quorum call: the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. mr. grassley: i ask that the calling of the quorum be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. under the previous order, the senate stands in recess until senate stands in recess until

.. join us this thursday for live coverage of the white house state dinner for justin trudeau. beginning at 6:15 p.m. eastern on c-span. participants include federal judges, advocates and state attorneys general.

>> good morning. welcome to the alternative sentencing key stakeholder summit. my name is aaron lipskar. i'm the director of the institute. along with our many partners that have collaborated, worked with us by producing this event today. we are privileged and honored you have joined us here as we take some time over the next few days to talk about and share our experiences and ideas regarding alternative sentencing and explore the possible role that alternative sentences can play both in reducing our number of individuals that are incarcerated but certainly delivering on public safety and

fiscal efficiency and responsibility. we have as you can see from the program to very full days. we are very thankful that we have very excellent to experts and leaders in the fields of alternatives and matters relating to that and, therefore, i just want to run through a few quick housekeeping matters so we can get them out of the way and we can get on with this important program. during the program, during the panels we're going to allow as much as possible for q&a, but because time is of essence as you can see we're starting a few minutes late, what we're going to try to do is utilize e-mail and twitter as you can see on the screen. your e-mail address and twitter if you like to submit some of

your questions and comments that way, then we'll have an opportunity to address them as well. also we're going to keep the introductions to our speakers, to our panels, quite brief as you can see the programs you have, there is a wealth of information there which can highlight all of the important features of each one of these individuals so we're going to try to keep our focus on the substance of the program and not to the introductions. following for some we're going to be working with the coalition for public safety to produce a toolkit after the event and this is going to be for specific into questions and comments, and will be a key tool in helping to prioritize the opportunities, the issues we discuss. and what's again you can submit some of those comments and thoughts through the twitter and the e-mail. and, finally, we have a special, nice late addition to the

agenda. the national association for sentencing advocates and mitigation specialists along with the center for american progress are going to be hosting a cocktail event following today's program. we will make sure to announce the details of that towards the end of the day and we hope that everybody will join us there. and one last thing, due to the late start we are going to run through the program this morning and not take the brakes as indicated in the schedule, but throughout the day after the morning there is refreshments and coffee available in the atrium. so if you would like to take your own break, that will be unable to you. once again thank you all for joining us at without further ado i would like to introduce rodlike lip scar, the chairman and founder of the institute, over 35 years ago -- rabbi lipskar -- into chambers of jack

weinstein, judge weinstein of the eastern district, it was for them. unfortunately, judge weinstein could not join us here today that he of core since his greetings. so thank you, and rabbi lipskar. [applause] >> thank you very much. good morning to everyone. it's really a very special opportunity to sit together and address what to be one of the most important concepts in our society today, thinking about this conference and the extraordinary collaboration of i would say an extreme array of high level people that covers the entire spectrum of the criminal justice environment, that we can, during the course

of this conference, can and have a pivotal and necessary opportunity to rethink and retool the failed process. thank you to our extraordinary cosponsors and presenters for this inclusive summit. the reason i say failed, it's a strong word, is nothing to do with philosophy of ideology but simply based on the studies and statistics. the exponential growth of our prison population, including those on parole, probation, they'll, the numbers are staggering the last number i saw, 2014, somewhere between six and 7 million american citizens. 24% of the world's prison population is right here in the

most democratic free country in the world, we are 5% of the general population. 29% of women that are in prison anywhere in the world are right here in the united states, women. single mothers and other such circumstances. the enormous cost, wasted lives, destroyed families, and the most effective environment for the perpetual promulgation of criminal conduct. people come out of prison we already know with recidivism statistics we know, they come out a lot better educated about how to do better than eckstein because they had a lousy lawyer, a lousy judge or whatever the case is. and, of course, an area that is not addressed at all and that's preventative education.

which is a critical factor. so what do we do about that? judge weinstein shared with me the americans law institutes tentative draft number three, 2014, for sentencing reform. some of you may be aware of that. a very brave and bold and forward thinking perspective. they are discussion and this paper well studied and well documented on collateral damage, they include in collateral damage deportation, loss of profession, loss of public assistance benefits, low self-esteem, et cetera. the single most devastating collateral damage was not even mentioned, not received any attention.

more than 3 million children under the age of 18 have a parent in prison. 3 million children under the age of 18. the damage to those children, it's vast, deep, and very pervasive. because it comes at an age where the child is in its formative stage, the most critical time of the child's life. and poor self-esteem, underperformance in schools, drugs, dropouts, the disproportionate, way disproportionate percentage of children entering the criminal justice system, seven times as many children of prisoners go on to the criminal justice system eventually, seven to one. and one of the children entering into the criminal justice system at any level will be a rusted before he becomes an adult, one

out of 10. these are children -- will be arrested. he should've known, but you don't say that the person who doesn't send his children to school. do something about it, and here we are perpetuating this fact. we are causing that whole process. we are not even addressing it, that's the key. we need to implement other means that will address all the concerns of 3551. very wisely but, unfortunately, while retribution, restitution, deterrence and public safety have continued to be the hallmark that is taken into consideration during sensing, the one thing that has been excluded is rehabilitation. they took that word out early in the 1990s. the reason they took that word out is because they didn't have a budget for it. very simple. if you don't have a budget, you can't do it.

passing klingon requirement -- absolute desired goal, impossible if you take a person out of a warehouse where he's been in suspended animation for so long. you here sincere stories and success stories that i've seen and heard are much too few and usually they inspired by religious or other volunteer or a mother who never loses her love for the child, and suddenly the mother claims a coveted position in the inmates mind and his confidence. so many times it's the mother that really gets the person to rethink his life but it's not our system. there is a reason, and this is not a theological discussion. there's a reason why the foundation book on ethics and morale the, the bible, it considers all defense modalities

of punishment. capital punishment, corporal punishment, financial punishme punishment, but not prison. prison is not considered a punishment that is except in the biblical times, no were there after. the reason is without getting into the philosophy of psychology et cetera, et cetera come which there is no a lot to address, prison is living in suspended animation. you want to do something, you can't even tell your team is to be agency said i will take you off my calling list, like i've seen happen. and impossibly to grow or thrive, and no sense, one of the most single most important aspects in life which now has been proven through controlled studies and behavioral cardiology, behavioral neurology, one of the most radical, one of the five most critical factors meaning and

purpose, no meaning and no purpose, empty space. with all the really extraordinary minds, ideas and selfless pursuit of human dignity, to develop something that's different, we should put our binds together and say it's time for change, real change. i don't mean to have something else a little bit. this is going fast. the numbers are exponential, 10 to one numbers in terms of growth. 3 million kids could be a lot of problems in the next generation, and they are just growing. in our times of the god particle, neural plasticity, robotic mind control, when we have really grown and advanced so exponentially in dealing with

