Transcripts For CSPAN3 Discussion On Race Relations And Police Accountability 20160104

To make the ultimate constitutional determinations. Other branches have that responsibility, too. Attorney general, do you have anything to add . I dont think so. You cant top that. Everybodys been very patient, but i do see were coming up on 10 00, and i feel that the red light on the podium is going off. So if you have any closing thoughts, either of you wed love to hear them. Or with that, wed like to thank you for your time and everything. President bill clinton is in New Hampshire today on his First Campaign trip for hillary in 2016. Hell talk about how hillary will make a difference for families in the Granite State and across the country. Thats live today at 5 15 p. M. Eastern on cspan. Tonight on the communicators, Consumer Technology Association President gary shapiro on the Major Technology issues he expects in 2016 and why the cta changed its name this past fall to Consumer Technology association. Hes joined by tony rohm, politicos technology reporter. Innovation, over 3600 exhibiting companies and over 2. 4 million net square feet of exhibit space. Thats up from 2. 24 million in 2015. So its going to be spectacular. More innovation, more excitement, more different categories than ever before. And its the future. Its a show where the solving problems reallife problems for the world, not just about entertainment, education and information. Its about health care. Its about transportation. Clean food. Clean water. Greater food production. Were solving big problems with technology. Tonight at 8 00 eastern on the communicators on cspan2. Now well hear from a former police chief and state legislators from communities that recently made news for racial tensions with police. Hosted by the National Black caucus of state legislators, this is an hour, 20 minutes. Thank you all, and its a great honor to be here. Im particularly pleased to be able to be engaged with such a distinguished panel. And i know they are known to all of you, but just for the purposes of the record, id just like to acknowledge who is on the panel. And then we will just proceed by way of posing some questions, asking our panelists to talk about some of the very, very crucial issues of race that we are all facing at this time. First, we have the honorable Katherine Pugh who is the president. Shes been a Public Servant for over 20 years, has been a member of the baltimore, maryland, city council. Before coming to the senate, she is currently the majority leader and has been named the best politician for getting the job done by the city paper. She has been an entrepreneur by trade and is currently also someone who has been received the naacp legislator of the year award. We also have with us the honorable Gilda Cobb Hunter who is mbcsl vice president. Shes with the South Carolina house of representatives. She was the first africanamerican woman in Orangeburg County ever elected to a statewide office. And she became the first freshman appointed to and is now Ranking Member of the house ways and means committee. And she is also of the first ever to lead first person of color ever to lead a legislative caucus as the House Minority leader. She has been dubbed the conscience of the house. Shes also vice chair of the africanamerican history Monument Commission and has led an historic effort to build the first monument to africanamericans on the ground for the new State Capitol. Shes also executive director of casa family systems which is a Family Violence agency serving orangeburg and calhoun countys. We also have with us the honorable carl hasty who is the first africanamerican to serve as speaker of the new york state assembly. He, in his first budget as speaker, he has worked closely with the Assembly Majority to develop a Financial Plan that made an historic 1. 8 billion investment in education. He represents the 83rd district in the northeast bronx. And among his many legislative achievements, he was principal negotiator in securing an increase in the minimum wage which was historic and trend setting, actually, in terms of the fight for minimum wage. He has also been a champion of Public Health and was instrumental in the passage of a law that prohibited the sale of water containing nicotine to children under 18. I think it speaks volumes that you should even have to pass a law that would prevent such a product. But he has also been a very strong proponent of aid for victims of domestic violence. We also have with us the honorable clem smith from the Missouri State house of representatives. He is also cochair of the mbcsl military and Veterans Affairs committee. He received his degree from Columbia College and has been a longstanding member of trade unions, working in the Aircraft Assembly working in the aircraft industry. He serves on the exec tough committee and also on the National Labor caucus of the aflcio. We also have with us senator Donny Trotter who was elected to the illinois General Assembly in 1988. He previously served in the house of representatives and was then elected to the state senate where he served as chair of the joint illinois legislative black caucus. From the beginning, senator trotter has championed Health Care Initiatives for women and children and addressing Environmental Justice issues as well as laws banning assault weapons. I think we can all think about why thats particularly salient thing at this moment, witnessing the Current Events unfold. Currently he is assistant majority leader and chair of the Appropriations Committee overseeing the budget. Hes been working to ensure that economically disadvantaged communities are represented at the table in terms of finding poverty, through legislation, his kid care, family care and senior Care Initiatives have all worked to improve health care for these communities. Use also been a leader in some juvenile justice issues. And finally, last but not least, we have with us chief Chris Burbank who is the director of the Law Enforcement engagement with the center for policing equity, chief burbank is recently retired but has been a part of a very groundbreaking program which is actually affiliated with one of my colleagues at ucla. Its the center for policing equity. My colleague, phil goff, who teaches in the Psychology Department has been a leader in thinking about ways of addressing bias in policing, and chris has been a central part of the center for policing equity since its inception. He was an unwavering advocate of the National Justice database as solutions to waning public trust and confidence in policing, worked with the Salt Lake City Police Department from 1991 until his retirement in june of this year. And he was appointed to chief of police in march of 2006. Hes been selected as a member of the enlightened 50 most influential leaders in the state of utah. And selected as one of six Police Chiefs in the nation to meet with president obama to discuss the administrations plan and direction concerning gun violence. I could go on, but i think wed much rather hear from these people than hear about these people. So at this point im going to pose a couple of questions and hopefully get a lively discussion and hear from them about the very Important Information and work that theyve been doing. So in many respects, you all represent baltimore, South Carolina, illinois, new york, missouri. Theres a powerful thread that really connects all these places in a kind of racial geography. These are all places where over the past two years, black men, women and children have been killed by the police and people have paid attention. I put it this way because its clear that the death of black people at the hands of police is not new. Its a longstanding part of our history. Its been something that black people have struggled with for a long time. Indeed going back to 1951, a group of activists including Paul Roberson filed a petition at the United Nations called we charge genocide in which one of the bill of particulars that they brought to the u. N. Was the repeated violence by the police against black people. What seems to be different now is that many people have refused to accept this as normal. Recently i was pleased to be at an event that honored the judge damon keith who is a renowned civil rights lawyer and respected jurist, one of the longest serving black federal judges. And he put it this way. When youre in pain, you have to complain. So interested we are very interested in your perspectives on this, to tell us what is or what is not happening on the ground with regard to policing and the