Joining us. Once you hear from him. He is my greatest inspiration. With that ill get started. Marilyn mosbys baltimore state attorney, given it for marilyn. Well known for taking bold mov moves, not as well known she has become a dear sister friend of mine. Also huge inspiration. She is doing so much good work to help reform the criminal Justice System in this country. She is leaving the standard with baltimore. Please give it up for marilyn. [applause] and you might know him from the addition, i might rake out into a poisoned answer a quick. He is here today for the dance moves and for being a producer extraordinaire, he is also here to help inform this process today. Michael bivins. Next step we have colin warner who will hear more from later on in this program. So important when we talk about these issues that we are not just talking policy, were talking about the people who these issues have impacted. Colin warner is here today. We will watch a trailer later on this afternoon. Welcome to the stage. [applause] next up we have a wellknown activist in baltimore, and organizer, ray kelly. He founded the National Spotlight on the city after freddie gray staff. His work has been seen on the department of justices overview of Baltimore Police department work. He is here today to join us to talk about what he can do to influence the policy phase. Next up is andrea who is a bostonarea activist and author uses her personal experience working in the criminal legal system and then being incarcerated in federal prison to fight reform. We will hear from you today, welcome to the panel. [applause] next up, we have james who is a Michigan State representative. He is michigans youngest state representative. Before that was the youngest elected city council member. Soft and were young hard on young people for not being of all. Lets give it up for [applause] last but not least i call him my mentor, i call him doc, none other than doctor eric dyson to round out the panel. You know him very well. Give a warm welcome. [applause] please be seated. So you know, there folks in the audience have no current so we will try to get to your questions. If you see the volunteer holding a note card, they can take your question via the dont card this afternoon. A morning everyone. Is a still morning time customer. Yes were 46 minutes left i really think its important that before we dive into some other pieces of this that we hear the term, mass incarceration and criminal Justice Reform so often. We throw them out so much that people start to lose the compassion about the issues. Want to take a moment to set the stage. Marilyn, i want to start with you. What massive incarceration is and why we should care. Both the definition and how we define it, how it impacts us and why we should care be utilizing our energy to throw ourselves in and get of all. Id love for you to use example. When we talk about mass incarceration we need to think about for a very long time the criminal Justice System has had a disproportionate impact on communities of color. Weve criminalized our communities and ways in which nonviolent offenders have resulted in a disproportionate impact of individuals, africanamericans been incarcerated. When we talk about reforming the, its a matter of trying to address the systemic issues and ensuring that we are not just walking up black people based on nonviolent offenses. Next, i want to go to doctor dyson. I know youre done taking a selfie now. So i want to talk to doctor dyson to answer the same question before we get into some of the anecdotes. So add to a marilyn talked about. Its great to be here with doctor angela and the other panel here this morning. I think about mass incarceration, we think about as the attorney mostly has said, the disproportionate concentration of people of color and what we now know as the Prison Industrial Complex which means, local jails, federal jails, and prisons who warehouse disproportionately africanamerican and latina pedal people. So for nonviolent drug offenses that other people are told you go home and become a better johnny or jill, shanika and jamaal are sent to prison. There sent to prison because theyre introduced to it in terms of detention in public school. Look at the relationship between discipline when your children are kicked out the second and third grade, god knows even kindergarten. Then they are no has a disciplinary problem then they go to detention, and then from detention docent to local detention centers. That becomes a feeding sell for a jail cell which becomes a warmup for prison. Again, these are not people who are inherently criminal but they have become criminalized. When the honorable ms. Mosby talks about criminalization, that means your children are targeted for specific slots in prison and in jail. Mass incarceration suggests that a disproportionate number of people of color are subjected to this for doing the same offenses that white and other peoples commit. Their given time off, time release, programs or judges allow them to work off their time. But that is not the case for black and brown people. That leads to an accumulation of black and brown bodies in prison. Think about it, in the 80s we had the numbers of people in prison that has doubled and tripled. Now we have 1. 2 or 1. 