it takes all of those elements. we know it's best practices. ojjdp knows it's best practices. everyone in this audience knows it's best practices. without having read a scholarly article or looked at statistics. it is pure common sense. to incarcerate a youth in california costs $180,000. to put them through the program at homeboy industries for one year full-time costs $30,000. i am not a math whiz, i'm an anthropologist. i can tell you one is cheaper than the other. what are we doing? why am i still here? why are we talking about the youth promise act? we have to engage and make sure this becomes public policy law and is funded. we need to think about how many poets we have lost, how many

doctors we have lost, how many musicians we have lost, how many scientists have we lost? who has died because this act is not yet law? what is the matter with us? i want everyone to leave this room thinking of the question that was asked of me. thinking about what a young boy, a young boy who is facing the rest of his life in prison, asked me. we have to all engage and work unceasingly to make this act law. we have to think of that question. why wasn't there someone to show me another way? we have to dedicate ourselves to no child, no youth, no young adult ever asking that question again.

i would urge you to talk one another, i would urge you to listen to these voices, i would urge you to read all of the books that are talked about. i would also urge you to listen to what this young man had to say and other young men like him have to say. and i would urge us all to find an answer to that question. why wasn't there someone to show me another way? i'm glad you're all here. i'm glad we're engaged in this research. i'm glad we're engaged in this kind of public policy. but we need to make it the policy of this country. we need to find the funding for these programs. we need to make sure there are these comprehensive wrap-around services. we need to make the youth promise act law. thank you so much. [ applause ] >> chairman scott, could we add

to dr. leap's fine presentation a request that everyone that sees or hears about this afternoon's activity check and ask their member of congress about where they stand on this subject? >> sounds like a good idea. >> bobby kemper. >> thank you, congressman scott. thank you again for having me to capitol hill to talk about such an amazing i think legislation. i'm with dr. leap, i'm wondering why we continue to talk about this. i believe, congressman scott, we've been doing this two decades or better. maybe the legislation wasn't proposed but we were talking this a long time ago in our hometown of newport news, virginia. which brings me to my remarks today. 1977, i joined my hometown

police department in newport news, virginia. everybody wants to know what you want to do when you grow up. as a third grader i always wanted to be a police officer. so i got that opportunity at the young age of 20. i joined the department and i saw a lot of things i found were very unusual. but i also remember being judged by the number of people that we locked up. a good police officer worked on numbers. a good police officer was one who stepped up to the plate and made sure that everybody knew who he was in the community, not from a peaceful perspective, but from a perspective of making sure that incarceration was at the top of your list. i went on that track for a number of years early in my police career. and then i was asked by one of the supervisors to go to one of our local elementary schools that was actually a very young primary school. on 16th street down in newport news. and they wanted me to give a talk on citizenship.

so there i was, a young white male police officer, going into a predominantly african-american populated school. made up mainly of kindergarten through second grade students. as i walked in, i learned this was their graduation. and i was told very quickly that this was a first step in head start program. and not being very familiar with educational policy at the time, i had to inquire exactly what that meant. and i was told very quickly that a number of these children had not earlier in their education shown promise to be able to achieve those early childhood educational goals. well, being a person who questions just about everything in life i wondered how that could be. then i was told that many of these children did not have the opportunity to have early childhood education. i began as a young police officer to really understand the terms of injustice. and it stung me hard that day. but i did something that most

people should not do. i asked at that particular gathering if any of these young people had any questions. well, if you know that 5 to 7-year-old children don't have questions, they have a lot of stories. and they all begin to raise their hand and one by one i was listening to stories about their life. i was getting ready to wrap up and one little girl on the end, i'll never forget her face, she raised her hand and i recognized her. she said at night, mama forces me to sleep under my bed. and i looked at her and just a surprised look thinking, child abuse or child neglect? i'm not sure what i'm hearing here. so i went to her again and i said to her, what is your name? she said, my name is keisha. i said, keisha, what did you say? she said, at night mama makes me sleep under my bed so when the bullets come in from those mean drug dealers, they won't hurt me. i don't know whose eyes watered up the most, mine or hers.

