This is being recorded by cspan for later broadcast on booktv, so we ask that you take this moment to silence your cell phones. When we get to the questions and comments portion of the program, please wait for the microphone so that you may be heard and recorded. Following the presentation there will be book sales and signing in the atrium of our chapel, and a wine and cheese reception will also follow. Or authors tonight are dr. John carl and mary looman. Doctor karl is a system professor at the university of oklahoma where he teaches a variety of courses, including criminology and criminal justice. Is social Work Experience includes the prison context and a variety of medical settings. He is the author of think sociology, think social problems, and a short introduction to the u. S. Census. Dr. Looman is a psychologist and works with the Oklahoma Department of corrections at the reception center, and is an adjunct professor at the university of oklahoma where she teaches courses with a masters in criminal justice program. She has worked in the field of corrections for over 25 years in both juvenile and adult settings, as well as with at risk families in the Mental Health setting. So thank you very much to both of our authors, and without further ado i turn the program over to them. Thank you, father jim, thank you to the thomas Moore Community for allowing married and had to be here tonight to talk of something that is near and dear to our heart, our new book that we just published called a country called prison. One of the things i think most americans are aware of but maybe not aware of to the great extent to which it actually exists is the reality that the prison system into United States is one of the largest in the world and we have spent an inordinate amount of our tax dollars trying to do with the problem of what to do with people who do stuff we dont like. One of the realities of the social life is that we voice of people who do things that we wish they wouldnt. You know, you was how the miscreants who do things the rest of site doesnt like. One of the interesting questions for us as a people i think is to i wonder what is the difference there is a difference between people who do things we dont like that we are mad at people two things we dont like that we are afraid of. One of the things we noticed in the Corrections System into United States in particular is we have not drawn that line very clearly between those who we are afraid of, those who we may be mad at. We alway have always had to deah us throughout human history, banished people, sent into penal colonies, insulated them, tried to kill them, put them in stocks and lock them in town square and made them wear the scarlet a. Yet none of this stuff is seen to solve much in the event of trying to eliminate the possibility of people doing things that we dont want them to do. So we kind of settled on prison. One of the things as a criminologist i think is interesting to think about is if we settle on prison because its necessarily better or just because we havent thought of anything else . One of the things thats interesting is this massive amount of people weve decided in this country to incarcerate. Bureau of justice statistics estimate that about five out of 100, 5 of the american population, either have been or will be in prison during their life. Just to give you a context of what that number means, with over 300 million americans thats approximately 16 Million People. And when you think about 16 Million People in prison, a couple things are important about those people. About half of them, 46 , roughly, are in prison for nonviolent offenses, frequently drug offenses. One of the questions we had, is there a difference with what you do with that half that essentially that outcome we dont like being stoned on the corner, we dont like them driving under the influence is of some addictive substance unless of course its alcohol, joke, but we dont want them running around in our communities versus the people we are really afraid of, people who will molest your child, tried to kill you or rape you. If you look at the real violent offenses this is a rather minority of who we choose to incarcerate. And yet in this country didnt you throw them all in the same pot. If you look at some data about this group, about half are also parents. Think about that 16 million, about half of those people we incarcerate have children. One of the things we know about incarcerating appeared is simply this. You increase the odds that their child will, in fact, also be incarcerated, and thats by about 25 more likely. Said increased dramatically the odds that this is going to become a community of event. Dad went to prison, its my turn, so they will be my kitty goes to prison and the next thing you know you develop this thing that we say looks a whole lot like a country. We didnt always do this. Its really fascinating is we didnt always incarcerate such high rates in this country. For example, in our own state, it took approximately 85 years for us to incarcerate a total of 90,000 people. But since 1980 we have incarcerated a total number of over 700,000 people just in the state of oklahoma. This is a 700 increase in about a 35 year period. One of the questions you may want to ask yourself is are you anymore safe now than you were . Its been a decision that has warmed your tax dollars hard. If you look at the incarceration of oklahoma it really mayors the nation quite frankly. You can look at prison populations and when you get to the 1980s and the boom, a ghost this number and you get this massive amount of people weve decided to incarcerate as the solution because theyve done things we wish they hadnt done. As you compare us to other countries around the world we are kind of unique. The United States comes in second in the world in its rate of incarceration. We incarcerate approximately 707 people for every 100,000 folks walking around. Just any count of norman, oklahoma, 120,000 people, 700 of those will be incarcerated. Put that in context. Number one is a small Little Island in the middle of micronesia that incarcerate just slightly higher than that. If you look at modern industrialized democracies, country you to do on vacation, you see different numbers. For example, of france in incarcerate about 149 people out of every 100,000. Great britain and incarcerate about 100 to people for every 100,000. Seven times approximately laura. Look at japan its 14 times lower than others. Somebody whos interested in the social world, one of the questions you ma ask this whatp with this . Why are we doing this . What is the 60 million . Let me give you another context. Why we came up with his title a country called prison because the facts are this. Or prison, 60 million, ignore their children, just the people who are you going to send is approximately a population twice the size of israel. Its slightly smaller than the country the netherlands. This is a massive number of people. If it was a state it would be the fourth largest state in the country. Just right below florida. Bigger than illinois. Just imagine