efforts to deal with the racial crisis that its produced and perhaps well just start right now with senator pugh. Well, i think what ive experienced in baltimore, as many people are able to see around the country, the experience of freddie gray i think created an uproar in our communities about Police Brutality or black men specifically dying at the hands of police. And so what that has done is it has spurred this movement not just in baltimore but i believe across the nation, it makes us take a look at what do we expect police to do . I mean, we hire them to protect and serve our communities, and i think a recent report showed that when the Police Encounter in many of our Africanamerican Community what they deem to be a situation of violence that when they go to arrest or take care of one of our individuals in our communities that we often find that theyre being shot or theyre killed. In the case of freddie gray, it was his traveling from the time he was arrested to the Police Station and then later to the hospital where he was killed where he was dead but killed by the police by virtue of his ride to the Police Station. But it also sent an alarm out to the community as to what are we expecting police to do . Why do so many black folks end up dead in these situations . And so i think what has happened now is this whole look at policing in our communities, what do we need to do . How do we reform behavior that has become a part of these individuals who we hire to protect and serve . In maryland what were doing currently is looking at the whole practice of policing in our neighborhoods. Cultural sensitivity, whether or not there needs to be psychological evaluation for police who serve in particular neighborhoods over a period of time. But really just this whole idea of how do you respect a community in which you serve. And so i think thats part of the converasations that were having in baltimore and im sure part of the converasations that being held around the nation. And then the other issue that we found when we began to look at policing in baltimore is that less than less than 20 of our 20 or less have lived in our city. So our police force does not resemble the community that it serves. And so its very difficult for you to understand a community when youre not a part of the community. So were looking at all of those issues and how do we change that in our community . Representative smith . Yes. So what are we doing in missouri . Not much, to be honest. I just have to be truthful. Pretty much everybody here may know about the Mike Brown Killing that happened in ferguson, which is in st. Louis county right outside of the district i represent. And it brought to light a lot of issues that had been going on in the area of Excessive Force used upon black men. And a lot of times ending in long prison sentences or death as we saw in the case of mike brown. And then we had a couple other shootings afterwards dealing with st. Louis city Police Department. And those officers were found nothing went wrong. And it seems like deadly force is the goto before using a taser, before talking with an individual that may be holding a butter knife. Were going to fill them with lead, and then well figure it out and say i feared for my life, and it goes that way. And the legislature, what weve tried to do, a small group of us, was try to get different standards put in place. Some cultural sensitivity things put in place. Weve got a lot of departments that the makeup of the officers does not reflect the community at all. As we saw in ferguson. You had almost 70 black People Living there. But you had two officers i think that were black. And that makes a difference. You have to be relatable to the people that you are supposed to be serving and protecting. So out of all of this, kind of missouris answer was to limit the amount of traffic revenue a city could receive. Weve got kids, men, women getting mishandled by lawsuit, but the response was lets do something about traffic revenue. So the ball was dropped. Theres a group of us that will continue to fight. But if we dont have cooperation there, things are extremely partisan. Nothing will happen. So you mentioned that the move was made to cap the revenue. I take it that that was in response to the department of justice report that one of the things that was discovered and when the ferguson situation was investigated was that the traffic stops and the misdemeanor offenses were being used as a way of raising revenue for the city as opposed to actually ensuring public safety. But i can tell that youre quite skeptical that even this initiative is going to have any meaningful effect on the way in which policing is sort of revenue driven. Right. And with that report, it kind of it brought up an issue that was happening in a lot of different municipalities. St. Louis county has, like, 91 different political subdivisions within it. So weve got a lot of small city, a lot of small different Police Departments. So with senate bill 5 which capped revenue from traffic tickets, it brought the percentage down to 12. 5 in st. Louis county. Well, ferguson was at 13. So it didnt impact ferguson that much. It actually impacted a lot of cities that were ran and led by, you know, africanamerican leadership. So it was they skirted arounm the issue. And there was good bills that were filed that could have addressed some of these murderous practices head on. And they went to the side. Senator trotter, of course, chicago has been very much in the news about the recent disclosure of the video concerning walker. What is your perspective on how this discussion is unfolding in illinois . Well, first and foremost, its nothing new. You know, what makes chicago stand out in this particular instance is that as the rallying cry says, its 16 shots and 400 days. 16 shots and an unarmed man, and its been 400 days before the administration or our government of entities acknowledged the fact that this was over the top. What has happened in chicago and whats happening in the rest of america is as old as america. Certainly since reconstruction. These Police Officers are just those unmasked Ku Klux Klansmen who went to your house, by normally deputy sheriffs in their parttime job during the day. This is nothing new. So we have to get back to the whole thing is what is the mission of our Police Departments . Is their mission to serve and protect the people or serve and protect those individuals that got them their jobs, that inserted their wealth . They are that wall between, in some instances and in a lot of instances, no matter where it is, between those who have and those who have not. And the actions and the force of actions that they take is, in many cases, condoned. I had my ipad, todays tribune headlines. As we know, being out here in california, we had 14 People Killed yesterday. Yes. 14 people. Our headlines is saying that the mayor says we dont need no probe. I dont need no doggone probe, no federal probe. Were taking care of this right here. But this is a universal thing that we have to address. Its just become more knowledgeable because of the internet of those stories being told. But i dont care if youre from birmingham, alabama, if youre from tucson, arizona, or chester, indiana. The thing is, this is whats going on. And we as a Community Must stand united to get the message out. You know, to serve us in some instances to acknowledge us as a people and not as an enemy. And those are the kinds of things were going to be looking at. The culture in illinois right now, one of the biggest things that is going on is that we are finding out the reason why for 400 days this Police Officer who did this who had 17 charges of excessive violence against him and has never been punished, why was he still working collecting his full salary is because we have put in place in illinois, which we have to address, and empowered their union until there is a conviction, they can stay on their job. And get paid. So, i mean, theres all these other smaller things that enforces or allows these Police Officers to do what they do because they are not in fear of punishment, and we have to tear apart those Little Things that allow them to get away with this. Those are very interesting comments. And it leads me to ask you, speaker hasty, if you wouldnt mind weighing in. As weve talked about, in many of the cases whose names we know like michael brown, like eric garner and in many of those whose names we do not know, many of whom are black women, even though they, too, are killed and subject to Racial Disparities in terms of stops, what the