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 b