if prison was a state for the politicians would be going to try to get votes. This is a large number of people who significantly are, some of whom we should be afraid of. If i look at the federal prison system i get a drug offender rate of 50 of people incarcerated in federal prison are drug offenders. I look at state prisons across the nation, i get 41 of the population being nonViolent Offenders. We could probably if we stopped in for shrinking high rates of nonViolent Offenders we could probably cut or prison population in half which would have tax benefits to us all. One of the questions he might think about when i was talking about International Crime rate was so the incarcerate a row to lower rates in Great Britain maybe thats because they have less crime. No. Not necessarily. For them but have a look at the assault rate in britain its higher than the rate in the United States. If youve ever been to a soccer match in Great Britain you understand why. If i look at a faster rate in the uk, its higher as it is in france. But the one thing thats the thing about our prime crime rates is we lead the world in one category, and that is drug offenders. Just a couple of numbers to kind of hopeless to you. We incarcerate 560 people out of every 100,000 for a drug offense. By connection france 176. So what do they do that we are not doing . We will talk more about that but the book talks about this to some degree. They tend to treat drug addiction like a disease. There may, in fact, be somebody industry has recovered from a call is on. We needed you are told this was a disease and you went and got treatment and that you cannot and you went to meetings and we said we will cure you from this disease and thats because it was our goal. Had you been addicted to methamphetamine, likely we wouldve put you in prison and try to punish the way your addiction. There is the psychologist but i can to a social worker, i have never and once in my life ever heard that you can punish away addiction. How did this happen . About the 1980s we get to Ronald Reagan and nancy reagan and just say no campaign and we start the war and drugs, really before they came into office, ramped it up and were going to stop drug addiction in america. We figured if we just increase the punishment, make them longer, harsher, did these people we dont like off the street, cleanse our country others pariah crack cocaine or methamphetamine, or fill in the blank. So this starts racing, at the same time you also get much more harsh punishments. So you get states like california that create three strikes youre out. States like oklahoma that create truth in sentencing laws were if youre a Violent Offender particularly youve got to serve 85 . Until last spring we in this estate had a third strike Marijuana Law which would lead to your third offense to life without possibly of parole on a marijuana charge. We decrease back to 20 years just last year. So states across the nation, not just oklahoma. We decided not only are we going to create this war on drugs, were going to make longer prison sentences. Part of what drives up our prison population is keep these people in jail for longer periods of time. Finally, at the same time that this is happening were packing the prisons full of people, we are not increasing the budgets the prisons consistently with a number of folks theyre supposed to feed, house and take care. All of a sudden a lot of the efforts made in the 70s and 60s and even the early 80s to try to quote rehabilitate or talk about ability people, start having budget crisis. And so if you and your people with an opportunity to get a High School Diploma when theyre in prison. And then they get out of prison and we have high rates of revocation, get out of prison come to light in the community and find a job, smoke a joint, go have your analysis and the next thing you know im back in prison. Approximately half of the people we sent out a prison will probably end up back in prison within a three to five year period. Of that half of those people that go back, most of them are parole revocation. They dont necessarily commit another crime. They didn didnt get to job and didnt get to chop it up until the go to Parenting Classes we require them to do. All these things we call technical violations in the lingo of criminal justice. So this all leads to the creation of this incarceration mountain. That would be fine if actually thought this might stop criminality. What is usually happens is someone commits a crime and then we punish them and then they go into this box. Especially if youre in a medium security prison where you might be in the serious offenders, odds are you have the possibility of being locked in a box with somebody that you didnt shoot 24 hours a day. They may lock you all down and this leads to significant numbers the problems with riots in rapes and assaults that happen in prison on a fairly regular basis, and using lock up shows and all the cnbc shows and what prison life is like and you see this reality the prisons have become in fact since the 1970s more and more violent places. Presence of america have become more violent, not less. They have become more crowded, not less. And our recidivism rate, the rate at which return people back to prison when we release them has continued to get worse. Im not a real smart guy. One of the things ive always remember is if you try something and it doesnt work, maybe you want to try something else. But instead what we can to do is keep trying the same thing over and over again. Ideological people have been in aa at the called it insanity come right . Try the same thing over and expecting different results. It keeps happening. We send these people out in the community and the been discharged in what mary and i like to call legal aliens. Illegal alien is something pashtun speak english, we are citizens. They committed a felony and now they are precluded from all kinds of other activities like tripoli employment. There are many jobs of convicted felons cannot even get it for example, in our state if youre a convicted felon you cannot work in a nursing home treated. You cant be the janitor. You cant cook the food for people. You can be anywhere near senior citizens. Really interesting. You can be in on a marijuana charge and we are not going to let you work there, let alone a violent offense or something. When you think about this we created this separate status of these people. One of the things we know about this population which mary woodley more about his despite bush is almost always some disadvantaged backgrounds. The vast majority of americans who go to prison come from the lower class, generally poor, poorly educated. When we release them from prison and we stigmatize them with this tampon ad that says excon, and they can never get out from under. Are we surprised that he really good . That they reoffend . Personally i say this a lot to me students but i will say to all of you. Im not a guy who really likes to pay taxes in oklahoma and i dont like to pay taxes. If theyre going to take my money i would like to use it wisely. One of