i wonder, as you're sitting there, and some of us who have done this in the past, i don't think, focused on that in quite the same way when i was u.s. attorney in connecticut, for instance. did a lot of what you're talking about, and have spoken to you a lot about some of those things and have wished i was as smart as you were to be doing some of the things that you're doing, but never thought about institutionalizing it in a way that another smart, good-thinking person doesn't take it away, because from their perspective, that's no longer as important. and as wendy said, we need to focus more on incarceration for longer periods of time because crime rates have gone up or there is political pressure. so do you talk to politicians about figuring out ways to institutionalize this beyond

your specific term. >> i just want to say this, that the word institutionalization, for these programs, is not one that we've started talking about as a community, say, in the last six months. under the leadership of the agac, the attorney general's advisory committee, our first chairman was todd jones who had been a former u.s. attorney in the late 1990s. he came back -- he said he is a recidivist -- came back as u.s. attorney again starting in 2008. todd preached from day one in institutionalization. paul did as well, loretta lynch as well. lanny wanted to respond though. >> i was just going to give an answer to the judge's question, one example that my colleagues can talk about what they're doing in their districts. but the attorney general was mindful of it, so one of the privileges when you are the head of the criminal division is you work with the u.s. sentencing commission and we did do that. we also are able to work with the attorney general and with your colleagues in the u.s. attorney's office in dealing with the u.s. attorney's manual.

an example of institutionalization -- just an example -- was we dealt early on with the notion that the sentencing guidelines and the sentencing commission, even in non-violent person who had an addicti addiction, could nots be in a diversion program. could not be. until we changed that. that was much discussion. that was working with the sentencing commission that so they changed the guidelines and the commission recommendations and you united states attorney's manual has changed that as well. obviously someone can change it again. but obviously that's a much bigger effort. that would be a small example of one thing you can do. >> did anybody else want to talk about institutionalization barrier? >> paul talked about taking a prosecutor away from being a prosecutor and putting that person on another task, such as outreach or something else of that nature. making sure that you give responsibility for the task and,

as simple as it sounds, give it a title, and give an individual that responsibility to be the point person. because otherwise what you run into, whatever notion you are trying to put out there becomes the flavor of the month. it just kind of fades away. so you have to, whether going back to our example in kansas, diversion. by have a person now who is our diversion coordinator. that diversion coordinator is a prosecutor. they're basically carrying more water, doing more with less. but when you institutionalize it like that, when someone comes in, looks at your org chart, there's that person. not somebody just floating out there but has that responsibility. somebody can always come in and change it, but once you give someone that responsibility, folks are a little reluctant to give up that responsibility once they have it. >> before i move on, i'll just say this. in the narrow area which i spent a lot of my time, which is public safety on the reservations, this attorney

general said if you are one of the u.s. attorneys responsible for reservations you will have an operational plan for reducing violence and interacting with those communities. so we have one and that's the official plan of our office. in my office, those lawyers that are working that beat, again, they're required, not because the boss says so, they're required because their performance work plans now require them to hold meetings and visit those reservations. now the next person can come in and say, i don't care about that and i'm going to reach into the machinery of the department -- this machinery and i'm going to change it. but that's hard. and so those steps are being taken. i like -- we like to think we're institutionalizing it but you raise a great point. >> tim, let me mention. there was something about that though. i appreciate judge robinson who's one of my colleagues in the clinton administration. paul mentioned outreach. lanny mentioned community buy-in. i don't think you're going to ever be able to institutionalize

any of these programs unless there is the outreach that paul is doing that you get the community buy-in that lanny talk about. that is more than just simply putting in good programs. it is getting out into the communities. the community buy-in leads to political buy-in. it took years to get congress to recognize the disparity in the crack cocaine and powder cocaine. and it was because of the constant community efforts of victims and their families to get that to happen. i think that lanny was absolutely right. the tables will turn, and unless you get that community buy-in right now you're not going to be able to stop the wheels from turning back. >> hi. from the sentencing project. thank you so much for all of your remarks today. a common theme has been the constraints that you face because of mandatory sentencing laws and so one of the

reforms -- one of the bills that's out there now is the smarter sentencing act. and the attorney general has supported this act and i'm wondering if you could talk about, among the 9d3 of you, whether there is any effort to help support this legislation. and also if you could talk about, we say what's the matter with kansas, but what's the matter with the assistant u.s. attorneys. and we have an organization called the national association of assistant u.s. attorneys that claims to represent a large proportion of these ausas and has polled them saying that they don't support this legislation. so i'm wondering if you could talk about that as well. >> i'll take it. so there's no question that there -- we have 5,000 prosecutors in the field. some of them were hired last week. some of them were hired 30 years ago. they are all political stripes. they have very different responsibilities, very different

views in very different parts of the country coming from very different backgrounds. and there are some number of people in the department, some of whom are my friends, some of whom work in my office and elsewhere, who think that mandatory minimums are great and others who think mandatory minimums are terrible. there is an organization called the national association of unites states attorneys that -- it's not a union in the traditional sense but represents some number of people who are its members and they have a view that this is not the right direction to be going. we're constrained as u.s. attorneys in our ability -- whether we are allowed to lobby or not. i can answer questions from any politician. from a home say the senator or representative whom i know says what do you think about this, can you come in and brief me about your policy stuff in your office. i talk about outreach and re-entry, our need for furndzing and that sort of stuff. but we can't affirmatively l lobby. but people know there are lots of u.s. attorneys that have spoken publicly in speeches and in formally, sometimes at gatherings this large and sometimes at others, about what

our views are on this thing. but i do want to make a point. even if we don't feel "constrained" in that sense, if your goal is to reduce the federal prison population, you can really only do 1 of 2 things. you can prosecute fewer people, which no one seems to suggest. right? because it is not like -- we don't prosecute an enormous number of people to begin with and we prosecute the most serious criminals. no one is saying you should prosecute fewer of those people. then the answer is should people go to jail for less time. that's something that people talk about and are interested in particular cases. but at the end of the day, if you prosecute -- ask for lower sentences and you negotiate plea bargainses that are less severe, people will plead guilty sooner and the prosecutors will be freed up to prosecute more cases. right? so the end result of this will be fairness and treatment of people in a way we think is

appropriate. but it doesn't necessarily release the result in the federal system in a reduced prison population. what would is fewer prosecutors and fewer cases, but that's not something i think is a great idea, at least in my own district. >> we'll go over here next. >> thank you. i'm kate clark, chief of defender services in the administrative service of the u.s. courts. i wanted to thank your vision and your leadership. one of the institutional issues i think that we need to face together, i hope, is that the federal defenders had over 165,000 furlough hours and we lost close to 500 staff. so we're down below 3,000 -- 2,800, in comparison. the point being that a lot of our federal defenders and panel attorneys are saying they can't do these "other things," such as re-entry courts, because they're time intensive and we're under a

work measurement study. so i was wondering if there is a way that all of you think about the system and the institution and collaborating together with the federal defenders so that we can bring life, or further life, to all of these excellent programs that you've discussed today. >> well, at a very broad level, and i'm sure the folks on the panel can give you more specifics, but again, because of the attorney general and his commitment, we did work with public defenders. i remember his request speaking a few years ago supporting additional resources for federal public defenders, for working with federal public defenders. i suspect that most of my colleagues here deal with their federal public defender and know them well and are collaborative. i know that in d.c., both informally and formally i've done it. and i think -- i am no longer part of the department of justice so i am a little less constrained -- but surely, surely for this to work, the

federal public defenders have to have increased resources as well. you cannot just have the department having for the very reason you say that. i think most people recognize that. but the department itself has not succeeded. has not succeeded in getting additional resources. so i think you're hearing right now that it is really i think a challenge on both sides. frankly, both have to be increased. you think that has to be done by dealing with elected members of congress and the community, recognizing that both parts have to increase. >> comment? >> i was one of erstwhile politicians. >> thank you. there was a great study at columbia university called casa,

behind bars ii. he pointed to the fact that in the federal prison system, approximately 70% of those persons behind bars are clinically addicted. and yet only 11% receive treatment. there is a tremendous program in new jersey and we work in close collaboration. but one of the frustrating aspects, what we do state side, also in county jails, we provide addiction treatment that's on a continuum into transitional housing and into iop. and it seems like the bureau, on the prison side, is incapable because they grapple with the same budgetary realities with which we all grapple, but they're not about to incur this additional expense of treatment. it's almost as if the prison population is without a voice in so many areas, but clearly in terms of treatment, as opposed to merely tolling time

senselessly in federal pripriso it would be the ideal place, and without all of you, it is frustrating that we haven't seen the change. frankly, if this administration doesn't do it, god knows who will. any response? >> i would say this. just to expand this, because i don't often get the opportunity to address a big city audience like this. right? >> are there this many people in -- >> this is about that. right. this looks like the whole city of fargo. right? so i will say this. because what we see in north dakota is folks coming out of prison. your point is well-taken about we need to do more throughout the process from arrest, through the court process, to the prison process, of making treatment programs available. but in rural america, particularly isolated rural america, the time that we see in

the american pinnedian reservations -- not just in indian america but rural america. access to treatment services are so much worse than they are in urban areas. and this is a divide in our country, urban and rural, because we still have -- we have dangerous folks coming out of federal prison that are moving back to small town america that really face a challenge in finding treatment. mental health treatment, addiction treatment, things of that nature. so that's enough on the soap box for today, but it is -- it is important when you talk about that lack of treatment to recognize that within the system with being but on the back end in the communities people are returninging to are those resources even available. >> to kind of pick up -- for climb on your soap box -- >> you want to talk a little bit about rural america, too? what a shot. >> flyover america. as i like to say, you've all been to kansas but you were at 35,000 feet. one of the challenges that folks have in rural america is

