america. so i would like to hear your thoughts again in terms of what if we were not -- we did not provide this aid, what are some of the dominos? what would we see happening and what would be worse? what is the spin-off and how does it affect somebody who lives in florida? >> it's a terrific question congresswoman, in terms of not being to provide aid. we touched on it earlier in terms of regional stability. i think in terms of humanitarian aid, the best way to be able to support those that need to flee syria is being able to provide that aid to the host communities and the neighboring countries to keep that protection space open and make it possible for people -- because it is much easier for us to assist those in

jordan and lebanon than inside of syria. you would see an implosion. massive malnutrition rates, mortality rates through the roof. most of the deaths now unfortunately are because of the war. we would probably see in terms of social indicators a much larger humanitarian catastrophe without aid. >> and i might add, obviously if possible we want to get our assistance to people in their homes so they don't have to flee. they need to be able to flee if they feel they have to. but it is better to get it there and then that reduces the strain on the surrounding countries. and as you mentioned, jordan is a critical partner for us. the same with lebanon, we are concerned about their stability in those countries, that is critical. and frankly, terrorism.

a young man growing up, he can't feed his family, he hasn't got a job, he's going to be much more open to the lure if you will, of people asking him to do bad things. >> thank you very much. i think i got my question answered. >> mrs. frankel. mr. yo ho. >> and when you go into the different countries, turkey syria, lebanon iraq, where the refugees are going when you go into the different countries like say turkey, the human rights that we stand by are different in other countries is that correct? freedom of religion and freedom of expression and those kind of things. so when chairman smith brought up the different areas of abuses

like gender abuse, women's rights and things like that how do you go about enforcing that and is it different between country to country and how do we hold that government accountable? >> that as an interesting and important question congressman. i think, i can't remember whether it was you or chairman smith that asked about working with faith-based organizations and we do work with that. and in fact, miss clements and i visited with the archbishop in kurdistan to talk about the work they are doing. the king in jordan has been very open in meeting with different religious leaders in meeting with a reduction of the lure of isil and working with the various religious groups and

syria was one of the most tolerant countries in the middle east before all of this took place. so it is important, but there are many groups that we work with. and that is a way to try to reduce the tension that is going on. >> but is there a way to hold those areas that you have the refugees in. they are going to school and they are being abused, with whatever type of abuse it is the human trafficking thing is just unconscionable. but gender abuse, we'll say that but how do you go about making -- you said you are helping those countries deal with that and trying to make sure they are protected but how do go about holding that government of that country accountable, for whom they are giving aid and helping the situation and they are not living up to that standard, how do we hold those people accountable, or do we not get

into that? >> there are standards they have signed on to through u.n. conventions and so that is one advantage of working through the u.n. system we can hold them accountable for those standards. >> do you feel it is working or is it something that we talk about and then turn a blind's eye with it and with dealt with it and we see it and is that what we are seeing ore-- over there. >> to give an example of trafficking cases or smuggling cases or what have you. the aid partners if those cases are brought forward they would work with the local authorities in terms of ensuring follow-up. or for example, refugees are detaining, seeking access to prisons to find out whether or not that was a rightful detention or what the due process is for that case to be able to be made. that is part of the protection part of what the organizations do that we support.

i think the broader issues, as tom has laid out, as part of our dialogue goes beyond the humanitarian's sphere but well connected. >> and mr. staal, you brought up there has been approximately 1r50 aid worker -- 150 aid workers killed and does that take into account the number of missing ones that more than likely can wind up as hostages and we'll see them on tv one day and we'll regret seeing that? do you have a sns for how many -- a sense for how many that are unaccounted for that are aid workers? >> as far as we know right now, there are certainly no americans held that are unaccounted for that we know of. >> okay. >> most of the 150 are frankly local syrians working with different organizations that we support. >> okay. >> so it is that way. >> i appreciate your time mr. chairman, thank you for the extra time and thank you.

>> thank you very much, mr. yo ho. thank you mr. staal and mrs. clements and providing the sub-committees for your fine insights and incisive testimony and it does help us and we brief other members of congress. so thank you. you are saving lives every single day and i do think the american public -- i've traveled with some d.a.r.t. teams after the tsunami i was in sri lanka and i was in the van with the dart teams an i've never been more proud of people who were can-do and trying to make the situation better for those who had lost life as well as property during that terrible tsunami. so thank you for your leadership. the hearing is adjourned.

coming up today at 1:00 p.m. eastern on cspan, attorney general eric holder will talk about proposed changes to the criminal justice system, including his support for abolishing mandatory sentences for certain nonviolence crimes. back in september the attorney general said he was stopping down and the president has nominated loretta lynch to take his place. a vote on her nomination is still spending. that started at 1:00 p.m. eastern on cspan. this week on cspan on prime time, three nights of tech featuring the tech innovators driving today's technology. >> he leases a bentley and instead it is a taxi and for the privilege, he gets to be

impoverished. >> hear from those at paypal, edsi and more while congress is in recess. >> israel probably the top high-tech company in the world went digital for gdp group and inclusion of arabs, orthodox jus, movement of the cities south and cisco the partners through it. >> starting tonight at 7:00 p.m. eastern on cspan. last month the president's task force on 21st century policing held the first public meeting hearing from city leaders and law enforcement officials and the mayors of sacramento, philadelphia and baltimore. talking about the way to help law enforcement in the communities. this task force was last december following the shooting in ferguson and the violence that followed. the task force is to report to

the president by march 2nd with its findings. >> so good morning ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for attending the first public hearing eliciting session on the president's task force on 21st century policing. my name is ronald davis, i'm the director of the department of justice community oriented policing service known as the cops office and i'm serving as the executive director for the task force. on december 1st the president announced his intent to form the president's task force on 21st century policing with the idea of coming up with concrete ideas for bridging the gap between policing and the communities we serve and the president made it clear to do so in continuing or reduction of crime and enhancing public safety. when he signed the executive order on december 18th the

president identified two co-chairs. to my left is lori robinson at george mason university. and before going to george mason was the assistant attorney general for the department of justice office of justice program. next to professor robinson is philadelphia police commissioner charles ramsey who is a co-chair and have a distinguished law enforcement career including the police chief here in washington, d.c. today's hearing, to make sure everyone knows is webcast and live streamed. for those watching online, you do have the ability to go to the cops website and provide comments and feedback through the hearing and a period at the end of the hearing in which we'll take questions of those attendants and those online so

feel free to go to our website or give questions at comment at task force policing.us or post your comments on twitter at police task force. so at this point what i want to do is really turn over to the co-chairs to lead the task force and get to know the members and we can start our hearings. we have an ambition schedule and looking for a very robust day and a very exciting day. to listen to our witnesses. but let me say this before i turn it over to the co-chairs on behalf of the president i want to thank the task force co-chairs and the members for the service and along with the witnesses. as you can imagine this is not paying a lot. they are volunteering their time and service. this a very important endeavor. the president has made it clear he is personally interested in this and it is a priority and we

want to thank everybody for their time and lending their expertise for this national discussion. so we want to take time to thank you. and at this time i'll turn it over to our co-chair professor lori robinson. >> thank you ron. and thank you and your staff for the tremendous job you are doing in providing support to the task force. good morning to all of you and welcome to our first hearing. i'm very pleased to be co-chairing the task force and to be co-chairing it with commissioner ramsey and i'm certainly honored to be asked by the president to serve in this capacity. i'm also very impressed by the high-caliber and the dedication of our broad-based and diverse task force. i've been involved in criminal justice work for more than three decades. i've been with the department of justice, as ron mentioned, with

the nonprofit sector and now in academia. and it is very clear to me that we are facing a very tough challenge right now in criminal justice. but since the president asked chuck ramsey and me to serve in this capacity back on december 1st i've been very struck by the number of people really hundreds, who have come forward from all walks of life and from all around the country to make suggestions, offer recommendations, for steps that can be taken here to address these issues and these problems. these are very sincere proposals that are offered in good faith. and i have to say that that gives me optimism that americans working together are really problem-solvers. now the president has asked us to come up with concrete

proposals on a short time-line, march 2nd. and he doesn't want general philosophy he wants very pragmatic suggestions. so our goal here today is to be in a listening mode, to do a lot of listening. and we have, in fact, really distinguished group of witnesses before us starting with our first panel and running through five panelists today. so we have a lot to do on a constricted schedule so i want to turn quickly to my co-chair commissioner ramsey. >> thank you, lori and good morning, everyone. it is an honor to be here with all of you today to begin the conversation around this very important topic. just a little more about myself. i've been a member of law enforcement now since 1968. i'm a native chicagoan and i

