[sizzling] it's just... - describe that scene to me. what if that's true with like... if you are a 16-year-old. [overlapping indistinct chatter] [clock ticks]

♪ [ applause ] welcome to "time and punishment a town hall." chances are you're fill would a lot of emotion, anger, sadness, disgust, disbelief. we're gathered tonight we're feeling a lot of those same things. we're inspired by spike's docu series. this young man tragic life and tragic is the word which is why we are here tonight, having a conversation that we need tohave about crime, punishment. >> you have a right to remain

silent. >> they said most likely we're going to let you go home. >> they took my child, snatched him off the street. >> the 16-year-old child three years over a backpack. >> i just needed to get my story out. >> two of the executive producers of time join us together on the stage. welcome to you both, gentleman. i'm so glad that you are bringing the story to us. i want to start with you. because he read an article about police. >> yeah, i read an article in the new yorker and i just decide i wanted to reach out. felt like i'm from marcy

project. you have to understand who he was as an individual is not unique to us. you know, that's one of my best friends. older brother got killed in dallas. you know, i've heard all these stories. so it just resonated. it touched something in me and i reached out to him, no intentions. give him a shoulder squeeze. proud of you. he came out, he sat there. we talked. he was going to community college a college. >> what was your impression of him when you met him? >> he looked like kids i grew up with. wasn't maybe was the moment. big trouble but clear. they seem to come through this thing and was headed in the right direction. the direction that he wanted to

head in his life and it's like -- >> you can see he's turning his life around. you could see that. harvey, what about you? >> he came to us and formed a partnership with television and movie and jay's passion on project said about social justice because his story is so unbelievably due in america to watch the outrage of the way we treat somebody this modern age. kids never put on trial and he spent two years in rieker's island and two years in solitary confinement. so the team, the film makers to us, there was nothing we could say but yes. we're glad spike, tracy and sharon jumped there. >> i'd like to say you use the word profit to describe him. that's a very powerful word. >> yeah. profits come in many shapes and

forms. you think about martin luther king and the guys and what they rc represented and sometimes it's tragic for us to learn the lessons we need to learn to move forward. so i believe that his death is here to teach a generation of kids and we're seeing people watching it, people effected by it. i say this about the movie. it's really hard to watch but important to see. i see the length before they air and i've seen them hundreds of themes and still moves me the same way. >> that is so well said. it's hard to see but important to hear. >> but millions of people are watching. a george bush thing there with my words. >> i'm sorry.

movie what? >> okay, mr. carter. here's a look at culeaf's world growing up. >> me and kaleef were neighbors for years. we used to throw snow balls at cars and then we start running. >> my stoop be his stoop. tyrone's is all the way to the left. three months of tears. >> you would play video games, sports. >> in the front and constantly. throwing each other at cars. it's just like regular kids, you know. >> he was a goof ball. he tells all the jokes. >> he always made people laugh. he's a funny kid. had a good heart to him. >> we are joined now by his sister, nicole. thank you so much for bringing the story. nicole, i want to start with you because i read about your brother's story in the paper and

thought i must be missing something here. the story can't be the way it's being portrayed. what do you want us to know about him? >> he was a normal, happy, very healthy kid. >> the youngest? >> he was it youngest. >> of how many kids? >> seven. and he was the baby. we played together, we picked on each other. there was a time when we were younger that i took a mattress from my bed and we would slide it down the stairs and we used to laugh. he was also very strong. >> he was 5'5" and 155 pounds. i weigh more than 155 pounds. but he was a little guy. >> yes. >> but he was very strong. >> very strong. he was born with an eight pack. he had this physique that we look at him and he's this little

midget. >> you guys called him peanut. and i've heard you say that prison changed him. >> yes. >> tell us about that. >> when he came home he wasn't the same person. he was soulless. i didn't see any charactershics about him anymore. they literally took my brother away from us. >> you know what i want people to know about your brother. your brother was not bad kid. he was a normal kid. with normal dreams. absolutely. he was. he always wanted to own a business. he road his bike every day, no matter what he was going through, he made sure he showed up for clas. and his strength is something i'm trying to learn from and i want to learn from because he makes me want to be a better person. >> you know what struck me when i was watching the documentary,

the time you spent with his mom and the toll it took on her. >> yeah. i think people don't really understand when we talk about the criminal justice system and people who have been wrongfully convicted or in prison or jail or a place like rieker's, we don't realize how it effects their family. it was just such a heart wrenching experience to know how much she endured, how much she had seen her child over and over again this long commute, this grulyi gruly trip and not being able to take him home and do anything but wait while he told her about what was happening to him in there. i mean, she carried that with her and carried his fight for justice with her when he passed. and her strength is truly inspirational and i do this a lot for her.

