my name is jess and.

i'm a bookseller at seminary co-op. as you might know, our bookstores were founded in 1961 and in 2019 became the country's and currently only not for profit bookstore whose mission is bookselling. this mission recognizes as a cultural endeavor and booksellers as professional. we invite you to browse one of the main ways you can support our stores is by buying a book. i think might know of one. there will be time for audience questions at the end of conversation. and should you have any? please raise your hand. bring that time. with that, i'm thrilled to introduce our guests for today former baltimore assistant attorney general for the state of maryland and trial attorney is an advocate for. racial equity and the criminal justice system. she maintains a private law practice focused on civil and criminal litigation in washington, d.c., a leading voice in the discourse of

criminal justice and race. hinds often called on by media networks for commentary. please help me give a warm welcome to debbie. so i thought but i thought we could do is going to do a brief reading just to kind of get you focused on what the book is about. and then i'll just engage in conversation because i'm a trial lawyer and we don't really do that much reading. i mean, what we read, we read for law, but don't do really straight reading. so that's what i thought we could do. so i'm going to start by reading, which i'm going to start by reading from the. as i'm going to start by reading from the introduction and then i'm just another part, but it'll be very pretty brief one and an

isaac road late december in 2022 i sat in a vehicle driven by sam a citizen who came to the united states as an immigrant from pakistan and now owns a car service company. as we engaged in conversation sam talked about how america is a country where has the same opportunities to advance. he talked how he came to this country with few resources and, now owns a fleet of vehicles. sam said that he believes that in the united states every person regardless race, can dream and work make to turn those dreams into a reality. i sam told his personal story success. i remain. it was eve and hardly a good time for a challenging discussion. but i strongly disagree with him.

and on another, i might have told sam how his experiences differ from those of many african americans. i wish i could have told about my experiences as a former and the experience of my family neighbors and clients charged with crimes. lives were upended due to racially biased prosecutorial system. i would have explained to sam how design the power the prosecutor perpetrates racial disparities against african-americans in the criminal justice system, often overlooked in the conversation about reform. the justice system is the pressing need to reform state offices. the most powerful institution in the justice system. prosecutors control all aspects of a criminal case. very little happens in the criminal justice system without the prosecutor whose hand is

felt in every aspect of the system. the prosecutor decides whether to take a case before a grand jury indictment decides on a plea bargain offer, or whether to go to trial or use another to end the case and whether to release an individual all before trial. when dale, the prosecutor, prosecute the case to obtain the desired goal of conviction, recommends the length of a prison sentence or probation and in all post-trial conviction proceedings. prosecutors are front and in all aspects of a criminal case and judges rubber stamp their recommendation. the united has the largest criminal justice in the world. and within this system a disproportionate unit numbers of black children and youth arrested, charged and sentenced to prison.

every day before they are old to drive. one out of every three black boys born in 2001 can expect to be imprisoned in their lifetime compared to one in seven teen white boys. some states have no age for charging child with a crime. a black person is nearly six times as likely to incarcerated as a white person. for people detained in jail pending a trial date, prosecutors disproportionate finally denied bail to. black people despite the us's system's presumption of innocence until proven guilty. black people represent. 43% of the people in jail waiting for a trial to held while black people make up only 13.4% of the us population.

police arrest black people ten times more frequently than they arrest white people. when a national level police search the vehicles of black more often than they search white people's vehicles. despite the fact that people are more likely to have unregistered weapons or illegal drugs, unknown black people who present with minimal to no threat to police are killed three times more often than whites. even though black americans less likely than any race to resist the rarely do prosecutors charge police officers for killing unarmed black. the atrocious sentences are imposed the death penalty. 44% of all people on death row since 1976 are black people. the colorblind justice system in

america is actually color coded. in 2022, decades after prosecuted in baltimore city, the university of maryland published, a report on racial justice in prosecution in baltimore. it found that in a city whose population was 63% black in 2017 and 2018 88% of all baltimore circuit court cases involve black people and more than 80% of all felonies involved black male defendants. the prosecutorial system in baltimore is no different than in york city. chicago, miami and other cities and towns across the country in cook county, illinois. a study conducted. from 2000 to 2018 showed that black represented only 25% of