everything except one, the human condition. and as such we need to make some changes in the system, and hopefully this conference with all of you together thinking in a commonality because we all have, so to speak, already committed to the concept, we move together and make that little changed that could be so important. it's a great honor for me to introduce a very special chairperson of this summit, a person who dedicate all of his life to rethinking and humanizing the sentencing process, and a very significant way, former deputy attorney general to the carter administration, a human being was the highest order the federal bench, as you know, he cared about every single person. he did what was the ultimate

position of the jurist in relation with the jurist truly is. i have to say that i bring regards to the mr. attorney general, mr. deputy attorney general from your dear friend jack weinstein this is that i do respect the efforts of you to improve the criminal law. and he is one of the two icons i look at what i think about alternative concepts. yourself and judge weinstein. there's no question in my mind that the one thing that impressed me the most i've ever seen, and it's exactly what you do thi is when he senses his pee and he comes out off the bench and he sits down with the person he senses that he looks them in the eye and he knows he's talking to another human being. and yet shown that extraordinary compassion but it's a great honor to be under your chairmanship.

[applause] >> i'm sorry my mother is not a life so she could have heard the introduction. you heard the statistic, 2.3 million persons in this country are behind bars. as our previous speaker said, we have 5% of the worlds population, and 25% of the prison population. in 1980 there were approximately 24,000 people in federal prison.

in 2012 they were 217,000, an increase of almost 10%. in the federal prison system, over half are therefore drug-related crimes. although the statistics are not as high for state prisons, it still is the largest category of offenses. and there are very serious problems in the sentencing of juveniles and african-americans in this country. i think the shocking rate of recidivism is evidence of that the system is not working. the statistics that we do have do not reflect the total number of persons whose lives have been altered and shaped and misdirected because of incarceration of a family member. i think, however, today we are

at the threshold of reform in the criminal justice system. i believe the timing of this summit is highly significant. today there's a growing public perception of the need for reform. historically, politicians, acting in good faith, whether democrats or republicans, conservatives or liberals, fought and shared a common thought, the way to deal with crime is be tough, to be tough on crime. as a result it meant more people were incarcerated for ever increasing periods of time. however, as bob dylan said, that times they are a changing. that are presently bilateral and bipartisan reform efforts to deal with the criminal justice

system. the united states federal sentencing commission has authorized early release for over 24,000 persons related for drug possession. an additional 40,000 are planned with some 14,000 to be released this year. the administration has addressed the need for reform. it's just not the federal system. in california we have a statewide initiative and proposition 47 in 2014, changed shoplifting and drug possession from felonies to misdemeanors, making people eligible for early release. in texas in the year 2007, there were estimates they needed an additional 17,000 beds which required new prisons at a cost of $2 billion. instead, the legislature allocated a smaller amount and

used community service and didn't need those extra bits. i think we need to capture the momentum for these changes but interestingly there is reform elsewhere in the civil justice system the alternative dispute resolution mechanisms are changing the way we look to litigation and disputes. elsewhere in the world, harry wolf an inkling came out with a report access to justice which revolutionized the law in england, the source of our common law. some people say it's the most, the biggest change in the history of english law. as we know we are having distinguished cosponsors, distinguished panel speakers,

panelists, but the ultimate success of this summit is going to depend upon you, our audience. you are the stakeholders in the criminal justice system. if we are successful you will be the spokesman for and the actors to implement the changes we urge. i think we need to be open to alternatives such as community service, fined, suspended sentence, pretrial release, identification in screen, risk assessment, bonding schedules, court basically missions, recover engagement strategy. we also need to deal with the problems of reentry, which are serious. what are the factors that make reentry and lack of recidivism possible? this is the era of big data. what are the facts that show?

is there some correlation between the length of a sense and the fact that recidivism, is there some indication of participation in programs in prisons that indicate somebody is less likely or more likely to engage recidivism? we should use our jails and prisons for the place for drug treatment. we need to find out what tax are a result of having failed to have those programs. the criminal justice system is not standing. the criminal justice system is dynamic, and we learn more about the consequences of our actions that we are able to adapt and adopt new methods to do with the problem. this summit should be a learning process for all of us. we need to cover and share information about proven methods as well as explore new methods.

we need to do financially what we have to do. create a system that is fiscally sound, humanely and humanly constructed and consider public safety and to victims of crime. what to expect, the first day we're going to look at the leading work including the ohio department of rehab and creation followed by federal experience. on date number two we will examine some length the alternatives as well as exploration of successful reentry programs, and the current federal legislation. we have an interactive program, partners with -- let me tell you what i did. as a young federal judge i was confirmed by the senate in 1971, i had no idea what sentence to

impose, two years, three years, four years, probation, what to do. i had no data, no information. there was a school, federal judicial school, but there wasn't a great deal of emphasis on the. i had a four step program. the first thing, every criminal sentence i imposed i re-examined on emotion out of me for reconsideration to see whether in hindsight that appeared appropriate and needed to be changed. and occasionally i did. the second thing i did i visited prisons. you may well have a two-hour tour or with launched a three hour to the it's been at least two days. i would sit in a classification, disciplinary hearing, substance abuse programs, ethnic groups, educational programs, vocational training and got a sense of what different prisons were like, what programs they had available.

and the third thing that i did is that i called up the caseworker of the institution to find out how the presenter was doing. and, of course, they didn't accept my call because they thought i was a fraud and they called me and found out. and i asked other participating in the substance abuse, are they doing things? and i would find the kind of attitude was increased because of my interest and they made an effort. of course, they were all hoping to get a modified since come and i modified some, very few, but the possibility existed and that made a difference. the last thing i did was i had the probation department give me quarterly report, written reports about what efforts were made for education, substance abuse, jobs. and then called in the individual defendant and the probation officer after hearings to meet with me in chambers and discuss what has been done and what should be done in the future.

as a result one of the saddest, but at the same time, flattering things, i got several letters from people i sent to prison for asked if they could use it as a reference because they thought i knew more about them than anybody else they had met. and that was good news but it was sad, unbelievably sad. we've got two full days. you know what's happening. we've got exceptional panels here. our first panel, the pew charitable trusts, and what an organization is, has been working with a number of state government and tracking their efforts a success with criminal justice reform. particularly in the field of reinvestment. jake horowitz from pew, one of the main architects and chair of the georgia criminal justice reform commission, judge michael boggs of the georgia court of appeals, juliene james from the united states department of

justice bureau, justice assistance and senator gerald malloy of the south carolina state senate, and judy owens, the southern poverty law center. they will talk about how states can protect public safety while reducing levels of imprisonment. leaders of reform efforts in georgia, mississippi and south carolina will discuss how their states moved from problem solving statements to policy reform the results. the stories from these three states we place in a national context reform as part of this summit meeting. and i would like to bring the first panel of the now. [applause] >> good morning.

