the first is whether or not this is an appropriate use of the all writs act so a judge has determined it's not that, it will go up on appeal. .. >> they would suffer economic damage to their reputation in the long term. that implicates some sort of core understandings about civic

duty, multi-national, you know, american corporations that have multi-national markets. it's a very complex issue, but there's no security concern there. they are saying it's a financial and reputational issue. >> essentially, apple has changed its mind at this point -- [inaudible] >> i think it's fair to say that they've changed their mind, but i don't think it should be characterized necessarily as apple is bad. right? i think that they have changed their understanding of the operation of the law. but not based on the technology changes. >> hi. jane harman again. i thought this panel was great, or i think this panel is great, and one of the reasons i think it is great is that it's a discussion in public about a set of complex issues. and so my question is this: when we, after 9/11 when all of us

thought we might be attacked again, the bush administration, bush 43, term one, took most of its actions to thwart the threat by executive order. it turned out that memos were written in the justice department at the office of legal counsel justifying a lot of this, and congress was cut out. my question -- and congress caught up in the second term of bush. there were a lot of actions in congress. my question is this, how important is the public debate? at this point when there are such complex issues, should the public be brought in and help determine the set of answers that our country will give to technology and to the need, i think everyone would agree with this, the need, if possible consistent with our constitution, to find out what bad guys are plotting before they hurt us?

>> i think public debate is critical. and thank you again, congressman harman, for having this event. i really enjoyed it, and i learned a lot myself. because the issues here are so monumental. they deal with privacy, national security, with law enforcement. right? we all want crimes to be solved and people not to be injured or harmed. and so these are really large issues, and the public needs a way in because it's going to affect the public for years and years to come. how congress act, if congress act, or if counts act, so i think the public needs a way in. don't know what the public's going to say. i think looking at the polls depending on how you ask the question, you're going to get a different answer, and i think the public itself is somewhat conflicted on this issue. these are very complicated issues, and they do often raise conflicts that are not easy to solve. >> i would just add whenever you're having a public debate

that's highly technical, that's always hard to have in a sophisticated sort of informed way, so i certainly hope that the technology community can also sort of take some leadership on really making sure that people understand the technical issues at play. i also think, though, it's important to not dismiss people who disagree with sort of the technical mindset. i think there is a little bit of, i don't know, sort of a temptation to say, well, if you have a different value or you come down differently, it's because you don't get it. if you knew math like we did, right? you just don't understand. i think it's not important that it's indicative of the right or wrong answer, but it's important to understand that it's possible for people to have sort of different values here and to make sure we're being respectful about all those values in the conversation. >> i so just want to second all that but also point out that

without a public debate, where we end up with is the national security bureaucracy makes the decision, they do it in secret, and it turns out -- and i think the snowden disclosures and where we are today illustrate that that's not only bad for human rights, civil liberties and democratic government, it's bad for the intelligence community. because the apple's resistance and the technology companies' resistance to government access and insistence on the importance of encryption is, i believe, in large part a measure of the american public coming to understand that its intelligence agencies were accessing so much more of americans' communications than we had any idea. and so we're still seeing the results of that.

and so what i would say is that in this debate when the law enforcement says, well, we want access when we have a warrant, that's one question. but we need to have in the debate what about when you don't have a warrant, but you have some other authority that's going to allow you at the moment to get access in secret? are you still asking then for encryption to be broken and that we have complete and candid answers to those questions from the national security side. >> go ahead. >> yes. i'm -- [inaudible] with the voice of america. can you address the international implication issues? if governments like china ask apple to do the same thing, would apple do it? >> so this is actually a really complex question. i think this is a little bit of

a tendency to say, well, apple's going to be able to create the technical conditions and, therefore, that's going to allow them to say no to other countries. it's not -- nobody except for apple and the chinese government know what apple's relationship with china is like. what bruce sewall did testify yesterday, that apple has complied with chinese local data laws, it's commonly understood that the chinese government maintains access to all data within china. google, for example, rather than complying with data localization laws elected to withdraw from that market. so while it's sort of, it's difficult to know, it's not -- it's apples and oranges, right? because the relationship to the data in question is very different. that said, certainly china is looking to what the united states is saying. certainly, this operates, you know, this alters u.s. companies' abilities to

negotiate with chinese government, you know, as sort of they tend to promulgate regulations that leave a lot of discretion. so it's very important and at the same time not quite as dispositive, think, as sometimes believe it can be. >> i went to china last year in a congressional delegation, and one of the issues we raised was allowing more access for american businesses to the chinese market. because they ban facebook, they ban much of google because these u.s. companies would not agree to some of the very intrusive demands of the chinese government. our embassy continues to make arguments to the chinese government saying, please, allow more access to our u.s. businesses. it does somewhat undercut our ability to do that if here in the u.s. we then are our own government, right, going in, taking back doors or back doorways to try to access smart phoenix. smart phoenix.

so i think this does have an effect how this is decided not just in the u.s., but also our businesses compete worldwide. >> and the other international aspect, of course, is that encryption is extremingly, it's critically important for the center of human rights activists around the world who live in repressive regimes. and sometimes it's a matter of life and death that they have access to encrypted communications. >> [inaudible] >> howdy. my name is david, i'm a, working here at the wilson center, i'm an intern. this is sort of a tangential issue to the san bernardino case and other case. how does this discussion change when you're talking about open source encryption? apple, they write the programs for the encryption, and they have a certain ability to break

into it when they want to or when they're demanded to by the government. but with open source encryption, which i understand there's been some hostility towards it in general with people from the intelligence community. could you speak to that? >> if i understand your question correctly, right now two people can go in encrypted communications, and the fbi cannot access it. and that sort of leads to a broader point where if you look at what the fbi and the department of justice say, they say, look, there's all these dark spaces now that we can't access. my view of that is, well, in america it's intentional we have a lot of dark spaces, right? your bedroom is a dark space. we don't want the fbi listen anything there. your home is a dark space. in the san bernardino case, it's probably likely those two terrorists planned a lot of this just by talking to each other in their home, right? dark space. and with encryption right now, you don't even need a

smartphone, you can just encrypt with another person, fbi can't access it. and that does, right, at some level maybe it's going to make it easier for some criminals and terrorists to take certain actions. but also it does a lot to protect not just people's privacies, but companies' privacies. strong encryption, again, is good for u.s. business, u.s. consumers and u.s. national security. >> let's make sure to get somebody from the back. in the blue tie. >> thank you. nils -- [inaudible] two questions. one that hasn't really been addressed is if you look at san bernardino and the attack, is it really an existential threat? i would argue that it's not. we have 14 dead people which is horrible, but it's not an existential threat to the existence of the country. so discussing this big an issue in the context of that one case

might be the fbi taking things far out of proportion. and secondly, we've only touched on apple, but let's say apple were come compelled -- compelled to do this. run off to black phone.ch, and you're going to get something a lot harder to crack than an iphone. we're just moving the goalpost. there's just no end in sight. >> so i think two things. one, certainly, it's not an existential threat, and we shouldn't be making policy decisions out of places of fear or terror, right? that said, we all sort of have directive understandings -- collective understandings about what our expectations of law enforcement are like, their ability to investigation, prosecute and prevent crimes. we're allowed to change our minds, this is sort of the beauty of the system. we get to pick where we want all of these things to fall x. in terms of the notion of moving the goalpost sure. there's always going to be a more secure phone, there's always going to be third-party

apps, there's always going to be the act for two smart, committed bad guys to speak in a way the government can't access. the question is how big that space should be and sort of how manageable sort of the problem is. so i think that it's important to understand that on -- there's no such thing as absolutes on east side. we're never going to get absolute cybersecurity, absolute physical security. it's a balance of how we, how we want these all to fall. >> i largely agree with that. but i think something to consider is it's easy to sort of point out, hey, a bad thing happened. but i think it's important to understand that lots of bad things happen when you don't have strong encryption. so we've been repeatedly harmed, the united states, from weak encryption and weak cybersecurity or defenses, right? millions of records stolen. businesses, anthem blue cross, target, home depot be hacked.

