the astroid comes a year after a smaller one shattered windows, and injured more than 1500 people. that will do it for this edition of aljazeera news, i'm thomas graden in new york. hi, i am lisa fletcher and you are in "the stream." states spend more on prisons than schools, but could a push from washington change that? we are going take a look at renewed efforts to store restore rights to ex-cons ♪ ♪ th

>> even after they serve time they say they face the harsh reality of life on the outside. including social exclusion restore voting rights as a way to reduce the number of ex-cons returning to prison, donald and cheryl were both formerly inning cars operated saying personal disenfranchisement neither serves them nor their communities.

i just wanted to end it all that day. typical scenario of challenges that people face within the first six months with when they were released from prison? >> sure, the same challenges we face when we are getting out on our own. you have to find housing. you have to figure out how you are going to pay the bills so you have to get a job. you want to do all of the things that you normally do in order to just exercise your normal citizenship rights. you register to vote. all of those things that we all do. but for individuals who have been formally inning cars operated. this is so much more difficult. because there are many barriers placed in front of them. so many sometimes they want to hold it against them for the mere fact that they have been incarcerated roaredless of the fact that they have served their time and paid their debt to society they have to overcome barriers. >> our community is talking just about that.

some great community. natasha says imagine of these ex-felons live in regions without legitimate industries or job opportunitieses and have no ray way to travel beyond the local area, and travel is further restricted by some states licensing prohibitions other areas lack public transit, unstable housing situations, and bearded guy says people look down on ex-felons check backgrounds, point hire, they do things and go back to prison. rah sit jirecidivism is around . shoot we be providing more adequate resources to help them integrate in to society? >> i don't think that's the problem. i don't think that the issue is that we haven't figured out how to put together the right resources so these individuals are motivated or able to be readily reintegrated. that's something that is a

choice for the individual. but i want to speak a little bit more about the people who are the victims of the people who, quote, have served their time. it's the people we have named as felons that say you can't go out late at night because they pray prey on you, it's the rapists who are felons, that make college campuses have to have special lights and phone systems set up otherwise women or even some men will be imperilled. a lot of folks save money by working at convenience stores or other kind of shots by themselves late hours, trying to serve the community and they are the people that are often the targets of these felons. we are not saying anything to those people when we say let's not look so much at your problems, let's focus on the people who have victimized you

and what problems do they have reintegrating back in to society. there ought to be some constraint or restraint on the part of the individuals committing the felonious acts and that wilmin highs the number of people that need to be reintegrated. >> horace, at what point has a convicted felon served their time, paid their debt to society? it's -- in a civil saturday there is a judicial process they go through, they are convicted, go to prison for whatever time the young and jury have deemed reasonable.

houses, burglars, rapists or any other kind of serious felon. i don't believe it's helpful to say to the people who are not those kind, that they must interact with. it's up to the individual. that individual on a case by case bases can convince people that they have changed. >> desmond, what role do you think societal fear played in creating barriers to ex-cons when they are trying to reinning great in society and are trying to have a productive life? >> i think it plays a major role. you know, one of the things that i have noticed is that when an individual commits a crime, their value is lowered to where saturday will feel better punishing them. but by doing so, they also play upon the fear that i think it's

within all of us, you know, no one wants to be a victim of crime. no one wants crime in their neighborhood. and so they would use us as an example and there would -- i guess take images of especially of african-american males and to cause the public to cry for harsher punishment, long he have sentences and to not restore the rights of returning citizens upon their release. >> desmond our community jumping on the whole topic of dehuman dehumanization, it's difficult to escape mentality when society says you are forever a criminal. when felons do the time served they carry stigma. the felon label is a life sentence for those turned around they can't get a vote or get a decent job, lisa. [speaking at the same time] >> near 6 million americans cannot vote because of the turns or past felony conviction, after the break, does not having a

vote make you more likely to reoffend? we are going to talk about that, but first, you want to up your interaction with the show, you've got twitter and facebook, check this out. tv is no longer one way with the stream's second screen app. share your thoughts during the live show. disagree with a guest, great, tell also. get exclusive app contents, receive graphs, quizzes and guest information, interact with other app users in real time. you can be our third co-host. vote, tweet, record video comments and we'll feature them on air, use the app and drive our community's discussions on live tv. this literally puts you in the control room. download it now at aljazerra.com/ajstreamapp and use it with every stream show.