and i realized in that auditorium that day that what we had done and what i established as a career goal of incarceration was not working. i knew that day that we would not arrest our way out of this problem. that we had to find other solutions for the community. thus, my career changed. i began to believe the only way to fight crime in communities is by improving the quality of life in communities. it had nothing to do with who you put away. it had everything to do with who you picked up. and i don't mean picked up from a police perspective, but picked up and saw that they had the quality of life to succeed. thus i went on a campaign as a local law enforcement officer. congressman scott will let you know that i formed a number of prevention programs in our city. we were committed to making sure that the message got out to every young person. i believed as a police officer that the power of positive

messaging came first before any warrants were served. and in many localities in america that does not occur. it is not a message of hope for young people in our community, it's a message of how quickly they can be embraced in these facilities that have been talked about here today which we know do not work. had the opportunity shortly after my retirement, congress man scott's aware of this too, to be asked to be the director of virginia's gang reduction program. had the honor to serve in that capacity for almost four years. one day i was pulled in and told that we had $2.5 million of federal money to improve the city of richmond. city of richmond at the time i might report was the fifth most dangerous city in america by per capita, homicide and violence. i was told that i could architect a program, could sort of engineer an effort to bring that crime rate down. put together a program that we sort of pushed everywhere we can

go and we sort of called it a peer program. it was originally called the grip program. out of the office of juvenile justice and delinquency prevention in washington, d.c. i was the director of richmond's grip program. in it i focused on prevention and intervention. i put most of our $2.5 million of public funding in prevention and intervention and re-entry. and just a little bit into enforcement. because i knew that prevention and intervention and re-entry would be the rule of the day to get the job done. i'm proud to sit here today to tell you richmond's one of five communities in america that's been able to hold their gang issues and their violent crime. we cut violent crime drastically in that city and we took it from one of the most dangerous cities in america to a thriving business community where people love to work, go to school, and now live. many people ask me today, how did you do this in a community? we built community.

we rebuilt the dreams of people in communities. i can tell you that we took health caravans into the probably highest-crime areas of that community, and we triaged over 5,000 people. many of those people who had not been to a doctor and a medical facility for years. the community started taking their own community back. they started believing that when you raise the quality of life of citizens, when you raise their hopes, their dreams, especially when they're young, then you do get them to believe in their community and get them to believe in their own life to the point where they seize their neighborhood and call it their own and they become proud of where they live and they do defeat crime. this is what the youth promise act stands for. it's not soft on crime. it's smart on crime. it doesn't have anything to do with just pushing out a program.

it makes every community in america responsible for adopting their strategy. we're not passing federal legislation or asking for legislation to be passed to make sure that this program shines or that program shines, but this legislation is creative in nature. it is the same creativity that i used in the city of richmond to take the city back. and make it a viable place to live. i agree with dr. leap. this is a no-brain situation. and i have come here today to testify to the fact that i have been on the streets and have placed people in handcuffs myself and i know that we like to hear the rhetoric of three strikes and you're out. we like to hear the rhetoric of charging teenagers at a very young age. you know what educators tell me, i think this is really fascinating. i'll finish up with these comments. they say that they spend about 90% of their day in their schools dealing with about 10% of the population but what's

more important to that statistic is they tell us who that 10% can be at a very primary age. ladies and gentlemen, that's a no-brain situation. we can do a lot with technology, i'm here to tell you that i've been a witness, we can do a lot with people, communities and yes, through the evidence based that we talked about here today and pure community strategies which is incorporated in the youth promise act, we can save communities one life at a time. thank you very much. >> thank you. you'll tell us what grip and peer stand for? >> be glad to. grip is a gang reduction and intervention program. its model came out of the united states justice department office of juvenile justice and delinquency prevention. we took the model and made it a little different by calling it peer, as we moved it through

other communities across america. that stands for prevention, intervention, reinforcement and reentry. we'll be glad to give anybody further information on that. >> thank you. and bobby mentioned the richmond program where he spent $2.5 million and they reduced the annual murder rate from 19 to 2. 17 fewer murders. you think of the number of people who are shot and don't die and multiply how many people didn't show up at the medical college of virginia emergency room, trauma unit and hospital, obviously have more than $2.5 million in government paid or uncompensated medical care right there, to say nothing about the reduction in law enforcement expenses and not having to lock up all of those people. so it's a very successful program. thank you, bobby.