began there and i spent close to 30 years as a member of that department and i served here in washington, d.c. as police chief for almost nine years and currently the police commissioner in the city of philadelphia for the past seven. so i've seen a lot of changes in policing over the years. but i also recognize that more changes need to be made and that is why we're here. we need to think about ways in which police can be more effective in doing their jobs, reaching out to their community. we're talking about a variety of issues that focuses on building trust and legitimacy but in the future we're tackling topics such as policy and oversight, training and education, officer safety and wellness, technology social media, and there are a variety of topics as we move around from various hearings that we'll be noke using on -- focusing on, subject matter and experts, hearing from the

community and law enforcement officials so that we have a pretty broad view of the issues and the recommendations that people would like to make that will -- most of which will probably be included in our final report to the president. so it is an enormous task, but one very doable in my opinion. i think the short timeline and in speaking with the president reflects the sense of urgency he has in dealing with this particular issue and the sense of urgency we all have in dealing with this particular issue. so we have every intent of meeting the time lines laid out by the president and come up with concrete recommendations that will lead to change. thank you very much. again, i'm going to turn this over now so that the individual task force members can introduce themselves briefly and we're going to start with robert villa senor, the chief of police in

tucson. >> good morning, i'm also extremely honored to be here and to be honest i expect someone to come up the stairs any moment and say excuse me, chief, there has been a mistake. but the fact that i do get to represent law enforcement and the interest here is very important to me. i take that with an extreme level of importance. i'm a native tucsonan, i've been with the tucson police department for six years and as the chief. it is located close to the mexican border and along the border we share the issues of immigration with texas new mexico and california. that in and of itself has caused consternation in the united states and you may have heard about the legislation passed in arizona. this legislation has had the affect of putting local law enforcement at odds with the very community that we are appointed to serve and to

protect. and i've been in opposition to that legislation since it first came out and once it was passed and gone through the supreme court challenge and portions were allowed to stand i've had to enforce it so i've had legislation and circumstances that really hamper the relationship between local law enforcement and their communities. and i hope to bring some of the lessons that we've learned there to bear during the course of this task force. so thank you. >> good morning. my name is brian stevenson and i'm the executive director of the equal justice initiative in montgomery, alabama. i'm a human rights attorney and the work of eji is focused on providing legal services to poor people and incarcerated and condemned people. i spent most of my career in the deep south. my office is in montgomery, alabama and we've worked in that region and across the country trying to deal with some of

these big issues. i bring with the other members of this task force a lot of concern about how we can improve policing in our communities. i'm responsibility. i'm particularly hopeful that we can find ways to create connections between law enforcement and many people who live in the margins of our society, the poor, people of color, people with disabilities, people who have felt too often excluded from the mainstream of society. i'm very hopeful that we can make tremendous progress and again very excited to be a part of this task force. >> good morning. my name is sean smoot. i'm the director and chief counsel for the police benevolent protector association and the treasurer of national police association of organizations. i've spent the last 25 years of of my professional life representing the

interests of police officers in departments as large as the city of chicago and as small as a city like rochester, illinois. i share my colleagues hope and look forward to working with other members of the task force in coming up with some practical recommendations for the president that can be shared, that can, i think, attain the goal that all of us have which is improving safety for everyone, law enforcement officers, citizens, and look forward to working with other members of the task force. >> hi, everybody. my name is connie rice. i'm about to lose my microphone. my name is connie rice and i am a civil rights attorney who is based out in l.a. my specialty is police reform. my biggest project has been with lapd and i have good news to report on that front.

we are changing the praetorian guard that used to be america's warrior cops. and we're changing together. they will say i've changed. i will say they've changed. we're working together to get a police force to protect the community and to enforce civil rights. that's how they begin to see themselves which is a whole new way for lapd to see itself. chief bratton when he was with us got so frustrated with my meddling that he got me a chief of police badge, you think you are the chief of police, you may as well have a badge to go along with it. we are actually very good friends and i'm helping him in new york as well, so police reform by default ended up becoming my specialty. i look forward to helping this group identify the ways that we can help police change.

the police will tell you that we in the community also had to change, and they will say, well, connie changed as much as we did and i'm fine with that. if that's how they need to see it, it may well be the case. that's what we'll do. but there is a way to get the police to see us as human beings. they are supposed to protect. not as arrest fodder. they should not look at our little black boys and see an arrest stat or see somebody they can beat with a baton. they should see someone when they look at our little kids in the ghetto, we should see their sons and they should want to protect them. thank you. >> good morning. i'm sue rahr. i started my career in law enforcement as a patrol deputy. worked my way up through the ranks of the king county sheriffs office, the metropolitan around seattle.

i was with their office, last seven years as the elected sheriff. little did i know that was my training to become the director of the washington state criminal justice training commission, also known as the police academy academy. i now have the responsibility for training 10,000 police officers across the state of washington, and i'm very honored to be part of this task force. i think there's a great opportunity for us right now to really take a hard look at the culture of policing and that has been evolving in washington state. we've put a name to that transition. we call it moving from a culture of warriors to a culture of guardians and i believe if we do a better job of training and resetting expectations, we will get our police officers to see themselves as protectors rather than conquerers and i think many of us in the task force are aligned in that type of

thinking. we need to reengage with the community and become servants of the community. thank you. >> good morning. my name is brittany packnett. i'm currently executive director of teach for america in st. louis. we serve 24,000 low income children. mostly children of color and children who have been directly and indirectly impacted by the crisis in ferguson. but as a native st. louisian and someone who grew up and lives about 20 minutes from ferguson and who sees very clearly the responsibility and linkage between representing our children inside of the classroom and outside of classroom and my personal work, i have been an active ferguson activist and one of the youngest members of the ferguson commission, and i have been spending a great deal of time working with and talking with young people who encourage their leadership during this process. so i'm certainly honored to be here, to help represent young voices and voices from ferguson

so that we can not only impact disruptive change but systemic change. >> good morning. my name is tracey meares. i'm a law professor at yale university. before coming to yale, i spent about 15 years teaching law at the university of chicago. most of my career, for the last 20 years has been focused on looking at and understanding the dynamics of crime in urban communities. the connection between high crime neighborhoods, low income experiences, and disadvantaged. i've spent a lot of time working on those issues, developing and helping to develop violence reduction strategies in chicago

and new york city and sce neck tad did i and albany and northern california and connecticut and the goal of much of this work has been about understanding ways in which to achieve public safety while encouraging public trust through pursuit of police legitimatesy which we'll be talking about today. i'm really honored to be a part of this panel and work with my fellow members on achieving this goal. thank you. >> good morning. my name is jose lopez. i'm the lead organizer of make the road new york, a new york city and new york state based group with 16,000 members that works on really just achieving respect and dignity for all communities, particularly immigrant communities and folks who are new arrivals to this country. i have been with make the road and have started the youth power project that the organization for 15 years. currently working on issues of police accountability, housing rights, and workers rights. i'm a brooklyn boy.

i'm the son of two migrants, a janitor and a seamstress and outside of my work, i'm also on the steering committee on communities united for police reform in unprecedented campaign in new york city to challenge policing as we know it, and over the last three years have been working closely with the public science project through the kuneeg graduate center, working with a team of 12 youth researchers and students and professors to further explore the stop, question, and frisk program and the impacts on young people of color. >> good morning. i'm dr. cedric alexander.