problem that we face is that the law frequently does not impose responsibility. That is that there are ways in which either the Police Officers are not indicted or theyre either not guilty verdicts or sometimes even under the best circumstances, even if they are charged and found guilty of, say, civil rights violations, theyre indemnified by local government. That is, local government has to pay those verdicts. So from your perspective, what would accountability look like . What would it mean, and what would be necessary to achieve it . Well, for us in new york, you can pick a borough. You mentioned eric garner. I had one in my Assembly District named graham, he was shot and killed in front of his grandmother and his younger brother. The first report i remember getting a phone call saying that i was home, i was actually going to teach a class later that night. And she asked me to come over to the precinct. And they told me that a young man had gotten into was wrestling with a Police Officer over his gun because there was belief that he had marijuana. So i said to the officer, i said, you mean to tell me a young man would wrestle with a Police Officer over his gun for a bag of marijuana . To make a long story short, that wasnt the case. And many of you can go online and see the video. They said that he was run ago way. You saw him walk right into his house. The officers came, they looked like two mad men trying to break down the door. So weve been trying to look at things two ways. One, what can we do to have better relationships with the police so that they dont look at our young men this way . Weve also tried to go legislatively to try to make these officers more responsible. And we were able we passed a bill authorizing the attorney general in the state of new york to be a special prosecutor. The tsfat, which is republican controlled, didnt do it, but our governor was the first in the nation to actually do an executive order to have the attorney general prosecute or investigate cases where people may have died in the hands of police. And one of the the indictment. So we also want to have some transparency in the grand juries as well. To give the family some comfort that if somehow the indictment doesnt happen, we want to understand why. So we want to kind of unveil what happens in the grand jury to give those families comfort, as i said, if an indictment doesnt happen. And then sometimes, you know, in the eric garner case, you had a district attorney, then later elected to congress. The question is were just not sure how strong of a case he actually put together. And i think if we start to have the grand jury, the charges that were given to the grand juries, i think if those were a little more transparent, i think these district attorneys may pay a little more faenattention on ho they move forward in doing these indictments on these officers. So thats kind of the two ways were looking at it in new york. Thank you. Representative cobb, actually, same question. Im interested to know what do you think accountability might look like given your experience and what are some of the efforts that youve been undertaking in South Carolina . Well, i think first, good morning, and thank you for moderating this conversation. For me, accountability simply from my perspective means a system checks and balances that hold Police Accountable for the loss of life. Accountability is something that really does give weight to the phrase black lives matter. And just on a separate point, you talked in your opening about pain, when one feels pain, theyll complain. One of the things that i hope we will not allow this discussion to end without making the point of is that people are in pain now because we have video. We have cell phone videos. We have documentation of what has occurred. That is something thats new and is not something that we ought to take for granted. In South Carolina, i am proud to say that we passed the first body camera legislation in the country. But i would remind those of you who were here last year to remember our conversation and understand that passing body camera legislation in and of itself is not going to cure the ills of police violence. What we have to make sure of is that we look as a social worker, i look at systems. And i think its important for part of this conversation to talk about what kind of assessments were doing to allow people to become Police Officers in the first place. The other part, you know, youve got to understand that when people strap on a uniform, and i know were going to hear from the only Law Enforcement real cop thats up here, but we need to understand that that really does something to people. And it gives them some kind of whatever that is not good for people of color. So accountability is something that we ought to be careful about. But final point, there is no cookiecutter approach to accountability. What is accountability in South Carolina may not work in illinois. May not work in maryland or new york. But we as individual legislators have got to look at our individual states and drill down to our districts, ask the tough questions and make sure that we are getting the right answers and you get right answers to tough questions by not accepting one source. Thank you. Thank you. I should mention that cspan is filming our discussion, and it will be airing at a later date. So well look forward to that. Chief, to you. The question is how does recently james comey, head of the fbi, made a statement that seemed to endorse something thats been called the ferguson effect. That is, the idea that the critique of the police use of force is related to recent apparent spikes in Violent Crime. And he described it this way. He said, each incident that involves real or perceived Police Misconduct drives one line this way. Each time an officer is attacked in a line of duty, it drives the line the other line this way. I actually feel the lines continuing to arc away from each other incident by incident, video by video, more and more quickly just as those lines are arcing away from each other and maybe because they are arcing away, we have a crisis of Violent Crime in some of our most vulnerable communities across the country. Whats your reaction to that, and whats your thought about this socalled ferguson account . I sat in a meeting yesterday and heard the director give that very same speech. And the thing that we need to recognize is the criminal Justice System in the United States is a broken system. And we measure our success by the number of people that we arrest. And when we look at the outcome that that produces, we have more people incarcerated in the United States than any other nation in the world. Yet i read yesterday that the shooting here in los angeles was the 355th mass killing. Thats four people or more dying at one time this year. That is unacceptable. And that is not success. We send Police Officers out each and every day into our communities with the notion of zero tolerance, cops on dots, stop and frisk, with the idea of preventing crime from occurring. And we look at the net that is drawn by that, and we incarcerate people at about 70 are misdemeanor crimes that are not Violent Crimes that are not reducing it. We have never solved drug, alcohol and Mental Health issues by putting somebody in jail or prison. So it is not enough simply to look at the number of shootings that were having right now. Right . We need to look at why. When you talk to Police Officers in ferguson, in baltimore and you have attitude that says neighborhoods are lost, its a war zone out there, theres nothing we can do to save that neighborhood, right . That is absolutely wrong. And we are not going to produce solid outcomes by sending officers into that situation. We need to change the dynamic and expectation of every single Police Officer in this nation. One of not how many people do we arrest, how many people do we not arrest, we divert into other programs and thus prevent the Violent Crime that is truly the scourge happening right now in the United States. So when you look at how do we change, right . What is it that we need to do . We need to hold officers accountable. But the problem with that system, whether it is the department of justice, whether it is the local district attorney, that is after the fact. Someone has lost their life. Its the same measure of crime. If someone comes in and commits a homicide in any neighborhood, great that we catch them after the fact, but we still have the impact on society on that family and a person has lost their life. It is no different than when a Police Officer