the population of cook county. but over percent of its 3 million criminal cases in 2018. the percentage of black defendants increase to 65%, although the number of criminal cases. a review of the jail population revealed that the incarceration rate of black people is more than 17 times that of white defendants. the aclu of florida cited similar racial disparities. black defendants in the miami dade area in a report that looked at 200,000 defendants. from 2010 to 2015. the 52 page report found that prosecutors are more likely to offer longer to black defendants, while white defendants are likely to be offered less attorneys or

dismissals even though white commit more serious crimes. the purpose of this book is to provide a context for. understanding the history of racial disparity in our prosecutorial system. describe how the 2400 elected state and local nonfederal prosecutors, of which 95% are white, drive these racial inequities and examine how prosecutor system adversely affects african-americans by design. finally this book provides a pathway for accomplishing transformation or change within the us carceral prosecutorial system. the us prosecutorial system will not change unless and until we reform the policies and procedures that run the state and local elected prosecutorial offices. we need to lead with fairness

and compassion instead of convictions and corruption. so i thought that pretty much give us an idea of what the book about, but what i wanted to say is what i've read pretty much just numbers and numbers don't tell us everything. just how i wanted us to stop because behind all of those numbers, behind all of the numbers are people. and so as a trial lawyer. what we do, we tell stories. and so within the numbers that i've read, which just the initial outline in the introduction and another chapter i tell actually the stories of what people's lives have been about that have been affected. when i first thought of the idea of writing a book in, the it's

because people generally ask how long did it take you to write the book? well, when i first thought about writing a book, i convinced that i could not write a book because i said i'm busy, i have a trial practice, i'm in court like every week. and what would i write? a book when i just could not imagine that. but i wanted to write a book about my experiences. and so then 20, 20 came and 2020 answered. all my questions because courts were closed during the pandemic. my office wasn't closed, but it was we were doing anything that we did court wise was by remote and then when i was sitting home. watching tv one day after george murder, i saw the eulogy that reverend al sharpton gave, and it just resonated so much with

me about the system. because what he said part of his eulogy was george floyd is the history of every african american. for 400 years that we be anything we want to be. we could run corporations. we could do anything. we could have the dreams that stem my driver had and turn those into a reality but you wouldn't get off our neck. and so before i wrote even one word on a page. i knew that that be the title of my book, get off neck, because it just explained me everything that saw in the criminal justice system. sometimes people think that people that are in the system, bad people and we just put the bad people away, then would take care of all of our problems. but the people that are in the system. they're like and i, they're no

different. if they're black people. what what i started out with when the journey was really doing a lot of research because i have anecdotal information in the book but my inspiration for writing the book is not. sharpton my inspiration for writing book is really my mother, who's but she taught me three things. she said knowledge is key. and so i try provide the knowledge in the book. my book is heavily researched. i have over 20 or 30 pages of references that. i would like the people to dig deeper within those references. she also said that not only is knowledge is key, my only had a ninth grade education, but she was the smartest person i knew because she never stopped learning. even when she retired, she never stopped learning. and she also had saying where

she said never say. my brother and i, we could never say as kids, oh, that would never happen. i mean, she hated the use of the word never. she did not feel that there were limits. and so what i want people to get out of the book is don't that the system could never change the system. can change. and i try to lay out within the book how the can change. but my mother never took the word never. and i that anyone that's about criminal justice they should not look at it as it could never ever happen. and the third thing that i learned from my mom, that helps me with the theme and how i'm writing, how i wrote the book hope, because she always said you have to have hope. and we can't be in a society, in a country where we don't hope that things will get better in the criminal justice system. so those are my three takeaways from my mom before i became a

prosecutor. i have my own story of things that were i was involved or knew about from the criminal justice and one actually happened when i was five, where at that time my family, my mother, my father, my brother, we lived in a four room house, not for bad rooms, four rooms. and it was kitchen, bathroom my brother had his own bedroom. and then there was the bedroom. that was my bedroom, my mother and my father's bedroom. a living room with two chairs and a tv. and then this huge window. and i always to look out of the window, we didn't have a lot of space. and my mother didn't, you know, she would tell me, do not out the window and tell telling a five year old do not look out the window was the same as saying look out the window. and so why she didn't which? i did not know then, but why she didn't want me to look out of the window as we lived across