currently i'm the public safety director in dekalb county, georgia, where i've been for the last two years. prior to that, i served five and a half years with the department of homeland security. as a federal security director there at dallas-ft. worth international airport. prior to that, i had an opportunity to serve as deputy commissioner of criminal justice in the state of new york and i'm also a psychologist, clinical psychologist. i trained both at the university of miami and the university of rochester, respectively, and both departments of psychiatry there where i received clinical training. my police career started back in 1977 in florida, and prior to going back to school to do doctoral work, i spent a number of years with the miami-dade police department. for me, this entire journey and having an opportunity to be part

of this task force was most rewarding, very honestly, for me about this is to be able to serve on this panel with such a distinguished group of diverse individuals that represent this country, in every sense of the word and to me that is honorable and i'm just delighted to be a part of this group. thank you. >> so thank you, members. as i mentioned earlier, as serving as executive director the department of justice is providing the administrative support for the task force through my office, the office of community oriented policing services. let me say this, what i didn't tell you i spent 28 years in law enforcement, 20 years in great city of oakland and 8 years in east palo alto, california, coming from that law enforcement background it is not only exciting, it is one of those moments in time, an historical moment, you can really feel the change and everyone wants to come together and have this

discussion, that we can really look at defining public safety to be more than just the absence of crime but to include the presence of justice as well. we look forward to that work. supporting the task force is the cops office as i mentioned. the outstanding team. many who are here. we also built a team of experts to help support this and two specific i'm going to identify right now are sitting at the table. we have two technical advisers who are quite frankly leaders in the law enforcement civil rights community as well. one is darrell stephens. darrell if you could raise your hand for us. he's the executive director of major cities police chiefs association and has a long and distinguished career in public safety and steve rickman who has been many years in the law enforcement arena in research and practices and has worked on a lot of projects with the department of justice and has served i think as a director of the program in washington, d.c. as well. we're fortunate, quite frankly

not only to have the great members of the task force but the support team that is there. i think after you listen to this introduction, one thing is crystal clear. the president put together a heck of a team to actually lead this effort and to have this national discussion, the diverse perspective, the expertise, and so with that, i think as they say it's time to get busy. madam chair. >> we're going to start now with our first panel. subject matter experts. the full bios of our witnesses today are on our website, and also for the audience here on handouts. if i were going to read and my co-chair read their full bios it would probably take all day. we have a very distinguished group, so i'm going to be very brief. we're going to start out as our lead witness charles ogletree, who is jesse clemenco professor of law and director of the charles hamilton houston

institute for race and justice at harvard university. professor ogletree, welcome. very happy to have you. >> thank you very much. i'm very happy to be here. let me say this first, i want to thank all the members of this task force, thank president obama for creating it. i think it's very important to think about the role of the police in the 21st century and how important it's going to be. i want this task force to think back as opposed to just looking forward, think back to all of the issues that happened centuries ago and that are very important. the work of queen mother motley moore, the work of people like rosa parks, folks who have had a very big issue in the civil rights movement, all those people are very important. think about charles hamilton houston, a native of washington, d.c. who trained thurgood marshall who died much too young, but made it clear that race needed to be dealt with fairly and appropriately. i want to talk about where this

city is going. i in a sense cut my teeth here as a public defender right on indiana avenue, northwest. had a lot of cases, a lot of african-american men and women who were clients and i see the same problems that we saw in the 1980s, creating in the 21st century, and we need to address those things in a very serious way. let me say what i hope will happen. i'm hoping that people will be able to in a sense look at the slogan that we heard well back in 1857, when the supreme court declared that a black man had no rights that a white person was bound to respect. i hope we've changed from that. we have, in law. we have to do it in a sense in our real responsibilities. additionally, i want to say this, as we look at cities from boston to washington to chicago, to los angeles, and all around,

we see people being arrested, people being killed by police and we need to address that in a very serious way and i think that i'm suggesting is that we need to talk about police being involved in community service. that was the focus. police would get out of their cars. they would leave their badges alone. they would be away from individuals, and there was a sense they played basketball and soccer with kids. they would take them out for a hamburger and some fries. that was community policing, and we're now a militarization of police in many places. they have the guns, tanks, weapons, and they are killing young black men and we think about the situation in ferguson that in a sense caused all this, it is not a weekly event or monthly event. it's a year on event and we have to stop it and we have to stop it right now, and so i would suggest that this task force take a serious look at what people need to do and what need to be in the police force. for example, i think the police officers should be not just

officers. they also need to be social workers. what? what is he talking about? the whole idea is they need to get out and play a role with the community and make a big difference and make the difference in their lives and i think that's going to make young people do that. if you look at the recent attention given to police, i see kids who are six years old holding their hands up like they saw happen in ferguson, missouri. i see six years old who are saying that -- they hate police. there's no reason to hate police. my sister was a police officer. she was killed 30 years ago and no one has been arrested and i understand that, but the reality is that i'm trying to get more people involved in law enforcement. that is our key. we must get involved, and so i'm not shying away from law enforcement. i'm saying let's embrace it in a very serious way. i know many of the people on the task force and i'm glad that president obama has selected you

to do this work, but i say look back and look forward to make sure that the president has some good ideas on what the 21st century policing should involve and what you are recommending to him, and believe me, i have some ways of getting to and through to him if he doesn't follow your recommendations. he has to follow them because i think the reality is that this task force is talking about the most important and critical issue in our lifetime, and dealing with it right now and i congratulate everyone on the task force for the work that you are doing. thank you. >> thank you so much, professor ogletree. next we have jennifer eberhardt, who is professor of psychology at stanford university. thank you. >> thank you. i'm honored to be here. for two decades my research has focused on issues of racial bias and stereotyping, especially in

the context of criminal justice. currently i'm assisting the oakland police department as a subject matter expert in connection with their reform efforts. we cannot have a discussion about trust and legitimacy without discussing racial bias. in my short testimony today, i plan to talk about the problem of racial bias and how the growing use of body cameras creates a growing opportunity to move beyond it. many people this think racial bias must be deliberate and intentional but contemporary research suggests that bias can be implicit as well as explicit. people can act on biases they don't even know they have. the expression of bias is not limited to so-called bad people and it certainly is not limited to police officers. the problem is a widespread one that arises from our history, from our culture, and from racial inequalities that still per vad our society. i recommend that we offer

training on racial bias on law enforcement agencies to raise awareness, but raising awareness alone is not enough. agencies need to do more to lesson the impact on bias on the decisions officers make and on the day-to-day interactions they have with the public. one way to do more is to make better use of the tools and technology already at our disposal. around the country, many are calling for the use of body worn cameras. the general public is calling for them because they want greater transparency and accountability. police officers want them to protect themselves from unfair accusations and lawsuits. both of these responses, however, i believe are too narrow.

rather than simply using video footage as evidence to vindicate or implicate a particular officer when things go bad, we can analysis tens of thousands of routine police community encounters. researchers have already begun to test whether people lodge fewer complaints when the cameras are on versus off. we can even do more. my recommendation is we leverage the body cameras to strengthen police community relations, not just to document them. body camera footage from difficult encounters could be used to help officers learn best practices. although it takes extraordinary skill on the part of officers to avoid escalating a difficult situation, typically we don't give much attention to those instances in which things go right. body cameras can allow us to do so. the video footage could also be used to evaluate training. we could look at footage of

police community encounters pre and post training to assess the degree to which that training makes a difference and for how long. we could compare the interactions of police officers who have gone through procedural justice training with those who have not. are there aspects of that training that are harder to translate to actual street encounters than others? and if this is the case we could feed that information back to the researchers so that they could fine tune the training they offer. finally, we could use footage to develop early warning systems, we could automate our analysis so that certain footage gets flagged for additional inspection. and when events happen that shake the nation events like what happened in ferguson and new york we could look to these early warning systems to get an immediate read or pulse on how those events might reverberate in the day to day encounters police officers are having in other cities like in oakland chicago, or philadelphia.

agencies commonly use data to make predictions about crime patterns and to determine their strategies for arrest. they could also begin to use data to build community relations, to build trust. currently, the information we care most about is getting left out. it's time to use our technology and the wealth of information that can give us to do more. the problems we were discussing today are serious. >> thank you very much. our third witness is tom tyler. tom tyler is mack lynn pleming professor of law and also professor of psychology. at yale law school. welcome. >> thank you. today violent crime is at low levels, fear of crime is down, and we have an opportunity to rethink the goals of policing as we move into the 21st century. i recommend that we focus our attention at this time on how to

build issues of trust in the police. that is how to build police legitimacy. why should police legitimacy be a central concern? in the same decades where we've seen this decline in crime, public trust in police has not increased. further, there is a large and persistent racial gap in trust in police. these problems are for many reasons. one has been alluded to is they contribute to an ongoing series of racially tinged controversies with police. but more broadly when people distrust the police, they are less likely to obey the law they're less likely to cooperate with the police which makes it harder to solve crimes and if people don't trust the police, there isn't a climate of reassurance in communities that encourages people to actively promote economic and social growth in their own cities.