is involved in a shooting. That is a failure of our system. Right . That we need to change the dynamic. We need to look and say why are we sending plafrs out and what is the expectation . Because how do we perpetuate this problem . You go into a neighborhood, and in the case of ferguson and other places, and you ask, in a foursquareblock area, youve written a Million Dollars worth of tickets and arrested as a higher rate than anywhere else, and then you ask the question, well, why do they hate us in that neighborhood . It is time to change the paradigm, change our expectation for police. We feed to push it beyond just are officers involved in shootings and how do we train them better . Absolutely we need to do that. But it needs to go down to the core level of what is our expectation in each and every community . Because if we enforce in all neighborhoods the same way we do in neighborhoods that we designate as high crime neighborhoods and unfortunately those are impoverished neighborhoods we would have the same effect on a University Campus in wealthy white neighborhoods or anywhere else if we have that oppressive type of zerotolerance policing taking place. You are going to create an outcome very similar, and we need to change that dynamic. Senator pugh, you had a thought you wanted to add . Yeah, i wanted to follow up on something that Gilda Cobb Hunter said as well when we talk about and id like to hear from the Police Officer as well. One of the things that we did in maryland when we began to look at what is happening in baltimore, part of it was looking at what should a Police Officer be. And when one of our mayors came into being, we had Police Athletic leagues and programs with the community were all taken away. And so the police were seen as police who were not a part of the community. And so when we started looking at this from a legislative perspective, we said, well, what can we do . And because as i think Gilda Cobb Hunter pointed out, every community is different. But at the same time, when we look at who is a Police Officer, what we found was there is a psychological evaluation that is somewhat given when you become a Police Officer, but there was no rotating system that says, well, maybe after three years or five years, you ought to evaluate whether this person is still fit to serve as a Police Officer. And then the other thing we found out was that they werent even psychologists that were giving the exams. That there was some type of policing psychology program, and these people were designated to go in and provide that psychological evaluation for these Police Officers when they entered. So when you talk about reforming and creating an attitude of community, where does it really begin, and what kind of testing should we be doing, and who should we be looking at, whether they resemble your community or not . Who should become the Police Officer in your community . And even the whole term of policing your community is that something that we look at when we talk about change . So i dont mean to hijack you, you are the moderator. Ill certainly respond to the question. Because i honestly think theres a solution out there. But what the challenge we have is we have been unable to move beyond little bits and pieces of it. We need to not only evaluate what our officers are doing, but when we talk about expectation, when we talk about statistical information, Everyone Wants to gather statistics right now of how many people are involved in this. Well, we also want to, and this is where the center for policing equity and dr. Goff, i have to give a shoutout because he is certainly a pioneer in this, what is the implicit bias what is the underlying bias, that policy, practice, procedure and all those things that you described as a hiring process interject into a system, interject into a policing system . And are we testing for that . Are we evaluating for that . And in fact, if we are on a regular basis, we can actually predict where areas are going to have problems, what officers are going to have problems, but it needs to be an open system, right, that information freely flows to researchers who are not Police Officers, right . I am not the smart one at the center for policing equity. Theres lots of very good qualified people who will analyze the data and say there may be a problem. And this is what you can do to prevent it. And thats climate survey. We have to do more than just gather information. Right . We have to analyze it, and then we have to take actionable steps in order to change that behavior, and that starts the moment they walk in the door, and what is the expectation of every individual that we hire . Senator trotter. I agree with him to a point, but we keep focusing on it as the Police Officers. Its the system. Because as i pointed out earlier, its those protections that we give them and the expectations that we have of them to protect those who have made those rulings and laws going forward. Who said that they cant be fired, that there is no immediate punishment. So thats where it begins. Because they get the job saying, well, and go and do their job, saying im protecting the public. Their idea of the public are those who gave them their marching orders. And thats us. Thats us who need to look at all that. We talk about transparency. We need to look at those rules that they have and start using to engage themselves with our community. And we know, of course, that crime isnt any worse in our community as far as overall because anybody will give you the statistics, crime is down. You know, things are down. Yes, down in the big scope of things, but its still in our communities, its just exploding. And thats because we have the root causes, and that is poverty, dealing with homelessness, dealing with hopelessness and that of despair that impacts on this community who lashes out as their only defense or if in the case of macdonald in chicago, and if you saw the film, and i hope you didnt see it because its not pretty. I mean, if you read about it, thats all you need to do. But who was walking away from the police, who was shot three times and then there was a pause. And then shot a subsequent 13 more times. Because he was still moving. And that is and i understand part of their training that, in fact, if you dont believe that individual has been neutralized, then its up to you to neutralize him. And i understand thats going to be one of the defenses that theyre going to use in this guy who has been charged for firstdegree murder. I wanted to actually bring in the question of sort of thinking abo about, i think representative cobbhunter mentioned it, and you mentioned it as well, which is the question of how social movements or you alluded to black lives matter. And i wanted to ask you alls opinion regarding sort of how you see change as possibly occurring. What do you see, if any, is the relationship between the emerging black social movements, demanding justice and an end to this kind of policing in terms of achieving accountability and others . How do you see it from your perspective in each of your areas . And maybe representative smith. I see it happening, with all this negative things, ive seen a movement of younger people. I mean, really get engaged. More so than ive seen in my short little sixyear political career, from beginning to now because i think theyre starting to see themselves in the incidents that are happening. This person is the same age as i am. This person wasnt doing anything onto a point that representative cobbhunter brought up. Its on video. We all grow up in a sense thinking that, hey, police are going to do the right thing. Teachers are going to teach you. And its going to be equitable for everybody. But that isnt the case. These video cameras are starting to bring this up. Weve had a protest at the university of missouri that sparked other protests at other university, but these are younger people getting engaged. Not necessarily being shut down by some of the leaders, because sometimes youll have leaders in the community say, well, yall just go home. Were going to get our chicken plate and then nothing ever happens. And that happens. And its true. Ive seen it happen in st. Louis. But now its, like, no, were going to go our own direction and start to organize and start to make things happen. Out of these negatives become i think these positives are happening. And i think with that, there will be more, you know, maybe a strong voter bloc. Theyre starting to kind of pull that wool off from those eyes and say hey, weve got to Say Something because nobodys coming on a