the street from a bar and remember the name of this was the panama and it's in west baltimore, which is where from the same area of baltimore, where in 2015, the freddie gray undressed occurred. so she didn't want me to look out the window because there were shootings. my brother says. he recalled one time that he saw a police officer shoot a black man and she didn't want a stray bullet to hit me. but that was just my first reference with things. when we moved to location in baltimore was better than where we came from, but it still had issues and had drug issues. so i had friends that are still acquaintances that got with drug issues as well as substance abuse. and as a result of that, they became in the criminal justice

and just petty theft that occurred because of the issues that they and they did serve, you know, small stints in jail. so there was that. but the main thing that really stuck with me was my cousin edward, who i loved edward a lot. he was older than me. and when he was 16, he got a fight with another boy edward thought he was himself and he stabbed the other boy who died. so my was charged with manslaughter. at 16. laws vary from state state but at 16 he could have then tried died as a juvenile, which would have meant that he would not have had a record. he probably might have been in a juvenile detention center. he was 21. if he was adjudicated to be delinquent. but instead a prosecutor chose to try him in a dock court and

not the word is not returned. it's a legal word with him back to court. so my was convicted. at 16 he so he had no other record he had no juvenile had not been in any trouble before and he wasn't old enough to that adult record at 16. and he served five years in a state prison with hardened criminals. and so by the time i got to the state's attorney's office as a prosecutor, i had in my mind set a 27 year old that i wanted to go there to help people. i wanted to help victims of crime, but i also wanted to help those that were charged with the crime and as a lawyer i wanted to get trial experience. so i didn't have any lawyers in my family. so the only thing i saw was on tv and on tv you see lawyers go to court.

so and so when a job came up there, that was the reason why i took it. but immediately almost immediately after i got there, i realize that it was not going to be something that i'm going to help people. ironic people that lived in my neighborhood. i would tell them that, you know, people actually, what do you do? and i say, i'm lawyer and they say where? and i say, i'm across the queue at her without any hesitation, people would say, my, you black people in jail for a living. like, i don't see it that way. after working at the prosecutor's office, i actually came to understand how people felt that way. the prosecutor's office, the way to describe it and i describe it in the book, is really an assembly line. and you of like cars and i've never worked a automobile

assembly line, but when you think about cars, you think about an assembly line. it's just know cars are going through an assembly, parts are being put on to get the finished product. the differences within an automobile assembly line, there are quality controls to make sure there are not any macan issues before it rolls the track and even when there are issues that occur, that's we get the recalls, we'll get the because something didn't go right well in the prosecutor's office, the assembly line first with the police who arrest people then they end up in prosecutor's office and then they just going straight down the track until they get to a conviction, some sort. there isn't quality control that as a prosecutor, the thing that prosecutors look at is the crime that the person is charged with.

their previous record, if they have one. and that's it. they don't look at any other reasons or any other things in the person's background. if they are presented with it by a attorney such as myself. now they don't look at that. they looked solely at the crime the person is charged with what the record is and from that a determination is made that is going to affect someone for the rest of their lives, conceivably, because even if people get just a conviction and probation or no jail time or anything, it's a record and what some people think it doesn't work like the credits system where and the credit bureau kind of drop off after seven years if it if if the conviction of the crime which someone is charged with is not that can be expunged and. not everything can be expunged

by statute then it just stays on your it doesn't go anywhere. so when i came there what, i'm saying it's like an assembly line. when i started i was in misdemeanors even though i had some experience from prior job before, from working. they don't start you out. it's not as bad, they start you out in trying murder cases, you work your way up to point, but starting out in misdemeanors. i had never i had never practiced anything. the criminal justice system. so i didn't know anything. and i went to my supervisor and who i have in the book and he tell me. i said, so what do i do? i have 30 cases. is my first day going to court? i have 30 cases, which is what my docket meaning. those are the cases that are before that particular judge when that day what do i do? and he literally says, don't give them an easy out. i'm thinking, what does that mean? so really isn't a lot of guidance you will hear from most