frankie? >> thank you. first of all, chairman, thank you for having me. it's an honor to be here act. everyone, welcome. my story takes us back to when i was 15 years old living in california, in a suburb just outside of los angeles. there i was riding my bike at a local park with my friends and an officer pulled up right next to us, on to the lawn and just chitchat started. where you guys from, who's your mom, your dad? what school do you go to? by the way, do you mind posing for a photograph. we all did. i think i smiled in mine. what happened soon after that, that photograph was used in a crime investigation about a year after that was snapped where it turns out now that a corrupt officer, deputy sheriff, coerced

15-year-old boys into selecting my photograph, so i was arrested based on that moment, based on that identification of that photograph. i was soon tried as an adult. i was in adult court, confused, not sure what was going to happen to my life, but i had some sense of what justice was about and i was relying deeply on that. trial started and it ended with wrongful conviction. i was sentenced to 30 years to life plus life and spent the next 20 years in prison. not until a woman, an attorney named ellen eggers got involved were they able to prove my innocence. the witnesses who 20 years prior testified against me all recanted, and so here i am today. i've been home for one single year -- [ applause ] -- to the month. i've been home for a year.

my story is not basically my story. it's the story of many people. many young men who i left behind in prison. many adults who have the inner child still damaged and hurting and maybe can never take that back. can never relive that. but there are grown adults now who suffer from a terrible upbringing. since my release, i have jumped right in. i made myself a promise that if and when i ever get out, i would lend my voice and lend my time and dedicate myself to issues that were close to my heart as is the youth promise act. to my true blessing was i came across professor scott wood and seth winer from the law school center for justice and these men embraced me and i embraced them

and our mission to restore a number of issues, mainly those involving of youth and the surrounding cities, mainly los angeles. i've been spending my time on youth detention centers of juvenile halls going back and what hurts me so much is to realize that not much has happened in 20 years. i was amazed at the technology that has transpired since i've been gone. graffiti has dropped in los angeles. the streets seemed a lot cleaner, but at least in my opinion, how we handle youth and how we make the mistake of thinking that youth can kind of figure it out themselves and we'll just stand back and let them make a mess of it and then complain. on the way in today, i saw the

statue, there was a statue of lady liberty with the light in her hand and there was a young child and the engraving said the spirit of justice and it struck me because there was a child there and this inscription of you know engraving, the spirit of justice. there it was in the marble form. it bothered me that here i am, this young boy, well, part of me feels like a young boy, but a grown man from los angeles who never imagined being here on capitol hill to witness something of that magnitude and beauty, but there it is and i think that one of the things that the promise act can do is liberate that child and that woman and allow that to just be part of our every day unities. and i think about my youth and k not only myself and my community to take on the behavior of a sheep and to be herded around

and eventually penned up and made to feel insignificant, that our voices weren't to be heard, and you know, you shouldn't even raise your hand. to hear the panelists talk about in their own form, what it is to support this bill and to see this letter and to connect with brian, because i was brian. i am brian. it breaks my heart. the relief is that hope is on the way and the message of this bill passing can definitely be for those who have committed themselves to reform but also to the children who are definitely paying attention. i guess i'll close with my new life. you know, i've been -- it's an honor to have been accepted at loyola marymount university.

i've been home for a year. i think about, you know, where i was just a year ago. 20 years of my life in prison. and i think about even as a man, i behaved like a sheep. i behaved just like i'm just following along. how painful that is to acknowledge. and all of things, i thank god that this university's mascot is a lion. and just recently, i was just thinking about the fact that because of this amazing opportunity, because of what's going on in my life, i can now behave and be courageous like a lion and embody what that means and no longer be a sheep. because of that framework in my mind that i'm adopting, i'm here

supporting this bill and anything else that i can be part of that will cause change and may change and support any cause that is close to my heart, which is literally anything to do with youth. so thank you. [ applause ] >> thank you. please give all of our panelists another round of applause. this has been tremendous testimony. and if there are questions from the audience, if you'll step up to the mic right before you. is the mic on? can you check to see if the mic is on? yes, sir? check and see if the mic is on.