we have suffered huge amounts of economic damages, national security risks. american lives are now at risk payoff that hack at opm last year. so i think it's one to put on a scale, right? weak encryption or vulnerable encryption has caused harm, will continue to cause harm. and that's just something people need to think about as they think about these issues. >> hi. meg king with the wilson center. before my question, shameless plug for the wilson center cybersecurity lab. one of the reasons we do that is to make sure everyone has access to the technological information, what do networks mean, who are the bad actors so that members of the congressional offices can have the best information possible. so my question is really about unintended consequences. let's say a decision goes

forward in one of these cases, like the san bernardino case, and somehow apple agrees to or is compelled to write new software or this happens in some other case. we've seen incidents where that kind of a situation can actually -- it's out on the open internet. somebody will find it. there's a mistake somewhere because humans are still writing code. how do we need to think about that from the legal perspective, the privacy perspective, and how is the u.s. congress thinking about that issue? >> so i think it's really important to sort of be honest about the various risks on all sides. and so the government would be very foolish to dismiss apple's, i think, very sincere and genuine concerns. so one of the concerns is that apple will not be able to maintain this software securely, that it will inevitably get stolen, or they'll have to use it, you know, so many times that it's going to compromise their ability to secure their keys. it's really important to sort of take those head on and decide what the actual risk is.

whenever i sort of think -- i think it's really important to take the facts as they come, right? it's ease is city to kind of spin up into this, you know, back doors into encryption, right? when there's really complex technical issues, i think it's important to take the technology as it is before the court as it is sort of before the case in issue. you know, look, i'm sure that there are a great many number of technologists that will disagree, maybe even the congressman himself. whenever i think about sort of the risk scenario here, i think, okay, sure, if the software is stolen, apple has an impressive history of being able to secure things up until this point. software is software, they were able to secure it for many, many years. okay. maybe this is different, and now this software will be stolen. okay. who has the capacity to steal it? who has the capacity to use et or repurpose it if they were to steal it? okay. so, like, that's not just

nation-state actors, but it's probably more than your ordinary thug, so we probably don't need to worry about people grabbing iphones out of people's hands. that's what that group looks like. okay. whenever you have this code, you actually need the device in question. so from an intelligence perspective, i think, well, it's always better to get, to find an intelligence sector where the person doesn't know so they keep producing intelligence. like stealing someone's iphone is low on the list. i think, i sort of think, all right, who would want to do it? how hard would it be? how would you secure the phone? i kind of come down to, well, a sloppy intelligence officer, that would be a real problem. corporate espionage would be a problem. potentially some border issues, things like that. i think that those are real threats. we have to really think about it, but we also need to push the technologists and the tech companies past the original representation of this is not safe because they're right in a

theoretical sense. if you create this cold, something existed before, something exists now that didn't exist before. but i think it's really important to not be afraid of looking stupid and saying, okay, what does that mean? what would happen next so that we can get to the end and make a decision really based off of kind of the facts on the ground instead of sort of just being afraid of ever sort of messing with anything or taking sort of the first representations of a corporation that, of course, has, you know, corporate obligations that are about maximizing value to shareholders and not sort of about protecting our civil liberties. >> so in addition to being a recovering computer science major, i'm also a recovering lawyer, and so i want to talk about some of the legal risks. because i think this should be settled by the american people with stakeholders in congress, i do think the fbi should withdraw the case against apple. i don't think they're going to do that, and if they don't, what will happen is this case will keep on being appealed.

and one of the legal issues will be can the government compel a private individual company to write software they do not have, to create something they don't. and let's say that gets toss the ninth circuit court of appeals, a huge region x they decide that, yes, the government can do that. then you've got a principle here that you wonder how will it be applied in the future? what else can government force you to do in terms of creating new things you don't have? and so there are legal risks to what's going on here. and so i think it's something we just need to think about as these cases move true the courts. >> right. and just to note certainly the precedent here is important. anyone who says it's really just this one phone, it is kind of just this one phone, but there's certainly precedent here. i always caution against the slippery slope which is a logical fallacy, you know, from your early days of law school x. that's sort of this notion of courts apply the law as it is. you know, they're supposed to sort of divine it from on high,

but it's supposed to be an objective standard, so a little bit the fear of, well, if the law's correctly applied in this case, it would also be applied correctly in another cat. i think that speaks to a need to change the law, to have real clarification about what the scoping is and maybe not necessarily a need to misapply the law to the extent a court believes it's the proper application. >> does the panel have time for one last question? because we're a little over. >> thank you, i appreciate it. i'm a fellow at gmf, german martial fund. i read jim comey's piece in law fair. it's impossible to pay attention to anything today, so on a personal level, i think even this case, just the debate it's created is valuable for our society. but, so one thing, you know, i'm thinking at this from more of an international security perspective, and i'm trying to

sort of, you know, for the sake of public debate and, you know, norms and laws to try to conceptualize and think about the difference between, you know, because in the computer science sense, data flowing through networks is all the same, it's all data packets, but there's data that can become information for coordinating activity and, basically, you know, for human consumption. but then there's data that has kinetic effects that destroys critical infrastructure, that -- and it's concern so what role does encryption play in protecting those systems? to me, that's, you know, one of the biggest concerns, our electric grid. all these things, it's not the information we care about because it's more machine-to- machine communication. is this a useful way to think about it, and what role does encryption play on that? thanks. >> well, you know, the president just a announced a major cybersecurity initiative that's aimed at making the grid much

more secure, at increasing the number of technologists in the country, etc., etc. but as part of that, they recognize that encryption is a key part of securing the grid and the rest of it. >> and i think it's important to note, yes, everybody -- i mean, i probably can't say everybody, but i think most sort of responsible voices believe that strong encryption standards are absolutely critical to securing all kinds of critical infrastructure. i do think it's important to note that the electric, the california smart grid is not defended by the mechanisms at issue in the apple case, right in so sort of -- it's really important to understand the difference between the kinds of encryptions they're talking there, and its connection and in some cases lack of connection to what's being requested sort of in an instant case. >> so i'm going to scare you. [laughter] driverless cars, i believe that it's going to happen sooner rather than later, and the full

vision of driverless cars is you've got a bunch of these cars on the highway that are driverless. last year a car got hacked remotely, they took control of a jeep and controlled it. so imagine if you don't have strong encryption and strong cybersecurity a hacker taking control of a car on a highway and then slamming on the brakes when you're going 50 miles per hour. not good. or if a hacker took control of a car and ran it into a school. or what if a hacker, payoff weak encryption, installed a virus that said, you know, on january 1, 2025, all cars that have this car are going to accelerate to 1 00 miles per hour, right? these are scary things that i want you to think about, and these are important issues to consider. >> so on that note -- [laughter] i often say that politicians are analog and the problems are digital. and i think that is true. one politician is digital, and

maybe he can educate us -- others. the wilson center is educating congressional staff, including andrew lachman who works for ted lieu who is now going to be as smart as ted lieu, we hope. but the point is that without a public discussion of these issues, i think we are, we are all lost. and wouldn't it be nice to have that public discussion take place in a congressional hearing room or, think bigger -- maybe smaller -- wouldn't it be nice to have that discussion in a presidential debate? >> cybersecurity's going to be huge, it's huge. >> all right. [laughter] and certainly, politico is now better informed about this. i want to thank a very educated audience for tuning in. but i also want to make one last shameless self-promotion plug, and that is that places like the wilson center are going to have this conversation, and we are

hopeful that that conversation will ripple out is and will be held concern out and will be held in more important fora, in the white house, in the congress, in the debates so that the public can see who is better qualified to be president. and we have to have those debates now because, as ted says, something bad could happen anytime, and something bad could happen tomorrow. and if we don't have that debate, if we really believe -- and i do -- that security and liberty are not a zero sum game, if we don't have that debate, we can repeat some of the mistakes. they were not all mistakes, but some of the mistakes we made after 9/11 when we overreacted and did things in secret that we should have debated in public. so thank you all for coming and thank this wonderful panel for spending -- [applause] [inaudible conversations]