pressing creditors. it's a sink or swim situation and those are the words that we use sink or swim. and people have a badge of honor about just learning system as you kind of go along. but we didn't have really training. we had poorly we had policies that said whatever the flavor of the month is, if the flavor of the month gun cases, we're going to be really hard on gun cases and we don't do certain things with respect to gun cases. so we had policies we didn't training. i still that one of my friends it was her first day trying a jury trial and so i was tasked with sitting beside her which what we call a second chair. she was going to be trying actually the case. it was a misdemeanor case. so something nonviolent, something minor and. i'm sitting there next to her and she says to me, because the judge says, you know stand up

and give your opening statement. and she says to me, do i have to an opening statement? and i said yeah, but i don't know what you have say because i only had one trial date and i was tasked with being person to sit next to her to tell her what to do. so that's pretty much how it works in the in the system it's and we have such a large volume of cases and even when are areas because i practice and defense in other areas that are smaller that are not large cities but still there are still courtrooms are full of black black youths and there isn't any preparation time. i was generous within the book when i said that perhaps when a case from beginning to end which looking at the case finding what the law is perhaps calling the or not taking the case and talking to the defense attorney

being generous we might give that 20 minutes and those 20 minutes are going to determine someone's potentially for the rest of their life unless you're lucky enough that witnesses don't show up in the case actually gets dismissed, which has nothing to do with the work of a prosecutor. it's just that you couldn't prove you couldn't prove your case. when i'm talking the state and local prosecco hooters offices by way of context that's where most of the cases are there are 13 million in misdemeanor cases mostly nonviolent every year that have run through this state and local offices. in comparison, there's only. 79,000 cases that are in the federal system total every year. unlike with media portrays those million misdemeanor they

represent 80% of all criminal cases. so never really hear about. that's not anything that would be in media. and you're not going to hear about someone shoplifting or, you know, urinating in the street prostitution. yes. there is such thing. we're still prosecuting. prosecuting prostitution. you never hear about those cases, you only really hear about that 20%. but it is that percent that wrecks lives. so just pointing out some of the areas where there are issues within the system, one is with respect to cash bail and illinois is the first state that did away with cash bail and the district of columbia because, it's not a state, but it is also has not had a cash bail since the 1990s. i'm not sure other states don't

because the district of columbia is really the model. there hasn't been a cash bail system there since sometime in the 1990s. like i said and the there's no by way of studies by way of how it works there is no increase because of the lack of a cash bail system. but here is where the cash bail is very problem that i have no in one instance there a person whose family could not make $100, which is what would have been paid on the thousand dollar bail, which is 10%. and that person died in jail before i was coming here to be here today, before i left on a plane. i reading our local paper, the baltimore banner, and just last week in of 2024, two individuals

died in jail, one for medical reasons. one, they're not sure. but the fact of the matter is that they are because they didn't have the to make a bail and they are there when they haven't even had a trial yet. they've not been convicted of anything and they're just waiting for a and so i that the more people really understood about cash bail it would be incumbent upon people who want justice to do everything that can be done that was done in illinois who now has to establish as the blueprint for how it can be done to eliminate the cash they'll system. and just by point of reference, lack of a cash bail system doesn't mean that we let everybody out because people are presumed to be a threat to public safety. these killed someone. you're probably not going to be able to be released. but for people, the vast

majority people who commit nonviolent, those 13 million people, they not be held, you know, barring some extreme raise in jail because they cannot make $1,000 bail. the juvenile justice system is just one aspect for me that. just tears at my heart and i don't know why they it the juvenile justice because the word juvenile the means youth we don't say oh i'm going to go i'm going to go to school and pick up my juvenile. i mean, they children they are teenagers up to the age of 18 they are not juveniles, but that terminology is just one way of the humanizing kids because. that's what they are. there have been cases, florida, that i tell about where kids six years old have been. yes.