the things ive come to conclusion after 20 years is, my own personal bias is going to be this not a lot of good that happens in prison. It may be a Necessary Evil for some but this wholesale mass incarceration is an exceptionally expensive prospect. In this country we spent over 50 billion every year on incarcerator our own citizens. This is a massive number. And when i think about kind of what that means to you and i come every time you incarcerate somebody, every time, you take them from taxpayer and turned them into a tax user. Even if im cooking meth in the backyard and not according to the irs in your butt in, im still going to the Grocery Store to buy things, still rented an apartment whether some property tax associate with that property. Still contributing to the committee at some level even if its in the illegal economy. Im still contributing. As soon as you take them off the street and lock them in a box, you turned them into a tax user. Im not saying we dont want to do that for some people. I hope california never lets up charles manson, right . But the reality is most people we put in prison are not charles manson. The other thing thats interesting about cost, states and the federal government, in my opinion, never report the full cost of what it means to incarcerate somebody. If you go to the department of corrections website in our state, 18,000 a year, and a community facility, 24,000 in a medium, 80,000, you can look at these numbers. But what do those numbers mean . They generally mean this, what are the costs for guards and bars and food . Thats the real cost of incarceration. What about the lost wages of this individual w weve now takn off the street . What about the lost tax revenue of this person . What about the 25 increase in likelihood that now his children are going to become tax users . What about the reality we have high rates of people incarcerated for some event drop into poverty and we get to give them food stamps, provide them with section eight housing . All of those are potential cost of incarceration, are they not . And yet those are not reported anywhere. They get passed to some other government agency, department of corrections. And honestly im not saying the department of corrections is filled with bad people. They are just doing their budget. But as a taxpayer, someone whos interested in this, no matter what state, you should be paying attention to whatever is being reported to you is not the real cost. Because the true cost is the loss of income that is longterm, human potential, loss of these children. Not to mention all the other expenses that go along with this your life now were going to provide section eight housing to the family. In oklahoma we lead the nation as you probably know in the incarceration rate of women. Its one of those things the University Never put in their brochure. Ladies, come here, you are both more likely to go to prison. They dont talk about that. Thank you. I thought it was funnier than heck, too. When you think about this, over 70 of those women that we incarcerate are the sole custodian of their children. So what happens to the kids when we put mom in prison . The number one thing we incarcerate women in the state of oklahoma four, the number one thing, drug possession. Not distribution, not driving down a highway with a winnebago full of crack cocaine. Possession. Who pays for that . We do. We take taxpayers in turn them into tax users. So this creates this massive amount of people. Mary and i look at this, this is a mountain of folks. Uncoated turns over to her to let you get an idea about what makes those folks into the country, come on up, and how we can do some things for them. As john said, i have worked in a country called prison for 25 years or so. I worked in the prison communities and have also worked with the disadvantaged people in the American Society that lived in their own community that we refer to as a typical prison. Its both in cyprus in and outside of prison a lot because of what john talked about what the collateral effects, the children are left behind, spouses that are left, the grandparent that are left behind and elderly parents do need a son or daughter to take care of them. When i was working in the early years, i began to notice a pattern, observations about people that were disadvantaged. People that were in prison. They seemed to talk differently. They seemed to interact differently with each other and interacted differently with me. They wore different clothes. They have different stories. They didnt talk about girl scouts and little league. They talked about finding food in the dumpster behind red lobster. And i met john for two years ago. We are teaching at the sit in college, and i started telling him about my observation. And he said that sounds a lot like the characteristics of the country that sociology has studied. But are not part of the American Social structure and culture. In a country, john aubrey talked about, a country as a lot of people, lots of people, even really small countries are larger than the universe of oklahoma which ourselves with a large. We also prisons, parole officers all over the country. They have their own political system and have owned economy. Preachers have the barter system. I would like to get some air wanted in the presence by the way comments i have canteen privileges and i find out that god was marijuana just loves Hershey Chocolate bars. Im in. I did to get my marijuana and he getgives us chocolate bars becae he does have canteen privileges. They have a barter system. What i want to talk what is this we will support aspects of the country which is a history. People in the country the common history. They have a common language and they have a common culture. What is the history of these nonViolent Offenders that we are talking about that are so different from people who dont go to prison . And begin a more talking about nonViolent Offenders. We know from research over about 10 or 15 years that most nonViolent Offenders are poor. That doesnt mean that all people that are poor come to prison, but it does set you up for that failure rate. Some of them work, about 60 of the people coming into prison have a job before they are arrested but they didnt make about 50 less than people who dont come to prison. This is probably connected to the fact that about 78 of people who come to prison do not have a High School Degree or a ged. And they seem to drop out of school somewhere between ninth grade and 11th grade. This is only because from childhood on they live and grow up in a world where they dont learn the social structures that require you to be in junior high and high school. Adventure Nine High School is where we are generally socialize through the American Culture. Theres prom, football games, basketball games, clubs after school. And this is where we kind of learned how to be american citizens in high school. So if you dont go to high school thats not part of your training. The other thing that happens is a fairly significant portion of people coming to prison have had a neglect, abuse in childhood. Neglect issues by getting food. Its not having a parent. Its waking up in the middle of the night scared of a thunderstorm and no parent or guardian for adult is there. Thats neglect. They dont have a coat in winter time. They dont have the right amount of food. Abuse is physical, emotional been told i wish i never had you, why cant you be like your brother . Why dont you just leave . Very terrible things to say to children. For women, the piece is a pretty serious. 