a focus on building police legitimacy provides an opportunity to address these problems. based upon research findings, we know how to strengthen trust in the police. people's trust depends on whether they feel that the police, police department's and individual police officers are exercising their authority fairly. this procedural justice finding has been widely replicated in our research and it suggests that people care both about whether the police make decisions fairly and treat people respectfully. what does that mean? the public wants to be listened to when police policies are developed. they want an opportunity to state their case when they are dealing with the police officer. they want an explanation for police policies and actions that

allows them to see that the police are acting in an unbiased way that shows that policies can be understood and that they reflect shared goals and they want to be treated with dignity and respect when they deal with the police. the issue of perceived disrespect has been particularly central to recent public controversy involving the police. we know the factors, in other words, that are central to shaping public trust in the police, and they suggest some clear policy implications. first, every policy and practice that the police implement should be evaluated not only in term of its impact on crime but in terms of its perceived fairness in the community. every encounter that people have with the police is a teachable moment and police departments need to ask themselves what are they teaching the public about the police. this issue has become especially important in recent years as proactive policing practices have led to more frequent contact with a broader range of people in the community and particularly with more young people. the consequence of these

contacts on trust in the police needs to be factored into policy decisions. at this time, we know that the overall impact of police contact is to undermine trust. so a recommendation is that the federal government should support the development and implementation of policies that build trust. >> when police department's organize themselves, there are active ways to emphasize fairness and use less force when they deal with the community. this promotes officer safety. so the federal government should support efforts to restructure police departments using the principles. efforts to change the culture of

policing will be more successful if they build officer trust and officers own police departments. this involves addressing officer concerns about well-being and safety. when police departments organize themselves around the principles of procedural justice, they lower officer stret onss on the job. and when officers then acts in ways that emphasize fairness, and use less force when they deal with the community, this promotes officer safety. so the federal government should support efforts to restructure police departments using the principles of procedural justice. there is a much sided saying this a crisis is also an opportunity. today we have an opportunity to rethink the mission of the police in the 24th century. this is because the police have been so successful at taking crime out of the equation and now we can focus on public trust in the police.

>> thank you so much. our final witness on this panel is samuel walker who is professor emeritus of criminal justice at the university of nebraska in omaha. >> thank you. i appreciate the opportunity to speak to the task force on this very urgent national problem. in response to the tragic events in ferguson, missouri and staten island, new york, much of the public discussion has focused on deaths at the hands of the police and the related grand jury investigations. i want to broaden the discussion to talk about routine day-to-day policing. in particular, i want to focus on the problem of disrespectful and offensive language by police officers directed at people in the community. this includes racial and ethnic slurs, common vulgarities. and other forms of disrespect.

disrespectful police occur all the time day in and day out. if the mandate of this task force is to build legitimacy and trust in the police, this is where it should again. this is where you should focus your efforts. the routine day-to-day policing. now, there's some people who would say that language it's not that important compared with deaths at the hands of police. i disagree. i think it's extremely important simply because this is where people meet the police and there's the problem of how police treat people. some people ask, well, gee, how come it is this, really? there's a lot of research over the decades on the prevalence of offensive language by the police. just to take one example, from current data from citizen complaints, across the country. in san jose, a 2013, offensive language complaints were 17% of all citizen complaints that were filed.

washington, d.c., right here, 26% of all the citizen complaints filed in 2013. new york city, it might be as high as 40%, although the way the ccrb there classifies complaints it's hard to tell. but official complaint data is really just the tip of the iceberg because we also know from research that among people who feel mistreated by the police, only a very small percentage actually file a formal complaint, so the problem is much bigger than even these data would indicate. now, disrespectful and offensive language has four very serious adverse consequences. first, it's an injury to the person or persons to whom it's directed. it harms them. second, over time, in the aggregate, it builds a reservoir of distrust and anger at the police. and this is especially true in communities of color. third, in particular encounters,

offensive and disrespectful language by the police leads to an escalation and also often unnecessary inappropriate uses of force. if de-escalation is an important new direction for policing, this is one place really to begin. fourth it undermines standards of professionalism. if it goes unpunished and i believe it does, officers are, well, you can do these things, you can get away with it so that needs to be corrected. now, the president apparently asked for very specific recommendations. here's my proposal. i am proposing that the united states department of justice take the lead in developing a respectful policing initiative. rpi. respectful policing initiative. and that includes four elements. first of all, there would be mandatory annual in service

training for all police officers. police departments have in service training already. it would be very easy to incorporate this into their existing programs. second, the department of justice should make federal funding from the department contingent upon a certification that an agency is in fact conducting a respectful policing training. third, the department of justice should take the lead in developing a model policy for departments on respectful policing, and fourth, department of justice should take the lead in developing a model training curriculum for all departments. now, in conclusion, i brought with me sort of a golden oldie. it's the commissioner report 1968, presidential commission appointed in response to the riots of the 1960s. if you go to pages 302, 303, you will find discussion with evidence on the prevalence of

disrespectful and offensive language by the police at that time. we did not fix the problem back then. we have not fixed this problem in the intervening 47 years. we need to fix it now. thank you. >> thank you so much, professor walker. i'm now going to be turning to the panel for questions. and i believe shah sean smoot had our first question. >> thank you, madam chair. professor tyler, is there a department or jurisdiction that the task force can look to as an example of a place that has been successful in formulating and implementing and i don't mean to mischaracterize your testimony but perceptively fair policies, i would ask you as a follow-up question is there a department or jurisdiction that we can look

to as an example of a place that has been successful in formulating departmentally or internal procedural justice within the police department? >> in terms of communities, i would use new haven as an example of a community that has gone back to the idea of community policing. they have implemented a set of policies and practices, for example, every new police officer spends their first year in a neighborhood getting to know the people in that neighborhood. they have had success building community trust in the police and at the same time because of heightened levels of cooperation, their clearance rates have gone up. crime has gone down. so that would be to me a very good example of a smaller town. i think in terms of a large town, chicago would be an example. chicago has an ambitious effort

to retrain its police officers along principles of fair treatment. they have trained over 8,000 of their officers in a one-day eight-hour training program. and so that's an example, i think of a larger department. chicago is interesting because when they did start retraining their officers, they discovered that the main complaint the officers had was that their own department didn't seem to use fair procedures which has led them now to rethink policies for promotion, policies for discipline, so i would say that's an example of the community that then has redirected its energy to thinking about the internal structure of the police department. >> okay. i just wanted to thank the entire panel for your testimony this morning. it's very informative. >> can i say one word, mr. smoot, about that? >> i would ask the task force to look very closely at what's happening in boston. i was surprised to find out that their chief of police superintendent now, william

evans, says very clear that he's trying to make sure that officers aren't carrying guns, they are not shooting people. he's training them to do different work, and the problem that i mentioned just briefly is the problem of the state police who come in with helmets, guns, tanks, and we need to -- i know that's beyond your jurisdiction, but i think you have to look at anyone wearing a uniform and who is -- >> not to interrupt, but it's not beyond our jurisdiction. >> okay good. >> we'll take it on. >> i want to make sure. look at state police, i think that's going to make a big difference. >> thank you. >> i want to add to this. >> our next questioner is brittany packnett. >> two related questions. first of all, thank you all for being here and for your testimony. the first question is for professor walker. you talk about making federal funds contingent upon this respectful policing certification. my question kind of as a follow-up to this is in your

opinion should there be the removal of federal funds if the kinds of standards in respectful policing are violated? in ferguson, my myself witnessed quite a bit of the disrespectful language that you talked about, as well as disrespectful actions, and the language came before the actions, i wonder in cases like that and others if we find there are patterns in practice or in crisis situations like we saw in ferguson, violations of those respectful policing standards should federal funding should be removed in your opinion. and as a follow-up professor ogeltree, you talked about how communities felt they are under the role rule of a occupying army. in ferguson, i know that that's exactly how the community felt and so i'm wondering in your opinion how that was exacerbated by the crisis in ferguson, that

feeling that you discussed. and what do you think our steps toward reconciliation and healing for the community? >> well, to answer the first part of your question, my specific proposal is to mandate the training and to make federal funding contingent upon it. what happens if the department is in fact doing the training but the language, you know, offensive behavior continues? that's a separate and more difficult question. i haven't thought that through and i haven't presented that in my proposal here. if things get that serious, then we have the special litigation section within the civil rights division which can investigate a department for continued violation of civil rights. there are a number of different avenues that can be used. >> i have to say that my response is a holistic one and it may not be well received but i think that the community in ferguson needs to rethink what they are doing. the majority of the community is african-american. yet the city council is majority white, the police department is majority white, the crimes are

committed involving black men a lot. i think that ferguson needs to grow up. those are my words. but i think that we need to change the sense that has happened. and everything has to change. education, housing jobs. all those things have to change to make sure that people are in a sense on the same level and responding in the same way. i think that ferguson is a good community. if we fix ferguson, we are on the first step toward fixing america. i hope that's the step we're going to be taking. >> connie rice i think you have a point back on our last exchange. >> yes. i'm about to jump out of my skin because nobody listed lapd as one of the forces that has transformed itself. we're in the middle of 14 years of work we have been doing every single day to change how lapd

cops think and behave. and so i have to put our community safety partnership police on that list of chicago boston and new haven because they are truly extraordinary and i can say that because i trained them. chief bigc trained them with me. and before chief bratton left, he gave me a chief of police badge, because he said, connie, you think you're the chief of police, i may as well give you a blaeth baeblg badge to affect that delusion. they were your worst nightmare, if you were a civil rights lawyer. i know. i sued them every day. and now i'm working with them every day, in the housing projects. if you can get the police to bond with housing project, public housing project

populations, you've done something. and if you can get a force that used to think of itself as praetorian warriors into thinking of themselves as social workers, who may have to use their guns on a very bad day, but in general don't and they see themselves as guardians of poor people, you have really accomplished something. and that's what we have done in l.a. and this body is just going to have to acknowledge it because i'm tired of having us overlooked, but we're so busy doing the work we haven't communicated it with anybody. where it has been 14 years of daily work. takes a very long time to transform a major force. but 14 years and we have never looked up to tell anybody about it. i think i'm going to have to. thank you. >> tracey meares. >> i have two questions. one is for professor eberhardt.