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>> every morning from 5 to 9am al jazeera america brings you more us and global news than any other american news channel. find out what happened and what to expect. >> start every morning, every day, 5am to 9 eastern with al jazeera america. ♪ ♪ it is time for fundamentally reconsider laws that permanently disenfranchise people who are no longer under federal or state supervision. these restrictions are not only unnecessary, and unjust, they are also counter pr productive. by perpetuating the stigma and isolation imposed on the formally innin incarcerated individuals, these laws increase the likelihood that they will

commit future crimes. >> does being able to vote actually make you a more law abiding citizens zens? one study says, yes. it actually helps with the reintegrate process. >> before i answer that let me make a comment about horace's statements earlier. advocacy organizations brea like brennan center i want to make clear, our organizations want to make sure that every american citizen is a law abiding citizen. we don't want anyone has commit aid crime to not pay their debt to society. let's be very clear on that. and i think you can ask any legal organization think thank that works on these issues that question it and they would all say that. but what we need to understand is this, once an individual pays his or her debt to society we want them to be able to reintegrate in to their

communities that is at the heart of our democracy in this country. this country was founded on this idea that all men are created equal. that we all have freedoms, when we do things that get those freedoms taken away we pay that debt, once you have done that you are supposed to have your rights and opportunities and your responsibilities given back to you. that's really what this discussion is about. so when it comes to voting, that is at the heart of our democracy. if you tell any american, if you give them the impression that you cannot take part in our democracy, you are not only telling that person you are half a citizen, you are also having a trickle down effect in terms of how that community is impacted and how their families are impacted. the brennan center did a study a identify identify year old back that looked at what it means to individuals once they have their right to vote restored. people tell you it means i feel like i'm a part of my community, i feel like i have a voigt in this society. your children see it, your community sees it and it makes all the difference in terms of how well you reintegrate in to

the society. it makes a huge different if we want to stop people from committing crimes and not being good citizens, let's restore democracy to everyone once they have paid their debts and that goes a long way to insuring that we have people who become good citizens and pay attention to the laws and exercise their rights and responsibilities the way we want everyone in this country to do. >> that's balancedder dash. >> balancedder dash. let's be clear. the founder required that 90% of all felons be hung. there was no rehabilitation or reintroduction it was their thesis that the crimes that merited the felony category it was the end. don't wrap the flag around this, this is about a special interest being created. now, it turns out another set of studies and a series of them appeared to show that this particular group of people are more interested in the party of

big government. that's the liberal party of democrats that & they are in the conservative party of small government and republicans. this outrage is about partisanship not about helping people. now, let's talk about what happens to the victims, i believe if we are talking about freedom, people have the ability to walk past the 7-eleven. don't don't plead to shoot anybody or rape anybody or engage in any of these kind of reasons and when we say there should be a reward afterwards we are implying that somehow that you can't exercise that control. >> horace, i am going to get some community. scott says:

>> desmond we are talking about it but you lived it. felons lose a lot of rights, right to hold a gun, hold public office, sit on a injury. how did it feel to you as an american citizen to lose your fundamental right to vote as an ex-felon? >> it relegates me to a second class citizenship status. you know, piggy backing on what was said earlier, anyone that really takes the position that a felon should not have their rights restored upon relief from incarceration, is actually taking the position against their own self interests. because if you were to really stop and think about it, 95% of the individuals who are incarcerated are coming home, they are going to get released and coming back in to your own community. what do you want that person to face when they are out there? do you want them to not be able

to get a job? to be as tha ostracized the notd housing, education, what do you think will happen then? >> and lisa -- >> so -- so in order -- in order for us to really improve our communities or strengthen our communities, we need to remove these obstacles and allow individuals that are released from incarceration to reintegrate as quickly as possible. there is no research out there whatsoever that would indicate that making it tougher for a turning citizens to have their rights restored, would actually reduce the recidivism rate. >> just a caveat to what desmond just shared. about two year old ago the center for economic and policy research did a study and looked specifically at barriers to reentry and one of the things it talked about was with respect to the employment issue alone, that it really does hurt our nation when we are making it very