57 reported sexual abuse that come to prison. About 25 have that abuse before they were 18. About 38 had it after they were 18. So you are a small child and something iraq of your innocence. Sexual abuse is robbing other innocents, probably one of the most damaging psychologically that anybody can have it as john was talking about, most women who come to prison on drug possession get most of the women used drugs to numb the pain. Most of them have. Host stresses were and they dont have the money to get treatment and counseling and medication so they use marijuana. Or math or just numb themselves. Another thing that happens is about 78 of the people who come to prison report substance dependence, alcohol and marijuana and that are the three most common path and then tell me about. And theyve been using usually since about 12 or 11 years of age. Remember the brain does a quick growing until about the age 20 so thats another reason a lot of them have trouble getting good jobs is the brain has never really matured. It tends to stop developing and growing when you begin to use alcohol and marijuana. So theyre kind of delayed in their development. Another thing that happens is about 50 of the people coming into prison or Mental Health history. They have been in in the hospil before. Thing about medication before. Maybe they were at a juvenile facility or theres some people there from the Mental Health hospital were a lot of young people go to get help. Fortunately, they do a lot of good work that helps them to avert from prison so im glad that they are here. They dont talk about coming to prison. I wanted to know what happens from this innocent little baby and fiveyearold that has all the dreams and ten years later they are in prison. What happens . So in psychology for about 5060 years, we had pretty solid evidence that we grew up, all human beings in a very planned and organized way. We have to learn to think, we have to learn to feel, we have to learn social skills and we have to figure out moral reasoning and we all go through them to get to be adults. But something happens thats different between people that go to prison and people who dont go to prison. And thats what i want to talk about right now. Its really the hard of our book. We are trying to educate them that many of these 50 of the people that are in there for drugs, are not there big and scary. Something terrible happened. Then we have three things that adults do well if theyre healthy. That is they have executive functioning skills. They can plan, organize. They know what to do when the weather gets bad in oklahoma and not stand out in the porch watching it come at your house and go to your shelter. Go now. They can get grocery meals so that they can eat. They know why they are feeling that way. We know how to read body language, we know how to listen to voice tones. That person must be having a bad day. Im going to go cheer them up. Those are healthy adult functioning skills. The most important healthy functioning skill is we know how to cultural live in American Society. We know extend the hand when its hello, my name, whereas in japan they tend to bow. We tend to stand 2 and a half feet of each other. In france they stand close to each other. Americans back up when that happens. We know what to do in weddings, in funerals. We know what to do. What happens if growing requires plants, little baby plants and people, plants need sunshine, which is like nurturing. They need water like food and dirt, something solid to stand it. Thats exactly what children need. They need consistency. We know from research that the first three years of life are critical to adult functioning in a healthy way. Think about your house. It has to have a really Solid Foundation to be with able to withstand storm. Just a lot of rain. When your house is really solid, you dont get the crack in the walls coming out of balance or like the house i just got where i had to completely redo the Foundation Just to get the front door to close. Thats what happens with children when they have consistency. They know when mom or dad they are laying in the crib crying. Mom and dad come. Hey, this is a cool deal. If i cried somebody is going to come in here and take care of me. When youre three or four years old, you know that mom or dad or big sister is going to come over and put a band aid and make you feel all better. You strikeout, mom and there are there to say, good try, way to go or a good coach. Thats what consistency is about. We need to have warm and cuddling hugs but also something cheering us on or holding our hands when we are scared. We knee structure. We need to know the difference from right and wrong. We need to know boundaries. We know what to do after psychological. School, the difference between kindergarten and college was not real different. I had to find a classroom and check if teacher was going to be nice or not. Okay, what happens to people in prison. They get a lot of gravel instead of a lot of dirt. The children growing up in disadvantaged home, television is on all of the time, screaming and yelling, they are usually hit or yelled at or go to your room, they dont learn from their mistakes. They dont know if mom and dad are going to be home. They go to school or they dont have a code or the latest clothes so the kids make fun of them and they dont have anybody explaining that. Again, neglect and abuse. They dont know if they are going to have dinner or not. One of the saddest is i was interviewing a sixyearold during psychological evaluation. The other thing that happens they live in the moment. Mom and dad get paid by friday, by sunday they have no money left for food. They kind of live whimsically. You grow up to survive. When you leash where the neighbors are that are going to take care of you if mom and dad dont come home. You can end up in adulthood in different ways we do. They learn to be devious. Its really just the explain the people i have met in the country called prison. They lie to get what they need. I really dont like that word. I tried to figure out an english word that would not mean lying on purpose. I might lie on purpose not to get in trouble. But these guys dont know how to tell the truth. They dont know what the truth is. They come in and daddy is sick, hes throwing. Is he sick, no, he had some troubles, bad food when, in fact, hes drunk. They learn to live infant fantasy. Its normal not to have silverware. Its not to have a backpack. Its normal to go to school cold. I see children with hoodies when its snowing. When they come into prison and the prison officers are their lips are moving their line, its the only