the other, if the chair will permit it is really for all of the panelists collectively if we have enough time. so first, for professor eberhardt, i know you are a renowned expert on implicit bias. and i'm wondering if you could say a little bit more about what the kind of training that police could undergo with respect to bias can do for us. i've heard people say as we have started our work that biases can be overcome. is that the way you would characterize it? or if not, how would you think about the relationship between training police officers and the issue of bias and what progress we can make on that issue. that's the first question for you. for the panelists in general, i was hoping that each of you might speak to professor

ogletree's very compelling charge that what we need to do and i put it in my terms, i was going to say tree, can i say tree, since i know you we need to repudiate justice tawny's infamous words in dread scott for real. i'm interested in knowing what you as panelists think about are just some ideas some recommendation for what it would mean to repudiate what justice tawny said and dread scott, given we are working primarily on policing and in fact in the last exchange with brittany packnett, you said, look you know, there are so many other things that need to be done how do we think about that package of issues? >> yes, so the implicit racial bias training is a focus on sort of making police officers, you know aware of the social

scientific research on bias. the contemporary research, which shows that bias can operate in situations where, you know, you don't even think that you're you know expressing bias or that you could be affected by bias. and so a lot of the focus on the training is to sort of help people to understand the pervasiveness of it. and to sort of help them to reflect on, you know, how bias could influence day to day policing decisions. so the awareness is a big part of it. and as far as changing bias, i would say, you know, the bias can change. bias is situational. it is not just something that people have in their heads, but it is something that is sort of perpetuated and promoted by the

situations we find ourselves in. so the department the police department, you know, around the country, have a role to play there. they -- they set the tone, they sort of, you know, create the structure underwhich officers are operating under. and sometimes those structures or policies can, you know, sort of dampen the expression of bias or make it less likely. but sometimes it can make it more likely. >> and why don't the other panelists now weigh in on tracey meares second question. >> i think the proper response is through recruitment training policies, everything. we have to achieve the point where police officers treat people as people. as human beings. and they're entitlemented to edntitled to all the

respect and dignity and rights that people are entitled to. it won't be easy there are many i was of getting there. it is a, you know 365 day a year task. and it is not going to be done by one, you know four-hour training session by whoever the person is. it has to be done, you know day in and day out in terms of how police departments conduct themselves. probably the most important would be at the sergeant level. the sergeant talks to an officer after an event in saying, okay you didn't violate a department policy, but your language, the way you did this, it was borderline and it is in the what i want to see it is not what the department wants to see. >> i've heard many police chiefs say you can't arrest your way out of crime. and i think that the point that they're making is that at the end of the day, what we need is we need economic social development in our communities.

if the police can be retrained to think of their role in the community as not being a force that is designed to control a population, but rather a service, that is having the goal of creating this sense of safety and reassurance that allows communities to develop themselves, then i think it changes the way officers think about what their role in the community is supposed to be. then when they see themselves behaving disrespectfully or undermining the well-being of people in the community they recognize that that's counter to their mission and once the police understand a different mission for themselves i think a lot of these problems become less serious. >> i want to just say quickly that to take the professor's work a little further, she spoke at harvard and we had a sense about implicit bias. i hope this task force will understand it. implicit bias is not racial

discrimination. you need to understand that. and she made it very clear that all of us have implicit bias. we're born with these things in our brain that make us react in certain ways, that make us appear to be racist or sexist or homophobic, all those things, and we need to make sure we read professor's work to understand that. the second thing i think this task force, the focus is on police. that's completely right. but you can't change a city just by changing the police. you have to change the mayor. you to change all of the government. you have to change teachers. you have to change the people in correction facilities because it is a big task, but i think all of that has a big difference on what you're able to do and i'm hoping the task force will delve into the areas that -- in a sense make the police work harder and difficult to do if they don't have the training that makes a big difference in terms of what they're really able and willing to do. >> thank you, all, for your perspectives. let me turn to jose lopez.

>> great, thank you. i have two questions. i guess the first could be answered either by professor walker or professor tyler and i'll start with that. kind of given the conversation we're having now around respectful policing, and professor eberhardt's discussion around -- testimony around implicit bias, just makes me think about kind of my own experiences in new york and whether or not through the department's stop, question and frisk program, whether or not a more respectful interaction with police officer s police officers -- whether or not that makes me feel any better, given the fact that i know that the stop in the first place was racially motivated.

and so i guess that it is a common question, but how can we you know, can a stop ever be respectful. can that interaction ever be respectful between me and an officer? can i ever feel respected and dignified if my understanding is that that stop was racially motivated. >> well, so i think that there are really two levels upon which we can react to those kind of policies and practices. one is the individual stop. and as sam walker mentioned when people are talking about why they are upset about these stops, they most frequently talk about disrespect humiliation insults, so one issue is that the police need to change the way they treat people when they deal with them. but the larger issue also is what are the policies and practices of the police, and irrespective of whether a police

officer might be polite to one person on one day and one stop people react to the whole framework of policing policies and practices in their community. and those need to be perceived to be fair as well. so i don't think that we're saying that the police can legit mate an otherwise racist policy by being polite to people. we're saying there are two separate issues here and people are aware of both of them. >> i think we have to separate the -- all the actions and the events that you described. first of all, the departments need to limit the number of stops they do or the kind of stops they do. what was happening in new york city was that people were being stopped without reasonable suspicion. that has to stop. that's going to cut down the number. second, as tom was being a little too modest in terms of the impact of his research there is -- people make a clear

distinction between the outcome, the actual top itself and the process. if an officer explains the reason for the stop and so on, or the traffic stop, or the traffic tickets, that mitigates the impact of the stop itself. and it helps build some respectful relationship. >> can i just add to that, i think that to some extent -- fairness is important, but the -- you know fairness is something that can be shaped by their racial disparities that people live with and the more extreme those racial disparities are, the more fair they think punitive policies are. the more fair they think policing policies are. i think we also need to put on the table, you know the role that, you know disparities in the criminal justice system --

the role they play in producing racial bias and the role they play in sort of leading us to support policies that we're now critiquing now. >> i'll just say a quick word if i can before this ends it is very interesting, i wrote two books, all deliberate speed, which talks about race in that very way but the more significant one which goes directly to your question is the one, the presumption of guilt. everybody in law knows that no such thing as the presumption of guilt. i entitled that because people are guilty because of their race because of what they're wearing, because of where they're going and that needs to be addressed in a big sense. also, i think that the task force can look at the issue of how important it is to look at the issue of how race trumps class. and i shouldn't say this but i'll say it my colleague, my dear friend and who i represented, professor henry

louis gates was arrested in his own home, in his own home and the 21st century, 2009 and released. the whole idea is that if race trumps class and i think we need to understand how important that is, and what we need to do with that to make sure that we are embracing the fact that it happens, and i heard this a thousand times i'm sure many of the people in the panel heard it as well, people come to me and say we're not talking about you, we're talking about them, i am them. right. and so i don't want to wear a tie or a suit everywhere i go. but the reality is that people look at you and they look at your face and that determines whether you're black or brown or white that determines how engaged they can be in arresting you, questioning you in a sense, expecting you to respond in a certain way. i don't want to walk on, you know, carefully around the community. i want to be able to be free.