white horse with a sword to come save us. Weve got to save ourselves. But its no different than it was in the 50s. What is happening now, the black lives Matter Movement are no different than those individuals that sat at those counters and said im not going to take it anymore. Its not anything different than we did when we said, marching i the same time, out came the black panther party, then we had a little older generation with core. I think this is a natural thing and something that weve always done. I am certainly glad the younger folks are engaged. But thats how we do fight. And even then, we had to listen to our elders of saying, okay, im glad youre there because we need the threat of violence. Sometimes the only way you can address violence is at least have the defense of saying, well, i can strike back. And i think thats what the younger black lives matter group is saying, that hey, do you want this . Do you want this explosion of emotions . Because what ive seen is, unfortunately what happened in missouri is that they did destroy their neighborhoods. Well, weve already destroyed our neighborhoods in the hoods in chicago in 1969. So we dont have to do that anymore. So those lessons have already been learned. And i think the establishment recognizes that as well. So at this juncture, we havent had that kind of violent, negative reaction to what has gone on. But 16 shots in 400 days shows you that just because its on camera, if i decide, if im in power, to hold it for 400 days, i dont care if it was in technicolor and 3d, you know, it doesnt mean anything. So we have to address it from within the establishment again, i believe. Representative cobb, yes. Thank you, maam. If i may, just following up, i think senator trotter has made a very important point, and that is there are some people who believe that the reaction and what is happening now with black lives matter is something new. Quite frankly, in my view, its just 2015s version of what has happened in the past. What is missing here is those of us up here and those of you sitting out there connecting the dots for the newest group of protesters to let them know that all of this is the same as what has been done before. What i believe we as elected officials have to do is to embrace the black lives Matter Movement and be more in more of a mentoring role so that we dont keep making the same mistakes. Let me, if i may, give you an example. All of you are familiar with what happened in South Carolina. Before emanuel, there was walter scott. And the shooting of where this cop just literally took a position and fired eight shots at a mans back. Well, you also are all familiar, because yall have shared with me so that youre so very glad that the Confederate Flag came down. My point here is this. We have got to embrace todays groups, whether its black lives matter or anything else, and help them understand the difference between symbolism and substance. Thats where i want my energies to go. And heres my point. In South Carolina, yes. We did take the flag down. It is unconscionable that it took nine people giving their lives for that to occur. And thats great. But if we stay stuck on the fact that the Confederate Flag has been removed from the State Capitol without, as reverend Jesse Jackson has said, focusing on the flag agenda, weve wasted time. And in South Carolina, we are still thats nice, but in South Carolina, we are still a state where people are denied access to health care because of political rhetoric. And i know were talking about violence and all of this, but i told yall, im a social worker, and i deal with systems. So i would say to all of us that our responsibility is to connect the dots. None of this is in a vacuum. All of this is something that we need to focus on. We need to stop talking about it. And we need to get busy. With these positions come responsibility, and it is time for those of us who are blessed and highly favored enough to have these jobs to do something with it and get out of the tag and title mentality because thats where we are. If i may, id like to actually broaden out the conversation a little bit and invite all of you to weigh in. I think the chief had mentioned mass incarceration and to some degree i think representative cobbs remarks remind us that we are talking about systems. Everybody probably knows these statistics, but its worth repeating them. Between 1970 and today, the number of people incarcerated increased from 300,000 to 2. 2 million. In 2000, one in ten black men between the ages of 20 and 40 was incarcerated. Thats ten times the rate of their white peers. With respect to women, the number of women in prison actually increased more by more than the number of men, was 640 between 1980 and 2010. And in 2010, black women were incarcerated at three times the rate of white women. And that increase represented 1. 5 times the rate of men. The point im coming to here is some of you may have read koets wrote an article called the black family in the age of mass incarcerati incarceration in which he takes us back to the moynihan report in 1965 where Daniel Moynihan who worked for jfk and then lbj said that the way to fix poverty was to basically bolster the patriarchal family, and he linked the poor conditions in black communities with what he called the dysfunction in the black family which caused by white oppression which had forced the family into ai the black family. Koets argues that after the firestorm following the release of the moynihan report, his reform ideas, moynihan had an idea about jobs programs for black men, those got pushed aside, and instead the black the bad conditions in black communities was tied to the bad behavior of black families, particularly those led by single mothers. So that the focus then became on controlling bad behavior, and he contends that black criminality was then cited as the cause of inequality, and that fed the push for the increase in severity of punishment. So given the historical fact that i think representative potter im sorry, senator trotter had alluded to earlier, which is that this is a longstanding sort of association between blacks and criminality, we now have been faced with a crisis of mass incarceration in which there are various reform proposals on the Table Including at the federal level, the Koch Brothers and various organizations have been working to reduce the severity of prison sentences and severe racial consequences that flow from it and created a kind of coalition of sorts to press for some limited reforms that would reduce sentences for nonviolent offenders. It now turns out that that proposal may be somewhat controversial because they have tied it to changes in federal law that would make it harder to prosecute corporate crime for environmental violations or damages for financial misconduct. So theyve come up with a reform proposal that they can get behind which is reducing crime for nonviolent offenders, but they also want to raise the bar for prosecuting certain kinds of corporate crime. But what do you see as the way forward on this intervention into mass incarceration, particularly since much of whats happened in terms of building what some people call the carcerial state has happened at the state level . So what is happening in your areas, if anything, with regard to interventions on this question of mass incarceration . Anybody can weigh in. Ill kind of start. What weve been doing in new york when it comes to looking at poverty, because you can look at theres a correlation between poverty and crime and lack of education. Weve started a conversation now about trying to look at the entire structure. Representative cobb, you said youre a social worker. I think far too often weve looked at education alone. Weve looked at criminal justice alone. Weve looked at Mental Health alone. And i think that we need to start to look at that in totality and how it affects the family. In rochester, which is one of the most impoverished cities when it comes to young people, particularly young people of color, theyve actually tried to come up with an antique poverty initiative, and they have a lot of Community Groups working together in which they had never worked together before and looking at all the different aspects. Theyve actually gone out and done surveys to families asking what could be done so the schools who have been failing for ten or more years we tilly gave them extra resources to come up with extra resources and longer school day tutoring, saturday hours. Were now in discussions with the governor trying to do that for every struggling school in the state