governors that quite frankly i feel for our friends in law enforcement. mental health issues. police officers are now put in that precarious situation when the fellow is standing on the corner ranting and raving, is that person a danger? should you go over? if he moves in a certain way and you taze him, are you looking at excessive force lawsuit being brought against you and your police department? that's because that safety net, certainly in my state, just doesn't exist like it did even five years ago. so it is a real challenge not only for folks with addiction issues but the mental health issues are just -- it's -- >> we're going to go one more question. then we have to break to move on to the next panel. your questions have been great and we appreciate your involvement. last question. >> good morning. >> morning. >> i'm retired judge from d.c., both in the federal system as a magistrate judge, and as a

superior court judge. for the last ten years, i've headed a national organization called the national african-american drug policy coalition and i work with department on the crack cocaine/powder ders parrisparit. many of our young black males are in fact coerced to join gangs and get involved in drug activities. indeed when they come before me as a judge in court they tell me before they plead they didn't want to get involved in drugs but they were forced into it. then under the mandatory sentencing laws, they are coerced to give testimony. so many of the judges are constrained under the problem of taking into consideration that background to individualize sentences. many of our black youngsters additionally got involved in drugs through coercion and gang

activity. how do we deal with and solve that problem. that's one the things my organization is trying to work with the mentoring approach. the other question is one that we try to save money, reference to our bureau of prison problems, but indeed, the re-entry program sometimes is promoting rehabilitation and promoting public safety. many of the people who have been in prison come out and become social workers, ph.ds and it is funny not realizing, many times they converted and they become more substantial contributors. we need to get that message out. [ applause ] okay. thank you. we're going to wrap up. imanticipa i'm sure they have a big hook somewhere they'll eventually pull me out with. i want to thank my great colleagues on the panel. it's always a pleasure to spend time with my colleagues so thank you very much. thank you very much.

this next panel proceeds from the premise that we really don't have one criminal justice system in response to the issues of the overuse of in incarcerat go beyond federal concerns. we are going to talk about responses at the state level, at the local level, to the issues of the overuse of incarceration to deal with violent communities. the panel that we have is missing one member that was advertised. we have really worked hard to make sure that we have people

that are actively engaged in law enforcement, and she have chief was actually on the way here this morning but was pulled off to deal with pending issues in d.c. but we have with us moving from the left to the right geographically, that is, and perhaps otherwise, doug gansler, attorney general of maryland. he is a former state's attorney in montgomery county. he is the former president of the national association of attorneys general. next to him, jeff sy, special assistant attorney general in the office of attorney general carmela harris of california. jeff oversees criminal law policy as a special assistant to the attorney general in california.

next to jeff is cyrus vance, the district attorney from manhattan. know him well here in manhattan. and moving next we have anthony bats, commissioner of the baltimore police department and he has joined us today. and finally, to my immediate left, we have david keen, who is a founding member "right on crime." former president of the national rifle association. former chair of the american conservative union and a board member of the constitution project. the way this morning's next events will proceed as follows. each member of the panel will have a few minutes to discuss issues of key importance to them. and then we will move through some significant things. when i say a few minutes, i have one actually personal attribute

that is relevant. it is not the fact that i was assist tapt u.s. attorney or serving in law enforcement. i'm a grandson of a pentecostal preacher and i have a very good sense when people start to warm to their text, which means that they can go a little bit longer than they need to, so i will exercise those instincts as we move forward. but each panelist will have a few moments to talk, and then we'll talk about community engagement. we will discuss issues related to return and re-entry. we will discuss issues of fairness through the operation of the criminal justice system and how many of the panelists have employed strategies to root out bias and put in systems to ensure that justice is clearly administered firmly, but also fairly. and with that, i will start with

mr. keen. >> thank you. i like the idea that after you talk about you're going to have a panel of people with some background in law enforcement, the first person called on has no background whatever. >> there are some members of the nra that say differently. >> i find the first panel to be a really relevant introduction to this panel because it hit upon the kinds of problems that we all face in trying to deal with criminal justice issues and the public sphere. as jim indicated, i'm on the board of the constitution project, which is a bipartisan cross ideological organization that works on issues of this sort, as well as a founding member of right on crime. and even before we put together right on crime, a number of conservatives were meeting regularly for several years in our offices to discuss the problems that we have in dealing with the criminal justice system and the question of reform.

it was our feeling that in the '60s and '70s in particular, the public discussion of criminal justice issues was skewed by the fact that you had misrepresentative strawmen arguing with each other. you had politicians who claimed that since crime was a problem, we had to lock them all up, throw away the key, and punish them more severely. then you had others who tended to speak only for the criminals, and that was the debate that appeared. and that's the wrong question. the question as you approach criminal justice issues was stated as well as anyone has by paul fishman in the earlier panel in which he said the mission of u.s. attorneys, and indeed the mission of the system, is to provide for a safe civil society. and the question is not whether there are too many people in prison, or not enough people in prison, or whether the laws are too harsh or the laws are too lean. the real question is what works.

and we got into a situation certainly rhetorically and politically where the question of what works and the mission that paul discussed this morning became subsidiary to the smaller missions of the various groups and politicians and constituencies involved. and we formed right on crime because we thought it was time for people, regardless of their political orientation or their ideological direction or stance, to start looking at these problems realistically because the system clearly is not working when the united states becomes the premier jailer of the entire world, where 1 in 100 adults are serving time or have served time in a penal institution, where there are more people in every prison in every state in this country today suffering from severe mental illnesses that in all the private and public treatment facilities in each of those states, where the mission that

the prison and jail system is supposed to fulfill can't be fulfilled because it's dysfunctional, where more people are being locked up for things that they shouldn't be locked up for, or that they needn't be lock up for than is necessary. pat nolan, who was with the prison fellowship, and mark early is here today, former president of the prison fellowship, when he was there, he liked to talk about the fact that today we lock people up because we're mad at them, when we should be reserving prison space and jail space for people we're afraid of. there are obviously people who have committed crimes, who are dangerous enough that they need to be kept away from the rest of society. but what we've done is we've allowed our dedication to locking people up for political reasons to overwhelm the prison system. the 1994 crime bill "unlock the gates" and poured federal money into prison construction, and as

was said "field of dreams," build it and they will come. they built the prisons and the prosecutors filled them up. i have to say one thing that in trying to get real prison reform through -- we've done most of our work at the state level, as i'm sure doug knows, we've had great success working with democrats, republicans, conservatives and liberals and with governors who are concerned about two things. one, the way their systems or not working, and the cost of those systems. in many, many states, the cost of the prison system is greater than the cost of the public education system and they both work just about as well, but maybe your reold case of resources might be in order. and i have to say, historic constituencies still exist. it's incredible to me. this was a great group of u.s. attorneys that you had and prosecutors in the first panel, but i hesitate to think that they're representative, because in every state, even in dealing

with federal reform, the prosecutorial community is one of the greatest resistance to doing anything, for a variety of reasons. one, they believe in their mission, but secondly, they're managing to try to force people through a system that doesn't work. and so they want all of these sentences so they can force people not to go to trial. as you know, most people don't go to trial. and, lord knows how many of those people have accepted deals because of the consequences or the inadequate defense available to them because of the sentencing rules that we have or that they can be subjected to. so we got involved because we wanted to make sure that the question of what works and what doesn't work, and what's humane and what isn't humane, had to be discussed in terms of that rather than in terms of where one stands on the political spectrum or what one can do to advance his or her career as a

prosecutor or politician, or whatever. i'm going to quit because he can see me getting warm to the subject and it's dangerous. but somebody referred this morning to ed meese, former attorney general, who's been very concerned about overcriminalization, as we call it in the federal system, where there are thousands of ways that you can end up in a federal prison if somebody wants to put you there. and i remember our first meeting -- there was a form other congressman there. i said, you know, everything has become a federal crime. i always used to say the poster child for that is carjacking. carjacking is illegal anyway. you know? i said, why did that need to be a separate federal crime? the poor guy lowered his head and shook it, he said, made a great press release. and that's why a lot of things are federal crimes today, because they make great press releases for congressmen and for senators when something happens that gets their attention. so we need to look -- everybody, from all sides of the spectrum, those involved.

law enforcement, those in the prosecutorial community and those interested in the issue, need to look not at punishing people or freeing people or this or that, but need to look at what works. and the fact is that over incarceration does not work. >> thank you. commissioner keen, you can actually pick up that theechlme >> actually, i'm the gun guy. >> if you could pick up the theme about what works in the field. >> well, that's very interesting. to think bill bratton, my good friend, for allowing me to come into his territory without a visa so i appreciate that on his part. and my good friend, chief lanier, left me have as the only police official to answer these questions and take shots. very quickly, i think the theme is extremely correct is what works. when i was thinking about coming on this panel, i wondered what i could offer.