and not subjected to that. i think that's important to talk about the issue how race trumps class and how that becomes a big issue that we need to dig under and it also means class is not something that will remove you from the scope of being interrogated, stopped, arrested, charged, shot at, killed by the police. >> you had a second question. >> my second question is for charles. it seems to me that when we look at criminal prosecution through the department of justice, that the doj has not been as active in pursuing cases such as the ones, you know, in which i think called for the convening of this panel. so as my sense of reduced department of justice activity in this area consistent with reality, and the second part of

that question is if so, thinking about the function of the department of justice thinking about the section 1983 suit in terms of holding police officers liable, are there other statutes or recommendations that could be proposed that we think would be more effective? >> i think it is a great question. i think 1983 is a good idea in that this task force can pursue it. i have to say this, i think eric holder has been far better than a lot of the other attorneys general in pursuing these issues of racial injustice and he's been a very important force carrying that on. he went to ferguson. he looked at the trayvon martin case. every case he's been looking at and trying to figure out what the department of justice can do, remember they have limited jurisdiction. they can't do everything. but i think they can at least raise the issue and hope that prosecutors around the country will say, okay, we're following

what the attorney general did in washington as a message. i think this committee this task force can make some recommendations for the next attorney general who i think will be loretta lynch and tell her that he started it, and that we -- you need to continue the issue to make sure that race is not an issue that divides us and there is no hope that the department of justice is going to be the leader. they need to be the leader and making sure that racial justice is available to every single person regardless of class or race or situation. and i think that was going to be a very important step in the right direction. >> great. cedric alexander, i know you had a question. >> yes, thank you very much. thank you all for the wonderful scholarly contributions you have made to the country as well too. i think over time it is going to prove itself to be -- to be very

valuable. and i just want to say thank you to all of you. this question is primarily for dr. tyler. but i would ask that maybe each of you might want to share your thought about this. you said at the beginning that opening your remarks, dr. tyler, i think was very profound when you stopped to think about when i stopped to think about it. it indicated and i'm paraphrasing here that as crime has gone down in this country, discontent and police community relations in a negative way has gone up. could you talk a little bit more about that? because i think that is a very interesting observation. and i think it deserves more discussion as well too. i would like to hear from your colleagues in terms as to how they think about that because i have my own theories around it. i think they're going to be pretty much congruent with

yours. but would you like to speak a little bit more about that if you could, please. >> sure. i think that the main point to be made is that over the last 30 years, the level of public trust and confidence in the police in america has been pretty much the same. between 50 and 60% of adult americans say that they have trust and confidence in their local police. second, there is frequently a 25 even 30% gap between african-american and white respondents in any particular community with african-americans strikingly less likely to indicate trust and confidence. and, again, that has been constant and hasn't -- there has been no sign that that gap is disappearing. so the framework for a lot of the events that we're talking about today the ferguson event the staten island event many other events is this backdrop where police efforts to reduce

crime, the fact that crime has gone down, hasn't impacted on the climate of police community relations in american communities. >> did >> did others want to comment on that, as well? >> i was going to make one short comment, which is although crime has gone down on the same policies and practices are in place to some extent. and the same policies and practices that people experience as problematic. so policies like broken windows, for example. so -- >> so real quick. so in theory, it wouldn't be farfetched to conclude that in some way, if crime has gone down in this country but discontent with police has gone up particularly in communities of color, then that would suggest that to me it suggests that those two entities are in no way communicating with each other. and obviously, those that feel

this continued discontent with police are being targeted in some kind of way that suggests crime is being you know, crime is being reduced. i mean, it's just -- and i think, does that make sense to you, dr. ogletree? it's off. >> it's very off. let me say this. when you think about crime going down, i think that's a good sign. but when you see the discontent from african-americans who are middle class, upper middle class, who are working class. they have the same view and they're different from whites. whites are saying, my community's protected. police are doing a good job. blacks, regardless of class are say, my community is not protected. and that's -- we have to look at that to understand why are so many people doing these surveys, and coming out very clearly african-americans are saying we are not in the year 2015 happy with the way that race is being

considered by law enforcement. and when i say law enforcement, i'm talking about police mayors, cities, rural areas, talking about all of these suburbs, all of these places. and that to me has to be the essence of what we need to take a look at to understand why are so many people when things are going down in crime why are so many people discontent because of their race. . and i think that's what people are being able to see. >> thank you. >> sam walker. >> yes, we have policies operating in disconnect from each other while crime has gone down for the last 20 years. and especially arrests for small amounts of marijuana possession. and so, too many policymakers, especially at the state level are locked into the war on crime, war on drugs mentality and hasn't caught up with the reality of the drop in crime. and i do think the task force should address this disconnect.

and just to point out those -- that incarceration, overincarceration and the especially, the war on drugs has had a huge impact on the african-american community. it's just and that is the source of much of the discontent with the policing. they're the people out there on the street who you can see, the symbols of our justice system. >> i have to say a word. and i'm not the angry black man you think i am. but i want to say this. that data is very significant because the reality is that police are not making arrests on marijuana. they're in a sense, many cities are saying it's no longer a crime to have a small percentage of marijuana. but what the police are doing, they're searching black men, not just for marijuana going in their pockets and the whole idea is that you're supposed to see the marijuana right now. and that to me is a problem,

there's a way of you know, when you dig into the pockets and you can find a weapon, you can find some other kind of drugs, you can find some kind of warrant that this person should be arrested. all those things are different, and they don't and you know, they're ignoring when whites -- and i don't use marijuana or any kind of drugs, they're ignoring when whites are using marijuana saying, ah it's just a drug, it's not illegal in many places. i think this task force, you know, has a broad jurisdiction. and i would look at what is going on with police stopping people for marijuana and searching people who happen to be a different race. >> our next questioner is brian stevenson. >> just want to express my gratitude to the panelists for your really excellent testimony. just two quick short questions. are any of you aware of any data or analysis that's been done on the impact of implicit bias

training within a particular department? and in addition to that, any data and analysis that's been done you'd like to draw to our attention? on the impact of diversification efforts. and i don't mean raw, racial diversity, but some of the more complex and is sophisticated diversity that looks to get into communities that produce some of the highest you know, rates of crime and recruit people who have lived in those communities into the police department. anything you can point us to that might give us some -- something to look at as we consider the implications of reinforcing the need for implicit bias training or diversity. >> okay. i can handle the implicit bias question. i think we need better metrics than is out there now. and so we could sort of talk about what those metrics might be. i mean, one metric might be, you know, simply looking at the

attitudes after the training. so looking at self-reported attitudes. but there's a lot of research suggesting that explicit attitudes and implicit attitudes don't always correlate highly. you could also look at implicit attitudes after the training. but, again, i don't know that you would expect that training to break associations that people have between race and crime. and so i mean what you might want to do is to look at whether those associations are affecting behavior. but then you can just focus on the behavior. and one way to focus on behavior, one indication of the behavior might come from citizen complaints. but that metric seems to be too rough. you know, people don't always complain for a variety of reasons. they may be you know, afraid of complaining of complaining might involve having greater police contact, which they're trying to avoid. so there are lots of reasons why

people don't complain. so that's why i think the use of the body camera footage actually could be good in this regard. you could actually use that footage to look at officers' behavior with the public. pre and post training to see if after that training, do those interactions look different? are they more positive? are they using you know, less i forgot what you call disrespectful language and so forth. and so, i think that's probably the best metric to look at effectiveness. >> we only have six minutes more for questions, so we're going to have to go very quickly now. profess professor? >> i assume you mean diversifying the workforce among police officers. >> yes. >> there's abundant research that the differences in performance by white african-american latino officers aren't that great. now, when i first encountered this early in my career i said

this doesn't compute, this isn't consistent with my assumptions. then i actually learned more about policing. and the way i explain that is it's not -- skin color doesn't matter. skin color doesn't matter. in policing, it's the quality of the department. and so if you have a bad department, everybody sinks to a low level. if you have a good or much better department, the performance of all officers rise regardless of race or ethnicity or gender. so we should -- we should have a diverse workforce because the police department should represent the communities they police. and they should not violate title 7 among other things. but the way to improve the policing actually on the street is on how the department is run. >> our next -- brian stevenson were you done? >> i guess i was also though, thinking about the impact of diversity within the department on this whole question of public

trust. and anything specific. and it's okay. the public looks at a department and sees a department that doesn't reflect the community. on that level, has an important message and whether people are willing to trust the department to manage some kind of a problem like that depends on the department they look at and see. while i very much agree about individual officers, i think also on a department level, diversity carries an important message that does allow for trust and confidence in difficult situations. >> our next questioner is roberto. >> yes, i guess this is for professor tyler. and actually for any of the panelists. how do we get the opposing

viewpoints to come together? because obviously there's two sides to every issue there. and so i hear statements such as, well crime has gone down but incarceration rates have gone up. as if that couldn't be conceived as a direct correlation, therefore crime has gone down. and the issue is the mistrust. and i think that's what we're going towards. and how do we refocus and get officers to buy into that? because you have perceptions. yeah, there's crime across all races. but we have perceptions that every stop is driven by racial motivation. it may be because crime in an area is rampant. how do we get past that stage to try and get the reality into perception? >> well, i definitely think that the first point is to try to reeducate, retrain officers to think about this in terms of a

different role for themselves that moves beyond enforcement to building stronger communities. and that one of the goals when they deal with anyone should be to think how am i building trust in the police? how am i building trust in the community? because in the long run, my job is to try to improve this community. so that's the first thing. but, i think, the other thing that hasn't been emphasized enough, but really is important is benefits to officers. that is, issues that constantly come up when we talk to officers, are safety and their own health and well being. and we know the style of policing is both dangerous and not good for them. produces stress and constantly dealing with antagonistic people. and i emphasize the benefits to the officers themselves of changing their style of policing.