the charges dropped, but the child was and had mug shot taken for having a temper tantrum in school school. there are other instances where we have what's called juvenile lifers where there are people who committed a crime usually a murder, often not at the age of 15. and they can be coming, ordered to spend the rest of their life in prison, even though for every one i brains don't fully develop until we're 26. most i know i was like this do you have impulse control issues? i mean you just as my mother used to. oh, you just flying off the handle. i mean, whatever needs. but we have impulse issues when we're teenagers, you know, everyone has things that they probably wish they hadn't done

or said as they were a teenage ager. but those things regardless of if it is a murder should not put them in prison for the rest of their life. a gentleman by the name of joe ligon is presumed to be was presumed to be the longest serving juvenile lifer in this country. he was sentenced when he was to a crime of murder. he didn't understand what was going on. that's beyond the fact. the fact of the matter is he was 83. he was finally through a legal maneuver released from jail for some from prison for something that he did when he was 15. because our system puts away and doesn't even want to look back any further at them. the crime that joe ligon committed and that he was released somewhere around 2021 the crime that he committed he committed it in 1953.

and all that time he was in prison and so always acts which is a rhetorical question that really justice most people i assume you would know by now are juvenile lifers or somewhere around what 2% of those people who are committed crime as a juvenile and had a sentence of life prison without the possibility of parole. black people, the interesting about juvenile justice is i kind of like to compare to what happened to my cousin another case of an individual named ethan couch. so my when he came out he had received g.e.d., g.e.d. he said he ultimately married his high sweetheart. they had two lovely children, bought a house. he worked in baltimore at the

general motors plant until it moved out of town. but he worked there for years. he died an early age from a disease but for the entirety of his life. he could never vote or serve a jury for something he did when he was 16. is that really justice. and it was something again that a prosecutor made that decision to not keep or not return him to juvenile court system that caused that to be for him probation. action. oh, let me just say about ethan, because i think when we look at the difference is so ethan couch is a case that was reported in the media. it occurred in 2013. so it's like more than a moment ago. but ethan couch was a white from texas and he went on a drinking spree. he and his buddies, they got in a car. his blood alcohol level was

three times that of the legal limit. unfortunately, he got into an accident and he four people died. he killed four people. and there were nine other people who were injured as a result of that incident. one of those nine people were, he was left paralyzed. so ethan was prosecuted in a court as well. he should have, but he was prosecuted in a dark court and when it came and he was convicted for the for manslaughter, when it came time for sentencing he had had a psychologist testify and the psychologist testified that ethan was from a wealthy and his family really didn't teach him rules and and that's why he went on this rampage and did what he did. he did not know he did not understand rules. well, the judge evidently bought

that argument because ethan sentenced and he was sentenced to ten years probation on probation. he ultimately violated his probation and did serve time. but at the end of the day, his initial. was for ten years probation. and for him to get a stint in rehab, that doesn't happen for a black kids. the probation system is such that when i prosecuted and started prosecuting i honestly i was doing a good thing when i offered someone probation versus offering them a jail sentence. at the end of the day, way probation works. i wasn't doing anyone any favors and. the reason is because most black kids that are given, whether they're in juvenile or adult

court, they are given called supervised probation versus most white people are given unsupervised probation. and and the vast difference is is that on unsupervised probation that most white people are placed on the only way you can get any trouble again if you committed another crime, you were arrested and committed another crime for supervised probation, where i'm thinking i'm helping people. there's a whole litany of things that people have to one supervised probation and they can have as many ten criteria that they to abide by, not just don't break the law. they may have to weekly see a probation agent. they may have to go look for a job, get proof that looking for a job, the course, it's a victim crime. they may have to stay from the victim, not come in contact with the victim if it's a drug, they

are not going to be given any help, but they are going to be assumed they have to come in and basically make sure that they are testing negative, that they are not showing up with any substance in them. and there's just a whole there may be restitution, have to pay money back if it's been a property case there's a whole long list of things on supervise probation. and the problem with is there are people they cannot make ends meet to feed themselves alone regularly see a probation officer and that alone can trigger a violation of probation and send someone to jail for just doing things that the court system and the prosecutorial system has mercy about the. most egregious, it's hard to rank them, but most degrade. one of the most egregious instances are wrongful convictions where people have and we've all probably read those in the paper where.