>> when i tune in on the weekend, usually it's authors sharing their new releases. >> watching book is the best television for serious readers. >> on c-span, they can are a longer conversation and delve into their subject. >> booktv weekends, they bring you author after author after author that spotlight the work of fascinating people. >> i love booktv, and i'm a c-span fan. >> homeland security secretary jeh johnson will testify about his agency's 2017 budget request. he'll take questions from

members of the senate homeland security and governmental affairs committee. that's live today at 10 a.m. eastern on c-span. later, a conversation about the role that state parties play in national political campaigns. we'll hear from state and national party officials. live coverage from the brookings institution starts at 2 p.m. eastern also on c-span. >> next, a discussion on prison sentencing laws and the chances for reform. we'll hear from federal judges, state attorneys general and a state public defender. the olive institute host ld this event. [inaudible conversations] >> oh, do you want me to introduce the speakers?

oh, great. sometimes they say people need no introduction, which certainly would be true as well. [laughter] it's really a great honor to be here with two attorney generals. i think one of the most exciting things we've seen in the area of criminal justice is more prosecutors, law enforcement leaders, sheriffs and in this case attorney generals not only being interested and engaged, but really taking such positive steps in the area of criminal justice reform. and, of course, we have a democrat and a republican here, so it also illustrates the bipartisan nature of this in an age when so many issues are partisan. so i wanted to pose a number of questions here today, and then we'll hopefully we have time to hear from those of you in the audience about some different areas of criminal justice where one or both of you have really made a positive difference in your states. so first of all, i know we heard a little earlier today about justice reinvestment which is a

data-driven process that has gone on in more than two-thirds of states to look who's going into the prison system, what programs are working, which programs aren't, what the various outcomes are, and brings together stakeholders from victims' advocates, judges, experts on criminology to look at this data and from that highlight solutions. georgia has gone through this process, which was incredibly successful a few years ago and has continued to add on reforms, and maryland now is in the midst of an adult justice reinvestment process with the governor leading the way. i wanted to turn first to you and see if you might talk about what's going on in maryland in that regard. >> sure. we actually used georgia as a model because it's done such good work. but a number of -- about three years ago, maryland kicked off a series of efforts.

we decriminalized possession of small amounts of marijuana. if you have less than ten grams, if you possess less than ten grams of marijuana, the first time it's a civil offense. that relates to about 31,000 arrests per year in our state. so it took a huge load or we believe at least going forward it'll take a huge load off the criminal justice system. ..

as you said a minute ago, it's initiative sponsored by the governorgovernor, by myself by prosecutors, by public defender, and it does a number of different things. it revises drug possession abuse downward for drugs other than marijuana. it does across the board reductions in penalties, trying to minimize present on, minimize in incarceration. it also requires for folks who have drug addiction problems, prompt placement in residential treatment bands. is going to be additional money available for it. instead of sending people to jail, they will be diverted, get drug treatment. it eliminates the disparities of the sentencing between crack and cocaine.

it raises the felony theft threshold so that people who steal relatively small amounts of money or value of goods don't end up spending time, additional time in jail, don't get convicted of felonies. it expands in prison good behavior program and incentive credits. so if you're in prison and you are doing what you're supposed to be doing, you have the opportunity to earn time or credits that will get you out earlier. we passed last year legislation that created a safety valve for mandatory minimum sentences. it applied prospectively and it allowed people who were the subject of mandatory minimum sentences to get those sentences reviewed by a three-judge panel

but hoosiers legislation is going to apply that rule retroactively so the folks who are now in jail can get those reviews. it expands the alternatives to incarceration in sentencing guidelines, and includes suspended sentences in calculating a guideline compliance. that's important in keeping prison time down. the legislation also identifies best practices and alternative dispute resolution. we've had great success in the civil arena in maryland with alternative dispute resolution. we are going to try to apply that to the criminal arena. i'm sorry i'm going on so long but it's a multifaceted approach. me give you a couple more. we're going to try to put together a risk and needs assessment tool to determine supervision levels, when people

were released and used swift and certain and proportional sanctions for violations of probation and parole. they are or i think nine other things this legislation does. it is a broad-based and i think holistic approach to alternatives to just sending people away and locking them up. >> could you talk about georgian's experience? i know some of those things george has implement as well. >> i will be really short with this question because the audience heard from judge fox and he was the co-author in the first panel. i would simply say that they key here as was alluded to with the collaborative inclusive transparent nature. so we have the aclu with the keep article in the room, you are able to come to a discussion that creates a great bill which limits the political after a

fact which was alert to earlier. we've done a bunch of those things that we've also spent a lot of time on both revising parole and probation. we are now in the point where if it was a sale of drugs over x number of years there needs to be a process to determine whether the individual has already served too much time and should be released. with this years legislation if they serve more than x number of years for possession they have the automatic right for yearning to be released from prison. because you got to go retroactively back or you are only solving a small piece of the problem. >> want on the other issues i wanted to bring up as i know he made a high priority assisting victims of crime which can take a variety of forms from victim services, victim notification, compensation, sometimes of course in texas where victim compensation fund the attorney general runs.

the first, if they are working, maybe they can do. but otherwise as a backstop we have our crime victims' compensation fund. also the needs for counseling, victims of domestic violence or other crime. i wonder if you could touch about what you've done in that area. >> so clearly there's a whole list of fees and fines that defendants pay. query whether they should be paying many of them because many of them, for instance, related pensions rather than regulate to the crime. but restitution is number one. so to the extent that defended is able to pay first monies owed towards restitution for the victim. and that's really, really a morning. then we have a whole bunch of services to decrease the recidivism rate, to increase the potential that they succeed, everything from other issues such as banning the box. one of the neat things we really

do in that regard is also a certificate, not with respect -- specific reference to the victims, just as you are taking extra time to pick out the sentences you need to take extra time to figure out how to help the victims. let's face it, for too long i was last on the list of things to do and it's been moved considerably up. many of our district attorneys now have specific staff to our full-time specific to that iss issue. >> did you want to add anything although i know different states of the roles can differ as far as whether the attorneys general are involved or not? >> you have a person in office who works full-time on assistance for victims and policy for victim services. as sam said it for too long has been at the backend. the legislation that we have gone this year also focus on victims of services but i will say one of the problems, we want to picture victims get restitution. one of the things that i think has contributed to the large

number of our folks in prison in maryland, across the country, is the adding of these to those sentences. there was an article in the "washington post" a couple weeks ago about a woman who had been sentenced as a juvenile detention. managed to get her ged. got out of detention. she had no family. found herself a job, gainfully employed, and yet was getting yanked back to court weekly almost, or once a month, because she was unable to pay the four or $500 that she had accumulated in fines and fees, apart from restitution but she was getting pulled back by the court to account for the fact that she could not afford to pay these monies. and that's a very, very serious

problem. she was in danger of losing her job because although she was performing when she was at work she was having to take time to go back to account for these these. >> sort of a different question at the end but i think it's worth mentioning to the extent we can. so for too long and we thought with the inmates was let them get their ged, that's a puny issue. what we actually do in georgia is we have the ability through legislation to have charter schools in the prisons, both the youth prisons and adult prisons. the governor went up to superintendent and so what you to retire from her position of going to make you the vice commissioner for corrections. he's in charge of the program to make sure there's educational programming. another thing we do in addition to not only giving them a ged but giving them classes and having them walk out where they can get a good paying job rather than a minimal paying job is we now have a system where like in