way they know how to get out. They will come into me and make up this story so i will feel sorry for them so i would give them the phone call. I would just assume, hey, my mom is dying, can you please give me a phone call. When you tell me a sob story, i tell him that you could have just asked. I teach them that at least with me, you can just ask. I try to help them social skills and not lying and stuff. So what happens then is a prison culture thats different from america, but theyre going to come back to america. Almost everyone thats not violent, they come back to america in three years or less. In the time that they live in prison, they are not in america. I often feel like i go to a foreign country every day. I have an id badge and when i cross through the gait is like a passport. I cant leave without it. So what happens is in the prison culture we have a language there thats called objectification and turning human beings into furniture. They dont matter, theyre just furniture. We are going to shift, mr. Smith to the next prison, receiving yard. Every day at work an offender gets ready, we switch them to an orange uniform to gray, like a little shipping bag, tag, fedex and they say, okay, youre shipping now. They walk in a line where they get handcuffed and a belly chain cuffed. These are not violent people. They are locked down, when they get in the bus they are locked down like if theyre going to murder us all. Imagine what they are making them feel. Its too much emotion. Its too overwhelming to your psychological and you shut it off and when you do that, people stop being people and they start becoming furniture. The staff tend to youre a thief, murder, i dont know your name, i only know your doc number, i dont know if you have a mom or a dad or, you know, what happened to you. Youre just a thief and you need to get in that cell, i dont care if its 100degrees or not. Its time to lock down. They dont usually say it that nicely. Staff people what they want is compliance. They want furniture pieces to be. The people who live in prison also objectify as targets. We are somebody they can con and lie that the state hasnt provided to them. When youre in prison and you dont have underware, when you dont have hygiene, when you miss lunch, how can you get it if you dont figure out that the sweet psychologists will get it if you tell her a sweet story. On england they drive on the left side of the road, when we go to england, its a little weird, this is school, isnt this fun. When you come to prison and you sigh the way people act and treat each other, you see this is horrible, this is not right. Prison is a country of its own. Its not america. When i come to offenders for the first time, you are in a foreign country. Quit thinking about this as america because it will make you crazy. I have to think that way. I have to realize that im not in america. Its difficult after a while. The turnover rate in the staff with the department of corrections is fairly staff because it wares you out after a while and you dont want to do that. Another thing that happens in prison in the culture is we have four sub cultures. Prison is the first place i have ever worked in my 30something years of working that everybody doesnt have the same goal. The teacher, janitor, coaches, they all know why they are there, to educate the child, get the child a High School Degree and be a productive citizens. If youre at a hospital, nurses, doctors, the cooks in the kitchen, they know why they are there, to get the patient well and get home necessarily. Everybody is working for the same thing. Not in prison. The administrative people, the cooks, maintenance, managers are there to run the business, make sure the electricity is paid, food is done, gas in the buses. The license professional people, medical doctors, den cities, Mental Health people are there to provide health, we have a license, code of ethics that we have to rely on. The resident are there and they are there because somebody told them to be in imout. Timeout. What happens . We have four groups of People Living in this country called prison. We all celebrate the fourth of july together. Thanksgiving, we all know why that is. That doesnt happen in prison. We do different things. And we work against each other many times. I am told i cant get him out of cell. I prefer saying houses. Its lockdown today. I cant let anybody out. Well, thats too bad. Okay. So i go and tell the person. Hes crying i have to talk to a door, everybody has to hear it. The rule in prison is you dont cry. Here is a man losing his mother who is close to, he cant do the Human Experience of grief. I wonder what that does to him psychologically. He has all the things left over that have to be said. He doesnt get to hear his die i love you, the unconditional love. What happened then, im on call tonight and at 2 00 oclock in the morning i have an officer calling me so and so is threatening to kill himself. I get to come into the prison and now the officers have to do extra work, i have to do extra work, a fiveminute phone call would have stopped that but we work against each other most of the times. What do we need to do to fix this . First of all we need to help offenders to learn the american way. It teaches you the the game teaches you how to build a community, build a farm, it teaches you longrange plans, organizational skills, budgeting,etting along with your neighbors and instead of the offenders sitting around figure out how to get into trouble they could be in the Library Game Room playing social skills. The biggest thing that we could do, if we could do anything tomorrow, it would cost nothing if separate out the violent people from the nonviolent people. It is insane to me that we just throw i have people together. We would never put a cancer patient with a lady delivering a baby. At 40i am not going to listen to an 18yearold. Theyre nice but not in my room. What happens what if we designate and get schooling, education and ged. We know what it takes to people to grow up. Again, with not much money, we can do interactive television, ou has online classrooms. I could right now in my office treat offenders, they could get Parenting Classes and it would cost very little. Another thing that we need to do with survival is we need to help people return to america ready to go to work, food clothing and shelter, most people come back to prison within six months. Not most, but the large percentage of them come within two or three months, they dont have food, clothing and shelter, they within the get a job. Now, john is going to talk about some of the bigger things that we need to do that requires some legislation. So one of the things that we came to realize as we were writing this book was my social work background. Programs that dont work, that dont prove measurable effective, usually in a social workforce they dont fund you anymore. In the prison system nothing like failure. The taxpayers give me more money so i can make my prison bigger or build a bigger one. One of the things to consider is funding and using private prisons, if thats what