction got involved in drugs sbue coercion. how do we deal with that? >>