>> it also struck me that this all started with a backpack. he was accused of stealing the backpack and that was something i thought didn't make any sense to me too. how could somebody accused of stealing a backpack end up in prison? >> so many kids sitting there because these docket numbers. it's not children. you have to watch this and then you have to walk in to your child's room and just look at them. the idea that this could happen in america right now, you have to take a second, a moment to pause for people looking at people, statistics. you think about how we arrived at this point and kids do things. they get into things. i've done that. and you take a joy ride in the truck and they give you a felony charge.

that's a felony story. that's five years probation for joy riding. >> and that started the kalief introduction into the criminal justice system. i love how jenner said it was effecting the family. take us inside the family. >> i don't want to dominate the conversation. i just want to finish that point off. it would be like kids at skate parks riding around and getting tickets. if you give that kid in the skate park being miss chvs, you're not supposed to do that. you give that purse an felony. that's the equivalent of that. >> i just want you to close off this segment with how it effected the family. because the conversations that you all were having. your brother is in prison because he was accused of stealing the backpack which turned out not even to be the case. >> this has taken, if not a big toll, a huge toll on our family.

we lost our brother. and we lost a year and six months later we lose our mother. that was the toughest thing. >> i understand that. >> time through the, mom. and i'll stay with jay. somebody who would tell the story and the biggest injustice of all, that's these kids. couple of kids in the suburbs do the same thing. you have money, this doesn't. happen. this is an injustice, this is racial prejudice and economic prejudice.

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you are mr. kalief brouder, is that correct? >> they said i tried to rob somebody, then they told me i robbed somebody previously. one of those. >> did you rob somebody in the beginning part of may? >> no. we are back on "time and punishment."

and we're here tonight for this town hall. we're really talking about kalief browder. he was tragically failed by our court and prison system too. how on earth could this happen and if you watch that last hour, you were sitting at home, you must be wondering how does this happen in the united states of america? and here jay-z and harvey weinstein are still here of course. but we're now joined by schultz from the new york times and kalief's lawyer after his release. you saw him after he came out of prison. and i was struck that prison was described as hell on earth. you're thinking yea. but in many ways, it became a different kind of hell for him when he got out, did it not? when you met him? >> i think without a doubt. when i first met kalief we sat

through his release from rietger's what struck me was i saw this young kid and his pain and his anger was palpable, but beneath that as i got to know 4i him, what i saw was this innocence and this smile. i think that's what really touched me. and once you got to know kalief and i can speak for anyone who's met him from rosie o'donnell to jay, he just had that thing about him that you were drawn to. and i think that's what really -- what makes this series so inspiring. i can say that about me personally. i always felt like i had a passion for what we did. but kalief gave me a cause to fight for and that's something i'll always take away. >> but as someone in the legal community yourself, did you find

yourself wondering how did this happen to you? or were you thinking i'm not surprised. as a lay person, i couldn't understand it. >> i was surprised. i remember when his brother called me and told me -- when his brother told me and said could you meet my brother. he just got out of prison and he told me this story and i thought you're missing something. so i think it was really an aberration that you had this massive selling in every aspect of our criminal justice system and more appalling, it happened here in new york city. so i think, yes. have i seen these things he happen? of course. but to this extent? never. >> did you think it was an aberration, michael? you've been covering this story. >> i have been covering this

story. when i started looking into riker's island and started resporting on it, i didn't believe the things i was reading about the level of violence, about the gang assaults, about the criminality and the absolute chaos that goes on there. but the thing that needs to be reported over and over again was that kalief, when he went in was 17 years old and new york is one of only two states in the nation to treat 16 and 17 year olds like adults. so as a 17-year-old boy and as you mentioned in the last segment, he was small stater. this is a boy, is put into a men's prison. a jail designed to house adults and for years there's been a push to try and raise the age of criminal responsibility so it's in line with the rest of the nation, which recognizes 18 year

olds as the cut off for putting individuals into adult prisons and even that, some research would suggest is too young to be throwing somebody in with a mix of adults. 16 and 17 year olds, these are children. >> you can't drink, can't vote but you an adult. >> you can go to an adult prison. >> that's what your going to be hearing about new york. >> and the thing that also impressed me about kalief is that he was given an opportunity to plead. just say that you're guilty and then you can get out of here and it's so powerful in the documentary where he says if i do that then this story will never be told. that says something about he may have been small in stater, but it says something about his integrity, his character and his strength. >> and that's exactly what i think is so powerful about his stories. and you know, but ultimately --

and he had gone through so much after he got released. and there was so much that happened to him. both good and bad. >> hold that thought for two seconds. part of kalief's story comes down to not making bail. >> the majority of people who are accused in the bronx, doesn't matter if it's million dollars bail or $750, they don't have the means to get out. >> bail was set at 3,000 but the bond was 900. sounds like a small amount but when you don't have it, you don't have it. and i did not have it. and i couldn't do anything. this was my child. they took my child from me. just snatched him off the street.