we are going to do based on rates. It would take very little from us to actually do this, but this would actually give us an ability to kind prove that they do what we all want. What we all want is a safe community, we dont have to keep feeding and housing and sheltering them. We ought to really do that with the programs that actually work. We try to at least the best we can get a handle on how much it costs you and i. Right now if the District Attorney incarcerates a drug offender, that cost comes out of the cost of the state of oklahomas Department Tax base. Me as a county resident, i dont know what that cost because its disbursed. Vote for me. You know t prison system says feed us, feed us, give us more. Thats an interesting kind of component to think about is actual costs. Secondly, i think thirdly i think we ought to think about automatic espongant. You can get a lawyer to hopefully get your record expunge and five years you dont have to report that to a job. We ought to really look seriously at how we treat mentally ill and adictd addicted individuals. Theres no evidence saying its cheaper than drug treatment. Depending on the study, whether you look at other studies, you can send somebody to treatment three to five times with the cost of incarcerating them. What we know its a highly effective means by which to deal with this problem. We want to thank you all for being here tonight. We want to give you the opportunity to ask us some questions whether you have ideas or love to entertain those possibilities for you. Any questions . Yes. Over there. Good evening, thank you very much very bringing the issues up. For the past years i have been a volunteer of doc to visiting prisons. I want to make a statement but i want to enlighten some people. One thing that you did say mary about the social condition, one of the factors to economist prisoners is the lack of a male figure to have individuals see what a male is supposed to be in their life, and this is something we cant legislate, it comes from a society and a heart. The other thing about legislation, john, and we all know in our heart, we the people are the people who elect people who promise to put more people in prison, so its up to us, hey, lets have a little more compassion, we dont want to put drug offenders because they sold 200 feet from my kids school. Would you tell people what all recall as penitentiary was . What was the question . I think if you look at the history of penitentiary, the longterm of history would indicate where you would send people to send, we are in a catholic church. You took the sinner and separated them from the community and put them in this place. That was the original idea that crime was a sin. Any other questions . Hold on. Up here. He wants to get you on the mic, i think. Raise your hand. Oh. At night as religious volunteers in prison for 25 years and its really [inaudible] and we have noticed in our ministry that there is a reduced rate of people voluntarily go through our process of drawing people close to the lord. Do you have any comments or statistics on how effective this work is . I cant quote the statistics, im very familiar with the program. I cant quote exact numbers. To me like a threeman program with a spiritual flavor to it helps people do exactly what we are recommending, good selfesteem, feelings about themselves, prosocial and they also become more spiritual. Yes, i wish we could have cairos everywhere. I would like to ask a question, i hope its not too complicated. Lawmakers tends to as we heard tend to want to put more people in prison. Thats theyre elected on that basis. A complaint of lawmakers is that they must not cut down on sentences like oklahoma is talking about doing right now because we all know that they are going to be letting out the murderers and rapists and sex molesters. Is this true or not . Thats an excellent question and its misunderstood by people. When a person is assigned to the department of corrections a judge has ordered a specific amount of time that they have to serve, that is kept track of by the department of corrections and people who get, you know, close to their discharge date, lets say im going to serve, you know, 18 months, when i hit that 18month day, just when you graduate from the university of oklahoma, i leave the prison. So when we are told if the governor says, okay, everybody that was doing sentence with this, they now have to only do five years, we know who those people are, we know which ones he is talking about and we pull all the files and we calculate them. If somebody is on furtherer without parole, they dont get released. Weve got them tagged. They dont leave and everything. I would say this too, if you look at the federal system in particularly theres a lot of sentencing strategies that have, indeed, made some of the sentences for nonViolent Offenders longer. On the federal system you have a mandatory minimum drug charge crimes where people may spend, if they have the right amount of crack cocaine 25 years in prison which could be longer than many rape sentences. Its a complex question that honestly if legislators would actually look if punishment fit the crime and made decisions based on the punishment. It would be really fascinating. To my knowledge, theres never been a study that would suggest that giving someone five years for Armed Robbery is better than giving them seven or ten. What perfect length of time is there to stop a robber from wanting to rob again . And we never figured that out and im not sure we tried very hard. Next. That, for example, countries with comparable levels of development. What is it what it is about American Culture that causes us to do that and how did we go down that road . Well, i think, you know, the short answer here is that we didnt always we werent always on that road, we kind of got in the road in late 1970s, 1980s with the decisions that were made about drug punishment and harsher sentences and i think a lot of was about psychological per perspective and people try to profit from the incarceration off their neighbors. As money started happening into this corporations started building for them. All of a sudden we take people and turn them into profit centers, mary. The other part of that is if you look at how crime has evolved, for instance, the mentally ill are penalized. So what happens is in america we tend to emotionalize the prison system. If some little kid is attacked on the schoolyard because somebody is on meth, gosh, if you get within 200 yards of a school youre going to go to prison. Im not saying that. Im just saying like if you know the highway, you bring an engineering team, yeah this bridge is going to fall down, we need to fix it, but the legislation rarely asks the criminologists to say tell us the right thing to do. The last response to your question, we developed, many of you may not be aware of, our crime rates have continued to drop in the last five or seven years but the fear of crime continues to rise. More people put arm las and yet the reality is crime continues to decline in this country, you know, and so i think we