>> thank you. >> sue? >> this is primarily for professor tyler. you talked about internal procedural justice and i could not agree with more on that. can you talk about how we approach improving in a paramilitary structure? >> well, that is the core issue. and i would emphasize to police commanders they benefit a lot by trying to institute a more fair decisionmaking, more fair treatment style within their department. we find that officers do their jobs better to do extra things to help their department. if they feel fairly treated and committed to the department. i think the bottom line argument is that police commanders will benefit more from this style of policing. they have a lot to gain from doing it. >> you don't find those two in conflict then?

the paramilitary structure? >> well i think there's no question that the structure doesn't promote these ideas. on the other hand, i don't think there's any reason we can't change the structure of police departments. to make these ideas more important and still preserve the gains of traditional policing. >> if you can be very quick -- >> i probably can't. so let's just skip it. >> okay. well, please join me in thanking this terrific panel. [ applause ] we're now going to take a five-minute break and come back promptly in five minutes.

>> okay we're going to get started with the second panel. we do have a couple of panelists en route and will join us during the discussion. but we want to start with carmen perez, the executive director of the gathering for justice. thank you for being here. >> thank you. good morning. my name is carmen perez. and i'm the executive director of the gathering for justice which is a social justice organization founded in 2005 by harry belafonte whose mission is to build a national movement. i'm also founder of a task force of juvenile justice and criminal justice experts advocates, activists and formally incarcerated individuals dedicated to restructuring the juvenile justice system. i'd like to thank the staff of the president's task force on 21st century policing for inviting me here this morning. it is an honor to address the esteemed group. i've been working in the field for 17 years.

i grew up in oxnard california, in a predominantly latina and black community. and a family that have the duality of both the victim and the offender in it. i worked in santa cruz county which is a model for restorative justice in the country. i was able to find a detention alternative for every young person who i worked with. and on december 3rd when the announcement was made that there would be a nonindictment of the death of eric gardner justice league nyc immediately hit the streets and mobilized direct services. justice league although only formed one year ago was uniquely qualified to address the issues of police brutality and racial disparity in our city because of the members who we have collectively been doing this work for decades. justice league members, our director service providers, experts, as well as mobilizers, organizers and educators.

our group is deeply experienced in policing and criminal justice reform. our efforts on the streets and with our demands gained international attention. and both new york attorney general eric schneiderman and new york city mayor bill de blasio met with justice league in response with those demands. although we remain at odds with our mayor on issues like broken windows, policing, justice league believes we have developed a list of sensible equitable reforms for new york city and state. and we will continue to mobilize all of our efforts and resources towards the implementation of those demands. in new york city, and in communities across the country there is a crisis between police and the communities in which they serve. there exists no trust that police can serve black and brown communities, programs like stop and frisk and broken windows only compound the issue of police brutality and racial

disparity. and the lack of police accountability is a critical component in this polarized landscape. we know that you cannot trust without accountability. the role of the police is simple. to protect and serve. i looked up nypd's mission statement in preparation for today. it states the mission of the new york city police department is to enhance the quality of life in our city by working in partnership with the community and in accordance with constitutional rights to enforce the laws, preserve the peace, reduce fear and provide a safer environment. that is exactly the kind of police department that our community deserves. but sadly, that dynamic of partnership, justice and peace does not exist within the nypd or in many of the police departments across the country where racist policies infect and create an unstable and unsafe environment.

racial profiling has time and time again been proven to be ineffective practice. that not only violates rights in individualized communities but nothing to reduce crime or enhance the lives of the communities in which it is utilized. we can have no justice without peace and we can have no peace without equity. i stand before you on behalf of eric gardner miriam carey, and michael brown. we know there's a long and troubling history between communities of color and law enforcement. too many young black and brown young women died unarmed a the the hands of the police. we know this epidemic has not subscribed. and we know that the time for the government to act is now.

on december 4th justice league released a set of demands with local state and federal implications. and i like to share them with you today. we believe that transparency and accountability is a key to reform. we believe people have the right to the publication of data on police practices and police abuses, included but not limited to data on deaths in police custody. cases on police brutality data on policies like search and seizures, stop arrest, and detention practices. we believe that the appointment of a special prosecutor in cases of police brutality and excessive use of force including deadly force should be automatic automatic. we can eliminate the pauseby creating a standard by which it is guarantee. we believe that legislation should be drafted to clarify the

roles of engagement between the police and the community and make illegal the use of lethal force, including the choke hold, except to protect against serious imminent, physical injury to the officers or the public. currently in counties like new york the choke hold is against department policy but is not a criminal offense. we believe there should be a comprehensive new training programs implemented across the country for all officers to include crisis intervention training, harm reduction and cultural identity training and de-escalation skills. this also includes community participating and being a part of offering those types of trainings to officers. we're calling for the end to the criminalization of young people in the u.s. school system the pipeline targets primarily youth of color and created a generation of young people growing up incarcerated. some important reforms in this area would include the removal of resource officers or safety officers from school which

would significantly reduce the number of juveniles in detention. there are model programs across the country that could be replicated like outreach workers in schools as well as peace warriors like those from long dale high school in chicago. further, we believe the decentralization is an important key to repairing the trust between individuals and law enforcement and black and brown communities when police officers serve in the communities in which they live violence and abuses go down, public safety goes up and trust is built. thank you. >> thank you very much. and just as a reminder, the complete bio of all of our panelists is on our website. let me now turn to mr. jim winkler, president and general secretary of the national counsel of churches. >> thank you and i want to say thank you to you and all members of this panel for your expertise and willingness to serve on this

important panel on this important moment of our national history. i approach today's events not as a criminal justice professor a professional or as an attorney or as a professor, but as one who is a church leader with many of our people on the front lines of the issues surrounding policing today in our nation. the national council of churches has existed since 1950 and actually stems from the federal council of churches created in 1908. some 37 member communions from a wide spectrum of protestant, e vanevangelical comprised the 40 million christians in the communities across the nation. that make up the national council of churches. the ncc has a history of addressing a variety of social justice issues. periodically, however, we will select priority issues that are of particular importance in

society and for people of faith. in november of 2013 the national council of churches governing board voted to make the issue of mass incarceration one of our top priorities. countless numbers of our clergy are involved in criminal justice and mercy ministries serve as police chaplains or involved in re-entry ministries, tutoring programs mentoring programs, on and on. get tough sentencing guidelines and the prolonged war on drugs have contributed to the united states having the highest per capita incarceration rate in the world. those imprisoned are disproportionately people of color. according to michelle alexander scholar and expert on mass incarceration, there are now more african-americans under correctional control than the number of african-americans held in slavery in 1850. these statistics reflect that racial disparity in the application of laws is the civil

rights issue of the 21st century. we thank the president for establishing your task force in light of recent community national, and international unrest and response to excess force and policing and the misuse of prosecutorial discretion. overcriminalization and militarization of local police departments has created a great chasm between the police and communities they have pledged to serve and protect. as people of faith we're not only concerned about these issues, but we are intimately connected to them. persons affiliated with the national council of churches through our member communions as i said, serve as prison and police chaplains. police and persons serving time, returning citizens and family members. they are victims and perpetrators, pastors and community leaders. in the past several months of civil unrest our faith leaders have been at the forefront of peaceful profesttest actions. one of the primary objectives of

your task force is to look at ways of building trust and fostering collaborative relationships between local law enforcement and the communities they protect. we acknowledge these are admirable goals. but the united states justice system is one of the most punitive in the world. a justice system predicated on punishment and retribution rather than rehabilitation and restitution destroys communities and families and makes reconciliation and healing almost impossible. a policing structure that sees as a people being controlled is destined to create a system of distrust that the task force is seeking to address. the task force is not addressing a major flaw in the criminal justice system that perpetuates the division between one who has been incourse rated in the rest of society. the current criminal justice system makes any criminal conviction an effective life sentence that impacts the individual, family and the community.