i've been doing this job in policing pretty close to almost 35 years and i started in the 1980s and -- early 1980s and i saw a lot of different things happen. i always ask the question -- why. and then how does that "why" project us into the future. because what i can guarantee you is that when crime increases, right now we are seeing a decrease overall in cities throughout the united states. when crime increases, much like we had terrorism that took place in this great, wonderful city, the public says -- respond. i'm going to talk a little bit about that and what works and how those two things are going to play together. because as we walk forward as a civilized nation and we have these conversations, i'm going to get pressure one day when the crime rate goes up and someone is going to say, do something about it, do something about it now. if you don't, i will replace you. then somebody else will step into that position to find out how to resolve that issue and to address that issue. and then when things calm down, then we become civil and we have very deep-rooted and intelligent, academic

conversations. in the city of baltimore we continue to focus on -- and i am pushing -- i've been in baltimore for two years. it is the third city i've been in charge of. i come from the west coast, i was born in d.c. but family moved hat an early age to the west coast. only reason i'm sharing that with you is because i grew up in south central los angeles. very poor kid. came from a neighborhood where gangs that we know them today, traditional gangs, started in my neighborhoods. gangs like the crips and the bloods and all these types of things started in the neighborhoods where i grew up. and i share with people and see if they can connect with me. many times for my dinner what we ate was fried boloney sandwiches. anybody else eat fried boloney sandwiches in this room? all right. so that was my time that i grew up. i asked people and i asked my mother at that young age of 8 years old, did anybody give a damn whether i lived or died? did anybody care if i survived

as a little black kid growing up in south central los angeles. and did anybody understand my hopes, my dreams, my aspirations. and with that -- and i take from that to what we're doing in baltimore and the cities that i've been in, i've tried to push organizations to be progressive. i try to push organizations towards having academic information come in, and focusing on what works. not the flavor of the day. not what mythology is. but based on empirical data, based on best practices in those things that work for police agencies. now as i say that, within baltimore today we have programs like cspire. i had dinner with david kennedy last night. we were talking about the progress of cspire within the city of baltimore. if you are not familiar with that, overly simplified, what we do is focus on groups -- we focus on groups gangs and individuals in those groups that

makes them up. we call them into a room. we bring them from behind a curtain. we sit down and say we no who you are. in that room we have all of my federalers partners, atf, dea, basically come with hammer and veiled glove approach. we tell you we know who you are, in anyone in this gang or group or crew becomes violent we're going to crush the entire group. we want you to step over to the velvet gloves side where we have wraparound services where we can support you, get you out of the life and help you move on and have a fruitful environment. that's oversimplified with what cspire is and it has worked. it has worked in 65 other cities and locations from new orleans to chicago, to camden, to newark. baltimore had it and oakland, also. we are also focusing on violent repeat offenders. not focusing on mass incarceration, we're not arresting neighborhoods.

the good thing about cease-fire, it focuses on the most violent, people who are exacerbating problems by violence out there in our community. our violent repeat offend irprogram focuses on the individual. not the community, not the mask of minority kids out there. we're focusing on those people that we know for a fact are killing other human beings and trying to take them from -- out of our communities. we also focus on groups, gangs and crews. those are a lot of different things. glangs as a definition can be the bloods, crips, et cetera. then you have groups that are -- come together from neighborhoods to come together to do criminal acts. then you have crews. those can be drug crews who are coming together to sell drugs as a whole. so we focus on all of these pieces and not on stopping young people as a whole. however, baltimore has had a history of doing mass incarceration. i would throw on the table that probably most police departments

in the united states have histories -- recent history of mass incarceration. i'll go to that next. we also focus on legitimacy. how i describe it for our city is that we jump up and down by the fact that we've had some of the lowest homicide rates in the history of the city in recent times. 197. that's because baltimore used to be closer to 400. being down to 197 is a significant drop. i applaud -- that was before i walked in. not that i've had an impact on that but i just say that. but i applaud the fact that we've gotten down to that 197. but, if that community is no better than what it was before the 197, what do you have to cheer about? if you still have the poverty levels, if you still have the same vacant homes, if you still have the same impacts that that 8-year-old kid, their life is no better than what it was before the 197, what do you have to celebrate and to pat yourself on the back? so we're shifting in what we're doing. what i want to move our law enforcement team away from is

away from enforcement, because people always tell me, tony, stay in your lane, your job is doing policing. which is enforcement. i'm trying to teach the city, not only the city but also my police officers, that our job is not just enforcement. our job is to the prevention of harm. and harm comes in a lot of different forms. so it is not just enforcement. because if you focus on just enforcement, your only tool to addressing a problem is arresting people. mass incarceration. when you're looking at -- addressing the issue by the prevention of harm, you're dealing with a lot of different things and it crosses the lines. you don't stay in your lane. you cross the line in recreation. you cross the line of economic development. you cross the line of poverty. you have a responsibility, because in many of these areas, you are the only point of government that these residents ever get to see. we also address reentering. we have a re-entry program. we are also internal with the police department addressing behavior issues with our police

officers. with dr. golf out of ucla. then i want to jump back -- i'm going to finish because i get that body language. so i'm going to be very short. >> but that body language is this -- >> well -- okay. so we have all these progressive issues that we're taking on. i've drafted a number of papers out of harvard. the last one deals with double blind sequential lineups with maddie delong. project innocence out of new york and darryl stevens in addressing how politics pushes sometimes. this is one phase of the paper that we wrote. but politics pushes police chiefs sometimes to make an arrest, which pushes prosecutors to push it through, and then we end up arresting the wrong person. then 30 years later -- 30 years later we find out we arrested the wrong person and we incarcerated them. so the paper, if you have a chance, pull that up on john f. kennedy's school of government out of harvard, not doing that as a market thins but we're trying to answer and push some very difficult questions.

now the point i raise with this, when i was a street police officer in the 1980s, we had african-american young men dying left and right every single day in southern california. brutal shootings were taking place. people like me killing ourselves off left and right. the community said do something about it. they said we don't want to hear talk, rhetoric. do something about it. the only thing that we knew how to do because there wasn't a lot of theories out there for us to do, community policing, a starting but people said this is not a time for community policing. do something about it. so we did. we arrested everyone that we possibly could because we knew that was the only thing that we could do at that time because there was no empirical data out there for us to do anything differently. what drives us today, whether we're talking about legitimacy, cease-fire, hotspot policing, and on and on, are based on theories coming out of academia. in the '80s we didn't have that

body of knowledge. in the '80s we did what we can do which led to the problem of mass incarceration. that's crippled communities i came from. my point is this as i close, what we're going to do in the future needs to be based on empirical data. we need to have research that's done that we know works and that it works well. that we know cufocus on the rigg to do. thank you. >> thank you. there's nothing to control the moderator better than a police commissioner saying i'm watching your body language. when i grew up, that was not a concern. >> good morning, everybody. good morning to the panel members. it is a pleasure, honor, to sit here with you and to listen to you. this panel, i think, is speaking directly to the group that deals

with the largest number of people in our. criminal justice system. my office alone handles 100,000 cases a year. now not all of those are large financial fraud cases, although many are. but we handle more criminal case in a year, the manhattan d.a.'s office, than the department of justice handles nationwide in a year. so when we're talking about where the fourth, fifth and sixth amendment meets the road, it's in our state courthouses, with the help of our police departments and attorneys general. and so this group i think has a unique perspective on how to deal with criminal justice in the broadest sense, and how our country is adapting to it. we're going to get back, i lope, with jim to

smarter, i think our office, i look at, for example, i don't really measure our success in how many convictions we have -- though obviously i want our office to win its cases -- i really look at the role of the d.a. to be a partner with the police in over the long term driving crime down. that's how i measure our office's success. in an effort to achieve successes, it is no longer just in the courtroom that we are going to be making an impact on driving crime down. increasingly, the tools of the d.a.'s office, and mine in particular, enable us to affect

crime prevention in ways that i think are absolutely consistent with crime fighting. they are really one and the same. so i could talk at length about our enforcement actions, whether it's in the white claire area, gangs, domestic violence and the like, but for these purposes i'm going to leave the hard-charging prosecutor discussion and turn to strategies we use as a d.a.'s office in crime prevention. i believe -- we've come to believe that it is equally important for us to take our resources and our tools as district attorney's office and invest them in the neighborhoods where we do our job. so for example, when i started, months after starting we realized some of our gyms in

some of the most high-crime areas of manhattan were closed on friday and saturday nights because there with a is no funding for it. that actually was the case with the police athletic league, one of our blue ribbon organizations that deals with help to kids. so what we did was we simply took money that we got from drug forfeitures and we started to hire world class trainers in basketball to begin with, provide a high, high-quality training operation and build team work and leadership among kids to provide them, boys and girls, 12 to 18 years old, 5:00 to 9:00 p.m., friday and saturday nights, the days, hours and group that is most at risk, and to provide for them through our office working with what the pro hoops that we hired world class sports programming. we started with one gym in central harlem. now three years later we have nine sites in manhattan. we've serviced 3, 00 kids who

have signed up for this. and my point is -- my question is, why is a district attorney doing this kind of work? i think the reason we do it and d.a.s do it all over the country, and the reason police commissioners also do it, is because we know this is a crime fighting strategy. it is supporting the communities. parents. what they want. they want their kids to be able to be somewhere safe and to do something productive in ways that sometimes city government just can't afford to do. now our offers is very fort nat because we handle a large number of white collar crimes and we get some substantial dollars from those cases that we can invest in our communities. but that's where we are making our investment and that's how our office now approaches this. similarly, we have -- i think it's one of the few immigrant affairs programs in the country for a d.a.'s office. our assistance and our community affairs people are constantly out in the various communities talking about how immigrants can

protect themselves from immigration fraud. in colleges and school about how kids can keep themselves from getting in trouble with texting and on the internet. how seniors can protection themselves from being victims of elder abuse. again, this is not what makes a headline. d.a. convicts rapist who goes to jail for 40 years. but i think what it is doing is when we start to work en masse and the five counties of manhattan start to work together and we start to work with the police department, we start working with the police departments up and down the coast, what we are doing is crime fighting. we are preventing crimes. we're investing in our neighborhoods and i think that's the direction we're going to keep going. the news in new york, in closing on this, is not that bad, although there is always room for improvement. new york has dropped its state prison population from 71,000 to about 55,000 over the past 10 to 15 years.