the introductory remarks this morning talked about levels of incarceration that are historically national unprecedented in the united states. those figures were in the 100 of those behind bars, one in 31 and there some sort of correction control, adding probation or parole, hit a high water mark in 2007. in fact, since that period in 2007 levels of incarceration in this country has fallen 10%. meanwhile, both violent and property crime has fallen by more than 20%. so there's a bunch of reasons for this and i think the introductory remarks talked about a few of them. but we will try to do on this panel is take a look at how three states made conscious decisions to revisit their sentencing and corrections portfolios in order to achieve a better public safety return on

state spending. we are going to talk about the justice reinvestment initiative which is a public-private partnership which supports the work of the states, bringing into consideration efforts to stop and reverse the growth of correctional population in this country, build a continuum of evidence-based and community based supervision, service and sanctions and finally hold both offenders and the system more accountable. that's our modest charge the next 55 minutes or so. my name is jake horowitz. under policy director at the pew charitable trust. we have for folks who could not be beat in terms of bringing information on this topic that i just laid out. i'll make very brief introductions because i know we want to skip those and get right to the meat of this. sitting to my right is judge boggs who sits on georgia's court of appeals, former superior court justice also former represented in the georgia state assembly. and for the purpose of today's remarks he's speaking in large

part as an individual who serve on the special counsel for criminal justice reform for georgia. starting in 2011 and a group is co-chaired since 2012. next to him, juliene james, senior policy advisor at the u.s. department of justice. both administered the initiative but also served a second provided to the inner work. to my left, jody owens, managing attorney at the southern poverty law center. he served on mississippi's corrections and criminal justice task force in 2013. to his left, senator gerald malloy is represented south glens 20th districts since 2002, served on south carolina's criminal justice task force announcers as the chairman for its oversight committee. there are your introductions. this jaynes over to seize the initiative to look forward to

that. why did you states care about this? what was the reason for reform? why was it a pump to begin with that you states decide you want to spend some time focusing on it? judge boggs, take us back. >> you hear a lot of data today, and georgia was led predominantly by technical assistance provided by cuba we export our data. our data suggested a couple things. george is present couple things. georgia's prism publishing doubled between 1990-2011 such that in 2011 when we began this initiative, one in 70 georgians was imprisoned. national average was 1100. that may georgia the fourth largest incarceration state in the united states. to make matters worse one in 13 georgians was under some form of rectal control. one in 13 which may georgia the national theater in community supervision our corrections in

the nation. we are spending roughly $1.1 billion a year on department of corrections budget and for that return on investment georgia's taxpayers were sitting about a 33% recidivism rate which meant we released about 18,000 inmates thank you, 6000 would be back within three years. the budget in the state doubled from 1990-2011 our corrections from the $492 million, to $1.1 billion. so there was a very clear fiscal imperative, but also there was this moral imperative. you alluded to it already but the question was what was driving this enormous growth. it started with tough on crime policies that policymakers and the general assembly have passed including mandatory minimums, abolishing earned time to do. those which are things which got i think many folks elected but ultimately created some disparities. ultimately, people came to the table in georgia over the fiscal imperative but also because a moral imperative that we were

locking up about 60% of our standing population were nonviolent drug offenders. but we know 20% of the offenders being sent to prison in 2011 were not only nonviolent but 20% were categorized as low risk. we were locking up a lot of people in the state of georgia who, based on data that has since come to light, could be treated in evidence-based programs. those with the statistics that drove us to the conversation. >> senator malloy, you heard judge boggs talk about nonviolent offenders. in south carolina what was different? >> inks for having us here and good to be on a panel with these great analysts. my judge was at georgia tech football player, not a georgia football player. not in the stc conference. [laughter] >> y'all got football in south carolina? [laughter] >> more so than mississippi. but thank you for being here and

for those that we've not had the opportunity, want to thank you all for your support during the last year. we've had a difficult time in south carolina. we've lost one of my good friends, senator in south carolina for a pilot act, senator pinckney, the suitemate, a principled fellow to work really hard on reform issues but one of the things always said, the incarceration rate, of particularly minorities and the poor which is reprehensible and immoral. we have started our project back in 2000 sick. just to take you back to a practical way to look at it, legislators don't look at a system. south carolina absolutely no system. we would come in and we wanted to portray ourselves as a lockup of society. it didn't have rhyme or reason submitted legislation that would come in and they would get it passed and say that mandatory

minimum was three years, and so once we started looking at it, here's the numbers. i have mine written so i can make sure we get it right. into 25 years prior to 2010 when we started, our prison population was about 9000. it increased to 25,000. what we know is that in the early '80s, what did we have? the war on drugs. what we now know is that the war on drugs did not work. and then we had enhancements and those kind of matters as they relate to guns and other things. so we had a relatively poor state. we have 4.6 million people in the state, and you can look at the numbers in proportion as to the rate of incarceration. i don't quote georgians very often but speaker newt gingrich said that you are supposed to lockup bad people. south carolina was just locking up people they were mad at. what we had was we're spending

on prison operations increased 63 million to 394 million. we knew we are going to go up. we saw that we had our prison operations would increase from 141, to 370. we have all these numbers we can into putting in place. here's the big numbers. 49% of our prison population was nonviolent. 44% of those that were incarcerated for felonies were in for class f. felony's which was the lowest class for felonies. when we start looking at these triggers to see what was bring about our prison population, and so we had this thing that were revocations that were a real problem. we put in this matter to have the probation -- go into court, and to go before a judge and says you don't have a job. you are supposed to have a job. so they revoke you.

you don't have the right address. you didn't have your address down. they would revoke you. he failed a drug test, they would revoke you. it was a large percentage of those that were going back into the prison system. so at the time we knew we had to do something and we had to decide whether we are going to be more of a rehabilitative and pretends society than just lock them up society. >> we will head into the process next so let me cut you off and bring in mississippi. we've heard nonviolent offenders, length of stay, lots of repetition, big bills coming due. any other, what else was a motivating factor in mississippi? >> i wish i could say that it was the moral conscious of the state but it was more so cost. examination was we would spend projected $260 million given the rise of incarceration over the next five to 10 years. mississippi already been a particularly poor state relies we couldn't afford to do so. we were second in the nation with the highest per capital

incarcerations only to louisiana. at that point it was bankrupting the state. our office at the southern poverty law center, we were suing the state, assuming the department of corrections. inhumane conditions, violations of eighth amendment to make of an expensive. we wanted to drive the cost up because we knew the state couldn't pay, but that wasn't enough. lawsuits took way too much time. five or six years and we are still litigating the same class action suit. we bring you into the picture and something we dropped five spots. we are number 45th in the nation because the policy changes that we made, two-thirds of our people were going back, they're going back to jail come to prison not because they committed their crimes but because they violated their supervision efforts. two-thirds were doing nonviolent crimes. it didn't make sense. they were too many things we could do for offenders as