of new york to kind of stave off some of these things that have put families and particularly young men of color on those paths that lead to incarceration. I think that everybodys interest is different. Even though everybody is talking about mass incarceration and how to reduce mass incarceration, i think the issue is the cost of mass incarceration. And i think those on the other side have become more interested in it because of the cost of incarceration so thats why they look at the other sense of we need to decrease the penalties here, but lets lower the penalties here because its costing us too much money. Its taking up too much of our tax dollars. So now everybody wants to talk about how do we reduce our jail populations when we look at we are the number one incarcerated people in this nation. Soy believe everybody has han interest. But i think that when we look at this issue we have to look at a much broader perspective, but i think its about economics. And we as legislators oftentimes focus on some of the social issues, the justice issues, but we dont focus on spreading the wealth across the board. If all of us pay taxes we all should share in the wealth of this nation, but we dont. When you talk about movement, i agree with you donny and everybody on the panel, the movements we see are similar to the 50s and 60s, but we burn down neighborhoods and now what has to take place because i saw it in baltimore, were burning down our own neighborhoods. That impacts us, creates more of a problem for us. I think there has to be an economic focus on how we move our communities forward. And when you talk about mass incarcerati incarceration, now youre talking about releasing people back to their communities. What is their path forward . What are we going to provide for those individuals who have become a part of our community so where is the economic stability that needs to be infused in all of these neighborhoods to create better education, to create better jobs, to make sure the people are socially taken care of, Mental Health issues are taken care of. I think thats the future in terms of us as legislators, how do we make sure those provisions are put in place . I agree with the panel completely that we can never separate the crime, economics, employment, health care, everything is all tied together. But the thing that i have such a hard time with many of receipt forms suggested now is, we are talking about people who are incarcerated, reducing sentences and everything else, once you enter people into this system, they do not recover. And we are naive to sit here and think that they do. So a 16yearold kid with a bag of marijuana no matter what his race is should not be in the criminal Justice System. Two 8yearolds who get in a fight on the playground do not belong in criminal court. I think what the longterm effects will be is that you have less people entering into that system, feeling that despair, who will be more eligible for jobs, more eligible for education, more eligible for health care and have access to those things because they dont have silly criminal records on their rap sheet. Whatever we want to call it. So we avoid entering them into the system that we all admit is broken. And thats where we need to focus. How can we change that dynamic and then really the people who end up being incarcerated are those individuals who for whatever reasons are violent cannot be in society. But not those people for these minor misdemeanor offenses that they never recover from once they start down that road. If i may, i wanted to just add a slight twist because i wanted to take the opportunity to bring in your expertise as a social worker. One of the things should i just respond to that . Because i dont hold thoughts long. Because he provided a great segue to the one point i wanted to make. On incarceration, what i want all of us to be clear on is we have a unique opportunity here where there is a bipartisan interest in reducing incarceration because it costs too much. So what we ought to be trying to do in our group is to take advantage of this environment and look at senators for misdemeanor possessions of marijuana. Were in california where yall got this going on out here. Im just saying weve got to use this opportunity to look at really were putting people in jail and work with our republican colleagues and say, guess what, throwing somebody in jail for a simple possession is costing us too much money. Having a kid all of these school resources, im just going to lets not squander the opportunity because we are in such a polarized state across this country that weve got to seize these moments when they occur. Thats all i wanted to say. I just need to add to that because we did that. Nbcsl has done that. When we were at the Congressional Black Caucus weekend and people said, why are you doing this . Because we saw it assen opportunity to have that discussion across the board with those talking about, we want reform, we want to make sure less people are incarcerated. So weve begun those conversations because it is about whoever is interested in making sure that what we see happening to our community doesnt happen again. I just wanted to bring senator trotter into the discussion. But i wanted to add to this conversation, part of the question is what does reform look like and how is it shaped or misshaped by a particular kind of presumption . For example, the reason i brought in is one of the things that some have pointed out is some of the models of reform looks a little like monahan 2. 2. They talk a lot about the dysfunction in the community, they talk about the dysfunction in the family. They talk about the rise of single parent households in the communities, absent a discussion about the fact that marriage is less common as a whole across the board period. That its saying lots of children of different races are being raised in single parent homes. Its the case that africanamericans marriage patterns tend to be projected as deviant. But in fact theyre not if you actually look at the overall trend. So im interested to hear your thoughts about what reform should look like and your comments on maybe some of the models of reform that youve seen. Thank you. One of the things, just to tie the two in, is all of a sudden these individuals who are talking about incarceration becoming too expensive, they didnt all of a sudden become benevolent. Yes, it is too expensive, which means it is hitting their bottom line. Its costing more than what they thought to keep it. So lets get the folks out of them. Then we privatize. Then we have more control over to take out of our hands as legislators control over it because we have now given up that responsibility by allowing these people who are and have been profiting by incarceration to do so. But getting rid of those individuals who wed term short termers. If youre eye short termer, i dont need you. Im going to need this money for the next 30 years so i want you to come in with a 30 year sentence so i can be sure the money is going to be there. We as legislators have to be certainly cognizant of that. Again, they didnt all of a sudden got soft on crime. Theyre just hard on how to get their money going forward. Just a little piece to add. I think part of the reform we have to look at is application. Law. When it comes to sentences, to me, it seems like sometimes its more illegal for black folks to do the same thing that the nonblack folks are doing and we end up in jail or dead like walking down the street in the case of mike brown in ferguson. In st. Louis county where im at, there was actually an investigation done and they found out that in family court black sisters and brothers were given harsher sentences than their nonblack counterparts for the exact same thing. Well have to look at that because thats the pathway right to the big house. Once you go to the big house, your life changes. Other thing thats weve done has been drug courts, too, trying to find a way for individuals that may be on their way to prison and getting them treatment instead of going to prison and sitting there and learning how to cook up your drugs better by somebody else whos locked up for the same thing. I know a lot of states are a lot more forward than missouri. Were catching up in a lot of the things. Those are just some of the small things weve done as far as trying to stop that pipeline to prison. I think we need reforms in our School System. The first time you suspend a child out of school, you tell tem t them they dont belong. It creates this whole attitude of them against us. So one of the thing thats