that's still a lot of people in jail. and absolutely, i think we can do more as prosecutors, as judges, as police officers, in being far more intelligent about who we send to jail, and then have a responsibility while they're in there to give them opportunities so that when they come out, they can be successful in their communities as they re-enter. because it makes no sense to someone send to jail and not provide some pathway for them to success when they get out. but that 15,000-person drop in population i think indicates we have been more selective. and new york state, of the top ten states by population size, is actually tenth in terms of number of people it sends to jail out of 100,000. the highest, it may be california or texas, 656 people per 100,000. in new york, it is 257. so i leave you with this -- i think the game is changing. strategies are becoming more

broad, and i think that is fantastic and i think it is giving the communities what it needs and it wants. i think we are doing a lot of things right. but quite clearly, we in state government are actually the people who are having to deal with this issue of over incarceration or incarceration, m in my personal opinion. next month we are bringing together 23 prosecutors from major cities all over the country in a coalition called prosecutors against gun violence. a debate about what's working to fight gun vul leiolence and wha not. strategies are being shared office to office and crime prevention and how to make sure that those best strategies dealing with preventing kril are bei crime are being shared hand i think it is making a difference and i look forward to what we can do together the next couple of years.is making a difference look forward to what we can do together the next couple of years. >> the drop from 71,000 to

51,000 is tremendous and it is heartening. and it is as surprising, or at least as noteworthy to me, is the numbers that the nations ranking in the world in terms of the number of people that are incarcerated. could you talk just a little bit more about what you think are the factors in that decline before we move on to jeff. >> now this is a decline that started 15 years ago. so i believe that in that 15-year period, new york has been innovative in the area of providing alternatives to continue cars ration and creation of drug courts, creation of a number of specialized courts which focus on an offender who is given a carrot to succeed in resolution of a case and avoid significant prison. so i think that we are being smarter with our support of people who have been offending.

we are smarter with who is going to jail. i think the rockefeller drug law reforms, which were overdue and a good idea, also provide more discretion to judges and prosecutors in a wide array of charging decisions. by the way, new york state has among the broadest discretion given to judges in sentencing ranges than any state i know. i prosecuted on the west coast -- excuse me -- i practiced on the west coast for a number of years. despite popular belief, new york state judges, actually compared to other states, have a huge range of options to use in many of the cases that i sentenced. all those factors being smarter, a feeling that we need to be smarter, feeling that we need to be more judicious about eating up resources that relate to incarceration, community engagement, helping us do our job in terms of community sanctions. i think those are some factors. >> all right. thank you. that 15-year trend is important,

because it is the opposite of what's been happening nationwide. jeff? >> thank you, jim. thank you to the panelists here today. it is a real pleasure to be with you doing some of the country's most amazing work on criminal justice reform issues and it's a testament to the brennan center that they were able to get us out of the bubble that is a state of california to come out and talk today so we are very happy to be here on behalf of attorney general harris. when you talk about issues related to criminal justice reform and problems and solutions in the criminal justice system, california in many ways is the alpha and omega of these issues. we have been confronting these problems and these issues for years, actually decades now. they are our solutions we have been implementing that i was going to talk to about today because i think it really symbolizes both where we have been but where we can go and in many ways is emblematic of where

the country has been and where it's going. as i mentioned a moment ago california in many ways is distinctive for many of its -- the great things it produces for the country with its innovation and agriculture. but we lead in another distinctive ways as well in the criminal justice and in issues related to incarceration that is unfortunately definitely the case. to give you some perspective on what is happening in the country and in california one statistic for us is particularly telling. one in ten people who are incarcerated resides in the state of california. that should tell you something about the scope of the problem on a national level but also as it exists in the countries largest state which is california. we have the second highest prison population and i was

listening to cy talk about the state of new york's prison population which i'm gratified to hear is continuing to get lowered and in the state of california we are doing the same but our numbers still whoever around 116,000. that i will tell you it's just the state prison population as i will talk to you all about in a minute. many of the state prisoners are now shifting to our county jail population. the problem is in one sense good and better shows us what the solutions are but also tells us how much more work we have to do. one other dimension to this and the commissioner or cy mentioned this there also are other issues more than just as it relates to who, how many people we have in our prison system today. again another telling statistic we have in california is in a state of california about 6.5% of the population is african-american.

but 29% of the state's prison population is african-american. there are statistics like that and that is just one example but it also tells us again, what more we have to do. we know from the 1970s leading up to 2006 by way of example a perspective on the problem in california our state prison population skyrocketed about 750% from 20,000 prisoners in the 1970s from 1975 to over 172,000 by 2006 and that is what led us to much of the prison litigation some of which is still ongoing today that by court order requires the state of california to reduce its prison population. and that is what leads us to what the economist has described as probably one of the most significant experiments in criminal justice which is something in california that we call public safety realignment. many of you here being experts

in the field are familiar with it but public safety realignment is as joan peter celia, stanford law school has described it, a titanic shift in the criminal justice system. because what public safety realignment is a law called a.b. 109 essentially did was shifted the primarily responsibility for incarceration in the state of california from the state prison system to the local counties. it localized essentially our criminal justice system. by doing so you did a couple of things. one, first and foremost is that had an immediate reduction in our prison population not because it opened the doors to release prisoners. in fact public safety realignment did not do that but it changed the issue of the source that led into the prison system. in other words it was essentially the law equivalent of the spigot to the faucet or the hose.

what it did was it changed who goes in to the prison system and how. so whereas you have the vast majority of crimes are felonies that would lead to imprisonment in our state prison system which led to the overcrowding problem, we now have a system through public safety realignment for the vast majority of crimes specifically what we call the triple nons. the nonserious, nonviolent and nonsexual crimes, are now primarily going to be incarcerated, and supervised by our local counties. this is significant for a lot of reasons first and foremost because our local counties now have to bear the responsibility for what are we going to do with these new offenders that we have. whereas before these offenders were the problem of the state prison system. your l.a. counties, your stanislaus counties and everything in between, now have the responsibility of thinking about, from the d.a. level, who are we going to prosecute, to the sheriff level, the police

department level, of, what are we going to do with these offenders once they are prosecuted and convicted? and i will tell you that that issue of, that kind of compression that has been caused to the system has forced, in many ways, counties to rethink how they approach criminal justice in the state. it's produced some good results. we know on a primary level that the numbers have been reduced. we know that now we have probably some of the greatest reductions in terms of input into the state prison system that we have seen since the 1980s. that is a positive step and it shows what we have accomplished through public safety realignment. what is also presented in the state of california is the manner in which we have had to re-approach what we do when it comes to issues related to arrest, prosecutions and more important than that what happens after the prosecution, and after the conviction.

so for the last set of comments i want to talk to you all about is what i think ultimately is the most important issue when we talk about the issue is generally of mass incarceration. it's not enough just to talk about how do we stop putting people in the system, there are some people who must be prosecuted. there are some people who must go to jail. the issue instead is what about preventing people from going to jail in the first place by making sure that if we are talking about people who previously committed crimes that they don't do it again. because in the state of california like unfortunately almost every state in the country there is a significant issue when it comes to recidivism which is the repeat offending by people who have been previously convicted of crimes. in the state of california that percentage is 61% and that is despite the fact that we spend billions and billions of dollars every year in the state of california on incarceration. what many counties have done what the attorney attorney general of california has done

is said why do we think about approaching this from the issue of reducing recidivism as a way to ultimately reducing our prison population. one of the things attorney general harris did was in november of 2013 create something through her office unprecedented at the time, was to create something called the division of recidivism reduction and re-entry. what she did as the chief law enforcement officer of the state of california was to say i want to create a new new office to my department of justice that is going to focus exclusively on assisting counties and how we approach re-entry, how we approach recidivism reduction and what kinds of things we can do to develop and assist and promote those policies across the 58 jurisdictions that implement criminal justice policy every single day. one of the things we are doing right now. >> i'm going to have to pause you there, because there is -- there are a couple of things that doug has prepared to pick

up that you are just about to feel, expand upon. >> i will stop there. >> i don't know about that. i got into college for playing lacrosse. so -- i've been a prosecutor for 22 years. i was assistant united states attorney for six years and the local state's attorney is what we call them in maryland, basically the district attorney, for eight years, and now i've been an attorney general of maryland on the state level for eight years. i applaud the brennan center and nyu for doing this conference. and grappling with the issue of re-entry, which i think is the issue of today. we used to really ignore people in jail, and in maryland for example, almost half the people who go into jail come back into jail within three years. that is kind of the discussion of dejour and i think it's an important point that we're having. i'm not going to talk about that, however. what i'm going to talk about is a solution that, in my 22 years from a prosecutorial

perspective, is one of the things that i do believe does work. and it takes off from where the district attorney, the two things that he said. one all the actions in the state and i am paraphrasing which is the fact of the matter. there are federal crimes and often when somebody is prosecuted by the federal system they are at a place where they should be prosecuted by the federal system. it's harder to figure out what to do with that person because they are much farther down the line of committing crimes. in a state level there's a lot more discretion, a lot more opportunity. we have in montgomery county where i was the state's attorney there, and i'm going to talk about a specific experience there, we had 35,000 cases. montgomery county, maryland, is everything you have heard of in maryland other than annapolis or baltimore. we have almost 1 million people there. i'm going to talk about an issue that the district attorney brought up which is a little bit different but along those same lines which is the gins.