>> this is a question for dr. leap. can you repeat the question that you said that the young man said? >> the young man asked me why didn't anyone tell me there was another way for me to go. >> the young man can't just wish for it to come to him. he has to look for the answer. that's what i wanted to say. >> i really appreciate what you're saying. i think he was looking for it. truly and i think no one answered him. i think he was looking for it. the sad part of his story, he was a young man who did very, very well in school. he was very smart and he wanted some guidance. but it never came. and i'm so glad you're saying what you're saying because i believe that you're a young man who sounds like you will look for that guidance.

you will seek it and hopefully, there will be more young men like you and there will be people who answer that search for guidance. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> congressman, walter williams once called drug prohibition an invitation to make a killing, adding that the war on drugs restricts supplies and raises prices. would legalizing drugs keep people from being incarcerated and why not legalize drugs to drive the prices down, possibly using the tax money to fund these programs in this act, and have the tax revenue where it can only go to these and not be used for any other reason? >> if anyone wants to respond to that? let me say one thing.

one of the focuses of the youth promise act is it puts our resources more on prevention, early intervention and rehabilitation rather than incarceration. so before you even get to the question of legalization, there are things you can do in the present system that you can do. and the focus of resources, if you put all of the studies show, for example, that drug courts significantly reduce drug use and reduce crime and cost about one-fifth the amount that it costs to just lock somebody up. one of the first things we have to do is acknowledge that the allocations of resources is in the wrong direction. >> mr. chairman, i would like to recommend that a question of this importance be the subject of another forum that you would convene because the legalization

of drugs is far too complex for us to just give an opinion by a few of us today. it's a huge issue and i think it needs all of our careful study, research, and attention. the one thing that hangs over the whole question, of course, is that if we legalize drugs, would we not turn millions of people into drug addicts because it's legal, but i don't want to try to resolve it this afternoon and i would be willing to work with the chairman if such a forum were to be considered. >> we have an expert who's taken the mic. judge barnett? >> for the past seven years, i have been on sabbatical from the bench, headed to nashville after the american drug policy

coalition and like congressman conyers, we have urged and indeed supported senator webb's bill that would go into the issue of the medical consequences of the use of drugs and to what extent would the use of drugs explode or not explode to a point where we would have the dimensions of the problems we have with alcoholism and the automobile accidents and the injuries and the medical consequences and the concerns that the congressman talked about about increasing the use of drugs. indeed, we see now some evidence that some studies and reports in california where medical marijuana has been authorized, where there's been a serious uptick in the last two or three years of the use of drugs on the

basis that it's no more harmful than smoking tobacco. i think we need scientific medical evidence and not just popular beliefs on what the actual realities would be with reference to the use of all of these type of drugs. and i have been supported in fighting that battle both in the senate side and the house judiciary committee. now for about six or seven years, since about 2004. on the other issue dealing with the issue of prevention, as a judge who's been on the bench 40 years, i totally agree and indeed have submitted written testimony on the youth promise act. i have sometimes stood in for you and been your spokesperson at various conferences. indeed, i think this program this afternoon should be seen on

cnn and everybody in the nation ought to have seen and been exposed. to what we have been exposed to here this evening. brother, we need to encourage people to vote, but vote intelligently. with a realistic appreciation of the cost of doing things the way we've been doing them and the cost we will save and the offsets if we had an effective prevention and intervention program. the last seven years, i've been developing and designing such programs and like hill harper, we have developed a mentoring program to be implemented by our local chapters all over the country. so my recommendation is and many of us put our lives on the line in the civil rights struggle to get the right to vote, to get the right to be elected officials and eliminate discrimination. i personally at 19 years of age for six months was under death threats.

as you know, i was at james meredith in virginia and thurgood intended to bring me into the prince edward case to compel the university of virginia to admit me in the fall of 1955. the only reason that did not happen is because my case was settled. because of governor faubus in arkansas and thurgood decided he didn't have enough money to go forward both in virginia and arkansas at the same time. i went on to nyu law school. ended up working with attorney general robert kennedy and monitoring the civil rights movement and martin luther king movement, so i've lived the life and walked the walk and the wisdom of what you recommend all of america ought to realize and appreciate. thank you very much. >> thank you very much. and in the last congress when i was chair of the crime