denied access to the right to vote, to social service resources, such as public housing. and barred from many jobs even after serving their time. this life sentence impacts the whole family resulting in a kind of generation to generation curse. we acknowledge the limitations. however, inspired by the prophet isaiah, we join together with all stake holders to work on the issues and serve as repairers of the breach and offer the following recommendations to you. we believe that the -- there useduse ed needs to be an overhaul of the justice system. reconciliation and restoring balance. a justice system should address disruptions in the balance of society. response to disruptions should be commensurate with the harm caused. we believe there needs to be incorporation of conflict transformation training as part of police training and the standard alternative or additional option for addressing

offenses and criminal infractions. police departments and officers need to be rewarded for effective community policing strategies rather than having arrest and ticketing quotas. the inherent racial disparity in our criminal justice system must be addressed. we encourage mandatory training and continuing updates for all law enforcement on issues of cultural sensitivity, interaction with the mentally ill, and responding to sexual assaults. we encourage the creation of a data base for reporting police shootings, excessive force and death in custody, including demographics and profile and this report be made available to the public excludeing names and we're happy the act has been passed by congress and signed by the president. provided for police departments that are culturally diverse and include a cross section of faith traditions. we believe in the promotion of basic practices of transparency. in cases where there's a police

shooting and criminal charges are possible the case should not be handled by the local prosecutor. a special prosecutor should be appointed or a community panel of representative stake holders should review the case. we support the implementation of use of body cameras and providing the federal funding for communities that cannot afford them. police officers who do not wear their badges must provide business cards with name and badge numbers and face disciplinary action if they fail to provide such information. i think it's important to address the militarization of our police departments. the 1033 program should be revised to include more specific ways the equipment can and cannot be used. military equipment should not be used against local communities exercising constitutional rights to protests. we support requiring police departments to provide the report on how and why equipment was used and include a criteria in which the equipment can be confiscate confiscated. we believe that the problem of overcriminalization in the application of laws implemented by local police departments and

the impact it has on communities and families should be address addressed. when one's time has been served, he or she should be fully integrated into society. voting rights should be restored. returning citizens will be given access to resources that will help them acclimate to a life outside of prison and enhance the chance of success. in closing i leave you with the words of dr. king. we're now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. we're confronted with the fierce urgency of now. there is an invisible book of life that faithfully records our vigilance or neglect. non-violent coexistence. this may well be the last chance to choose between chaos and community. i pray we choose community. thank you. >> thank you very much. next we have mr. jim st. jermaine, founder of preparing leaders for tomorrow. >> good morning. and thank you all for being here. and thank you for inviting me.

to such an important conversation that we need to have. and, you know specifically wanted to thank mr. stevenson for a lot of the work that he has been doing. on behalf of every at risk youth and poor and young people around the nation, i want to thank you personally from my heart. you know -- and i also want to thank the other panelists. mr. jim winkler and carmen perez. and i also vow to not take so much of your time since i've already arrived late. and also a lot of the things that mr. winkler mentioned, i will just try to not rub it in too much. i grew up in brooklyn. i grew up in a pretty rough environment. and dealing with police officers

officers it was a daily routine for us where i grew up. and i remember when i was about 9 years old, i actually wanted to be a police officer. i think it was my commitment and some of the things that i wanted to achieve. i wanted to do it through public service. and i feel like a police officer would allow me to do so. and i was approximately, i think, about 16 or 17 there was a case in new york city where a young man who was coming from his bachelor's party, his name one sean bell. about three to four police officers crashed into him and they were about maybe 30 to approximately 40 bullets shot at his car. and most of his friends got injured and sean bell, unfortunately, died.

and i remember paying attention to this case and realizing that some of the officers who carelessly unjustifiably murdered this man were acquitted. and that really kind of changed my mind as as far as me becoming a police officer. and also, the community i grew up in there was such a deep level of distrust for law enforcement where you couldn't tell someone that you wanted to be a police officer. those were the two main things i had to deal with. with that being said, i've also had encounters with really amazing police officers in my life. i remember there were times i was in the streets doing some of the things i wasn't supposed to be doing. and one particular officer from long island who used to come around the way to talk to me. and one time he actually handed me a bible and said to me, jim, you know i want you to stay off

the streets, and i want you to go to church. so i do understand that there are many, many great cops out there patrolling our streets, saving lives and protecting our most vulnerable citizens and we need them. and very close friend of mine who is here edmond raymond has been a police officer for seven years now. and a mentor of mine has always been a police officer with the nypd for about 25 years now. and i get a chance to interact with both group. the community and law enforcement official on a regular basis. and most of the work that i do throughout the community is trying to bring law enforcement officials and the community together so we can find a way to make things work. the reality is that our community wants public safety. but we appreciate civil liberties and don't believe the two are mutually exclusive.

we believe we can accomplish both. by doing the right things. we understand there were times when certain officers will make a mistake. that's a part of who we are. and we're all humans and it happens. within police departments throughout this nation much change. issue of diversity in the workforce in the police department, which i think is an amazing idea. the new york city police department is one of the most diversifiedy edied police department in the nation. and all sorts of different groups. diversifying the police department, although is great, you have officers sometimes if they're coming from certain environments certain

neighborhoods, there's certain things that take place where they can understand it better. they're not as quick to jump into judgment or perhaps perceive someone is out to harm them or do something wrong to them. what happened is you have black officers, hispanic officers who are as susceptible to the system that we have that police officers must follow. for example, in new york city officers go out on the street on a regular basis and meet these quotas. it's not about preventing crime or making an arrest when we need to make an arrest. it's mainly about how many quotas or summons can you bring in this month. and unfortunately, what the police department does is incentivize bad arrests. you have officers going out in the streets from certain

neighborhoods neighborhoods, they don't understand institutional racism and justice and so many things that were built within a system that causes some of the actions that take place in our communities. they didn't grow up around there. they weren't, you know, many of them wasn't part of the curriculum they grew up with that people were teaching them that look, this is a nation that's done a lot of wrong things. and a group of people paying for those things and there's certain things that take place in these communities where you need to understand them. and one of the things that's currently taking place in new york city now is there was a critical race theory. and what it does is it basically teaches many police officers on how to view and act within the

communities that they're patrolling and working in. unfortunately, there are very few officers who have taken this class. it's not an obligation. they don't have to take it. those who are taking it are the ones who want to further their education. and that's one of the things that we'd recommend for not just officers throughout new york city but all over the nation. to get some trainings and background information on injustice built within a system that automatically incentivizes a police officer to view a person as a criminal before the person itself. so, again, it's not going to be an easy task. you know police officers' safeties and well beings also mean a lot to our communities.

and one of the -- than they protect those doing the right things, which is not true at all. in society, you always have those who will seek to take advantage of whatever bad situations that's occurring or taking place. but for the most part, most of the people in low-income communities where i come from they want public safety, they want to do the right thing. we're not expecting police officers to become social workers and psychologists and doctors. and all of a sudden take all of the issues that we've been ignoring for a very, very long time. but however if we were going to be working these communities or patrolling these communities at least have training and backgrounds on what causes some of the problems currently happening in the neighborhoods they're working in. >> 30 seconds, sir. >> thank you. and one of the things i did

prior to coming to d.c., i met with a group of young people currently incarcerated in the juvenile justice system. there's approximately 50 of them. and we talked about what are some of the strategies and things that police departments throughout the nation can do to improve the relationships. and some of the things that the kids actually brought up and talked about were very basic. most of the kids talked about police officers being less aggressive, less judgmental. understanding that they, too, once were children and kids make mistakes. and that a kid is not always out to do something harmful based on how they look and how they dress. and final thing that i'll touch on is having those members of the community being a part of the decisionmaking process within police departments. right now the relationship is like parent to child

relationship, it's like, hey, i know what's good for you, i'm patrolling the community, you do not know anything. i know what's best for you. instead of allowing the community to have a seat at the table and actually have a stake and voicing their opinions. what's going to work for them and help them. instead of coming to the table and telling them look, we know what you need we know that you need more police officers. we know that you need certain manpower and certain hot spots instead of allowing the community to come to the table and really truly within to their voices and allowing them to tell you what is it we need to improve the relationship between police and community throughout this nation. and finally, the last thing i'll touch on is the role that unions play within this conversation that we need to have. and i'm pretty sure you guys have been following what's been occurring in new york city. and unfortunately, the union leader for the nypd is not as conducive to a