when he started talking about opening gyms, people are going why is the d.a. in manhattan when we have all these real crimes, talking about keeping gyms open. the fact of the matter is that is a part of a solution of community prosecution which is something that i first learned about, interestingly enough, because it's coming next from eric holder. so when i was in the united states attorney's office in d.c., we started something called community prosecution. community prosecution actually started in the early 1980s in portland from a local d.a. there, and has taken many different forms around the country. but what it basically does is it bootstraps off of community policing. and puts prosecutors in the neighborhoods, in the communities, and has a recognition that the prosecutor's job is not to get convictions but to make sure we prevent crime and intervene in potential crimes and that the right thing happens in each and every case. sometimes that means putting somebody in jail for the rest of their lives and sometimes it means figuring out a way to get

that person back on streets. and so what we did in d.c., when the attorney general holder was the u.s. attorney, was we took one of the seven police districts at that time called the sixth district which is northeast washington and for a two-year time limit everything else stayed the same and judge you might remember this, everything stayed the same except we would have community prosecutors. that means prosecutors were now assigned to the sixth district. while everything else remained constant, the sixth district went from the second-most calls for crimes and the second-most violent area of d.c. to the second least criminally infested area in terms of calls for service, as well as crimes being committed. so i took that and when i became -- and when i became the state's attorney in montgomery county and made it the first fully implemented community prosecution office in the country and watched it work. you can study it and have scientific this and that and the other but the fact of the matter

is there's a sea of work and it makes common sense. what it is at the most fundamental level, when you look at these television shows with d.a.'s and prosecutor's office, and there's a homicide section, and a narcotic section and all these different sections divided arbitrarily by crime. as opposed to taking an entire office as we did and dividing it by jurisdictions and neighborhoods. in montgomery county we had five different police districts. so i divided the notifies five different units. you had the beth es ka, the germantown, your rockville, your silver spring. because if you think about it the difference between a simple assault and a homicide is somebody dies, maybe you have a ballistics expect, or a medical examiner. but what you want to make sure you have is senior prosecutors in each of those jurisdictions on down to injure prosecutors. the one area of prosecution that does take expertise is sex offenses. even within those you have people within each of those districts doing those different types of crimes.

and so, a piece of that is you have actually what we call field community prosecutors. prosecutors that are in the rockville district, and going to the meetings at night, the civic meetings, the community meetings, and hearing from the people on the streets, instead of being in some office somewhere what actually works and what doesn't work in terms of crime prevention. i'm a little older so i remember we had an issue one time we used to have pay phones. remember those? you put a quarter in, you pick them up. so there was this -- >> i remember when they were dimes that you would put in. >> exactly, see. there was the situation in this movie theater in bethesda where there was drug activity taking place. people's kids were going there, people didn't like it. we talked to the community and removed the phones. something that simple. the prosecutors working with the community police removed the phones and exponentially the crime -- the drug crime went down there. another component of community prosecution which i think works very well and the police were reluctant to have this implemented at first is you're

actually working with the same community police. so the rockville prosecutors are working with the rockville police. you're going to the roll calls. you're teaching them the new cases that are come out. you're working with them on training. and so what happens is, especially in large areas, instead of working with different police every time you got a case on the top of the stack, you're working with these police officers. one of them seems a little quirky and their story doesn't really match but you don't see that officer again for a couple of years. in community policing, community prosecution you work with the same officers and you kind of get to know who the good ones are and who are the ones that need some help. and so there's a lot of different levels to this. but things like making sure the gyms stay open is one that works. in montgomery county where we have almost 1 million people we count our homicides in the teens. you know, bad years 13, 14, 15 homicides with a million people. there are innovator strategies from a prosecutorial standpoint that really have been proven to work. i think that will happen, you know, in new york you can

imagine, having you know the prosecutors that are just in greenwich village. prosecutors just on the upper east side. just on the upper west side. just in harlem. working with the businesses, the community leaders, the sufferic associations, the bliss, and you can then identify also who should be in jail, and maybe who shouldn't. and what are some strategies to keep those people in jail. so with that, i will subside other than to say that when the attorney general -- well the u.s. attorney holder became the deputy attorney general, in the department of justice he convened a community prosecution workshop and we had prosecutors from all over the country come in and help people define community prosecution varies. but the idea and the concept is the same. that is getting prosecutors out of the court house, out of the concept and notion that their soul responsibility is to convict people, and into the business of prevention and intervention, to reduce the number of people who are in jail. >> this has been a very rich set of opening statements. but as i look at the clock, we have 20 minutes left.

i know we want to have time for questions. i'd ask this of nicole if we could cheat and take a little, maybe five minutes from lunch. because the next series of questions is frankly, it's a little tougher. we've had this morning a series of examples of good news stories. but one of the issues that we have touched upon but really not delved into is the issue of race and enforcement. we have touched on it a little bit when lanny brewer went through the issue and in a somewhat comic way in the repartee between the commissioner and i with my body language and what i might expect but it is a very, very tough issue within the city of new york, and within law enforcement and the relationship between black and brown communities, and law enforcement nationwide. in the preparation for this, i discussed with sy acy and discud

with tony strategies that they have engaged in to identify and root out potential bias in law enforcement. i want to spend a little bit of time discussing that and return to the issue of re-entry. i think there are a host of perspectives on those issues. so i will start with tony and cy and any other panel member who would like to jump in on that. and then we will move to re-entry. and i promise we will save some time for questions. tony? >> very quickly. it's going to be interesting for me moving from the west coast, growing up, and working in southern california, moving to northern california, which is like moving to another country. and then moving to baltimore, which is like moving to another country. all of them deal with the same thing, race and policing. any time you have an underclass, and it doesn't even have to deal with race. it could deal with ethnicities and socioeconomic issues. when you deal with an underclass and then many times police departments are built to maintain the status quo you have to break through that. and that's where you hear from

me that i'm trying to shift an organization from enforcement to prevention of harm. because you need to be part of that community. i can tell you you have to build police departments in a totally different way from when i came on. and what i mean by that, i give you a good example. i'm in charge of close to 3,000 police officers. many of them, 2,000 of that 3,000 from probably young officers who are out on the streets every single day. and they come in contact with different residents, and citizens. within those contacts it's not race african-american and black or white which tends to be her discussion but it's with the gay and lesbian community. it's with the orthodox jewish community. it's with different ethnicities and immigrant populations that come into our country. unique for law enforcement in america is any time you have trauma any place other in the world you end up with residents from those locations in our cities. whether you have trauma in

sudan. whether you have trauma in ethiopia. whether you have trauma in cambodia. we take people in, so when you have large groups of people that move into a location, you have to address that. ferguson that everybody wants to use as a bellwether right now for policing in the united states, ferguson did not start on that day of that incident. rodney king did not start the day of that incident. that incident started five, ten years prior to that. brought up in southern california and watching the riots of rodney king, issues dealing with local grocery stores started ten years before. issues dealing with police officers being heavy handed and not connecting with the community started numerous years before. it goes for me, it starts with relationships. the things that i do when i go into the three very, very tough cities that i've gone into, whether it be long beach, oakland and baltimore, which are very tough cities, is starting those relationships. the city that i'm in right now baltimore, in my minority

communities, many of my minority communities -- i can't talk -- my minority communities, there's a visceral hatred for the people who wear the uniform. a visceral hatred. what i have to get my organization to do is to address to them from my perspective is that we've earned that. many times when we have gone out to try to help and make it better we've exacerbated the problem. becau not because we tried to but because we don't have the tools to address that. what i mean is most police officers think they're doing god's work. they're going out and trying to address an issue and the only issue that we have is enforcement. so when you have drugs taking place, shootings taking place, we're going in trying to do god's work to make it safe are for people that live there and we address people. and we don't have a lot of theories to address that. we have to recalibrate and understand that we have been part of the problem. and our effort to be part of the solution we have become part of the problem. and when we arrest large numbers of people and incarcerate them

we just demoralize a community. so we have to shift our mind-set. we have to shift in what we're doing. and we have to start it with relationships. and understanding that we're part of the solution. and that with that we have to change how we solve the solution. pointing a high-powered weapon at citizens that are exercising their constitutional rights is off the charts. that's crazy. that is -- i mean that's wild. and i thank you for that but i can tell you most of the chiefs of police in the united states think the same way. most people i know think that is wild. what the heck is going on with that? so as we use ferguson as a bell wealther most police chiefs that i know of in major cities that i work with and that are peers think that is so far out of the norm that it's crazy. how i approach protest in my city when there were protesting in ferguson is the point is we are there to help them protest. we are there to help them to do their constitutional rights of saying that this upsets me.

this angers me. and so how we can allow this to happen? in those communities, the same context is how do we help people to attain their dreams? remember, what i go back to every time is that 8-year-old little boy in that community, how do you help that 8-year-old little boy obtain his dreams, his aspirations? how do you allow people to say, i'm angry that i don't agree with this, and as long as they do that and they don't care up a city then that's okay. that's our job and our responsibility. when i go back to the race issue. the race issue, the ethnicity issue goes back to relationships, changing the dynamic of what policing is today. changing how we see ourselves as helping to solve the problem. [ applause ] >> thank you tony. cy if you could shift just a little bit. you have just completed and received a study in which you asked for taking a look at prosecutorial decision making.