opposed to incarcerate them. >> last question. we heard a lot about bills coming due, rejected growth in population. the prison population is black and it's starting to fall modestly. back in 2010 it was growth. that was the problem. what is it now and how do states respond to the change? >> right. i think we've got an interesting split because there are places that are still overcrowded, and that's dangerous and that's costly. so that's not going to be an issue for the states to have the motivation to come to the table. but we are seeing this new set up statistics really interested still because either they are no longer interested in making those investments. their facilities are aging and are really facing a choice. do they build a new or do they make a smaller but more potentially effective investment

and alternative? i think it's a changing landscape but one that we are constantly learning and going to the dated to help us understand what's next. >> that's why states want to get involved in this, want to take a fresh look at the corrections system. public to turn back you senator malloy. we talked about the how, so why. it's a divisive issue. the bills are all moving in the right direction on this issue. how did you bring, focus on this process? >> that's a great question. i think what happened was we first had to get a commitment to doing it. then we had to get the expertise and that's when pew and others came into helping. basically to take the politics out we went toward evidence-based practice. so defined the thing that would end up working to find those things were a problem in our system. so whenever the things did not make sense, one of the big things was about one of the

third highest incarcerated since the south carolina was driving while suspended, non-dui related when you start having those things occupying prison space, that brings attention to it. then you bring in the groups, bipartisan, bring it all of the stakeholders from prosecutors, defenders, faith-based groups, and the experts is what pew ended up doing, bringing the evidence together, then you start putting together something that would create a system. and then assistance from our judiciary, from our executive, governor, and from the legislative branch to try to bring everybody together, put it together with the task force and end up moving it forward. >> senator malloy has talked about bipartisan, interbranch, bicameral, data-driven, bring all the people around the table to talk about this. in your experience in mississippi that expand the wind of what was awful?

did that change any opinions? do you think the process move people in terms of where the and? >> i think people learned to understand what the system really looked like. our judge spoke to going to prisons. we had so many policymakers that didn't understand why people were going back to prison. if you want to reduce your population have to do this. if you to look at the data and accept that you are doing something wrong, we have prosecutors wanting one thing, public defenders want something else. we wanted judges want more autonomy. everybody wanted something at our process was the most effective because we have subgroups. we had one person like-minded person working with the subgroup, what we had to give temple dedicate the every year we go back, i'm sure this at a satellite at georgia, people are still trying to pull back some of the things we did because of the mantra tough on crime. it sounds sexy during campaign as. they will take the worst

example, one person doing something with that and make that the poster child. that's what we're up against still in our states to continue to show these make sense because we get these games every year. we still don't know what they will end up looking like. >> one thing that hasn't come about so far is straight leadership. one person grabbing the stage and sang this is one going to focus on your coup d'état a little bit about the governor in georgia? >> governor deal with elected in 2010. he's a former juvenile judge, former member of tragic congress. his son is a superior court judge like a position i used to hold. judge deal gets it. he understands not only just the most important likewise fiscal compared. at least you forget what's going on in the country in the late 2007, eight, nine, 10, with respect to the budget issues held in all these states.

but i said again and will continue to repeat states that are interested in doing this after the exceptional executive leadership. you cannot do this without that sort of executive leadership from the heart. governor deal has led on this issue. i don't think because of the fiscal imperative. i think that might have been part of it but i think he has led by hard. for georgia, collaborative, inclusive process like south carolina. jodie swallow i think it's extraordinarily well taken and that is what you can do in the first year of criminal justice reform is much more limited in what i think you can do into 50 we are not because it's an education process, letting folks know you will get beat by being soft on crime but also informing. the dated has been all alone. if the moral imperative and the data were going to drive change, it would'v would have already hd in mississippi and south

carolina and georgia. but what this into google i think in the linchpin to georgia's success has been overwhelming executive leadership by governor deal. it is surprising to most, i think most of the industry defined when we passed criminal justice form and a bipartisan legislature, democrats and republicans and independents, it passed unanimously. i think in the five years now, the four years i've co-chaired the council we've had maybe three no votes, and every year we pass these things. the bill this year just passed out of the senate last week unanimously. i credit extraordinary leadership in the legislature in the senate and the house but largely that is possible because of governors leadership. and but not impossible without him. >> i love that georgia's model has been a big one that we should all look at. both because of that leadership but can also that third, fourth

understanding. that was so absent before this assistance was made available. it's not just about keeping the stakeholders from rolling back the efforts which i think is so key, but the system that is is a product of years and years and layers and layers of decisions, specific strategic policy decisions that are been made over the years. it's not going to be undone by one legislative session. georgia has taken the view that we are going to take this one year at a time, one step at a time in it was a huge accomplishment, but then they took great entry and general justice and now are looking to take another step. i know that you're interested in looking at the probation population. there are long probation sentences, fines and fees is something that's on your radar. really i think they would not

have been where they are if they had not taken that first. step. i think looking at this as it's not just a one and done, you can't solve this in one year and that's something we're trying to support at the department. >> the executive leadership is critical because it's something with all due respect we did not have and south carolina. i was in georgia. that judges are remember back in 25 after south carolina had passed it and we did our first round of reform, we have not done the reinvestment peace and the juvenile justice reform that is needed. we did go through the body with only three no votes from both bodies back in 2010. the question becomes now is where do we go from here and try to end up taking it for the. georgia with all due respect, what happens is that you have to have the reinvestment aspect of it which is something i know that we will probably end up getting a chance to discuss speed and we did the why and the

how. we need to do a time check at some other point because daschle what are the policies we did, what are the politics and what is the impact? if someone from the conference to give me a time check. all right. policies, you beach get to nominate one policy from your state your particularly proud of. what was the best thing you saw come out of this process speak with for us it was the g3 provision that allowed any offender for nonviolent crimes after serving 25% of his sentence to be eligible for parole. it's a provision that continues retroactively to make individuals decrease their time. almost by 50, 75%. we started a three strikes project in which were helping individuals it out. we are talking about people for 60 and 70 years of served are now getting their lives back. really impactful for us spent the equalization of drugs scheduled one created same was a

big deal, to give the prosecutors some flexibility the most serious expanded victims rights that would end up bringing more folks into the fold. expand the amount of property crimes and give folks a second chance on conditional discharges and bringing surcharges on matters of drug crimes, and to really take a look at all the mandatory minimums. you end up getting the mandatory minimums out of the system. increased some of the links of sentences that gave judges flexibility. what we are doing is taking the nonviolent out of the prison system and having more space for those are committing violent crimes. >> hard to pick one in five years of effort we have made but just i think, intuitively what you don't understand if you haven't been engaged in this is that first baby step, the first of in criminal justice reform,