people had served time for something that they did not do that they were totally innocent and, ironic. i worked with three homicide detectives who were responsible, and this was not my but who were responsible for fabricate evidence. again three individuals when they were 15 years of age to get a murder conviction for those individuals through the innocence project and a lot of help, they were ultimately freed and exonerated but they are believed to be the longest combined the of their times combined is believed to be the longest serving case for wrongful conviction collective. the three of them served 109 years total between the three of

them and. our system works such that while that happened to those three individuals, those detectives are living out their life when retirement and there's never this there usually are not divisions in most prosecutors offices to look towards wrongful and what can we do about that there's usually not offices that are set up that can take a look back for compassionate like and joe liggins case to see does the person still need to be in jail the risk is another person who pegs at my heart she was 19 years old when she was on drugs and agreed to serve as a lookout person. another person that was going in to do the robbery. well she doesn't know what's

going on inside. she's just thinking the person is. but at the end of the day, that person was there, ended up killing. and we have laws in most states that are called felony murder laws, most of those felony murder laws, no exist in other. but the felony law basically says we don't care if you weren't the person that pulled the trigger, if you were involved in a crime that was a result of a felony and someone died as a of that felony, you're going to be convicted as if were the one that pulled the trigger and therefore you can end up going to prison for life. so maurice scott, who was 19 when that happened she's somewhere. in her 60 is now she is still in and she has little chance of getting out of prison.

so i just want to move what we can do really quickly. there are so many things that we can do and what my my premise in the book is that we work together as in the vigils, but with alliances because where the that's where things are going to resolve and there are things that i talk about in my book that, whether you're 22 or 92, you can do in terms of we're in a world of zoom arms. and you can now get more information by being a court watcher, certain places, because you can do that way of a zoom hearing, see what is going on so that you can gain knowledge. you know, as my mother, people have asked me, well, what can i do well, really just depends on what your level of interest really is. it's not me telling anyone what they should do, but what i do

stress is that we do things collectively, virginia, is not a liberal state, any slim chance is the one state in this country that has more people than any other state. and yet, in 2021, with a of organizations, a lot of individuals, a lot of people, virginia became the first former confederate state that abolished the death penalty. and so there are that can be done on level when we're all working concert together and. another instance in virginia they had a law on the books in 1790. so quite a bit of a ways back and laws seem like it's okay because virginia is only one of two state that said that if are convicted by a jury that the jury would decide on your fate

your sentence. and the reason why that's problematic is juries ended up giving more time to people because they're not privy to know all the things that go into sentencing that. a judge would know the jury just much, just knows, okay, this is a crime and the maximum was five years. that's pretty much what they know versus a judge can always has other factors they know about. so at the end of the day, a law that had been on the books ever since virginia was a commonwealth was through the collective and individual efforts. it was eliminated. and so there are things that can be done. and of, like i said in illinois with the cash bail, which i hope other states will do. so there are things that can be done and individually and that is where i always say that i do have hope that things can change because they are changing in

their many states that have 35 states have what's known as restorative practices where they look at the individual other than just their name, what they've committed and their record and they look see are you someone that has mental issues? do you really need, you know, some type of counseling? do really need to get your life back on track some way. i talk to a lot of i interviewed a lot of people that book and one day jose garza is just recently reelected in travis county, texas which is the jurisdiction where austin texas is. he gave a good example of how his program worked. he was two years into the job at that moment, one individual had charge of possession of cocaine. and i think we know that if you up with a drug conviction, it's going to kind of limit your chances for employment. a lot of other things.

but instead of getting a conviction he set that individual on path of perhaps 12 or 14 months of things that they had do. one was getting more education, but the main thing was he sat him in a, he put him in a program to become a carpenter's apprentice. and at the end of whatever the period of months was that became a union member or a union card member. they came out as a carpenters and earning something like 20 some dollars an hour versus getting conviction on their record, even if it was a suspended sentence for possession of cocaine. and so those are the types of things that i hoping that collectively we can do more of. look ways that we can, you know, create progress for people. and then lastly, sometimes people ask where, are you going to get the money for this?