can you share that a little please? >> of course. let me just say -- >> and anything else. >> i view this issue as how we approach the issue of prosecution and race in the communities that we are working in as well as in our office. in terms of our approach to the communities, i think it is time for prosecutors, it is time for our office, to be increasingly aggressive on making sure that people are not brought down for arrest, and processing simply because they got picked up for a minor offense. this is something that i think we need to work with the police department about. but where i am going with this, and i hope the commissioner is also, is to essentially establish in the precincts criteria for minor offense, young man or woman, that case should be, if it meets certain criteria, should be diverted to

community sanctions within the community, as opposed to case, processing, arrest and coming downtown. in that way, i think, we address the issue of wrongful behavior. but we do it in a way that respects the -- respects the individuals that are being detained, and giving them the best option to turn an unfortunate incident into a net positive. so outside the office i think we are going to be changing what we are doing and i hope to be working with the police department on that. inside the office, as i was running for office, i was asked a number of questions, what did i think about this agency or about that agency and relating to the issue of race. i felt that it was incumbent upon me as i commented upon other agencies, to understand what are we in the manhattan d.a.'s office had issues that we should -- that we needed to address. so i commissioned vera shortly after i came into office, essentially to do a racial bias review of the manhattan d.a.'s

office. they started that in earnest in 2012. they issued a technical report and a -- and actually a report you could read and understand report, about two months ago. and ultimately, i was pleased with vera's conclusions. it confirmed what i believe to be so. that the lawyers in our office are -- are treating the cases squarely and fairly, but the vera report did indicate that there was a racial disparity in certain key case processing elements. one related to bail, one related to amount of time for misdemeanor convictions. there was a significant racial -- statistically significant difference between african -- young african-american men and women and whites and asians and latinos. so what that enabled me to do

was to then work within the office to understand what levers are being pulled that result in statistical differences and how we can address them. and we have brought in a consulting firm. just started work within our office to address implicit bias in our decision making as prosecutors. recognizing that we -- none of us feel like we are biased. and yet the statistics may at the end show that the institution has in fact got a statistical difference that at least must be examined and corrected, and that's what we're trying to do. so bringing in an outside agency or outside firm to help us deal with this issue of implicit bias in our office, we would not have done it without the vera study. it is not often that prosecutors invite consultants in to pore through their thousands of records to look at the issue of race. but i'm glad we did it.

and we are learning from it. and i think it will make our work better as we go forward. >> thank you for that and this is almost consistent with -- [ applause ] you know it's almost consistent with black history month being the shortest month of the year. we are given ten minutes to the issue of race and we probably could have filled out the entire afternoon to discuss that. but we have to move on. and i do want to talk about re-entry from the challenge perspective. one of the things that i found this whole -- both of these sessions very heartening because you're hearing about things that work. and almost like, okay, good, we're done. but we have a great distance to travel, particularly in the area of re-entry. from a policy perspective because there are still some people who aren't moved on the issue of re-entry and on a practical perspective. david if you could address the policy issues, and then doug the practical aspects of the re-entry problems.

>> i would like to make one. this ferguson thing and we don't know who did what to whom but we do know one thing. my daughter who has served in army two tours in iraq and one in afghanistan and she is a siop specialist and she called me up and said what is going on out there? she said in iraq we instructed our troops when we had a situation with a crowd that we even took off our helmets. and if you had pointed an automatic weapon at somebody, without cause, you would be brought up on charges. in this country we have two things. we have a discussion here about treating people as individuals and evaluating those individuals whether they are black white yellow or green or whether they have all of the different things that go into it. and then we have this impetus to turn police forces into occupying armies. and give them tanks, and machine guns, which have been passed out by the thousands by the pentagon.

in -- for in most cases no reason. now the police department saying they need heavier weapons because lord knows you may want to blow up a house somewhere. but those are two things that need to be addressed, and i had -- i had to add that in. i had to do that. do you have any tanks? >> no, sir. >> but i got involved in some of these issues originally because i gave it some thought back in the '80s and '90s, because you think about the way things work. we lock everybody up and let's assume for a minute that we lock them up fairly and that they deserve to be sentenced to prison and if they are prosecuted, they did something wrong, and so we put them into a prison. we eliminate a lot of the rehabilitation stuff and we just lock them up and punish them. and so the prisons become graduate schools for criminals. and what do they learn while they're in there is how to be a better criminal. they get tough, because they have to survive.

and somebody mentioned that there are different prison systems. federalism is a great things but really the breakdown is as pat nolan told me once there is no prison system. there are prisons. and they depend upon wardens. and the federal system and the state system they can be awful. a lot of them make deals like evidently happened at rikers with gangs to keep order because the officers and the wardens get judged on the basis of whether they maintain order. not on the basis of whether anything's working. and then we let them out after this is over. and what happens? we -- the social net is less than it once was. which i think is okay. but if you went to prison in the 1950s, you couldn't get a job when you got out as a bank teller. but you could get a job doing a lot of other things. technology, insurance companies and social mores have changed so that you can't get a job digging

a ditch in many places if you've got a record. and so we let hundreds of thousands of people out, and how are they going to live? they only know one thing. and then we're surprised when 60% of them go back within three years. because they not just fall back into the life and the friendships that they had. but they discover that they can't move on. and one of the great challenges -- i mean we talked a lot about who do you send to prison for what reasons and for how long? those are legitimate questions. the next two questions is how do we treat them and what do you do with them when they're there. so that when they get out they've got a better chance to survive than when they went in. and then when they get out, how do you help them? and that's a hard, hard question. i remember the first time we addressed this, some of you may know bob woodson in washington who is a housing activist and the like and we were talking about some of the different proposals. he said wait a minute, you've got to be careful that in these communities, the convicted felon who gets out doesn't have better opportunities than the person who never went to prison. because that doesn't send the right signal to the community

either. but we have to worry about that because just from the standpoint of a civil society you can't take hundreds of thousands and millions of people, lock them up and tell them there's only one way to survive and then throw them back out on the street and expect the civil society to continue to exist in any kind of realistic way. so a lot of the effort and we talked in the earlier panel, there's a lot of talk about money. in the states and federal system is a great thing because in the states like texas and mississippi, where there have been significant criminal justice reform measures passed the money saved, texas has closed three major prisons, has been reducing prison population significantly, probably the poster child in the last six to eight years for this. that money is rechanneled into some of the programs that we're talking about. that's an important investment.

that's what's happened in mississippi, it's happening in georgia, it's happened in other cases. that money doesn't go back to general revenues. it goes in to dealing with questions of treatment in prison, and rehabilitation. i could go on, but i won't. but i would like to come back and talk about how i think you change them. >> -- responses, practical responses that -- >> i have nothing practical. >> well, just briefly on the racial bias issue, there's a lot obviously in there. the most obvious thing we need to do is make sure we hire people and police officers, as prosecutors, and i just came this morning from the attorney general conference, 50 of us, we have one asian-american, there's three african or four african-american u.s. attorney generals in the history of our country. so we need to make sure we have diversity within our law enforcement agencies. on the re-entry piece, you know, there's a number of things. i had a symposium on this and

brought all the experts together. and you know it really culls down the number two three different things. when you're coming out of jail you need three things. you need a job opportunity. you need a place to stay. and you need somebody who cares about you, who is going to help you stay on the right and narrow who everythat might be. we can think of a lot of examples. there's a number of things we can do on a practical sense. re-entry centers. one is tilely coming out of that symposium, one thing i was ridiculed about, since i'm leaving office i'll go ahead and bring it up again because i think it's a great thing. is we spent $32,000 a year incarcerating people in jail. for $50 you can give an inmate an android, an ipad kind of device where they can actually learn, you know, all these online schooling opportunities. they can learn a trade. they can learn -- they want to be an auto mechanic when they come out, they want to be a cook and culinary arts when they come out. they can get certified while they're in jail so that when they come out and are given their 40 bucks, have a good day,

they actually have a skill where they can go to a job. and then of course you have to give employers a tax incentive to make sure they hire people that are coming out of jail. and then at least you're giving somebody a chance. of course, we don't want people using porn and doing all this stuff. there's no -- there's no expectation of privacy in jail. they can control what technologies you have access to. but that kind of thing, thinking differently about helping people, look this is a captive audience. they've committed a crime. you now have them in jail. you can actually work with them, and so in different ways to make sure as in maryland where half of them come back to do more like texas, michigan, oregon, virginia and get that recidivism rate down to the 20% and the taxpayers are no longer paying 30 some odd thousand dollars a year to house these people but you're also your children, your grandchildren, aren't going to have a gun up to their head, and get their wallets and it's a win-win for everybody involved so the whole notion of talking about re-entry and figuring out

practical solutions to helping people become somebody who's behind bars and becoming a tax paying citizen is something we need to continue to dialogue as we go forward. >> thank you for that. we have time for two really good and short questions. sir? >> my name is ben bartlett i'm a prosecutor. i'd like to make a couple of comments about racial disparity. and if you look at the issue of wrongful convictions, it is clear that wrongful convictions more likely affect african-americans and other minority groups. so if we we are talking about bringing an end to mass incarceration, shouldn't we be talking about how do we bring an end to wrongful convictions? and i think i'd like to -- invite d.a. vance to comment on the role of conviction integrity. thank you. >> just before we get there, before you get to the prosecutor

you often get to lineups and things like that and tony has some issues that would address that first piece before we get to the prosecutor. tony? >> i don't know how i can make this short. i tell stories, unfortunately. i had to find the chief of police of san francisco who called me and said tony could you be on this list of chiefs who are against the death penalty. and i talked to my girlfriend at the time and said, can you believe he is asking me to be on the panel of chiefs of police that are against the death penalty? and you're not going to like what i'm about to say, but i'm very pro-death penalty. you take a human life, i felt that you should deal with it with your life. i know i may not be in the right audience for that but i'm telling you that's how i believe. so she said, well, why don't you take a look at how many of these rape cases or accusatory cases where you have dna, where you guys got it wrong. and i went, wow. so when i started to do some research and started talking to