the educational component, the collaborative process we've included in georgia. it leads you to other areas that were more intuitive that you just may be have not thought about. so georgia started with a no reform. out of recognition of the school to present application also aware of the day we moved to reentry. we thought about talking 8% population growth, flatlined that, saving to mine safety woman dollars and moving into the juvenile arena, the faucet that is filling up the tub and then we moved into reentry, how do we do with reintegrating these citizens back into their community. of the one thing we did the first year in 1176 as a former drug court judge, i'm very proud of the governor putting $10 million to the legislative process into the expansion of accountability courts. we have felony adult veterans courts, drug courts, mental health courts. i think those are demonstrative

of the recognition in this nation that a large percentage of our prison population is there because an addiction a short mental health issue. the expansion of the accountability courts, addressing the issue driving the criminal conduct is very important. >> in south dakota, the probation policy that is correct assessments were hoping for this publication soon about the effects of that. essentially taking a whole class, a couple classes of low-level felonies and making the kind of presumptively probation. so an alternative. and in another, and delbert which is a unified system a little bit different but for our handful of them in this nation looking at retrials. where previously magistrates had used spidey sense who to release or not i want financial conditions to put under pretrial release now. there is an objective assessment

whether they posed a public risk or not. not. >> i will be totally unfair to convince to the three and half minutes you just heard. of all the bills these days are 70, 80, sometimes exceeding 100 pages in length. they have 20 to 40 policy provisions. if you're interested in quartering these folks after the panel. also google pew and the states named people come up with a brief of the policy. we are probably down to 10 minutes. we view politics and impact. politics, where do you start with some of the questions i would put out, who is most and least enthusiastic and why? going back to the question i asked earlier, did the process opening windows, does anyone come across an issue or the support you didn't think they would support when you start the process? and this left-right coalition, is it for real? is it for real in your states?

so pick on anyone of those and roll from it. >> i of jumping. it surprising we didn't appreciate why prosecutions, district attorneys in mississippi were opposed to this legislation. we learned through the process of that people being incarcerated is a money business. notches private prisons but also local district level. restitution has to be paid. we had a big offense, a check-cashing offense. every kid in the world needs to learn how to balance a checkbook. that's not a reason they should be arrested but we realize district attorneys were supplementing their budgets based on these charges. we got to the bottom of it and we had to literally chained about that, that they shouldn't fund their office off overincarceration. that's one of the things that surprised us, why they were so opposed to this legislation. >> on south carolina, what was the linchpin moment or two dynamic? >> i think basically, let me

paint a quick picture. 28 republicans in the senate, 18 democrats whenever we were full, about 7 75 republicans in the house, 40 some odd democrats. so basically we are a very red state so we are very prosecution oriented state. we had in to bring it together to make certain we can do it on principles so that folks could have a reason to show what they were doing and to understand candidly, it's not going to have an effect upon the elections. basically you've got to take a peek under the politics and put it into people. and out of the partisanship as well and to make it about people. i think once we get everyone together, although stakeholders together, got to give and take to have a balance, we just passed a consensus bill. there was something someone, some others did not but we had another, a lot of folks who come together, one person mediated

them all and as task was to prosecute what he wanted. asked advocates and what do you want? we give everybody something and we use the old ronald reagan model, god bless them, 80% of what you want is a good deal. brought everybody together and that's how we got it together. >> i think the to p's, the bottom line for all the reforms that are passed is that it is a political process. i think, would the beautiful policy package that had once envisioned be the best outcome for the first cut? maybe but the bottom line is that we have a system of government that is governed by the people and for the people come and you all are elected to do that. i think we just want to be real about the fact that it is a political process and i believe at that speed in the politics of it is very real. asked in a red state republicans

are concerned that getting beat on the right. they are getting concerned -- their country but getting beat on the primary. every republican primary just after gossipy to see the issue criminal justice reform came up and you have to understand if track of what george has done, governor deal after all that from the heart and been an exceptional leader on this issue, it has been the symbol component of his state of the state and inaugural addresses every year. it is an issue he has campaigned on, republican governor and a red state. that said, we followed all the primaries and came up one time in republican primary. became in this context. legislator who was on criminal justice reform council was accused of taking too much credit. that's how it came out. it's somewhat unusual for us to have a conversation about a collaborative, kaluza bipartisan public policy process where issues of public policy are

vetted with everyone having come all stakeholders having a say. that's the oddity here, that that's how this works. that's not all public policy works. general it's in my experience that most public policy is reactionary. that's not always the best way to bring about the most solid foundation spirit want the keys was when assistance came in and the faith community came in, made a difference as opposed to those of us were sitting in the chairs every day. >> if we can put a slide up, look at impact. i know these screens are small. this is all for not if we don't move the needle you guys intended that at the beginning. we talked about length of stay, technical revocation. a quick question is where is the blog ocean today? there's a few other pieces i would like folks to talk about. i'm going to go to senator malloy to talk about this and the closure.

i would like to judge boggs talk about race. want to be seen in terms of impact and mississippi's prison population? >> we now can close a prison which is huge for us because when we started this fight about five years ago, we sued the geo corporation, and we were able to move out of mississippi. but most states, that contract with private prisons which we think is to bills, you're making money for incarcerating people which is something this they can do as well. we hope in the next two years will be able to get all the private prisons out of mississippi and ease of the whole system more accountable and make a less profitable. this has been transformative for our state because if you build a chance to keep them for the most people don't know private prisons signed contracts that intricate 90% of the prison full at all times. ..

the second-highest prison rate in the course of one year, senator mel like, and i have been fortunate to share the commission and we have oversight as well the we have been able to chair. in the last 5-1/2, 6 years we have had the opportunity to close 3.5 presence in south carolina. real money as relates to fiscal conservatives, the population has gone down to 21,000 and >>. one of the folks said something during one of our committee meetings, in order to make things change you have to make the machines. if you want to move the mouse you got to move the cheese so

you can't do the same thing over and over. you got to end up making it work. very effectively, 3.5% of the prison population going down, crime rates contained to go down because none of it works if you don't get your communities safe and the fact that crime rates are going down is a key component. >> you hit on population under impacts. >> georgia was projected to grow by 8%, crossed georgia $264 million and it would have given georgia 64,000 inmates which would probably have made us all largest population per-capita in the united states. this chart demonstrates from that base line we reduce our population by 5.9%. our numbers are around 52 but this year shows 53.