have a culture of fear and weve kind of people if you look at the reality, most of us are in danger of driving home than becoming victims of crime. If that answers your question. I have a question to dr. Looman and carl, dr. Looman first. How can we begin to see that happen in corrections . Well, i think we could start practicing what we preach. If its the department of corrections, we might want to start correcting. At work we call it the department of containment because thats what we are doing. We are not fixing everybody doing this. We are not making anybodys life better. I think admission of most prisons in the United States is protect the community, protect the inmate, its all about safety. What happens is if you have a goal that is create productive citizens, that would focus everybody to helping people get better not worse. For instance, in football you get what you want. At the end of the game, nobody really matters how many flags went out if ou won. We are just excited. We are counting the wrong thing. We count failure. We kept track of rate for 30 years. We have not kept track of how many dont come back. We dont come back of how many taxes they are paying. We only keep track of the failure. [inaudible] i think there is someone who is profiting from mass incarceration. Would you like to discuss that briefly, perhaps . The focus on our book is not particularly that, but its certainly a well welldocumentedkindof question. When some of the best Stock Investments in the country are involved me putting my Retirement Funds in the hands of somebodys whose job is to lock up by fellow man, this becomes really an interesting question, can they do it effectively. If they can do it cheaper, thats one thing. I think the notion that Public Safety is the number one reason we have prison is really kind of interesting because if all i want to do is keep the public safe, then that is a pretty easy task to accomplish. You dont want your rug to pee on the rug, just lock them up and they wont. That becomes a very expensive dehumanizing decision, i think, but its a decision that we have made in this country and that really ushered in the private prison movement. In 1970s you didnt have private prison. This is the result of war on drugs and the massive incarceration. One more question for dr. Looman, are people coming out of prison more psychological damage, is that a trend . Its not a trend. Its a fact. The prison promise syndrome. Its on the internet if you want to type that in. First of all, the dehumanizing just being dehumanized. You come into prison and you are stripped searched, shaved head and given a number. Your name no longer exists. You live in a cell that basically i would challenge any of you to spend one weekend locked in your bathroom with somebody bringing you food three times a day. Do you think public offenders in america have effect on massive incarceration rates . Public defenders . Yes. They would indicate that they are definitely more likely to take a plea bargain than a trial. The poorer you are the more likely you are to have a public defender depending in our state which is a rural state, there would be counties who you have an attorney pressed into service to serve that role. Now, the reality of the situation, probably the vast majority of people are guilty of the crimes that we sent them to, the real question is that the crime we are incarcerateing them for worth 3040,000 a year to do that. First, i would like to thank the two of you very, very much for your presentation. Thank you. And for your book. Thank you. I worked at the Assessment Center in 1982. You keep referring to the 80s. I was there in the 80s. As it turned out the system they had at that time, the numbers today its the same, the numbers. Ive wondered all these years why dont they use a Social Security number, we all have a social number. For some reason theyve never done that. In order to track, a guy may come in, oklahoma as a nonViolent Offender, but he might have a record in arizona as a Violent Offender. People who are under the influence, no matter what the drug is, prescription do things because their brain is put to sleep. Back in those days, i was really trying to make others aware of this. It was very, very difficult. Administrators made life very difficult. I did what you are doing now, evaluations of offenders. So anyway, i thank you. I was so excited to hear about this and your book. Thank you very much. Anyone else . Dr. Looman, i would like to know what you know about the legislation on medical discharge and we see a lot of the inmates where the offenders pass away towards the end of sentence, they apply for medical release and drags on so long that they end up passing away for a long time weve had medical discharge but the governor just did sign a new bill in may that is supposed to move that along quicker. The purpose and perception of the bill is actually good and humane but, you know, bureaucracy, so all the forms have to be made, all the committees have to get done to get it happening, but if its implemented quickly within the next few months, i think we will start seeing people leave and youre right because those who are terminally ill the cost to taxpayers would be way much more than they would be in hospice care. Im glad you brought that question up. You can both answer. Here is the question, as weve listened to you tonight and learned from statistics and maybe had our hearts opened a little bit more about the reality of prison, what would be your suggestion for first step that we could do as we walk out of this building that would move the process along, educate the right people and begin to make change . Shes going to let me go first on that one so she can think and be wise. Theres a number of things that we can think about doing. The first is, i think that you should get to know who your state representative is, who your federal representative, who is your District Attorney. Theres a story in the book which was actually a true story when a candidate who was running for District Attorney in the county which in i live and came into my door and i had a conversation about the individual about what percentage of the people that youre sending to prison that youre bragging about were nonviolent. This was a freebie. I said, no, its not. The perception was i should have gone, yeah, as oppose to thinking, wait a second, is this really the way i should spend my tax money. The first thing you should do is question your representative and the other thing that you should consider is have a mishundredsing about how dangerous many of these people are. There are certain dangerous people in prison and lee them there. They are all the same is really problematic. Mary and i believe in one simple thing. We both believe that people can change. The problem with massive incarceration is that zebras cant change their stripes when sometimes, in fact, they can. They do they cant just get a job. They are pretty traumatized when they leave. More than anything, they need a big brother or a big sister. We get it for children, we know that works, but they need a job