3, one and half Million People in prison. The most of any industrialized nation. Masses of those happen to be people of color. Not only are they doing the same thing, theyre getting harsher sentences in the refusal of judges in some cases because theyre locked in with mandatory minimum sentences which makes a difference when you have an attorney general like eric holder and place like jeff sessions. Jeff sessions has reignited the war on drugs. And the word drugs is the world black and brown people. Mass incarceration is the masses of people of color being subjected to penalties that specifically target us in ways that throw away the key when we are put into jail. Finally, the criminal Justice Reform means we need to reform the criminal Justice System that is often unjust to us. When we look away for what we do, we overlook what they do, when we give them a second, third, fourth chance, when they have affluence of. My child is too rich to go to jail so please let him out. Whereas, the people in the in baltimore are not seen as affluenza and as a result they go to jail. When we think about the fact that a white woman is skilled at the police in minnesota, what happened . The police chief has to resign. What happens with Linda Casteel announces to the Police Person that he has a gun on this person, he is skilled within seven seconds. The reform of the criminal Justice System suggest the inputs we make, the data they devry from looking at the number of times were stopped, lando castille, 50 or 60 times over the past ten years, so we see a reform of criminal justice and we have to find a way to make sure judges are not bound by mandatory minimum sentences. People of color are not subject to arbitrary forms of reprisal in a system that doesnt Pay Attention and finally that we get the same brakes as everybody else. If you do the crime you do the time, youre being ignorant. Thats not how why folk do it. They hook their kids up and find way from being in prison. One thing i think is also important this morning, i believe a focus groups and i think this will help set the stage as we transition to the anecdotes of personal stories. I need yall to be active participants. And its been a long morning but stay awake for second and engage. The first question i have please dont be ashamed this is a family conversation. How many of your have been incarcerated at some point in your life . How many of you all have a Family Member who was or is . In the last question, keep standing is how many of you all have a good friend who was or is . So when you look around this room, when you look at even the stage, we dont have a choice but to engage on this issue. It literally impacts almost every person in this room. With that, i want to transition a to you, collin. And the reason i want to go to before you answer theres a trailer that we have about your story. But that i want you to talk about what happened in your personal experience. If we could run the trailer. You focus on your breathing it will bring you out of your mind. Into your body. Just know that you are not alone. Crime today is an american epidemic. I know killer. The system doesnt work for people who cannot afford to defend themselves. The whole neighborhood know what happened. The whole neighborhood note that you grabbed the wrong guy. Im innocent man. Everyone saying you did something. I work for free if you take a look at his case. They will keep me in here. You know i would die before i do that. He got your family, your life, where you wasting your time on me . Is not just about you is bigger than that. Collin from texas or louisiana, he wouldve been executed long ago. Longer sentences, more prison, they took everything from me. Everything. I cannot pretend the situation doesnt exist. We cannot leave an innocent man in jail. Im going to take you home. Its just a matter of time. [applause] thank you for being here. I really want you,s quickly as you can because this is top because weve seen the trailer, but i want you to share a little bit about your experience, being wrongfully convicted many of us are well aware where we know somebody who is wrongfully incarcerated or wrongfully arrested. Talk about the impact on that for you and how that shaped your life being wrongfully incarcerated and having to say for so long knowing your innocent. Hello everyone. My name is colin warner. Eventually just the a synopsis of what happened to me. What i can say is that i was literally dead. Dead upon being convicted for a crime that i did not witness, participate in or have no knowledge. The feelings that i could share with you theyre not too many words that could adequately fit into your mind but, have a know what life taken away for something i seen this as a murder, is hell. Based on the movie hope that each and everyone will get the movie because you dont have to be incarcerated to get something from the movie. We cannot be afraid. We have to step in and this is one of the things that surprised me after doing 21 years in prison. They worked diligently to help get out of prison. [inaudible] [applause] but it sounds like youre saying is we are timid as a people but there are too many that dont have calls in this complex but they are serving time for things they shouldnt be serving time for such the earlier point. We dont have the proper representation. [inaudible] and also the lives of every man, woman and child. Reach out. The only way we can accomplish anything is by coming together to. [applause] an activist for folks that are incarcerated and then having served time there yourself, i would like for you to paint a picture because you say that informs your work of why its so important to not only address the issue of folks going in but also addressing the condition folks are forced to live in behind bars. I want to say thank you to the naacp for inviting this platform. We come from the voices of the hundreds of thousands who are sitting right now as we are convened here in a cage and the effects of that on our children and communities such as the organization understand how important it is with the swift dramatic increase of black women in this country, i thank you for being aware of the importance of the issue so yes i was a criminal defense lawyer sentenced to serve a two year federal prison sentence. I am born and raised very proud in roxbury massachusetts. My children are still living in massachusetts with my husband and family and we have a fourthgeneration. We understand firsthand whats happened in the country over the past four decades starting with a war on drugs which was a war on black people. Its incarcerated with many people that never left so thats the work of the National Council it was affected by mass incarceration as a criminal defense lawyer and being married to a man who two decades ago served a ten year mandatory minimum drug sentences. I didnt think that