our technical colleges we have a shortage of welders. where the shortage of plumbers. god forbid if you need a plumber because they certainly charge enough. in our technical colleges if you go for a welding degree its 100% paid under the state's program. we are doing the same program in the prisons. so now we have these folks who are released from prison with a welders degree where they're going to be making more than my son who got out with a journalism degree. so not only are you helping those that have good behavior in the prison system, but you are giving them the ability to have a really good paying job. >> to read the. one of the things we did in texas was an occupational license to say they can get a provisional license to go into many of these occupations if they would be discarded otherwise because of their conviction. the other interesting thing is, i think one of the things we would like to see his people to

discharge them to community service. and can prioritize the victim restitution. those are excellent points. the charter school model is great. we've seen in juvenile detention went to school district has to provide the teachers they often send the ones over the want to get rid of to juvenile detention. so having a principle, the leadership within the campus is important. one of the other issues i wanted to turn to is eviction because that's something we saw in new hampshire. a huge issue of opioid abuse came to light during the primary on both republican and the democratic side. both of you have been involved in trying to combat addiction whether it's dealing with pill mills or making sure that treatment is available. we seen a number of states, for example, improvising treatment for opioids to basically block receptors in the brain that trigger that craving. also good samaritan laws and other things. if you could touch on a little

what you've been involved with both not just as attorney general but previous as a legislator in dealing with addiction. >> sure. first, i don't know, i apologize if somebody has put it in context already this morning but let me try to do that. the price of heroin has plummeted over the past several decades. i think it \80{l1}s{l0}\'80{l1}s{l0} it was up around $1200 per gram. it's now down around $400 per gram. the purity of heroin on the street has tripled, and folks who receive prescriptions for opioid medication often find that they become addicted and can't get off it, turned to heroin because it's a much cheaper alternative. from a law enforcement perspective, maryland joined the task force that runs from our

state all the what up to the state of maine. i'm not sure we have made quite down to georgia yet, but the folks were trafficking in heroin don't respect state boundaries. and we are the attorneys general from maryland to maine are able to share information. we think do a more effective job of addressing heroin trafficking. at the same time you have to address the drug treatment problems that arise from heroin use, from opioid abuse you. and one of the things making its way to our general assembly this year is greater input into the prescription drug monitoring program that is run by our state. new york i think has done excellent job. they require e-prescriptions.

no one can steal your prescription pad and forge one. in maryland we hope to get to the point where every time somebody prescribes an opiate medication it will be in our database. a doctor can check to see whether the patient has been to three other doctors before, been turned down, gotten a prescription, and help doctors make better choices when they are prescribing opioid medication. finally i guess i would say, like all attorneys general we have a medicaid fraud unit that looks at doctors who are overprescribing, looks at pill mills, looks to see if the rate of prescription of opioid medication is so high from one particular practice that it raises suspicion about either fraud in terms of medicaid reimbursement and/or criminal

activity. >> in 2012 we wrote a bill to go after the pill mills. actually we wrote it in 11. it cut passed in 12. like anything else there's an education process before you can pass the legislation. florida past there's been 1 11 . and assorted pacifiers, folks that were out, i think at the time florida had something like 95 of the top 100 doctors for prescribing opioids, and there just were not the wrecks on 95 or i-4. as soon as florida past italy started moving to south georgia. and my favorite was "the wall street journal" did a story ready for our legislative selection with a used car lot due to talk with such pride on how he immediately moved to georgia to sell these drugs because you can imagine as a used car lot dealer he knew all about oxycontin. we passed a bill, had a huge

affect the width of up to about come in one year we went from about 40 clinics, welcome that's not the right word, charlatans, to about 125 but we are now back closer to the original number with the pill mills but we did see significant uptick in the cost of the pills. hoxie, hydra, et cetera is now about $30 appeal on the black market, in contrast as brian talked about, heroin is $10. so that's created a huge, huge problem in that regard. additionally, ag still programs from each other. i always provide attribution. the former kentucky ag jack conway story going to talk to schools about prescription drug abuse. so we took jack's program, and added something to it which was a psa contest 30-second psa from

a mentor level. so i go into 3 30 to 50 schoolsf the fall and i bring with me local accountability court judges, sometimes the sheriff for law enforcement. more importantly i bring with me a girl or boy who is about 22, 23 who is a recovering addict so that there is a mentor level for them to the dangers of how addictive these drugs are and how hard it is to get off the drugs. if i walk into a high school and start talking to kids, they are snoring. if i have a 22 you would think who takes a majority of the time, they are paying attention. in fact, i frankly prefer to have a female speaker, because with the they know speaker a bunch of the girls will immediately up to her after the session either disclosed that there in recovery or they need to go into recovery. the boys just generally are not that bright at the age to go up

to a point, so again, a further benefit from the girl speakers. it's been very well received. it is an iterative process. when you go into school and see what to talk about drugs, you are waiting for the phone to hang up, but the more successful if kids and with the growth of accountability court, it easier for me cannot get into the schools. if we could play one of the winning videos from our contest. >> it's okay. don't worry. just grab the pills and go. no one is going to notice that they are gone. besides, a few little pills can't hurt, right? >> so that was the winning video

from 2014, and i have an association with the georgia association of broadcasters and what of the pharmacy distribution associations. they pay to have the winning video shown on tv for three months after our contest. so kid the kids can get to see r video showing all over the state on nbc, abc, cbs com, et cetera. the whole idea is to provide that education. we also give them a check, franco. my office can't give a check but the medical association of georgia, the georgia pharmacy association helped me in that effort. the whole idea is to teach these kids how dangerous the drugs are. we also have a 911 build that you just mentioned it so for instance, if these kids are at a party and someone falls to the floor, many times the kids will

think it's okay, they are sleeping, they will sleep it off. well, no, because once you get regurgitation, it then stops oxygen in the brain. that's all debt. so we tell these kids that you call 911 if you're the person who calls and the person you think is having the overdose, there will be no arrest unless the person who calls was a big deal. short of the dealer there's automatic amnesty, 100% amnesty. also relates, for instance, to uncle. we know the same scenario at our college campuses, for instance. so all i did is we are saying you can don't have to go to your friends here. let's have them get the antagonist and the satellite say. we now have a whole bunch of sheriffs and police departments that just as they carry them at the pin, they carry no again which is a nasal spray. so when they come to the call began in italy administer the spray to stop, to start the

reversal of the narcotic to once again say these kids lives. >> that's terrific. he mentioned accountability or to know that something both of you have in your states, whether it's drug courts, mental health courts, veterans works. georgia has expanded and greatly. did you want to add anything about that? >> so prior to being a jeep i was a county executive or county chairman, the county of about 700,000 folks. -- ag. before this was common before we talked to the pew and vga, my county had a drug court. my county had a juvenile drug court. and for a couple of us that have it, you immediately saw the king. but immediately saw the benefit. and then, of course, he became statewide at her governors put in a whole bunch of money, millions of dollars every day. one thing that was interesting that wasn't mentioned, so how do

you get judge to agree to the hard work that it takes to have an accountability court? let's face it, you expect failure, you expect an 18 month program, it takes additional time for the court to have these cases in front of them. so last year the judges were requesting a pay raise. so what the governor did is he said that if you're judicial circuit has an accountability court, each judge will get an additional $6000. if your circuit doesn't have an accountability court, say goodbye to the six grand. it worked. spume let me turn to you o on tt and also should mention juvenile drug courts, georgia did a house bill 242 in 2013 reserving state juvenile custody for those violent and serious youth. maryland in 2015 passed a law.