most importantly i want everyone to understand and i think the senate will agree with me on this as well, criminal-justice reform is not responsible for all of this. is hard -- i want to make sure everyone understands you cannot attribute cycles of criminal conduct, different policeing, this works not in a vacuum, so that said, our racial makeup of george's prison population has had significant effects attributable largely to criminal justice reform. from 2009 to 2015 criminal-justice reform team in at 11. we reduce the number of african-americans in georgia's prison system from 66% to 62%, still an unacceptable number but the number is going in the right direction. it bodes well for the future when you look at the commitment of african-americans to georgia's prison system in 2015.

in 2015 georgia admitted 9,983 african-american men and women to georgia's prison system. that was 21% reduction in the number of african-american men, 37.6% reduction in the number of african-american women, that number of commitments in 2015, 9,090 floridians represented the fewest number of african-americans committed to prison in georgia since 1988. since 1998. the numbers speak well that criminal-justice reform and collaboration in other things helped move the case. >> we like that. i want to pick up on that too. the un tinkling of various causes of the trends we are seeing is something we want to learn from, all the states's work. it is true that we cannot stay with any confidence and said these five things together made

the changes. we have an assessment strategy worked with our partners on their really look at specific policies sold in south carolina you look at that. we look at what the officers are doing on the ground and work to come up with specific performance measures so that we don't we three or four years down the line and see how we are doing, going into it, we know whether judges used the sentences available to them, whether the revocations are up or down and whether the alternatives are being used as intended. that is something we are constantly learning from and glad to say we are working on an assessment for one of george's policies that will be useful not just to them but also many other states to make these changes in the future. >> are we on time? we have a couple minutes.

sharing information between the states has been critical. something that was promoted, talking to other states as to what they were doing with these ideas and it is a critical part of this because these are things we can do. let's open to a couple questions. if you want to line up. take a couple questions, as folks lined up and prepare for questions, let's summarize a little bit. we talked about pressures for reform, bills coming do, population growth, system that looked out of bounds for admission tight, wang's of state increases dramatically, processes, bipartisan, bicameral, data driven consensus, policy reforms that hit different parts of the system.

using the analogy of a balloon, you squeeze one place you in large somewhere else, folks in sentencing behind the bars program, hit pro release, earned time, revocation of policies on probation and parole. real diversity, continuing the criminal justice system ended just politics. recognizing the landscape of politics in respective states, make sure world leaders are in place and we didn't spend enough time but finishing, when the ink dries on these bills, they are have done, a third down, just right, that is not to undercut the effort it took to get the bills passed, move to a policy of

georgia tech was juvenile and the packages where the money went. >> we looked at diversion of

youth and out of home placements, $90,000 a year bid for use in georgia, recidivism rate is not 33%, it is 65%. and so we came up with fiscal incentive grant program and 29 counties in georgia. 70% of georgia's about risk -- and reduce recidivism. and out of home placements by 50. i am pleased to report after the first 9 months they didn't reduce by 15%. 60 -- 1600 to 66 use would not be at out of home placements, are treated at evidence based programs. the most important thing you are making, my wife is an elementary school teacher, when we have conversations about criminal justice reform we think about the system, judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, prisons, that is what we are thinking about,

community supervision. this intuitively, criminal justice reform is not just about the system, it is about getting further back in the continuing and working on education. one statistic i presided over, felony criminal court for seven years and the first three as i counted 6,000 criminal defendants i dealt with. and the first drug was marijuana and the age was 13 as well. what percentage of 6,000 adults had a high school diploma would you guess? i suspect these numbers will be relevant in your state? what percentage? 20%, he says? here is the number, 34. people, people, if that is not demonstrative of the correlate of affect between criminal justice policies and education, i don't know what else is.

we got to keep kids in school and think outside the criminal justice system. >> an earlier indication -- >> to succeed, the bill this past year corresponding with it, to get to universal education and earlier and so that is the key component. we have not addressed juvenile justice reform. we are doing it piecemeal, pieces that have been found out, like raise the age of south carolina, one of the only states that does not have it passed, new york and north carolina has it done at 15. children -- >> it is really changing. the look at juveniles, and the

roker decisions. and those three kids, they increase on the same subject. >> pushing a little further on that, not just kids but young people, 21, 25, taking a lesson from that brain science it was based on to say what else can we do and can we learn from this and let kids and young people leave that behind, really looking at that. >> the law in south carolina, my department of corrections director brian sterling, we have 17 euros incarcerated with the adult, he has the mall in one institution, it is something he can do in his position, not required to do it by law but he

does. >> two quick things, we got the one minute sign. the first is going back to 2007 and introductory remarks. representative jerry madsen led the effort from the house that averted 14 to 17,000 beds of new construction, bill 100,000 beds in the 80s and 90s, the same session of legislature put $4.7 million in, the proven model for crime, pregnancy, smoking, things that are in between at a very young age. and late adolescence, most likely to beat the system. the other thing, as the folks in the adult system is really worth noting, fascinating distinction between adult and juvenile system. if you look at the crime in your >> host:s, fallen for everybody,

kids and adults, the adult prison system has plateaued, 2007, 2009. the juvenile system, the juvenile commitment has been cut in half. why is it the adult system is experiencing the same crime declines and the juvenile system has seen a peace dividend? part of the reason is length of stay, only juveniles so long, a 35 year sentence for most juveniles and so kids age up quickly. not the we have watterson'ss, stacked up on its self can only go so far. we are being given the stop sign. i want to say thank-you to the panelists. what you heard here was these are issue is driven by policy decisions and policymakers need to leave. please join me in thanking our

analysts. [applause] >> thank you to our moderator, want to thank our panelists, for your comments and details from the initiatives and successes in learning that happened in some of the state's. i would now like to introduce to you gary more, the director of the ohio department of rehabilitation and corrections. director more has 40 years of experience at the corrections professionals and very well known for his innovative and efficient prison management but more importantly it is just to a note that director more has an

important policy which is in order to impact corrections in america we must continue to invest in people, not bricks and mortar and he has committed to this process, to not opening additional prisons in his state and under his care and really looking at the alarming incarceration rates of females and drug-related crimes that create collateral consequences that can last a lifetime and he is going to underline the importance of these changes and problems in today's societies. so thank you. >> what a great panel that was. it is a great day to be alive. that is important to me because it reminds all of us and all of us can be a major part of making tomorrow a whole lot better for a lot of people if we believe it

today. it is an honor to be here. i started my career july 1st, 1974, at the correctional institution as a teacher's the. i had some great experiences and i thank god i have been able to work in this profession. the opportunity at the age of 3 of desegregating a prison. programs and jobs, the best job in the world for 12 years in different places the wooden or superintendent where you could enact change if your vision is right and most recently had a great opportunity to work with the american correctional association on restrictive housing or solitary confinement. i want to say with that i see a tremendous parallel between the struggle of putting too many people in restrictive housing and the issue of mass incarceration i want to spend

most of my time doing today but if you don't mind i want to start with a personal story here because it is why i and you today and it is very personal but it is why i and here. i retired from the department of rehabilitation and correction at the end of 2002 and i loved our system, i loved everything i did but i retired and we did some work in the juvenile system. i had the opportunity to work for three years with juveniles from running the facility and running the juvenile facilities in ohio and my wife and i became consultants. you don't supervise anybody when you are consulting. it is an interesting thing. we were having a hard time, very selfishly we had the chance, married 43.5 years, and the top of my correctional career and had the opportunity to spend a few days every month in sunset beach, north carolina.