there is anything anybody could tell me about the criminal Justice System when i left my five month old daughter in the parking lot of the federal prison in danbury connecticut to step into that prison. Its an increase of incarceration and im going to tell you they are separating mothers and children but when we talk about the violence and gun violence and social issues that we are dealing with in our communities today, we cannot do that and find solutions that are separate from dramatic criminal Justice Reform that happens in this country it is directly in relation to the housing of. I was with grandmothers, mothers and their daughters on the same drug case in incarcerated for a minimum of ten years mandatory minimum sentences and if you ask them where are your male counterparts, their husbands, brothers, uncles, they are also in a federal prison somewhere serving these drug sentences. We have to understand the very importance of stepping out from lawyers, doctors, all members of the naacp. I understand what our people think and how we tried to separate ourselves. We cannot continue to do that. They spend their lives in all of the communities and now it is taken the Fastest Growing incarceration population in this country they are separating. Women cannot mother from inside of a prison payphone. It doesnt work. We have to understand the conditions are perfect. 90 there in the prisons, federal, state and county are women suffering from, and they are victims themselves. They are criminalized and incarcerated for being poor and struggling with addiction. How dare us as a country allow that to be the solution whose lives have been devalued by the systematic lives of all of us. If we begin to go down to a laundry the laundry list we hope to introduce the dignity with the senator in washington, d. C. That bill speak directly to what you are referring to as the treatment and conditions living within the prisons across this country. You cant stop separating women from their children or criminalizing and stop putting them in prisons where they need to be in the communities. They build affordable decent housing. Imagine if we had the Public Education system that the Trump Administration is trying to privatize. These are the issues we need to focus on a when collins spoke he said something that made me think of your work with my brothers keeper brothers keeper in boston is that you cant give up on your kids. To me that was such an impact. Fullstop meant we dont spend quite enough time with the kids being part of a village that is constructive. We are very reactive in the community and most recently with a lot of the reaction to kids being told by the police were very reactive in this active work and we love to hear about it. I want to make sure everybody is feeling good and when im in constant i say if you are feeling all right. The reason im here is because i was invited. I represent so many different parts of the city as a voice for people that are crying out and needing something. These kids dont even realize. The best thing to do this summertime is good to a facility to swim, play ball, color, whatever is five or six hours out of the day so you were not out on the streets in trouble with a tshirt, baggy, one each and you met somebody else on the other side of town you normally. When i think about the kids today, my job and where i come from i try to give as much as i can to them, 700 memberships. All they have to do is go online and register. We wanted to change. It affects all of us even if it isnt our child because shes at the bus stop and the cop was riding down the street. To do what i can and where i can so this being here today is an opportunity to share the microphone with some of the panelists to say that yes, we have to look at the kids. In my field a lot of artists leave the field and dont come back. They lived behind the gate. If you are behind the gate, you say that so the audience can connect with you. Today for me as much as i can get all of this on this microphone because theres about 15 of us out there. I get to connect with you and when we go back home you can think about the panel and all this information that you take back with you to know anything i can do in your community, i am online and easy to get out and i dont just go to boston i go from new york to Portland Oregon and i love getting down and talking with the kids. Hispanic youve been on both sides of that, reacting to the most tragic situations in the community thinking mainly of freddy gray but youve also been proactive in the policy and changing things. I want you to just lean in a little bit and talk to folks here about the things they can do to impact the policy process whether its a legislative solution, changing a regulation on the books and changing the way the Police Interact in the communities so what do you suggest Going Forward that folks can do to engage. I want to welcome everyone to Baltimore City. The no boundaries coalition, we are an Advocacy Group so our foundation is raising a resident voice. It was powered by definition with the ability to ask so trained organizers and advocate, its knowing when to act and not only that but how to act. What we promote is engagement. Of course it always starts with a focus on being a communal voice in the communities because of the lack of hope from the oppressive practices. A lack of hope in the communities. So we can do things ourselves that we kind of recognized now as a time to act. But we craft our solutions and in the Numerous Community meetings we do talks and listening campaigns and we have the visibility and constant engagement. The investigation because it happens on our back door steps, it was important that we made sure the media didnt control the narrative and we make sure people were hearing from us and that fight goes on. Its always hard to get people to go through those structured meetings that lead up to the big event. Thats the big engagement. In Baltimore City we have a time with the present decree. What we try to do now is make sure people recognize this is a generational moment