it is to be that for 33 offenses, kids 14-17 were automatically tried as adults but after this bill in 2015 that's discretionary. i wanted to see what you might add about that. >> all the problems that have been discussed her this morning relating to incarceration apply with even greater force to juveniles. and in maryland i think we've reached a point where there is general agreement on that. if i can digress and tell you the story. there's a crew team and they've got big guys but they stink they use if they lose every respect the coach finally gets fed up and he pulls the assistant coach and said, what you to go and see what harvard is doing. why do we keep losing to discuss with the assistant coach goes over, hides behind a bush, watches harvard, reports back

and says coach i've got it figured out that he said at harvard they've got eight guys rowing and one guy yelling. [laughter] now we i think are moving together in the right direction republicans and democrats on all of these justice issues and especially with respect to juveniles. we had controversy after controversy through the '80s, 90s and about gentlemen go straight to adult court if they commit a serious offense? we still have juvenile life without parole in maryland. frankly i think that's a mistake, but i think we do have a general consensus that for most juvenile offenses, a community setting is the appropriate place when we send

kids to a locked facility, they learn how to be criminals more quickly and end up being in trouble for the rest of their lives. we are i think the thing in the right direction but we still have a very long way to go. >> another issue you want to address his pretrial just a. over half the people in our county jails or city jails, a lot of issues with the baltimore city jail, half of the people are awaiting trial and people often lose their jobs and so forth or even if they're ultimately never convicted of anything. and also there's there is issues with indigent defense, not having proper representation. ip address in your thoughts on how we can address that. >> when i was in the maryland senate i was chairman of the judicial proceedings committee, tried to get reform of maryland's pretrial justice system and failed. it's a wasteful and inefficient

system. there were i think a couple of months ago somebody looked at baltimore city jail and found that for over 100 people who were incarcerated or awaiting trial because they couldn't make bond of $100. the money bail system discriminates against poor people. it fails to take into account the most important criteria, the most important thing is we want to know when we are thinking about detaining somebody before trial is the person likely to show up for trial, number one. number two, is the person going to offend while he, and i say he, it's almost always he can while he is out if he gets bail. and what we know, the arnold foundation has done i think great work on this, look, this isn't actually using data, big data.

they looked at over 1.5 million cases and they tried to determine what would be predictive of whether someone would either violent or a friend while out on bail and are would show up for trial. the factors are not what you might think, what judges thing. well, he lives with his mother, sure he's going to show. he's not going to -- he's got a job. that means he will be okay. the things that determine, that are predictive of those two things are more likely, as a person committed a violent offense in the past? has a person ever skipped bail before? been charged with something and failed to show, things like that. the are i think nine different factors that are very objective. you don't need long cross-examination. it's very simple. those are things that courts ought to employ and in determine

whether the told somebody over for trial, and not the subjective determinations that most judges make on a daily basis. >> do have time to take a couple questions from the audience? i was going to talk about human trafficking and other things we have but i think i would love to throw it open here so we can get the audience, any questions, otherwise we can proceed with one of the two topics i mentioned. we have a question back there. okay. >> i am lisa. i'm with the family offenders sentencing alternative graduate, and i would -- i wanted to touch base with education in the prisons. which we can appreciate the trade schools going there. however, has georgia done anything for when they are released? do you set them up with employment? because, per experience, even if

you have the certificates and you have this knowledge, society as a whole has a hard time accepting felons to be employed, or even find safe housing, which i validate all their feelings here everybody is cautious. what has georgia done to help them find gainful employment? >> i'm going to give you two answers. in the traditional sense the state has been the box provided to employees in the department that have criminal records. they were both young, they made stupid mistakes and their outstanding employees. also we do the certificate, as i mentioned, that goes to them that literally comes from the department of corrections that says give this person a chance. now on the other hand, the other answer is we have grants to communities based organizations.

i really don't think that government is good in this space in contrast to faith-based organizations. so we specifically reached out to faith-based organizations to provide the housing, additional education and food so that when the folks are released from prison or the county jail they are not looking to rob a convenience store because they have no money and they have no food, and to provide additional training and then we work with these community-based, faith-based to find jobs for these individuals. >> very good student if i could just mention in texas last session we passed a ceiling on for misdemeanors when you can get your conviction after you have been on the straight and narrow for a few years. you can get to seal. prosecutors, judges can still be used for future enhancements. ..

labeled are presented as charities. the warchest is healthy if you would look at -- you have criminals not going to jail, not pleading guilty, plating without admitting or denying if they're based, you can take the lead with how about the other states and the $100 fine. >> that's a good idea. the soros foundation open society went into baltimore city a few months ago and just bailed

out a whole bunch of people. >> awesome. >> do we have any more? okay. >> i am from the olive institute. i've been working with prisoners inside and outside of prison for 20 years that the biggest on the block is not being able to find a job, not being able to find a place to live. i believe there is real discrimination going on and it's just like this country has made it a discrimination that far at all, whether his gender or whatever. everyone's allowed to discriminate against felons. there's no laws in the books. in florida, you can't rent an apartment if you have a felony.

is impossible to you have nowhere to live. same thing with work. if there are no laws made by attorney general stating that it is illegal to discriminate against a person, then this is all a waste. are there any laws in georgia or maryland? how do we write these laws? >> i would tend to think the federal housing month would control in that area. >> i would also tell you in texas we passed a bill last session to say they can't be sued for ranting to sex offenders bearded doesn't completely solve the issue. >> i would be happy to look at that interesting concept. >> i would just say as attorney general, we enforce it -- >> you get e-mails telling you how to vote. >> that is ray. we struggled in maryland to help

offenders achieve reentry. it's very difficult. it is difficult politically. we have been struggling the past couple years with legislation that would allow felons to vote, expand the voting rights. one of the most basic rights that all of us have as americans and that it's been an uphill climb. so far not complete access. >> okay, another one back there. >> i come i'm visiting fellow at the u.s. department of justice working with both the bureau of justice statistics in the office justice statistics in the office where crime and better dissemination translation of statistical data to support the crime to them assistant deals. i want to go back to the part of the conversation addressing how we better support the dems. the conversation like most conversations in this context go straight to topics like restitution and compensation and access to recovery services for

those victims that we see in the images projected in the courtroom. implementation with fidelity of those rights and services for those that insist so important. as you well know, the product of many decades of the movement and hard fought the trees. but what i wanted to bring up today because it doesn't get enough airtime in this conversation is for all the terms of crime and the truth is less than 50, 50% of violent crimes are reported in this country and less than 14% of violent crime victims get access to the service is intended for them and that number plummets to 4% when the crime is unreported. we can imagine the incredible nexus with community and law enforcement perceptions and his number they've been done. also to bring up the incredible

nexus important to men in the room about addiction and unaddressed, and the result of the statistics that many of the dems will self medicate and this further cycle's future vulnerability to further harm a violent victimization and justice system involved in. my question to you is when we think about a better response to convict dems, what in the context of your state plan particularly through the length of prevention that is a centerpiece that we are all thinking about are you doing to try to address these concerns, especially breaking down the false dichotomy between who are victims of crime and who are people involved with the system. >> so first of all, i would welcome an e-mail and what you think the best practices are. ag is can't be experts in everything. nor like lawyers. i would tell you as i sit here

today, how do i want to word this? there's a female lawyer on a personal level, keeping the lights on outside my house, having the police department tell me make a be loaded. so i inserted seen this from a different genre all of a sudden. one of the things that i think partially is responsive because i think we need to go a lot further as you say in this area as we now have some police chiefs and sheriffs telling their communities we want books that are good to come in and to send you straight to recovery centers. we are not talking pretrial. we're talking pre-arrest. so messed up statistics is really the next step.

so when you have law enforcement that get the end if you need to go in recovery before you commit the crime, come into my office. let me get you in a treatment center. you then don't have a criminal record. you are not paying for the treatment. you don't have any criminal record at all. addiction is a disease, not a felony. in italia, that's not easy for folks in line for us in a public safety to say. that takes an educational process, but i firmly believe it now. i walk into rooms at hamlets have lost their loved ones with drug overdoses, heroin overdoses and it is a huge step for a long enforcement and public safety together. i applaud police chiefs and sheriffs that get it and are

encouraging folks to come in for treatment rather than avoid the criminal justice system rather than let the criminal justice system help them. >> i wish we could continue because it's been a wonderful conversation but i been informed we have to stop proceeding at this point and i believe lunch is upon us. thank you so much to both wonderful attorney general's angry questions as well. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> if you want to stand up for a moment, please feel free. just one more session.