different friends, and matty delong being on the innocence project here in new york, and darrell stevens who is a chief of police out of mecklenburg who has retired, he and i had the same conversation about gas conand he said i'm very much into the innocence project we need to take a look at this. the three of us sat down and we started looking at how many people are wrongfully incarcerated within this nation and this country. it is coming out because we have the technology with the dna and when dna is showing how many times we get it wrong. so then we stopped for a chance and we went backwards. we said, okay, we've gotten it wrong in these cases. what went wrong on the front end? many of the times it's the practices, the lack of standardization that's going on. we leave it to the discretion of the officers. there's no checks and balances. and really, we looked at the case here in new york, it's political pressure. when someone says, remember this phrase, i wrote it down for myself, do something, the system responds. and it responds in some way that may not be the right way to

respond, so, when the police officers started locking people up and not doing it by due process or doing it through the checks and balances the way that they should, then it goes to the attorneys, no offense to any of my attorney buddies up here, it goes to the attorneys and they get the same pressure and they push it through, also, because you don't have those checks and balances, or that you go back and audit yourself to make sure you got it right. so part of the paper that we drafted is a paper that says, tells the police departments to have standardized mechanisms and to audit itself. to go back and audit itself. also for the d.a.s and prosecutors that are out there, to have systems that go back and audit themselves. and question, do you have the right person. i just made an arrest on a system just like that -- i'm going to shut up in 60 seconds. where we had a 3-year-old little girl who got shot. she was shot as a result of a drive-by. and then that human cry out there came. do something. so i stepped up and said we're going to do everything that we can to look for the right person who do it. we put a lot of pressure, put a lot of officers and we arrested

a guy. and we believed, the c.i. told us this was the guy, who took a look and i said, and i put it in my command staff, i said go back and audit. go back and double-check. could it be somebody outside the scope of what we're thinking. and sure enough we popped up with another candidate that popped up, because we took the time away from that pressure to go, let's look outside of the way that we're thinking. let's go back and check it, check it, double check our checks and balances and make sure that we get it right. we want to -- we want to put someone in jail for the loss of that life but we want to put the right person in jail for the loss of that life. >> all right. the body language that matters is nicole's actually and she told us we have one minute. >> from the prosecutor's point of view, we in our office proudly say that we are one of the best prosecutor's offices in the country. but it's clear that if you're going to say that you have to -- yourself, be a leader in affecting fair prosecution practices. and there's no issue that is

more concerning to prosecutors than the issue of wrongful convictions. and the reality that we have come to understand that people have gone to jail who are not, in fact, guilty. so for our office, in 2010, when i got elected, i created a conviction integrity program within our office. i looked at dallas, the only other office out there that had one that i knew about, and they're doing great work on reinvestigation using dna. but to me, and i think i'm saying this same as tony, i was not satisfied with just having a reinvestigation unit, which we do have. to me, a conviction integrity unit in a prosecutor's office has to work with training the young assistants and providing support on decisions they make at the front end of a case. it is on making sure as we do now with checklists. when we have an i.d. case that comes in to the complaint room, there is a checklist, young men and women can go through with their supervisors to make sure that before charging decision is final we make sure that we've asked the right questions.

we have standard protocols on when someone becomes a c.i. you just can't hire -- have someone who is a c.i. in our office because you want one. there are things that we know now caused wrongful convictions, that we now train our assistants and have protocols about in our office to minimize the chance that we make a mistake in judgment. and i think that's -- i think that's the right way to go. top end it, above all things, i think prosecutors, and perhaps police officers, have to understand that with all the power that we have, and it's enormous, there has to be a humility that goes along with exercising it. and an understanding that we want to make sure that we have tried to consider all the facts, and to not conclude simply because we believe something firmly at the beginning that that should not be questioned. and i think it's that kind of attitude, self-awareness, and self-analysis in all of us, and

in our office, is going to make us do better at conviction integrity. >> and i think we will end with a note of humility and thank the panel. they have been terrific. coming up on c-span3, a speech on academic freedom in american colleges and universities. this afternoon, live coverage of a conversation with senators bob casey and richard burr. on public health safety and the response to ebola. then a bit later a speech by the chair of the u.s. national intelligence council. congress returns from the holiday break today. both chambers get in at 2:00 eastern. lawmakers will work on extending government funding past december 11th when the current spending bill runs out.

in the house members will also consider how to proceed on immigration. and in the senate, votes are scheduled on nominees to be ambassadors to argentina and hungary. they're also expected to work on an omnibus spending bill to continue funding the government. you can see the house on c-span, and the senate on c-span2. tonight is the final debate in the louisiana senate race. the candidates are democratic incumbent mary landrieu, and republican challenger congressman bill cassidy. the runoff election is happening this saturday. here's a look at some of the ads in that race. >> i'm mary landrieu and i approved this message. >> on may 31st, bill cassidy gave a speech that was nearly incoherent. >> she has she may get senator landrieu may get -- >> but his record is crystal clear voting to cut social

security benefits. to pay for a tax break for millionaires like himself. >> and and -- >> mary landrieu's clout -- >> or will it be a senate that -- that -- thank you, whoa! >> for this? >> before the end of the year, we're going to take whatever lawful actions that i can take. >> that's barack obama promising executive amnesty for millions here illegally. we must stop obama. as your senate i will fight his amnesty plan. your tax dollars should benefit you. not those here illegally. and remember, mary and rue, barack obama, 97%. i'll stand up to obama. i'm bill cassidy. i approve this message. every morning i say a prayer for my kids. i just want them to be happy. and to do their best. bill cassidy is a doctor. but he still voted in congress to put $86 million from louisiana schools to pay for a

tax break for millionaires like himself. i don't know what kind of doctor would do that to my kids. >> i'm mary landrieu and i approve this message because louisiana's children should never pay the price for a millionaire's tax cut. >> i'm bill cassidy. i approve this message. >> a few words from mary landrieu. on obamacare. >> if i had to vote for the bill again, i would vote for it tomorrow. >> on voting with barack obama 97% of the time. >> i'm very happy to see the president defend what i think is really an extraordinary record. >> but if you dare disagree with her? >> if they don't like it they can unelect us because i'm up for re-election right now. >> now you know what to do on election day. >> and you can watch the final debate in that race from baton rouge, live tonight at 8:00 eastern, on c-span2.

the state of academic freedom at u.s. colleges and universities. anne neal is the president of the american council of trustees and alumni. next you'll hear her talk about political correctness on campus and its affect on the quality of education. plus a phenomenon of commencement speakers backing out of speaking engagements because of student protest. this is an hour. >> good afternoon. and welcome to the city club of cleveland. my name is paul harris. i'm president of the public board of directors. i'm pleased to introduce today's speaker anne neal, president and co-founder of the american council of trustees and alumni for, from this point on acta. as stated at its website, acta, quote, is an independent, nonprofit organization committed to academic freedom, excellence, and accountability of america's colleges and universities, end quote. on academic freedom the website

states that, the ideas of academic freedom and free speech are at the core of the american academic tradition. teachers must be free to teach, students must be free to learn, and freedom and research is essential to the advancement of truth. so today's forum offers a wonderful opportunity to juxtapose freedom of speech, and academic freedom, and to reflect for just a moment on our 102-year history here at the city club of cleveland. we proudly refer to the city club as the citadel of free speech. but we experienced some growing pains in our early years. in 1923, the city club invited famous labor leader, socialist and perennial presidential candidate eugene depps to speak and he accepted. the prospect of mr. depps spe speaking created a rupture in our then fledgling organization with the board president refusing to do the introduction.

i can't imagine that happening. ultimately, mr. depps determined to decline the invitation, and he wrote to the city club that he was, quote, feeling disinclined to intrude whether there's any question of my being welcome or as to the right of being heard in a forum open to free speech. end quote. the academic world has recently seen several high profile challenges to freedom of speech. in may, former secretary of state condoleezza rice declined an invitation to give the commencement address at rutgers following student and faculty protests over the bush administration's war in iraq, and use of waterboarding to obtain information from detainees. ms. rice noted that her invitation to speak had become a distraction for what should be, as she put it, a joyous celebration for graduates and their families. she referred to her 30 years as a professor and also to her service as provost, and chief academic officer at stanford university and stated that,

quote, i am honored to have served my country. i have defended america's belief in free speech. and the exchange of ideas, end quote. faculty and student protests also led to speakers declining commencement address invitations at smith college and haberford college. in the haberford case the school president issued the following statement after the former chancellor at the university of california berkeley declined to speak. quote, though we may not always agree with those in positions of leadership, i believe that it's essential for us as members of an academic community to reaffirm our shared commitment to the respectful and mindful process by which we seek to learn through inquiry and intellectual engagement. end quote. and that brings us to ms. neal. she is prominent nationally in higher education reform, has published widely and appeared frequently on radio and television, she's been on cnn, fox, npr, and others. she twice was appointed to the national advisory committee on

institutional quality and integrity which advises the u.s. secretary of education on federal accreditation. she earned her undergraduate degree from harvard college and her law degree from harvard law school where she was president of the harvard journal on education. and she practiced law in private practice as a first amendment and communications lawyer. so she's done a lot of stuff. in her short existence. i'm pleased to present on behalf of the city club of cleveland anne neal, president of the american council of trustees and alumni. >> thank you so much. it really is great to be here. i must say i like any organization that begins free speech with a gong. i think we should start doing this everywhere. as i did my research on the city club, i really was so impressed amazed to see really a beacon of the free exchange of ideas for so long. in fact, given your past