>> i think that's the thing, paul, that got to me. anybody if they knew this story, knew it boils down to $3,000 a day. harvey weinstein, any of us would have said i will make bail for this child. but the court system says innocent until proven guilty. >> it's not innocent until proven guilty because if you don't have the means, then your jail and house is a guilty individual. >> right. ryan stephenson says we have a criminal justice system that treats you better if you are rich and guilty than if you are poor and innocent. >> yeah. >> i think there's something to be said for that. and there's definitely -- i think kalief's story sort of tips the scale because i think most people had presumed that if you're in jail, even if you haven't been convicted of anything, maybe you did something wrong. there's that presumption of guilt and then. the presumption

of innocence. >> you must have done something. yes, ma'am? >> question's for jay. do you find parallels between kaley's experiences and your own experiences growing up here? >> yeah. a lot of -- i look at a lot of forks in the road in my life that i could have made the wrong decision and not been on this stage, easy. easy. like, there were many instances where i could have gotten myself in trouble and i was doing things. not some innocent 16-year-old -- i'm not saying he's an angel. we live in these neighborhoods and these are the pressure, the social pressures and everything we got going on. you put these people together, personal things, you have to deal with multiple personalities every day and then you have to deal with peer pressure and you have to deal with the schooling.

you go to school like my child has three teachers. we were one teacher 35 students. i mean, it's very difficult to get that sort of education. we've never left the projects. so this is our -- this is our microcosm of society is this small. we don't see that there's a whole world out there that we can aspire to, go places and see things. that's why making a song, hate to say it so raw but it's true. making out is so important toop aspire to go to other places. we didn't go to manhattan until we got to high school. i remember seeing central park one day and almost cried. >> what made you cry? >> it's so beautiful. it was 250,000 people in the park playing frisbee and all that. there's kids in the project who's never left the project and kids is out here in the street. it's the idea of the world and what's out there.

it's the things we don't see. so we base everything on a neighborhood and man, this is nothing. i risk my life. but what is it? this is nothing to me. i'm sorry. that's why people do things you think -- you're like why would someone do that? you have to really put yourself in that mind state. you have be in the place to say what are they really risking in their mind to go from the hallway, they get jail. nobody cares about them. they get locked away, abused. this young man spent 800 days solitary. you couldn't spend fourlt days without your mind just gone. alth 00 days. and went in at 16, not 17. 16 years old. >> but the point you make about him he was not an angel. but he was not a bad kid. if he lives in the suburbs, he would have been out the very same day.

>> he was skating, he was joy riding. he was skating in the place people didn't want him to. that's the parallel. they chase you away there. get out of here. >> go home. that's the point i want to make. >> when i came here tonight, we drove up broadway. i remember taking my kids seeing the show myself, les ms. raw. when he says kalief is the profit, sean bell sean lived for history 400 years later, here we are. this and the story that the vacuum entry tells hopefully will be the same kind of message and the same kind of power and that's the film these guys made. >> thank you, harvey. we'll be back with more time and punishment. >> the only way you're going to come home to your family is to plead guilty whether or not you do it. and anybody who thinks you and anybody who thinks you wouldn't plead guilty to

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♪ ♪ ♪ new, peach, from lime-a-rita. make it a margarita moment. officers and inmates at risk at rikers island. >> this stuff breaks grown men, el let alone a boy. welcome back to "time and punishment" tonight. we are coming together as a community but what kind of community was kalief browder thrust into when he was sent to rikers island and what happened when he was forced into solitary confinement for 800 days. think about that for a second. 800 days solitary confinement by yourself. we're joined by crissy jacobson.

director of the documentary "solitary." christy, you start us off what solitary is like based on what you learned about solitary in juveniles in particular. >> i filmed inside of a supermax prison. so we're talking about a jail but they're also supermax prisons across the united states where people are housed exclusively in solitary confinement. so the kinds of conditions that kalief experiences 22, 23, to 24 hours a day in an 8 by 10 cell. meal said get fed to you by a slot. and the sounds, the screaming of your fellow members of that society can be really torturous. so as jones said in that clip, a grown man would crack -- >> let alone a young man. >> human nrinterakds and being deprived of social interactions.

and youth, as jay was saying, not built -- their brains aren't even fully formed. they don't ness saerl have the strength to with stand that kind of treatment and that goes on not just in rikers but across the united states. >> let's take a look at a clip of what life is like at rikers. >> kalief was imprisoned at rikers island. it's isolated, it's away from our view. some people have called it new york's own tiny little guantanamo bay. >> officers and inmates at risk on rikers island. >> this stuff breaks grown men, let alone a young guy. >> the only way you're going to come home to your family is to plead guilty, whether or not you did it. and anybody who thinks you won't plead guilty to get off rikers island haven't been there.

you would do anything to get out of something that violent and frightening. >> i'm not going to say i did something just so i can go home. if i have to stay here to prove that i'm innocent, then so be it. >> i feel sorry forred a lessants because i know they're going to get violated. >> it's hell on earth. >> that's what got to me, guys, in the documentary where he says i'm noting going to plead guilty. so be it. did you all talk about that at all? >> we didn't go into depth what he was going through, i just imagine based on the stories i heard growing up. and it's not exclusive to rikers. i don't want anyone to think -- >> this is an anomaly. >> it's terrible place but they're all over the world and housing young kids in these places