my name is growl italic from a deputy public federal defender for the central district of california in los angeles and this is my privilege to be a visiting attorney in her essay with the defender services office administrative office scores. so it has been a real pleasure in working to put together the symposium and the next panel is near and dear to my heart with a federal practitioner. each one of these judges are experienced the three levels of federal judges. a circuit court judge to donald. a district court judge and a magistrate judge, judge wells. next are perhaps a supreme court judge and all bases covered.

i did tell caroline is kind of a risky proposition for the criminal defense trial attorney with the microphone and a podium in a room full of people. i will resist the urge and keep it real. i really promised to do that. i am also privilege to be a team member and an alternative sentencing set of programs in our district in los angeles. we have two very distinguished programs. one is a pretrial diversion program called conviction and sentence alternatives, track one will be to a complete dismissal after about a year in the program and you get the services you may need to address the issues that got you arrested in the first place. we also have a postconviction drug court to address repeat offenders in that is sending them right back to prison, do what we can and offering treatment. the key to that is we have really a good collaborative cohesive group led by the heads of each of the departments.

his chief cary here? in our district, we have a good working relationship with the pretrial and pretrial services officer represented today by supervising officer calvin thomas as part of our team. our u.s. attorneys and a couple in succession in our district have promoted and supported our programs and ultimately neither of these two programs would have been in effect had it not been for the discretion and leadership given by the united states attorney's office following the direct to have been attorney general eric holder and the smart on crime initiative. of course we have our office represent all the people in this programs and we are rounded off a treatment providers in our

pretrial and postconviction programs. we have all heard a proposal to change federal criminal statutes. a couple builds up on the hill. the smarter sentencing act and of course the senate committee voted to receives on the postconviction rehabilitation act. some of this talk about federal recognition i think you'll hear from the judges, to that there is very little to address the issue of alternatives in the period the smart sentencing initiative is on the backend for people who are in presidency may be modified some of the monetary minimums. perhaps encourage individuals on the federal bureau of prisons to participate in rehabilitative efforts that can reduce their time in custody. up until now, this programs have

really rested largely on prosecutorial discretion which i applaud and judicial discretion. within the law, judges do have a certain amount of discretion and you'll hear directly from a couple judges. some of the judges on the lan is we will see that judge grayson has put out a number of published opinions trying to stretch the discretion within the boundaries of the law. without further ado, if i can ask the judges to come up. the other exciting factor the chair of the aba justice section titled a little bit about what the session is doing and the efforts of god. judge wells is a leader in establishing a mental health court in the federal system that

is basically unheard of until recently the district of utah and the last couple of years and has been a pioneer. having been a long-time practitioner and probably never going to have this opportunity again, i will take advantage of my discussion and say your honors, individually and collectively i'm going to greater motion to address this audience. >> while i have taken a prerogative of finding the order in which we are going to talk, i will go first. >> okay, thank you. nice to be here. it would be nice to see you if i didn't have these lights friday night rightness. i know you are out there. i can hear you. i wanted to speak to you briefly -- i want to speak to you at great length about a lot of things that we don't have the

time so i will speak to you briefly about alternative to incarceration programs in the federal system and specifically the two that we have where i said in the eastern district of new york. we have -- these are presentence programs. those of you who are familiar with the federal system are familiar with reentry court and they are wonderful. they've been around for more than a decade. they are pretty much around the country now and what i'm talking to you about today are not reentry programs. they are intended to provide alternatives to the routine incarceration to which we subjected to many people in the federal caseload. specifically, there is a drug court called pre-trial opportunity program, which is a federal presentence drug court

for essentially nonviolent people who substance abuse is well documented and we get the sense that the comment that brought them into the criminal justice system arose out of their addictions. there is obviously a very strong track record for this modality in the state. we borrowed from it. it seems like a big revolution in the federal system. it shouldn't. we are just ridiculously behind. but the social sciences has pretty much proven efficacy of drug courts in the state system and retention of reducing recidivism. we have the end of days of our drug court was my son of why we wait for people to get out of prison to deal with their drug problems and a drug court model.

only after they finish i only moved that up front and use it as an opportunity, has been a pretrial opportunity program to avoid a prison term at all. that program began in january of 2012. we just had our fifth year monthly meeting. i'll give you a little bit of data that's been enormously successful. our second alternative to incarceration program as a youthful offender court. it is only as a judge involved supervision programs for many years. as a form of pretrial supervision in our district. the great jack weinstein, my colleague thought we had too many kids who are being detained pretrial arising out of the cases arose out of what appeared to be just a complete utter lack of supervision.

kids who grew up in places where no one told them to get out of bed in the morning and go to school, look for a job or go to work. recall that the sos program, special election services. it was around for more than a decade. once we started the top court, we think she might be here is in the back. i mean that she had been working with the youthful offenders for many years. after we started the drug court, i asked her if she thought the judge -- using judges and monthly meeting would be a useful tool in our toolbox, she said yes. so since 2013 ,-com,-com ma that is also been a judge involved intensive supervision program. these programs together don't capture, we recognize especially drug courts, we recognize the difference in the case mix that

early as compared to god and the state systems. so we now capture a huge segment. the four to 5% caseload so far combine had to roughly 75 participating since sos is a judge involved supervision program. 34 have completed the program. of those 25 completed a successful it could 24 to 25 did not get turned and then to show you how great an idea this turned out to be, our attorney general, but rather munch with the u.s. attorney when we first started sos in its current format. i went to her and said the goal we want your cooperation.

the goal is to take this segment of folks that we've been routinely sending off for three, four, five year prison terms and do something better with it. she saw me and raised me because of the 24 successful participants, eight of them, 32% had their charges dismissed entirely. this had become not just alternative to incarceration programs. we've had a great deal of interest expressed with all grassroots. for the life of me i can't figure out by the sentencing commission refuses to place it in vermont are. i've asked it to fashion the departure for successful participation in judge involved intensive supervision programs. judges have been asking for this for years. i'm cleaning out my office because i'm leaving in two days. on the way down, this last night

i found the federal judicial center result of the survey in 1996. two thirds of federal judges and 96 responded to the survey by saying there ought to be alternatives to the incarceration programs. doj supports them. aba, right on crime. across the political spectrum. we don't have support from the sentencing commission because it just doesn't be the way it should. we have had visits from a dozen districts around the country. judges, probation officers, prosecutors, defenders and now there are programs like ours. one or two better boys. most of them are youthful offender court for drug courts. i've been running around the jean-bart at 21 districts around the country notwithstanding the

fact if you look at the guidelines manual, you can even get departure. but if the anomaly of thought were facing. i'm having the prosecutor coming for successful participants in this programs. i'm having them say to me they will not have a conviction at all. i am not permitted to down with a guitar. we need the institutional support that an authorized departure would give. we did help gathering data. i know the stories will make you cry out of happiness, turning these people's lives around. they are unbelievably compelling stories. i know that you don't justify programs by reference to an oates. you do it with data, just as they did in the states. we need help capturing data of these 20 different one programs

with little laboratories so we need help gathering the right data, analyzing the data. we need to prove going forward what i know in my bones is the truth that these works and they put a human face on a criminal justice system that is so desperately the last 25, 30 years in need of humanity. this is the right thing to do. >> thank you. judge wells. [applause] >> i heard someone ask how does this movement trends late to the federal system? i thought well, our panel can help address that question. i want to first say thank you to

the state courts who were the originators and leaders in the specialty reentry court area and it's upon him by nonfederal chorus or at least i haven't our district of utah novels from. there are also in this audience today a list of pioneers in federal court system i would indicate to you that our programs in the district of utah have a lower population, but we have the same issues and problems as anyone else. but our judges are behind our

efforts on hundred% and we've never had to worry about judicial appointments. i want to tell you about two things. first about her mental health court system, which is first but not the last in the federal system and then i want to tell you about how we have expanded the role of the federal judiciary and their partners in the reentry process. i'm going to tell you two stories, both of which are true and began my journey of interest in that area. in one instance, there was a gentleman and was seriously mental ill who is facing icann serious felony federal charges.