we did in the state of maryland was made compulsory attendance to 18 and then put in place suspension policies across the board because oftentimes especially when our young men grow to be a certain height and you have School Systems where you dont have a lot of men in the School System, teachers start seeing young boys at the age of 10, 12, 14, 16, they look at them as though theyre men. They start pushing them out of the School System when behavior does not exemplify the behavior they want to see in a child. So i think that it actually begins in the public School System or in the School System, you know. How do you treat your young boys and your young girls . And how should they be acting when theyre in the classroom . So that you dont begin this process of suspending children out of school and then theres reform and then theres all of this punishment for certain behavior. I remember an 8yearold playing on the playground, two young boys playing on the playground, one kicked other in the mouth by mistake. The teacher suspended him. And so this child had never been in trouble before. And i said to her, the problem here is youve begun to seed in this individual that they dont belong here. I think it has to begin there, that weve got to teach teachers in some cases how to treat our children and children how to act in class. Weve talked before. Lets be careful about accepting the premise that single parent homes pruoduce dysfunctional children. I dont accept that. The other thing that i would really encourage us so understand, simply having two parents dont necessarily mean you grow up being whatever, normal. What we need to focus on are healthy marriages and healthy families. So i dont buy into this notion that just because you come from a single parent home youre not going to be productive. There are too many examples that all of us can point to where people were raised by Single Parents and turned out to be some of the most productive people that we have in this country. Thank you. If we could continue this, i wanted to bring in some questions from the audience. Of course we have many. And id like to start with this one. The question says, there have been instances where black police have also shot africanamericans do you feel that we are discussing an element of policing sufficiently . And how can Police Culture be transferred to an afric africanamerican who is trying to keep his job and limit internal harassment . I take the question to be, are some of the dynamic thats were talking about going to be mitigated at all by increasing the number of blacks in policing organizations . If i can speak to that just briefly, i think one of the things thats very important and i will never make excuses for the situations that described 0 on stage is that we see play out over the last few years on tv are criminal behavior by Police Officers that we should not tolerate. Im not making any excuses for any of those people. But i will tell you that the majority of Police Officers dont go out with the intent of doing harm or engaging in biased behavior. But because of the system that we have in place, it puts them in situations that generates that conflict. And this goes back to, again, the incarceration level because youre dealing with people who feel theyve been harassed many, many times. There are neighborhoods. I dont know it necessarily matters the race of the officer youre interjecting into a system. If youre putting them into a system because of policy practice and procedure that exists, they are going to be involved in those same situations. So what we need to do is change that dynamic as to what the situations are were putting Police Officers in. And then absolutely eliminate those people who are going to engage in bias behavior. But we need to make sure the bias is not interjected. So i can be very cleavr about this, in Salt Lake City, if i had sechbt officers out and said, the most important thing in this city is to enforce registration violation on your vehicle, i would not get the east bench, i would get central and west Salt Lake City. Most of those people would be latino people. Because of this one little nuance, ive interjected this bias into the system. And i dont care what Police Officer you put in there, if im now grading him or evaluating a position on how many tickets he writes for this important behavior ive sent an edict out, youve interjected bias into a system. It can be that simple the. Again, thats not excusing any of the criminal behavior weve seen or situations weve found officers in, but we really need to look at the beginning of the system. What is it that were putting people into . Other thoughts . Comments . Oh, with that, i dont think it cares the race. As the chief brought up, its the system. You get brothers buying into the same system, too. That code of blue or whatever its called. We dont want to be seen as outsiders. Plus, i like this check that im getting. Whats in there, there needs to be some sort of whistleblower programs developed within Law Enforcement agencies. I dont care if youre black or white our if youre purple, if you are violating the rights of an individual or applying the law differently based on color, you shouldnt be in that job. [ indiscernable ] one of them i believe the sergeant was a woman, right . Yes. We also here the questioner says a lot about black on black crime. What is the response to this kind of framing and what can how can you talk about this without it becoming a diversion from the very important conversations weve been having about policing . And actually chicago is specifically mentioned here. Senator trotter . Not surprisingly. First and foremost, chicago is still considered one of the most segregated large cities in america. We live with our own people. Im not good to if im one if i want to commit a crime or if i need 10, im not going to jump on the bus and go rob nobody white. So the crime is the crime of opportunity, which is certainly part of whats going on. But its indicative of whats happening all over the country. You know, we have this systemic problem of poverty in our communities, of hopelessness as i pointed out before. Until we start creating those opportunities in our community where people can see a pathway of being selfsufficient, were going to have that going on. Its just the deal. If im hungry, im going to steal some bread. And we do have people stealing bread. Thats a crime statistic. If you just happen to be carrying that loaf of bread home, im going to get that from you because my family is hungry as well. Its not just as simple as, i dont like my brother. Its a matter of you have what i need, and those things happen. But we do have to certainly change the system. And i think it bears out that the statistics show that the vast majority of crime is intraracial. We dont say white on white crime. There isnt a concept there. By the same token i think its interesting to think about how the Youth Movement and the black lives Matter Movement more broadly have attempted to bring into the conversation a focus on recognizing the systemic conditions that have led to crime in the community and saying that, yes, these are problems, but they cannot be fixed by, as many of you have pointed out, putting people into a broken system, criminal Justice System. Look at the system as well. How many times i know in my neighborhood, i know where the drug house is. And i know the police have been told where the drug house is. Seemingly, some Law Enforcement officials allow this to fester, to permeate right there in the community. So they allow these illicit things to go on until the pot boils over. And someone gets killed that they react to the situation. So its the system that needs to be changed. When are the Police Officers supposed to handle the situation instead of saying, oh, were still checking it out and Everybody Knows even the small kids know thats a drug house. I have one question that goes for the whole panel. Then id like to invite you all if you have any closing comments to make them. The one question is about reentry. I believe senator pough spoke about that. The question is, could you please share one effective Reentry Program that has been implemented in your state, if any. You can begin. Well, we have a couple. The first one was making sure that when folks come back into the community that they have identification because we take it away when they go in and we dont give it to them when they come out. And as a result it makes it very difficult for them to get medication and all the other things that they may need. The other thing that i was