difficult for the formally incarcerated to get jobs. it talked within the study about the fact that our ability to produce products, to insure that we have enough workers to do the jobs that are still available in this country, it's significantly decreased by the fact that we don't make opportunities available to the formally incarcerated to become a part of the workforce, so i want to just reiterate what desmond said. it goes against the self interests. country if we make it harder for these individuals who are indeed coming back in to the community to reintegrate and to actually become productive members of their communities. >> horace, from your perspective do people have to choose do they have dough side whether to be for victims' rights or whether to support reintegrating ex-cons. >> the reintegration of ex-cons is a choice that individuals make. there is no state law and certainly no federal law that says wal-mart can't hire

ex-cons. what economists tell us is, if you require wal-mart to hire those kind of people, they will go out of their way to find out how to minimize the number of people that they can hire regardless of whether people are qualified, regardless of whether people have demonstrated that they are sorry or are ready to repent or reintegrate in to society. every single time an employer mandate of any kind with a discrimination law is adopted it creates these effects. we are seeing it with set veterans with handicap. if we added ex-con to his the category, you would see the very same phenomenon. there is a lot of literature on that. >> when we come back we'll look at some innovative responses to getting felons back on track. stick around.

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♪ ♪ welcome back. we are taking about the some sensible ways to try to reintegrate ex-cons back in to society once they have served their time in prison and now we want to talk about some innovative approaches and i think the community has ideas on that. >> whole lot of ideas. great hewn community here. lisa says: >> that's in oregon.

>> defy ventures a great nonprofit here which provides carefully selected men and women with criminal histories with leadership and career opportunities, these men were the bad eggs if you will of society and look at them now, business leaders, contributing to society and entrepreneurs. >> shameless promotion of diller dave's my favorite cinnamon bread hands down it's unbelievable. desmond you are doing innovating things what is working? >> first of all it starts with shifting the label of ex-felon or ex-con. we refuse for use those terms anymore and we refer to those individuals a as returning citizen. research shows when you label somebody ex-connor ex-felon that contributes to the likelihood of recidivism. so we should start first by finding a different or more positive term to use when talking about individuals who

have been formerly incarcerated. that's step one. step two is that we have to find ways to lift the values or individuals that are released from prison, one of the main institution that his we have been working with have been churches or congregations, faith congress games. because we believe that they play a vital role in being able to welcome an individual back in to their community and they could also stand on faith principles of forgiveness, respiration and redemption. and so i think that with those two we could be well on our way. >> horace, is it in society's best interest to take an active role in to helping these people reintegrate in to society rather than just saying, you committed your crime, figure it out? >> well, first of all there are great groups lie prison fellowship and other organization that his actually work with individuals who are choosing to repent and want to

get on with their life and find ways to demonstrate how they can show the character. but i do not believe that it's the duty or the responsibility of the government in some way to say well, you served your time, now you can work as a prison guard. you served your time, i know you robbed three places here is your firearm, you can have it back. there is no reason to say you sit on the jury now, and you get to decide what happens to these people. i am saying we need to look a priority, who are the people and what choices are they making, will they choose not to? i think segments like this help to tell people who are sitting on the edge, there are consequences to bad choices. >> our community jeremy says the second-chance acts provide job train, drug treatment and other services for people leaving prison. nicole how can society help reintegrate these ex-felons? >> i just have to make this overall statement which i am

really glad we live in a society that believes in second chances. you know, when i listen to horace talk i think, you no he, if he had his way, perhaps we would all make mistakes and we would never be forgiven. i don't know anyone in this country who has never made any kind of mistake, whether or not it's that you've gotten a parking ticket, whether it's that you know, you failed a class, everyone has made some kind of mistake and thank goodness we live in a country where people have opportunities to make good even after having made their mistakes, with that being said, i think we've got to talk about not just what programs are available once people leave prison, but what needs to happen when you are in prison. governor cuomo in new york just this sunday, yesterday, made an announcement that he is going to start funding college courses in prisons again for individuals. those kind of things are a step in the right direction. let's try to prepare individuals so that once they get released they are prepared to take advantage of the opportunities that exist to get back in to society. >> nicole austin hillary, dead manned, and horace, thanks so much for being on the show.

until next time we'll see you online. ♪ ♪ gunfire on the streets of bangkok as clashes between police and protesters leave at least two dead and dozens injured on both sides. ♪ ♪ hello from dough marks everyone this is the world news from al jazerra. ideal might be unreachable, iran and the u.s. show little hope before nuclear talks begin in vienna. a venezuelan opposition politician arrested by security force is his quickly freed by his supporters. and we meet the aminators hoping make