he also was afflicted physically with what were apparent tumors on his face. they were very large and protruding as well as similar ones on his body. we knew he was mentally ill. he was ordered to go off for a federal psychiatric evaluation. one of our federal and two shins. after about three months he was returned district with the psychiatric incompetency. the problem was during that period of time, his physical problems weren't addressed and he then quickly died in custody as a result of the camp there. that story touched me because it was addressing one need without

addressing this backend very out of mental health but not his physical health. the second one involves a man named mr. kennedy. mr. kennedy was also seriously mentally ill. he was also a serial bank robber whose comfort was left in an institution rather than being out. he was returned one friday night to the district of utah and he went as instructed to the local halfway house. unfortunately, he was two days early and was not accepted into custody. so then he went to the bank. he had robbed again and sat down

and waited for the police to come and get him. he had no other choice is either very seriously mentally ill person with nowhere to go. those two incidents sparked a response in our district as is not uncommon. many people in federal probation defenders, sometimes the u.s. attorney's office and other agencies migrate from the state system to the federal system. i have been asked numerous times, why can't we have a mental health court? why don't we have a drug court and this was eight or nine years

ago. the simple answer at that time was we never had. so what we did is piloted a program with the permission of our chief judge without mentioning it to district courts figure it if we have better opportunity if we ask for forgiveness, not for permission. fortunately, that along with our pilot drug court program with great enthusiasm from series of judges as the judge has stated didn't like their lack of options and opportunities even though they had seen the problem. we are now and are in third night he or a behavioral health

courts. we now call it as well mental health court. but because the open-mindedness with which our judges and probation people looked at these opportunities, we've been able to expand our programming far beyond. we now have a districtwide program that is called art, assisted reentry to the community. that encompasses all of our reentry programs, which i think is the judge indicated also involved the first federal veteran scored again after a state similar court. we have also recently started a tribal reentry court, which is

another pioneering effort from our district, which serves and provides reentry services for those that live on the tubes are just population reservations in the state from the car. we also is dole from the cops program in los angeles a wonderful reentry diversionary court. we have taken our program which is the utah defender offender workforce development program but as a model of the eastern district of missouri which we

started around the same time as the reentry court, which is a collaboration between our federal and state representative to provide training provided by a federal partners for state officers as well as their own probation and parole officers to provide incentives to give employers in many cases the benefit with those felony convictions. we also train individuals coming back. her incarceration, interview for a job, how to prepare a resume

and we match those employers with those persons. i want to say the word offender chosen to strike a word from my vocabulary although i just used it because it carries such a stigma with it. i also want to tell you about another program with a pretrial pathway which involves an educational program participate and send federal time so that they learn how best to behave on pretrial release if they are given not. but also said they and their family have the opportunities to learn from those who have also been incarcerated what to expect in an institutional setting so as to ease the way and the

journey and the jury from to work through those institutions. i would encourage everybody to open their mind and think outside the box and see what you can do in this important area. thank you. >> thank you, judge wells. good morning. let me tell you how delighted i am to be here with you this morning how delighted i am to know their are so many people interested in dealing with these issues. i would say we have a varied and wide panel this morning. we were not wise enough however to bring water, so go on/zero well cap to thinking back -- >> they don't do that for

district judges. this reminds me of the work of charles dickens where he said the best of times, the worst of times. and we have heard this morning criminal justice, we have heard wonderful programs so it reminded me of appeared there is a lot of hope -- there is a lot of hopelessness. i served as district court judge for 15 years and during that time i dealt with issues and i wanted to go closer to the issues to talk about that right now and they have done that. i want to share with you a couple of things and then i went to make a couple of other points. in that capacity at chair at the american bar association.

i have spent 15 years on the federal trial court. and that time is sentenced a lot of people. and that time, our court in western tennessee created a reentry program and a drug court program and those are still functioning. they've had some levels of success as you might imagine. a few people go through those programs. it doesn't have the capacity to handle huge numbers of people. but every individual who is and can be helped in one of those programs i counted a plus. our program has the involvement of judges ,-com,-com ma the u.s. attorney's office and our u.s. attorney is here, has been involved in probation and the u.s. marshals service. and we have been in operation now for about eight years and that is good.

one of the things that i want to talk about this morning is a term that judge gleason used, no entry. when i say no entry, i don't mean for people who have violated the law and committed infractions. i am talking about intervening in lives before they get to the criminal justice system. i am talking about interrupting the school to prison pipeline. i am talking about the reality of communities in which people live and grow. as chair of the criminal justice section, we are looking at a program this is a shameless plug. coming out and talking to us.

explain to us about the role of narrow science and helping us address some of these critical criminal justice issues. dr. carrie russell from harvard will come in and talk about the role involvemeinvolveme nt plays on brain development or lack thereof. what he talks about is the impact of growing up and high violence, high poverty, communities that are also high density communities and the effect that has on brain development. what he says is individuals in environments like that have constant and unrelenting stress on the brain, which came late to a connection between bad and certain behaviors. as a society, we have to be mindful of that. we have to look at what is

happening to children in schools and why we have urgent or not justice budgets if we aren't back diverting resources from the early development in preschool or whatever, knowing that kids don't have the reinforcement of the intact families by their mentor to sort of diet and. all they see is the negative behavior that we are talking about today, what we are doing. then we are not really interact in their flow. but we have been talking about today is really great, but it's all backend. we have got to start focusing front end because the amount of dollars that we spend front and will be far less than we require to send back and if we do the kinds of things we're doing on the front-end. i know that is not an easy task, but i think everything we do to try to influence that has got to

be -- will be positive. somebody mentioned mental health earlier. a huge issue because we have now repose and i think the commissioner said we now propose a lot of mental health treatments in jails and prisons. people are coming into jails and prisons, some of them because they haven't gotten treatment on the front nine. we need to honestly address that. people talk about the number of children. dr. john hagan, a scholar with the north american bar association in consultation to the department of human services in atlanta and the center for disease control, thank you. about four years ago. people have been studying the effect and the concern of

incarcerated parents. but that research says is that children of incarcerated parents have high incidences first of all entry into the criminal justice system. they have lower rates of graduation from high school and lower rates for going into college. children of incarcerated parents have higher degrees of asthma, diabetes, hypertension, hiv/aids from a certain allergies and a whole range of things it if you think about what i just said, think about the cost of treating not in the community or more importantly think about the cost of not treating not. the startling thing that came out of that back then rates and educational outcomes are lower if a parent is in prison.

the father is in prison. of course the rate goes way down. you heard this morning that there are higher numbers in prison. if the mother is incarcerated, the rate of graduation august i'm close to the single digits. that is sent in a few are concerned about. i hope that shocks you. if you have people not able to get an education and get into the workforce,. two other quick things. the american bar association criminal justice section is working on a range of programs that tell you about tomorrow night today. when i want to mention today because at the request of the

justice department. there are certain things that the judge i cannot do. we have a lawyer whose name is jim feldman out of florida. he'll line the criminal justice section that by other collaborative partners are at the request of the justice department working on clemency project 2014. you have heard about these sentences for local drug offenders. there are a bunch of them in prison. the justice department at the request of the president says reviewed these folks who are there who would receive lower sentences today as a result of the reform on. let's see if something can be done. let's hear some of of these people merit clemency. i want to take you back to 20 years ago when i was a trial judge.