history, and given your principles, i don't really think i need to make a statement at all. but i will in any event. i want to start the day by going back to imperial rome. laughing at the wrong joke could cost a man his life during the reign of corrupt and crazy nero. let's scroll back to the year 65 or thereabouts. upon making a gastrointestinal noise, let's call it farting, in one of rome's pub rilic lot reasons, a poet quoted a poem. the reaction was something that only monty python can imagine and yet it actually happened. romans scrambled, put on their togas and get out of the potty, lest a tattling informer find them smiling and charge them with treason. hilarious, except the executions and forced suicides were not. nowadays, inappropriate laughter

may not be a problem in public latrines, but any number of politically incorrect observations can bring blacklisting, disinvitations and other punishments on our college campuses. campus sensitivities are on high alert and the topics that are potentially offensive and increasingly off limits are growing. you have heard the term disinvitation season. this is part of that phenomenon. choosing a campus speaker used to be about hearing a distinguished person, often someone who had taken a controversial stance. but on the politically correct campus, many students and faculty now are less interested in hearing a challenging perspective than they are in what the huffington post just called freedom from unpalatable speech. as you just heard, former secretary of state condoleezza rice had to bow out speaking at

rutgers after students protested she was a war criminal. brandeis university invited human rights activist hole li to speak and receive an honorary degree and then rescinded the invitation over student protest. there was a specific university invited charles murray to give a talk, in this case not a commencement address and then backed out because murray and imminent american social science was too controversial. christine lagarde, first female head of the international monetary fund was invited to speak to the graduating class at smith, only to break out after students protested her support of imperialist and patriarchal regimes. on the pc campus, shouting down a controversial voice is not necessarily seen as an evil, but a virtue, a small group of close-minded students and faculty is all that is needed to cut off discussion on the grounds that their view, the correct view, is the only view.

warning. trigger warning. this speech may contain traumatic subject matter for those who believe our colleges and universities have an obligation to foster a robust exchange of ideas in the pursuit of truth. now it wasn't always this way. back in december 1820, as he founded the university of virginia, thomas jefferson laid out the foundation of academic freedom. the university will be based on the inimitable freedom of the human mind, he wrote. for here we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may be more to tolerate any errors so long as reason is left free to combat them. again, in 1859, john stewart mill outlined the matter eloquently. the peculiar evil of silencing the expressing of an opinion is that it is robbing the human race, posterity as well as the existing generation, those who dissent from the opinion still more than those who hold it.

if the opinion is right they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging the truth. if wrong, they lose what is almost as great a benefit. the clear perception and lively impression of truth produced by its collision with error. again in 1915, the american association of university professors issued its seminal declaration of principles defining academic freedom as a two-way street. students freedom to learn, and faculty's freedom to teach. the professor's business, they wrote, is not to provide students with readymade conclusions, but to train them to think for themselves. and to provide them access to those materials which they need if they are to think intelligently. now for many years, there was fairly uniform agreement among academics, but nothing is more central to the light of the mind than the robust exchange of

ideas. they resisted properly when it was threatened. yet over the last 50 years, the concept of academic freedom has been under attack, and attack from within. in its place has been an academic regime that is regularly put sensitivities and civility first and free speech second. the notions of truth and objectivity, the very conditions that underscored the academic freedom definition of thomas jefferson, are regularly regarded today as antiquated and an obstacle to social change. political correctness has many formulations, but for purposes today, it is the notion that certain areas of life and thought have only one acceptable point of view. in other words, there is no need to search for truth, because the institution has already determine what the truth is. political correctness has provided the impetus for all too

many university administrations to punish students and even faculty members for expressing certain offensive thoughts often touching race, gender, sexual orientation or other hot button contemporary topics. today a student or faculty member found to have deviated from the reigning orthodoxy, far from being praised, can find himself ridiculed or even sentenced to sensitivity training. or worse. the p.c. mentality is alive and well. what we see as i will outline in just the next few minutes is the weakening of the core curriculum, the disappearance of academic disciplines and perspectives, the emergence of speech codes, and trigger warnings. the tragic consequences are not only to weaken liberal arts education, but to shortchange students for the future, and ultimately, i would submit, to undermine our competitors. let's start with college curriculum. at one time faculty and

administrators had the courage to define what is great and what is most important for students to know and be able to do. students could make some choices, but they started with a largely prescribed liberal arts curriculum leading to a major conversation of well-educated people. not today, a major like english today is not so much about important writers, genres and works, shakespeare, milton, chawser are no longer -- required in many places but under represented cultures and ethnic or nonwestern literature are. advocacy, therapy and sensitivity training regularly supplant rigorous intellectual training. let's look at a few courses all of which i think are fine

courses but should this be a student's only exposure. so for starters we'll look at union college. students there can substitute such courses as narratives of haunting in u.s. ethnic literature for foreign language study. at wellesley, rainbow cowboys and girls, classic sexuality in westerns will satisfy the language and literature requirement. at uc boulder, the u.s. context requirement may be satisfied by foreign films. my favorite where the u.s. culture and civilization requirement can be met by mental illness in the media. if you are a freshman of the university of denver the first year seminar may be satisfied by taking gender, power, decoding

buffy the vampire slayer. this is such a growing genre at these colleges that my organization looks forward to doing a special column on halloween on these courses. while most contempt on the pc campus is peaceful. sensibilities are not. at ohio state, is desooichbed to sensitize students to issues facing asian americans. a lab of her own at the university of colorado, colorado springs, satisfies the natural science requirement while providing students with modern concepts of science and mathematics, with an emphasis on women's contributions to these fields. this course will also offer a feminist critique of the traditional methods of science. and let me remind you that is in place or in favor of the national science requirement. at college today, one cannot assume that learning is for learning's sake either,

education is often directed -- towards a predetermined conclusions where students become agents. if you invole in the social justice minor program at the university of minnesota and register for the color of public policy, the professor has already reached a conclusion for you, advising students they will be introduced to structural and institutional conditions through which people of color have been systematically marginalized. to obtain credit, a student must also engage in 30 hours of social justice organizations. i think we can all agree that in years past, our college curricula have too often marginalized minority groups and provided a portrait that failed to outline the complex story

that is our past. in the rush to expand that story, much of the old story has been left out, leaving students and citizens with only part of that sweeping narrative and one pack with a tightly controlled political agenda. the survey conducted by the american council of trustees annually of more than 1,000 liberal arts colleges around the country, finds that a mere 18% expect their graduates to take place in american history or government before graduating, a mere 13% require knowledge of foreign languages. 3% require to study of e commerce. some students may end up with education. it is clear they may have to find it for themselves. for as little as 200,000 today our colleges are asking students to construct their own

curriculum. that curriculum is often quite narrow. given the state of affairs, the alumni asks the survey organizations to assess recent college graduates feelings about their education. the survey came back and i think what it found was quite interesting. faced with the challenges of finding a job recent college graduates lamented in large numbers, 70%, the absence of a strong core curriculum and exposure to a broad base of foundational subjects. as one student recounted, i took a lot of courses, i just wish they had amounted to something. and even more pernicious by product of the p.c. campus is the disappearance of academic disciplines and perspectives. casey johnson is a terrific young historian at brooklyn college whose many publications include books published by

cambrage and other presses inskasy has studied the challenge of disciplinary diversity caused by political correctness. in the last generation, he writes, with accelerating speed, the percentage of professors trained in areas of u.s. history, some would deem traditional and others would dismiss has plummeted. even those who remain in subfields redivision topics to make it one that dominates the history of the profession. the result is even students who want to encounter courses taught by those trained in constitutional or military history are often unable to do so although i am happy to say that students who go to ohio state are an exception in this regard because osu has remained very, very diverse in its

history. larry summers has acknowledged this problem. stating that the threat is overreaching legislation in trustees than it is in the faculty orthodoxies that make it very difficult for scholars to hold certain views to advance in certain fields. pro israel scholars find a home in mideastern studying and american historians whose scholarship celebrates american past too often find themselves as pariahs in their field. the pc culture of sensitivity permeates almost all of the acade academy. nowhere is it more found than when it comes to campus speech codes and tribunals that enforce them. each year the foundation of individual rights and education issues a spot light in the state of free speech on our nation's campuses. this year it found nearly 60%

maintained severely restricted red light street codes. they define it as policies that clearly and substantially restrict protective speech. now, these policies, as one might imagine are not called gag orders or censorship policies. in the pc world the speech codes come with benign names like antiharassment policies, policies on tolerance, respect and civility, policies on bias and hate speech, policies governing speakers, demonstrations and rallies. speech codes are not meant to restrict speech. you may be surprised that it was determined that ohio university, ohio state, university of

cincinnati, university of toledo, youngstown state all have red light speech codes. again, that means clearly and substantially restricting protected speech. for today's purpose i am looking at one. the code begins with a statement. sexual harassment is illegal. but for you lawyers in the room, the succeeding definition is broad and the distinction between harassment and free speech, is anything but clear. prohibited sexual harassment includes and i quote sexual jokes, gestures, unwanted flirtation, advances or propositions, leering and any unnecessary unwanted physical contact. little did we realize in those dating days of yure that an awkward date was cause for

litigation. the federal government has put a gun to campuses if they don't regularly report sexual assault. and applying the policy i read young men and young women are now at risk of being accused of rape and harassment and prosecuted on our campus in campus tribuneles which do not have to apply rules of due process if they simply engage in sexual jokes and unwanted flirtation. the age of niro. ask me more about this in the q&a. so let's go back to the trigger warning originally used for the mentally ill to help prevent traumatic stress disorder. triggering now the latest rage on college campuses. recently passed a resolution urging university officials to institute mandatory trigger