i loved that flakes and we were having the greatest time doing consulting, and doing all kinds of training and leadership development and working with culture in prison, something we have not heard so far as really important in december of 2010 came, december of 2010 i got three calls from transition committee in ohio, john kasich had been elected and the calls came in and said gary, would you like to be the director of the department of rehabilitation in ohio, department you spend your life supporting? the first call came in, what an honor it is, at one point it was really great, it is an honor. my second call, a lot shorter and the final call, i really don't want to. it was selfish because we were enjoying our lives. the fourth call comes in and

some people have been talking to john kasich about how to run the correctional system, a lot of budget issue is dealing with the budget and he just wants to denounce these ideas of you. would you come in and talk to him? i would hope regardless of your political persuasion when the governor calls and asks your opinion you would give it. this was december 27th, 2010, seven weeks after the election, largest state agency trying to figure out what we are going to do here but the person said you only got 15 minutes with the governor. we live an hour from columbus, we will go, spend the time, 15 minutes, then go to lunch. my loyalties we go there, up to the right-center, transition office, down to one side where they have resentment -- refreshments, diet soda, so i meet john kasich for the first

time, never met john kasich so i shake his hand, looks just like he does on television and he says gary? yes, we only have 15 minutes. i said i understand that the she says i want to bounce some ideas people have been giving me and i want your honest reaction. i won't give all of the ideas he has but when he spent ten of those minutes talking about the plans, got to reduce budget, got to do it. and at the end of the conversation he says what do you think? without thinking, i am not very scripted, that is the stupidest idea i ever heard. we are not going to send people out of our state, we are not going to give people care in a private facility outside ohio, away from family, doing things we don't know. what is going on. and turn back the neighborhoods of families and expect those neighborhoods and families to be

better than they were when they left. at 15 minutes went to three hours. some of you have heard this story, three hours with the governor. remember, i started at the marion correctional institution, $2.54 an hour. finally, is your wife here? i said yes. they send somebody down to get in the. she is down in the soda room. when she walks in the eyes were big. i know she had more than one large soda. needs the governor and says, the governor shakes that hand and says linda, and i want gary in this job and we are going to do it this way. at that moment i had no intention to let moment of taking the job, none. the next thing he said is i want

you to reform the most unreformed part of government. do it. we have dedicated since december 27th, 2010, talk about some of these things after i talk about what i consider to be the insanity of what we have talked about so far. let me talk -- we talked about prison, got to talk about this because it is important. from 1920 to 1975 our country, the united states of america had a very stable prison population, ran between 200,000, to 400,000, just under 500,000 for 55 years. adjusted with the population but 1975 was a dramatic increase that we saw.

in fact, we talked about numbers, from 1975, under 500,000, 400,000 people to 4.5 million in state prisons. at the same time i can tell you in ohio, the most violent crime rate since 1969 and talk a little bit about trends in ohio before we get into this. we know that nothing works, vietnam's ended during that time period and people came back not supporting in a drug culture at this point and tough to get jobs. we know the mental health system was decentralizing and our prisons became not just the default place of sentencing for

judges, and 600 mentally ill and in ohio. and the sentencing processes to make sausage, criminal-justice to make laws in this country has been a significant influence, we have not talked about that significantly in this country but we talk about the national trend. some trends are not good. i don't care if you are at a fiscal conservative or if you care about people. the underpinnings, until we get to this point and until these walls are knocked down and everyone outside this room years and understands that we are working with human beings, we are working with human beings and i will tell you that there are people who do not believe

that. if you don't understand and believe that, talk to someone who is trying to get a job this than six months in prison or in some cases have never been to prison, folks, we have to understand this and talk about it, we have to talk about the fact we are in a people business, not the in 8 business. so let me go back briefly to talk at the meat of this and understand the time of this, july 1st, 1974, i don't think i am is an old. july 1st, 1974, verbage seven prisons, today we have 27, there are 8,300 people in prison and ohio, today there are 50,600 people in prison and ohio. out of that subset, the total, the day i started in ohio's prison system in my career as a teacher's aid their 291 women incarcerated in the entire state of ohio wandering around the campus of the correctional

institution. today we have 4,300. it has been a trend that is significant and if you think about the lowest violent crime rate since 1969 it is illogical we have had the fault system like this. we have had some current trends in our population, commitments are down a bit over all but 6% increase in the percentage of women coming in. i want to talk about women just a second. as we look at the trending, what do we know? is an interesting thing, hard to see this but we passed house bill 86 causing a significant decrease, the stop of a thousand inmates as we pass the first year of our administration, basically not first-time

non-violent offenders should not be sent to prison. a pretty remarkable dramatic thing. there was a 14 month consecutive reduction in the prison population, you can see that with the wind as well but it has gone up. now we see 23% of our new intake happens to be probation violators. what i want to talk about is this gap between the intake and the actual population, someone talked earlier, a huge issue is links of stay. 2007, important that all jurisdictions look inside our numbers at what is causing it. 2007 in ohio there was a decision by the supreme court called the foster decision and what it said was previously for sentences to go in the top range of the sentencing range there

had to be set of reasons documented and submitted, that was stricken down in 2007. we have seen a remarkable difference, without any restriction documented for the reason for the highest sentence, we have seen since 2007 the impact of that decision being 6,700 more coming into the system because of the length of stay extending and that length of stay is predominantly with the most white security or felony in ohio. if you take a look, we talk about some numbers and looking at numbers, pretty important, if we identify the most frequent, the five most frequent, most serious offenses for which the blessing to prison in ohio lands

targets opportunity or an issue, it is bose, you can see the consistency between males and females in terms of the top five, drug possession is the number one most serious offense for which people are sent to prison in ohio, 12.4 and in females, 21.5% of women, their most serious offense for which they are sent to prison is drug possession and you can see the following numbers on the sheet as -- on the screen. we take a look at this, is it a problem or an opportunity? the opportunity for everyone in this room and our justice talked