two young men arrested for street fair dealing. their cases got separated. they were tried separately. number one tried on a drug offense, got acquitted, moved on with his life. defendant number two was conveyed dead end because of his criminal history, he was looking at a mandatory life in prison without parole. i take it now says the judge to follow the lob a mandatory minimum, that is what i did. so he went to jail for life. i will tell you as a result of the program, april 15 to 2015, they served about 20 years of the sentence. you have to serve at least 10 years before you qualify. this whole army of lawyers are looking at the 60,000 petitions they have received getting lawyers around the country to take on this things pro bono and they're trying to do it. that is sort of a backend issue.

there is so much work to be done in communities, the policy level, legislative level, judicial level and every level. none of us in here can do everything. but everyone of us in here can do some thing and every one of us i believe are obligated to do the things we can do. i want to go back quickly to our u.s. attorney who understands that it is so important for kids trapped in communities of poverty to see someone off in time for books like them who has not taken the road that leads to jail or prison, but who is doing something that is positive in his house then that you have worth and if you apply yourself, you too can succeed. so in addition to being smart on crime, has also been communities talking to children, inspiring hope in giving them a model and

he is there in the schools and communities 7:00 in the morning talking to children. it is important for kids to understand that there is an expectation and a realization that they can do better than enter into the criminal justice system to get an education or job or whatever. we have to do more of that. i ramble a little bit, but i just needed to say this morning that all of us can do something. i will end with the code attribute is largely to dr. king who says that the moral universe bends towards justice. i want to save you this morning, it does not end of its own volition. it only bans for those of you in this room and beyond this are pushing and pulling to make certain the arc bends toward justice. thank you. [applause] >> five questions for judge

gleeson or judge wells. microphones. i think we have almost 10 minutes. yes, okay. >> afternoon. i am a researcher with the pew trust here in washington. judge gleeson, i remember speaking with you in the past about this question. i was hoping you would elaborate on this as well and you too, judge donald from the trial court days. i wanted to ask about probation sentences and why they have been going down so sharply in the federal system. about 90% of all convicted federal defendants used to be about less than half in 1980. and so, i missed a mandatory minimum sentences in the guide 9% to do with that. i would be curious to know from your experience how common was that for you to want to sentence a defendant to probation but he prevented from doing that either

because of a statue to what the guidelines manual told you to do. >> i will try to give you the to give you the one-hour answer to that. yes. i mean, pre-guidelines, depending whose members of the take anywhere from 40% to 50% non-incarcerated sentences. one major problem is 994 jay, title 28 sentencing reform act here's a congress. wasn't exactly feeling warm and fuzzy towards criminal defendant in the 1984 sentencing reform act designed to restrict the discussion. 994 jay nevertheless says the commission shall ensure the general inappropriateness of a term of incarceration with first offenders who have not committed a crime of violence or otherwise serious offense. i have presumption of probation

for folks who are first offenders. that is easy, having committed a crime of violence, that it's easy. a rather less serious offense. could be better, but we are the lawyers. we know that is a presumption of incarceration for people who are first offenders and their offense or conviction has a seriousness akin to that. doesn't have a seriousness akin to that that attends a crime of violence. but if the original commission do? it decides not just to ignore the presumption of probation, it defines it. it defines every single white collar defense and if you read the introduction to the guideline that post-994 jay and it provides the definition. it puts the word serious end quote and goes on to say a place is probation out of bounds for every single one of those

offenses categorically. opposite of what congress intended. another problem is with the data. in outcome if someone takes the data available, that gets booked and then they do find one of our drug courts. our drug court or youthful offender court, that sentence is a served sentence. that doesn't look like a probationary sentence on the judgment time served. but that is commission over and over again because they are fond of saying when given the opportunity, judges don't oppose sentences that are probationary sentence is. that is because the data can be confounding. some of this one-day prison in prison, that's not a probationary sentence. that is a prison term. they need to fix the data as well. those are two.

one affects the data come at the other affects people absolutely listen to the condition. when the book says you can't give probation, there is a lot of judges around the country that are not going to give probation. >> i would agree with that. i know that the current data shows that judges are still sentencing with the guidelines. >> my name is sterile and i'm a special assistant at the center for american progress. i think one of the biggest elephant in the room is the privatization of the prison industry. i know one of the panelists this morning mention i don't think it's proper to diagnose here. i know many states have comcast corp. of america. how do these contract states heard old true criminal justice

reform if they are contractors of the state guaranteeing there has to be a certain amount of prison population in the state? and also, i just want to personally thank judge donald for all the work you've done. i just want to highlight this. >> thank you. since judge gleeson is leaving the bench in today's bench in two days, whether to take that one? >> i hear that question a lot. i have to believe that is a real problem, may be an impediment to reform in the state. i had to run incentive policy circles federally and as many impediments as i've seen, even getting agreed upon at the 100 to one ratio, everyone agrees it's everyone agrees it's like turning the queen mary around to change things slightly.

the complex notion to actually impinge the federal policy and reform. i hear about it all the time that must be an issue in the state. i don't think people worry about the problem. a lot of decisions get made above my pay grade. i haven't seen that issued used in the apollo the debate. >> okay, one final question. >> by name is joe tolman, professor of law at the district of columbia. i run a clinic doing a first to produce the school to prison pipeline. one quick comment in response to judge trends are also in 1994 congress to the federal youth corrections that. that was in place from 1950-1994 and allowed alternatives and sing for people who are younger

than 22 at the time of conviction. 26 -- sorry. [inaudible] okay. a commonsense part of law that was in the wave of mass incarceration beginning. i guess the question directly to you. in early periodic screening diagnosis and treatment to medicaid program. people are budgeted to do the work that would have meaningful interventions required by law to do that kind of work you are talking about in a broadway. and a number of examples i've got of examples is adhered to the endeavor the reform of your suggest in me to look at semi-pressured and ways of bringing the funding so the incentives are there to do with the love requires.

people are violating my left and right and those are two samples. but i think this is a question to do what you are talking about the need to look at the systemic pressures and leverage point to create change in those systems. >> of that is the question, i would say yes. very good. over here. >> i have to tell judge gleeson. i'm an attorney by his or any notice that the defendants services committee and we are in mourning that he's leaving the judiciary. i just have to publicly say that it was wonderful. we thank you for your work on many fronts. >> thank you for your time. [applause] >> that's enough for the question.

>> no. >> this is an invigorating experience and kind of free news are wished to go back and accomplish more. >> any final word? >> thank you for having me in this wonderful program. the mac thank you all. [applause] >> thank you for major honors, for that very enlightening presentation. just before we conclude for lunch, i did want to take one moment to acknowledge once again judge donald who is a cochair for the summit together with the judge. we look forward to your feedback through the e-mail, twitter to enhance the program. we will not break for lunch and

welcome you back in one hour after 1:40, closer to 2:00. thank you. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

♪ >> i am a teacher. the most important thing to me in this election is education. and so, i am looking at candidates very closely for their programs in education. i am not happy in the last 15 years or so with all the core standards and the common core happening. i would like to see that changed around. i am going to vote for either bernie sanders and hillary clinton. i'm happy with both of those choices and interested to see what the education plan would turn out to be a select it. >> i've decided i am voting for ted cruz for the candidacy because he is a constitutional scholar. he is eloquent in his principled consistently out of all the candidates so far. ♪ >> the u.s. senate is about two n. this tuesday for work on a

bill authorizing sunday with opioid prescription drug abuse. lawmakers expected to recess today at 12:30 eastern for weekly party meetings and be back at 2:15 eastern. now lied to the senate floor god of grace and glory, you are the source of all life. you have challenged us to number our days, not our weeks, months or years. give us the wisdom to comprehend the brevity and uncertainty of our life's journey, motivating us to plan not only for time but eternity.