coach. They need they need clothes. They need transportation. They dont have a car when they get out of prison, they dont have money to put gas in it, they dont have lunch money and yet they have to start work. So i think businesses in america have to start a program that helps people return to work in a humane and health and productive way. Yes, there will be a few failures but most people who start to work within an organization that supports them from a year or two in terms of mentoring are very successful and go onto college or go onto raise their children to go to college and not come to prison. The last question. Yes. Youre mentioning about most people can change, a segue for me to bring up what i want to. Since 1993 ive directed an organization that supports and gives information for those who have committed a sex offense through the organization with cure. It fraws frustrates to hear so much emphasis on nonviolent support. I commend the state, but with everybody with the sex offense is lumped up. There are many people that would do much better than nonViolent Offenders. Some of those with very difficult with Child Molesting cases, they really want change. The letters i get can break your heart. Knowing some of the therapist that i do around the country, i just hope that we can start bringing in more with the realization, knowing that so many of these people committed an offense with somebody they knew or somebody they are related to. Yeah, i think youre saying something that i completely agree with it. Not everybody who is convicted of a sex crime is the same person either. Some 17yearold who gets handsy with a 15yearold. Thats a different person. Thats a difference with a rapist and and acquaintance rapist. We love to categorize people as they. Im not sure its real productive for us in the long run. I want to thank all of you for coming tonight. I want you to know that there are still a few books back there. Mary and i are going to donate whatever you buy tonight to kind of continue this lecture series here. So if you buy a book tonight, its going to come to the church so they can bring somebody else up here. Theres also wine and cheese in the back room and well be in the back, we will take comments, criticisms, remarks, whatever is appropriate. Thank you for your time. [applause] cspan presents landmark cases, the book, a guide to our landmark series which explores 12 Supreme Court decisions. Landmark cases, the book, features intersections, backgrounds and highlights and the impacts of the case written by veteran tony mauro and published by cspan in cooperation with cq press. Landmark cases is available for 8. 95 plus shipping. Get your copy today at cspan. Org slash landmarkcases. Well, ive traveled the world. Im a man of the south. I actually never thought myself that way before but coming to nashville i realize its so similar to new orleans and so many places that i grew up. Its a unique demonstration of the american esthetic that we have in the south. One of passion, one of great vision, great opinion. But its just very unique to have that sort of awakening today. It reminded me of what i went through in new orleans. I am an actor but i first and foremost are from new orleans, that northern most caribbean city. [laughter] the big easy. Right. [laughter] its a place thats so unique and defining of who i am. It is like a loved one. It is a family member. It is someone, i even speak of it as a person, someone who is near and dear to my heart. So ten years ago when the disaster, the flood of new orleans that happened during katrina, i thought i had lost it. I thought that she had died, many of us can remember where we were when we heard those faithful notice, do you know what it means to when you nice miss the one you care for more than you miss new orleans. We thought she was gone forever. That storm destroyed 80 of the city and i knew that 20 years from now some kid was going to come up to me and say, mr. Pierce, in new orleans darkest hour, what did you do . I wanted to have an answer to that. I decided that im an artist first and foremost. I responded as an artist, i with the classical theater of new york did a production of waiting for godo, the play from 50 years ago that is distant, looking for an entity outside of themselves to find purpose, to find a sense of their own humanity, who they are and what do they stand for. Waiting for gado, something outside of themselves. And there was an image of two men in new who new orleans in an the water abandoned slightly moving up in the air. Paris to 1984 where they did the play in the bulk of wars. People were suffering in the violence, the ugliest part, we always see the ugliest part to san quentin. And then we went to new orleans and realized that in that vast emptiness with miles around where everything was destroyed, hollowed grounds saw what the flood did and how many lives were destroyed and hundreds of people had died, on that hollowed ground, we said, lets do the play here. Lets respond to what has happened to our city, to our community here, and thats where i decided to do the play. You can watch this and other programs online at booktv. Org. Democratic president ial Hillary Clinton released her personal memoir, hard choices, last area, here she is discussing why she wrote it. So i that i could give you the readers a peek behind the curtain. And its more difficult to even get information about the socalled trend lines. I wanted to combine both and the hardest part for me about writing this book was that it was, believe it or not, three times longer when i first finished it. I wanted to put every funny story, every bizarre meal, whatever i could remember and want today share. The publisher did say, you have to cut twothirds of this book. Obviously theres a lot of that, but also the human side. Not just me, but what i saw and learned as a traveled around the world. A signature feature is coverage of book fairs and festivals across the country. Coverage start on saturday november 21st authors include author peggy nunez that talking about the time of our life. A reporters journey, lights out, a cyberattack, a nation unprepared. Surviving the aftermath. A reader then msnbc, barack obama, clintons and the racial divide. Be sure to follow and tweet us your questions at book tv and add cspan on twitter. Here is a look at the some authors recently featured at after words. Former senator and embassador john danford believes religion can help divide. In the coming weeks of after words, the early life of kissinger in the nixon administration. Roberta and this weekend former congressman kennedy will speak about struggle with addiction and bipolar disorder. Everybody knew it and it was written about everywhere. For her age she was known like betty ford, being an alcoholic. We kept id it under wraps. No one would look at her, no one would talk to her. It was kind of like the people that we all walked by in washington, d. C. And we dont look at, we walked by and it was the same thing except its my mother. You can watch all previous after words programs on our web scythe at booktv. Org