i mean, you know, you talk about programs and restorative justice. where does the money come from? and the whole irony is it is more cost effective to do restorative justice than it is to imprison someone in alameda county? it would cost one of their programs. it will 40 $500 to put a person in a diversionary. versus $23,000 for that same person. for them to be on probation. what we're talking or what i'm emphasizing in the book is what's called justice reinvestment is the word where we the funds know is in the process of building another pretrial jail to hold people pretrial that will cost 1 billion with a b $1 billion. so justice reinvest that means you take that same money and you invest it in the communities. you help people so that find out what is going on in their what

does the community need. and that has been going on in other areas, just not going on enough such that we can eliminate the largest incarceration system in the world. questions. i was wondering, i mean, thank you for this talk of course. and second off, i was wondering if there was a case that you specifically dealt with that kind of led you to kind of like divest from being a prosecutor, if there was one. i'm sorry for your often said in the earlier on, but just what got you into the process of thinking like oh this isn't actually i want to be doing so when i went to the office, even my state's do this when i was hired, i was never i'd made it very clear i. wasn't there to be a career

prosecutor from the beginning. so i was there to get experience that i wanted to have and move on. but my office had hired me. i knew that from the beginning but one of the things just to follow up a little bit that makes the system be is the fact people stay there too long. so one of the best pieces of advice i got was from my supervisor who told don't give anybody a break be tough on him. but he knew that i didn't is that i wasn't trying to be a lifelong prosecutor and retire there and one of the things that he told me is that don't stay longer than five years because if you stay than five years, that which you you don't want to be, you're going to become that mentally. and so i out before five years.

then any other topics anybody wants hear about because i didn't look at my notes i don't know what i left out. first of all thank you so much for a very enlightening talk prosecutor a state attorney. and i was wondering if you could more about what your perspectives are on prosecuting prostitution or sex work? prosecuting for what? prostitution or sex work? oh my god. it's interesting. so in during the pandemic in baltimore and a lot of other jurisdictions they declined prosecution of those types of cases which is you know prosecutor has that discretion even though the laws on the

books could just say we don't care whether you a mr. phillips, we're just not going to prosecute them. and are the types of cases among others, that really just should not be prosecuted at all? i don't even know why we're still actually taking people to court for prostitution, but that is still thing. thank you. thank you, sir. that's just a remark. all talk very educational, very inspirational. i'm currently a post-doc doing racial disparities research on the medicine side. so that's my background. okay. so first of all, i'm just so proud of you and the work that you've produced and the effort you put into putting all of the information together. i'm like you said, the 20 to 30 pages of references know to really educate people and give

them the knowledge up front before a conversation about how we can augment the system so congratulate patients to you very important work what you're doing so it's first thing how do we incentivize restorative how do we incentivize reinvestment because you talked about the assembly line you know seem so pointed in that direction you know how do we incentivize coming away from the sort of protocol almost that's been developed. so i think part the thing that we have to do collectively is we to separate for which is a lot of this work was done with illinois in the cash bail system because that an uphill battle we have to let people know there's a difference between perception and reality and the perception is that if we don't block everybody, if we don't put in

more, create more maximum, then we are not going to be safe. can't let these people on the street or we're not going to be. and at the end of the that thinking is to reality that by doing the thing that we're doing and have been doing that is what keeps us unsafe and that what helps us to become safe are the things that are in a restorative justice vein or in the diversionary vein with jose garza. because if if you were giving someone chance and an opportunity, you're addressing their mental health needs or their substance abuse needs. and if you can be effective with, you know, certain percentage of people when that, then they're not to go back and crime because they have something else there for them. so the main point is changing

process, action and reality because perception is that crime is rampant. and at the end of the day in terms of violent crimes the study from 2023 december of 2023 showed that. 2023 had for the last ten years was the lowest one record of murder and violent crimes. and that's on a us basis. what may be different in other jurisdictions. but we're talking about the country and the perception of people, not the same. it's that crime is rampant and we just have to do something and build more prisons. so it's a matter of just educating, you know, educating people. one of the things that i like to tell people to do that i didn't mention is if you can go to a talk and hear someone who's been formerly incarcerated or returning, it will change your world because they can explain it a lot better than i can about

what the penal system that we have, how that just self perpetuates know in and out in and out and that they had been given a chance. even the people that have been exonerated when they come out, they have nothing and that if we give people a chance to to become better at restorative justice and dealing with their own individual needs is different from person to person that it would be safer for everyone. and it is a safety a public safety issue. so thank you for coming out you. thank