really concerned about was how do we make sure that people can reenter the community because i had an opportunity to speak at a graduation of those who were graduating from high school out of the institution. And i said to them, you know, when you leave, youre still going to have a very difficult time. But let me just suggest to you, start a business. When i was campaigning five years ago, i stopped at a local business and the guy remembered me as the graduation speaker. I asked if i could put a sign up. He said, yeah, you dont remember me. He told me i suggested he started his own business. So he did. He told me to put a sign on his next business. I created a program that the governor signed into law that create opportunities for exoffenders to start their own businesses because i believe that its really difficult when somebody comes out and we keep putting them in these Training Programs and they make 5 or 10 an hour. Its not enough for them to sustain themselves. So we have started this program looking at creating nationally for exoffenders coming out of institutions to start their own businesses. Great. Speaker, did you have a thought here . When i was elected speaker, i had said that one of the things we were going to do and we were really going to look at it this year was to look at an entire review of the criminal Justice System. I even said that i think my speakership would be in vain if we did not do that i. Dont know if i can say of a program that i think is that wonderful and great when it comes to reentry in the state of new york. I feel bad that i cant even say that, one that pops into my mind that has been that successful. That has always been the discussion that we have because we have democrats in the assembly, the republicans control the house and the senate. And even when we did a reform of the rockefeller drug laws in new york, that was a big discussion. If were going to have all of these people back in the community, whats going to happen to them . I think that we have separate programs and i tell you that in the bronx and maybe something in brooklyn, we dont have a statewide program that really deals successfully for the reentry of people into new york. Thats one of the things were going to have to look at as a legislature. Representative cobb . I would be hardpressed to think of a specific program in South Carolina that is a successful and measured in terms of reentry. We have something called the Austin Society that works with the whole notion of once you leave a person, the whole notion of reentry. That would be the closest example that i could come to. Its a very old program in South Carolina and quite frankly has been quite successful. But because of all of the things that weve talked about here added the layer of poverty and a whole bunch of other stuff, its very difficult for people leaving prison to be successful in our state. Senator trotter or representative . Weve done several things, certainly theres many more things we can do. Certainly ban the box. I know theyve taken it on a National Level as well. The president has started using that initiative. We certainly have the onestop get your credentials when you get out and that still individuals and i think hes here in the room senateor ou lead guy on the floor, the Second Chance legislation that we are trying to get more classes of crimes and misdemeanors where people can get their records expunged. Thats been an ongoing process in fighting with individuals. You know, theyve done their time so now make them full citizens so they can get jobs going forward. And in missouri i would just say dont go to jail in missouri. Because i cant think of many programs that will help you once you end up in Jefferson City correctional center. Theres been proposed legislation to ban the box and a lot of emphasis on expungement. But it never gets any legs, and i think we have a pretty high rate of going back if you commit crime. Theres not a lot of Economic Opportunity either once you get out. There may be a program, some private program, some religiousbased programs that do things on a smaller scale. But just statewide if i could pick one program, i cant think of one at this time. If i could advise the panel to have closing remarks, any thoughts that youd like to share with the audience before we close. If i may go first. Please. Going back to the question of what can these movements do and what should all of you in this room do. There should be be mandatory reporting for every agency no matter how big or small in this nation of who are they stopping, what level of force are they using, who are they searching and what is the outcome of that. And it should be uniform throughout the nation and it should be made public and it should be analyzed. Every Single Agency should be subject to civilian oversight that participates not only when officers engage in misconduct but in the policy practice set up in the beginning as to how officers are going to be hired and police the communities in which they serve. And that is essential. I think thats when you ask, what is the question . Thats what should be mandatory for every Police Agency in this country. Great. I should mention that california just recently adopted a Data Collection program for the entire state that applies to all policing agencies requiring keeping data on every stop, and all the information and one of the arguments against it was that it is going to be too onero onerous, the record keeping. But of course that objection was overcome just recently became law. Its a Good Movement and needs to be analyzed by an outside entity as to how to interpret that data. A little plug for phil goff. Yes. I would say urge us as policy makers to focus our time and energy on substance assemblism is nice, but weve got to understand these issues are systemic. Weve been told and we know the system is broken. You dont fix a broken system with similymbols and symbolism. So my challenge to us as policy makers would be for us to use whatever Political Capital we have, wherever we are, to make sure that we are tackling the tough issues that will make a difference for the people we represent. If we arent willing to do that, then we shouldnt be here. I guess i would agree with the chief as well on what do we do with the data statistics because even in the city of new york we have a number of records of stops that for young men of color, almost like 500,000 in one of the years, that was looked at. So what do we do with that data when it comes to how we respond in terms of the criminal Justice System and what way to go forward . We even talked about in new york trying to decriminalize certain amounts of marijuana. So were look at trying to do all of those things to keep people out of the system. But the challenge still for us marley in new york is how do we again change the mindset of the people who are policing us and what does happen once an officer is found to have what we believe and what almost id say anybody who is not a criminal justice expert can see is misconduct on behalf of a Police Officer. What happens throughout that whole system when we get to the point where we cant even get an indictment on this . We still have these tremendous challenges. What i would say as legislators sitting in this room, we cant shy away from uncomfortable subjects such as this one, such as legislation. There may be introduced in our houses or in our senate. We cant. We cant fold to the folks that might finance our campaigns. We have to look at the people that elected us. And if the poboot is on their neck, its on your neck, too. Were no different. I know you all are doing great jobs, but we have to continue to push for that. Because if we dont change that, then nothing else i think can change. We just cant sit up there and say, oh, well, were minority, aint much we can do. Sit there and play the victim role. We have to keep fighting, keep pushing and keep organizing in order to get those changes. We need. What were involved in the world right now are protracted battles. We have been under that boot since weve been here. We came here under the boot. Its our responsibility as legislators and policy makers to continue to be that voice for our folks. Its not an old argument. Its unfortunately the same argument but we have to try to change some of our tactics. And if i can quote my good friend delegate nate oaks, when my fpeople are in trouble, so a i. We need to keep that into our mindset, that we have asked for this responsibility to be the voice of the people. And we need to continue to do that. Thank you. I want to taigke a moment and