about it earlier. everyone in this room is going to have to talk about this story and the story of your jurisdiction. i happened to be at a church three weeks ago on a tuesday night doing the criminal justice information peace and it was an interesting thing, the church was full. there was a lot of interest. i asked a couple preliminary questions before starting talking. the first question is how are we doing in the criminal justice business? i would suggest that that is a question we all ought to ask us all the time, how are we doing and we ought to be asking others. i think because a few members from my own church got favorable ratings because the percentage was 52%, we were doing okay. there were personal issue is there. the church was full. it was not -- we had them fill

out a form. how many people in this room believe the course for proper criminal justice is to build more prisonss? 30% of the people, 30% of the people said we think we need to build more prisonss, keep us safe. if you look at who is coming to prison, i haven't shown this to them yet, talk about the fact that in ohio at least the national recidivism rate is 49.7 and 0 i am is 27.5 because our mission is to reduce recidivism and we go through that, at the end of the night there was one person in the entire church that believe we ought to be building more prisonss, my point is the we all have -- i told a rabbi i wish flow walls in this arena here were knocked down. so that more and more people

could use this. that is why i depend on you to talk about the truth of what we are doing, and more effectively handled in a community setting and if we offered that, i want to talk about the sense of opportunity in just a minute. the one thing about the governor is he is full of energy but stayed true to his word. we are going to do it your way. i said listen, i am not going to build a new prison. the prison population probably parallels closely the same day in cities that the california system did. i am not going to build another prison. we can't just let people out. we have to treat people, people have addiction. in his last budget week increased 58 million new dollars to be in certificates into the community correctional line not just for residential although we

did increase 500 residential bets, but in to probation improvement grants to give counties with the team to come up with a plan to reduce their commitments to prison, keep their communities safer by putting people in evidence based programs in the community, $50 million of new money. the reason we say that, if you look at the largest counties in ohio, the five largest counties in ohio, tire hogan, cleveland, cincinnati, columbus, franklin, toledo, lucas, akron or date and, not sure which is the fifth, we saw a 10% reduction in the number of commitments coming to our system over the last five years because we have invested in community corrections for a longer time. out of necessity we have invested in it.

the other counties we have not had the money to do, would not have the money, they do not have continuings out there, they have people that are addicted, we have a serious addiction issue, looking for options and the options have been the default sentencing to prison and a 5% increase in those counties and i will tell you we are committed to provide local money to those local rural counties that have the same impact year because in six months sentence is a life sentence to many. if you don't believe it ask someone who is trying to get a job after is a spend any time in the prison system. so i want to talk just a minute about an opportunity and i know we are running short on time, but i want to talk about the sausage and comes out of

criminal -- you start with a vision, mission, clarity around something and exchanges. in ohio in 2015, despite real bipartisan support for trying to make a change judges think tank, every quarter now, a lot of movement, 91 pieces of criminal justice legislation introduced in the state of ohio general assembly in 2015, 91, as a falling to three categories, new law, enhanced penalty, or mandatory sentence, or all of the above. unfortunately, it is true, we can never discount this, there's often a horrific event that has taken place because this piece

of legislation and there are victims across the table from the legislators and is extraordinarily difficult to say no. over the years and over the time, we had a steady increase since 1975, mandatory sentences and enhanced penalties and link of stay and misdemeanors becoming felonies. the effort we have undertaken, i am hopeful, work is to be done by august, is 26 person committee eight of which are legislators. the others are a diverse group of people including me talking about what makes sense to rewrite our entire criminal code. it focuses on evidence, research, best practices like we have seen in south carolina and georgia on minute ago. take a look at what makes sense

and change laws to ensure that those people we are afraid of will hurt someone, programmed but not forgotten, and the other alternatives to deal with those folks. intervention is an important piece that has not been used but we want to expand the opportunity and all we want to say is this, we want to give the judge an opportunity, forget mandatory sentences, we are opposing, at least i am opposing almost all messages for reasonss. we elect judges to make decisions, let's do that, give them their job, don't tied their hands and say they have to send someone to prison. person comes in, the judge says i want to be held for the judge convinces them, where the

veteran's courts, in turn into a program of divers and and talk about what the judge, what they need to do and set specific times and they do it and if they do it, one of the greatest things judges are a great positive influence on people so if they know they will see the judge every couple weeks or every month and every time they do something good or bad, if they know that they are more compliant, they understand the plan. if they complete the program under felony conviction is erased, even though we need to ban the box universally i think, that becomes a moot issue with that, so we are proposing an extensive expansion of that. we use q results since they all the jurisdictions that increased

theft levels, ohio has a thousand dollars threshold for felony theft and using research instead of the emotional tugs we are proposing that increased and that is important because of this, people get into trouble and continue to need to be worked with, probation can continue but doesn't necessarily mean it is a felony prison commitment. digital discretion we talked about priority of treatment. i want to talk about this, a controversial piece, medicaid expansion, we were an early adopter, the greatest opportunity to make a positive difference. end inside the prison, if they didn't have time to complete the program you didn't put them in

it. our drug folks coming in at the jail time credit and a short sentence, thousands and thousands of people, we release 8400 people, those people were not being touched and had highest rate of addiction and mental health because historically we were not smart enough to understand we got to get these folks started with medicaid expansion. we increased the number of people in addiction treatment by 50% for the last budget, 50% inside prisons. and we expanded money to have five regional contracts of continued drug treatment in a consistent way just like it is done in prison. but the binge in is the electronic health records and the electronic waiver in the person's treatment continues immediately, into the community from the prison. we are touching people now that we had given up on before.

i was walking through the reception block, i love the programs, therapeutic communities, we have the harmony project, we are skypeing songs to hospitals and children are dying and inmates are saying all this stuff, walking to reception block and see female inmates that look like my granddaughter and in some cases doing two or three months because of the six months sentence with jail time and getting a life sentence literally. thinking historically what we have done nothing with those folks. we are now. and finally in terms of this, the federal system had a prolonged time so i'm going to mention it. in july 1st of this year the legislature said i trust what you are doing, i trust your recidivism rate of 27.5%, i trust the fact that the national average would be returning 4,300

more to prison a year but you are not because it is your mission, you have great community support, 81 of 88 counties have full functioning reentry coalitions doing unbelievable work. what we are going to do is this. we are going to say there is a pocket of people, 3,000, 2100 people, non-violent folks. if you can get him ready for treatment we will let you release them without any discussion with the judge, move from into a halfway house and potentially reporting so we are starting a treatment transfer initiative, in seven days they have their own unique population moving to a different setting and totally focused by themselves on treatment readiness, putting them through treatment readiness and moving them out into the community even

if they have hurt year on their sentence. so folks, proud of the fact the we have integration units, family saturating -- >> we will leave this conversation and prison sentencing laws to return to live coverage of the u.s. senate, lawmakers continuing debate on a bill authorizing funding to combat apps and debbie lloyd prescription drug abuse, live now to the senate.